[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 161 (Thursday, December 15, 2005)]
[House]
[Pages H11859-H11867]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 APPOINTMENT OF CONFEREES ON H.R. 1815, NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION 
                        ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2006

  Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take from the 
Speaker's table the bill (H.R. 1815) to authorize appropriations for 
fiscal year 2006 for military activities of the Department of Defense, 
for military construction, and for defense activities of the Department 
of Energy, to prescribe military personnel strengths for such fiscal 
year, and for other purposes, with a Senate amendment thereto, disagree 
to the Senate amendment, and agree to the conference asked by the 
Senate.
  The Clerk read the title of the bill.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from California?
  There was no objection.


               Motion To Instruct Offered by Mr. Skelton

  Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to instruct conferees.
  The Clerk read as follows:

       Mr. Skelton moves that the managers on the part of the 
     House at the conference on the disagreeing votes of the two 
     Houses on the Senate amendment to the bill H.R. 1815 be 
     instructed to agree to the provisions contained in section 
     1047 of the Senate amendment, relating to a report on alleged 
     clandestine detention facilities for individuals captured in 
     the Global War on Terrorism.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 7 of rule XXII, the 
gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton) and the gentleman from California 
(Mr. Hunter) each will control 30 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Missouri.
  Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  I rise to offer a motion instructing House conferees on the National 
Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2006 to support the Senate 
provision requiring a classified report on alleged clandestine 
detention facilities for individuals captured in the global war on 
terrorism.
  Before I get to the motion itself, let me speak to the broader issue 
of detainee policy that has been under consideration in this 
conference. Our conferees have an opportunity to bring back a 
conference report that will strongly state that it is our law and 
policy that no one in custody of the United States will be subject to 
cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. This House spoke 
resoundingly on that issue last night on Mr. Murtha's motion. This is 
the right policy, and I commend Senator McCain for offering his 
amendment for this Nation and our military forces as well as 
intelligence personnel.
  Mr. Speaker, I am confident that the ultimate conference report we 
bring back will contain this language. The rest of the provisions in 
that detainee package are complex. They deal with intricate changes in 
the law, and their implications will be felt for a long time to come. 
We would have been better served by a more deliberative process with 
hearings and debate. I will have more to say about the outcome of that 
package when we return a conference report to this body.
  A critical issue beyond the McCain language that should be included 
in the conference report is the issue of congressional oversight of 
potential secret prisons around the world. On November 2, the 
Washington Post published a story claiming that ``the CIA has been 
hiding and interrogating some of its most important al Qaeda captives 
at a Soviet-era compound in Eastern Europe.'' Citing U.S. and foreign 
officials familiar with the arrangement, the article said that ``the 
secret facility is part of a covert prison system set up by the CIA 
nearly 4 years ago that at various times has included sites in eight 
countries.''
  The story has been followed by a flurry of press reports, both here 
and abroad, and statements by the administration. It has created a 
firestorm of concern amongst our European allies and defense partners 
that threatens to undermine our efforts in the war against terror. Just 
yesterday, the 25-nation European Union legislature voted to establish 
a ``temporary ad-hoc committee on the alleged use by the CIA of 
European countries for the illegal transport and detention of 
prisoners.''
  No nation or individual should question America's commitment to 
combating terrorism; yet what sets us

[[Page H11860]]

apart from the enemy is our fundamental commitment to human rights and 
the rule of law. While the administration has publicly stated that 
Americans do not torture and that the United States does not secretly 
move terrorism suspects to foreign countries that torture to get 
information, Congress has a fundamental responsibility to verify these 
claims on behalf of the American people. It is critical to ensure that 
the appropriate Members of Congress are fully informed about these 
activities. Congress must not hear of these matters from a newspaper.
  During Senate consideration of the defense bill, an amendment was 
adopted with bipartisan support, by a vote of 82-9, that would clearly 
establish congressional oversight expectations over clandestine 
facilities currently or formerly operated by the U.S. Government, 
regardless of location, where detainees in the global war on terrorism 
are or were being held.
  The provision, which had the support of both the chairman and ranking 
minority member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, does not pass 
judgment on the merit or values of these facilities. It simply asks for 
a classified accounting of activities related to the facilities by the 
director of National Intelligence to the Congressional Intelligence 
Committees.
  The provision was offered as a compromise measure by Senator Kerry 
and Senator Roberts, chairman of the Senate Select Committee on 
Intelligence. Senator Rockefeller, vice chairman of the Intelligence 
Committee, also supported the provision.
  The Senate provision sets a higher standard for congressional 
oversight than what we have seen throughout the war on terror on 
numerous matters, including the abuses of detainees. We must set a 
higher standard in our own oversight and in what we expect the 
administration to tell us.
  Success in any war requires the informed consent of the American 
people, and in a matter as sensitive as this, that can only be derived 
from Congress reviewing appropriate information from the administration 
so we can understand the issues involved and provide such consent.
  The Senate provision is reasonable and limited in scope. It is the 
least we can ask for from the administration as it simply reenforces 
existing legal responsibility under title 50 of the U.S. Code to inform 
Congress about intelligence matters.
  Voting for this motion to instruct will send a clear message to the 
American people that the Congress intends to thoroughly review this 
matter and fulfill our important oversight responsibilities. It will 
also send a message to our allies that we are taking this matter 
seriously. It is a reasonable and modest motion, and I urge my 
colleagues to vote yes.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, let me just start off by saying that I think this is a 
somewhat dangerous thing that we are doing right now. We are responding 
to newspaper articles. We are talking about an issue that is not within 
the jurisdiction of this committee, and we are implying in this 
response that, if we have a positive vote that somehow there has been 
an inadequacy, somehow people have not been briefed about ongoing 
operations around the world, somehow there is a breakdown in our 
process. And I think that is precisely the wrong message to be sending.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 7 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. 
Hoekstra), who chairs the appropriate committee, the Intelligence 
Committee.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from 
the House Armed Services Committee for yielding me this time and for 
acknowledging that the item under discussion tonight is an item that 
falls under the jurisdiction of the Intelligence Committee. And as much 
as my colleague and I wrestled last year at almost exactly the same 
time, as we arm wrestled together to work out the responsibilities and 
the shape of the new director of National Intelligence, we worked 
through that process.
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. I yield to the gentleman from Hawaii.
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, I have a serious question. Is there a 
question as to whether there is proper jurisdiction? If there is, would 
not the Parliamentarian have ruled that we are out of order now and not 
carry forward?
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I am pointing out why 
it is, from my perspective, inappropriate under the Defense 
Authorization Bill to instruct the Intelligence Committee what we need 
to be doing.
  As I was indicating, it was last year at roughly this time, when my 
colleagues and I on the Defense Committee and the Intelligence 
Committee were shaping the new director of National Intelligence, 
responding to the concerns of the 9/11 Commission. And as we 
acknowledged through that process, we had a tremendous amount to learn 
from our colleagues on the House Armed Services Committee about how 
they used intelligence. They had, I think, a shared view that they had 
much to learn from the Intelligence Committee about how others in the 
intelligence community and policymakers might use intelligence.

                              {time}  2200

  But one of the things that we really focused on was that we could 
learn from each other, that we would each stay in our lanes of the 
road. They are the experts on defense, we attempt to be the experts on 
intelligence, and we respect these roles.
  One of the other things that came out of the 9/11 Commission report, 
besides giving us some guidance in terms of how to restructure the 
intelligence community, was the emphasis that the 9/11 Commission said 
there has been inadequate oversight by the Intelligence Committees of 
what is going on in the intelligence communities, and it is important 
for the Congress to respond to that. The Intelligence Committee has 
responded to that.
  As we went forward this year, one of the first things we did with 
committee funding is, on a bipartisan basis, this Congress supported an 
increase of 25 percent of the staff for the Intelligence Committee. 
That staff is focused on primarily one new subcommittee in the 
Intelligence Committee. It is our Oversight and Investigations 
Subcommittee.
  We have taken seriously the directive or the instructions or the 
suggestions, whatever you want to call them, from the 9/11 Commission 
saying, strengthen oversight, and we have been able to do that in a 
very, very positive and a very, very constructive and in a very 
bipartisan way.
  So we are monitoring what is going on in the intelligence community. 
We are monitoring the implementation and the standup of the new DNI 
organization on a bipartisan basis. We are going to be putting in place 
metrics so that we can measure the performance of the DNI against 
benchmarks that we have established that will talk about the progress 
that we are making. Oversight is alive and well within the intelligence 
community. It is a key priority. It is a key focus, and it is a key 
bipartisan focus to make sure that we do our job well.
  The last thing that we need to be doing as we are at war with radical 
Islam, in the middle of the war, is to begin instructing the Director 
of National Intelligence on what they should or should not be doing or 
what they should be preparing for Congress based on press reports in 
the Washington Post, the Washington Times, the New York Times or any 
other outlet. That is a very interesting way to direct a Federal 
bureaucracy.
  The work that needs to be done is being done on a bipartisan basis. 
The DNI and other elements of the intelligence community understand 
their responsibility to be accountable to Congress for what they are 
doing, how they are doing it, and to make sure that they are acting 
within the confines of the laws and the framework that we have 
established.
  Oversight is working. It is demonstrated in the work we do every day 
in the committee. It is demonstrated in the intelligence authorization 
bill that went through this Congress earlier this year, and when we 
come back with a conference report in February, you will continue to 
see the progress that we have made on a number of these issues.
  It is being done in a professional way. It is not being done in an ad 
hoc way of

[[Page H11861]]

reading a newspaper and saying, wow, that is an interesting allegation 
or theory that is out there. Yeah, we ought to put it into a bill that 
does not have anything to do with the intelligence community and say, 
we ought to instruct the intelligence community to go do this.
  Let us do this in a professional way, in a bipartisan way. Let us 
defeat this motion to instruct conferees and let us move forward and 
let the DNI focus on doing the job that they are doing, which is the 
tip of the spear in winning the war on terrorism.
  Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from 
Maryland (Mr. Hoyer).
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time.
  Mr. Speaker, it is our constitutional responsibility to exercise 
oversight, and I want to say to the gentleman who just spoke, the 
chairman of the Intelligence Committee, this side of the aisle believes 
that you have been more bipartisan and are trying to include both sides 
in the deliberations, and we believe that is the correct way to do it, 
and we congratulate you for that.
  This issue, of course, came up after your bill passed, so it could 
not have been offered in your bill because the issue was not known. It 
asked for a report to the Defense Committee as well. That is the bill 
that we are discussing. It is, I think, very relevant. I would hope 
that every Member would vote for this motion.
  Quite simply, this motion would instruct conferees to agree to a 
Senate provision, passed 82-9, that requires the director of the 
National Intelligence Agency to provide members of the House and Senate 
Intelligence Committees with a detailed report of any clandestine 
prison or detention facility where detainees in the global war on 
terrorism are or were being held.
  This Congress ought to know that information. The Intelligence 
Committee ought to know that information. Indeed, in my opinion, 
perhaps all America ought to know that.
  I say to my colleagues, whether you are troubled by recent 
revelations that the United States operates a clandestine prison or 
prisons on foreign soil or not, and I am one who is troubled by it, you 
should not quarrel with the proposition that the Members of this 
Congress have a constitutional obligation to conduct oversight on the 
administration's conduct of this war. That is what makes America 
different.
  Mr. McHUGH. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I would be happy to yield to the gentleman 
from New York, had I more time.
  Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the 
gentleman from New York (Mr. McHugh) for the purposes of conducting a 
colloquy with the gentleman from Maryland.
  Mr. McHUGH. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Maryland and the 
chairman of the Armed Services Committee.
  Mr. Speaker, as I think the only Member in the House tonight who is 
both a member of the Armed Services Committee and the Intelligence 
Committee, I listened to what the gentleman said. The gentleman said 
that he felt the information should be known to the Intelligence 
Committee, and I agree with the gentleman, and also to the House.
  Would the gentleman help me understand, because based on the language 
of the instruction, I see no requirement that the information reported 
to the Intel Committee be reported to the full House, is that his 
understanding, that somehow that very clandestine, very important 
information, very secretive information, should be shared to the whole 
House? Because that is not contained in the instruction.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I think the gentleman is 
correct, that it would not be shared with the whole House as a public 
disclosure. My understanding, and I stand to be corrected, is that 
every Member of the House, however, has the opportunity to go to the 
Intelligence Committee and see that information for themselves. I think 
I am correct on that. The gentleman may know more about that than I do.
  Mr. McHUGH. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I would ask the 
gentleman, why are we here tonight? The fact of the matter is, as I 
believe the chairman of the Intel Committee suggested, the oversight 
activities associated with these kinds of facilities is being conducted 
by the Intel Committee and is in fact available to those Members of the 
House who wish to come here. Why is this instruction necessary?
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, the reason for that is 
for the same reason that overwhelmingly in the Senate they asked, 
because they wanted to assure that the information on the publicly 
disclosed conduct is in fact available to the Intelligence Committees 
of both Houses and to the Defense Committees.
  Now, the gentleman who chairs that committee has said, we have that 
information. We do not have the information on our side of the aisle 
that in fact we have information from the National Intelligence 
Director as it relates to the publicly disclosed facilities and the use 
of those facilities and the countries which are receptors for those 
facilities.
  Mr. McHUGH. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, just so I understand, is 
the gentleman from Maryland saying that the gentlewoman from California 
(Ms. Harman), the ranking member of the Intelligence Committee, does 
not have that information available to her, because that is what the 
gentleman very strongly suggested? I do not see the gentlewoman from 
California on the floor tonight. I do not think she would agree with 
that kind of assertion.
  Mr. HOYER. Are you asking me whether Ms. Harman has it? I have not 
had a conversation with Ms. Harman, so I cannot respond.
  Mr. McHUGH. Mr. Speaker, I cannot either. I have not talked to the 
gentlewoman from California, but I feel very confident, and certainly 
if the chairman of the full committee would like to stand forward to 
the microphone and take this, I would be shocked, I would be stunned, 
if the gentlewoman from California, the ranking member of the 
Intelligence Committee, did not have that information. The point being, 
at the end of the day, and there is no one, no one I respect more and 
feel more affection toward, in all areas but particularly in the area 
of defense, than the ranking member of the Armed Services Committee, 
the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton), but it just seems to me that 
these are activities that are already occurring. They are activities 
that, as a 13-year member of the Armed Services Committee, in spite of 
my loyalty to that committee, I feel are beyond the bounds of this 
committee and are not necessary, and I am confused as to why we are 
here as members of the Armed Services Committee trying to instruct the 
Intelligence Committee to do something that is already being done.
  Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Rehberg). The gentleman from Maryland 
(Mr. Hoyer) has 1\1/2\ minutes remaining.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence 
Committee was a cosponsor of this resolution. Obviously, it was his 
conclusion the Intelligence Committees did not have it.
  Regrettably, very frankly, I tell my friend from New York, this 
Congress has shown little inclination for oversight. I am not going to 
go into the number of incidents that I think we should have had 
oversight on that we have not, particularly in the House as opposed to 
the Senate, which has had some more but not much. In my judgment, the 
revelations of clandestine CIA interrogation centers are serious and 
disconcerting, and this Congress, on behalf of the American people, 
needs to get at the bottom of it. The contention is that we have. 
Perhaps so. But apparently, again, the chairman of the Senate 
Intelligence Committee does not think that is the case.
  These revelations, if true, and the administration has not denied 
them, threaten to undermine our standing as the world's leading 
advocate for basic human rights and the rule of law. That concerns me. 
I presume it concerns every Member of this body. They threaten to 
underline our alliance.
  Following in the footsteps of the mistreatment of prisoners at Abu 
Ghraib, which I think seriously undermined our position, Guantanamo Bay 
and Bagram Air Base, this story is yet another example of the 
administration's

[[Page H11862]]

attitude toward adherence to domestic and international law. That 
concerns me. It ought to concern the Congress. That is what separation 
of powers is about.
  When we abandon the moral standards upon which our country was 
founded in the conduct of the war on terror, which I have supported, we 
not only diminish our standing in the world, we foment resentment 
against the United States and embolden those with whom we are engaged 
in a daily struggle.
  I have supported that struggle. I intend to continue to support that 
struggle. But I think our moral standing needs to be as strong, 
frankly, as our military standing. Both will stand this country and 
Nation in good stead, as they have through history.
  I thank the gentleman for yielding me time, and urge support of the 
gentleman's motion.

                              {time}  2215

  Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 9 minutes to the gentleman from 
Kansas (Mr. Tiahrt).
  Mr. TIAHRT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California, the 
chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, for yielding me time.
  I want to just look at the facts that are presented as modified in 
the amendment. Now, Senator Roberts has been part of this, and I have 
deep respect for Senator Roberts from Kansas. He is a great American. 
He has served in the marines, and I think he makes clear sense. But 
what we have in this amendment says we want reported on ``any 
clandestine prison or detention facility currently or formerly operated 
by the United Stated Government, regardless of location, where 
detainees in the global war on terrorism are or were being held.''
  Now, terrorism is something that we have tried to define, to be 
interpreted in current terms. But are we talking about terrorism in the 
Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Civil War, World War I, World 
War II, the Vietnam conflict or Operation Iraqi Freedom? It is not 
really clear in this piece of legislation.
  I think if you visit Iraq and the facilities that we have to hold 
prisoners of war or enemy combatants or if you have visited Gitmo, 
Guantanamo Bay, and the facilities we have there, I have been to both 
locations, and from my observation and my perspective as a Member of 
Congress from Kansas and the oversight that I have tried to conduct, we 
have conducted our incarceration of these people at a level that 
exceeds the Geneva Convention requirements. We have treated these 
people over and above those requirements so I am not really sure what I 
am trying to get to.
  Even in Gitmo, or Guantanamo Bay, if these enemy combatants have 
tried to take their own life through starvation, we have gone over and 
above any requirements that are included in the Geneva Convention to 
keep these people alive. We even put them in the type of container so 
that we can give them food and nourishment to keep them alive. We have 
gone over and above.
  So what we are trying to do, I think, in this language and with great 
respect to the gentleman from Missouri is something I think that goes 
beyond what we need to expose to public debate in order to keep this 
country safe.
  We have tried to explain to the American public that we are going to 
do everything that is necessary to keep the American public from 
exposure to terrorist attacks. Part of that requirement says that we 
must take detainees, enemy combatants who have chosen to inflict harm 
on the American public, to a situation where we can get information 
from them to keep from further attacks occurring in America.
  Now, in order to do that we have to put them in facilities, treat 
them with respect, give them access to any religious capabilities, but 
doing that in a fashion that we still keep them in a position where 
they can yield to us information that will keep Americans safe from 
attack from terrorists.
  Now, this has gotten a great deal of public attention from headlines 
in the national media. Part of the problems that we face as Members of 
Congress is that we do not react to headlines, but react to proper 
policy. Headlines can be without substantiation. Headlines can be based 
on partial facts. Headlines can be based on things that are not 
complete in their basis of intention. So what we have to do is, as 
Members of Congress, is take out all of the problems that are taken 
through these headlines that are not related to the facts, move that 
aside, and base our decisions on the facts.
  What we are trying to do is protect the American public, number one. 
Number two, make sure that we treat these people with respect who are 
enemy combatants. And, number three, remember the point that it is 
against the law in America, no matter where you are on the face of the 
globe, if you are an American citizen you cannot torture an enemy 
combatant or a prisoner of war. It is against the law. If you do it, it 
is against the law. If it is a secret prison, whether they exist or 
not, it is against the law. If it is Gitmo, if it is Iraq it is again 
the law to torture anybody.
  So to inform that we are doing that in some secret prisons and 
somewhere in Europe or in Asia or somewhere on the face of the globe is 
absolutely wrong because if you do commit torture as an American 
citizen, it is against the law.
  Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. TIAHRT. I yield to the gentleman from California.
  Mr. HUNTER. I thank the gentleman for yielding. One of the tragedies 
of this debate over torture over the last several months has been a 
clear message going out from the media that somehow the United States 
has gone out, the theme has gone out, carried on in American media, 
that somehow Americans are debating whether or not to stop torturing 
people.
  In fact, torture is banned. It is under title XVIII, United States 
Code, I believe section 2348, which says under the word ``torture'' 
that if you torture someone, whether you are an agent of an 
intelligence agency or a uniformed soldier or just an average American, 
if you torture somebody, you can get up to 20 years in prison; and if 
you kill them while you are torturing them, you can be executed by the 
United States of America.
  So the idea that somehow torture is not banned by American law and it 
does not carry heavy criminal penalties has been lost on the American 
media. One well-known reporter asked me does it really use the term 
``torture'' in this United States Code. And I showed that person the 
code and said, yes, it does, right there; and it has been banned for a 
long time.
  It has also been banned in our signatory, the effect of our signature 
on the anti-torture treaty. So I thank the gentleman for that 
clarification.
  Mr. TIAHRT. Mr. Speaker, the two points I want to make in conclusion 
are very clear. Number one, it is against the law to torture anybody. 
If you are held in detention as an enemy combatant or prisoner of war 
or even in our civil prison system, it is against the law to torture 
anyone. Number two, after my personal review of Guantanamo in Cuba and 
the prisons in Iraq, we have exceeded the requirement of the Geneva 
Convention. We have taken care of our prisoners better than the 
requirements in the Geneva Convention.
  If you go to Guantanamo Bay today and you walk through the prison 
cells, you will see that we have indicated the direction of Mecca. We 
have given them the ability to have a Koran which is not touched by the 
hands of infidels. We give them all respect to their religion, to them 
as human beings. They are properly fed. We will not even allow them to 
starve themselves to death because we believe that it is more important 
to keep these people alive than it is to take their life because they 
are enemy combatants. We have gone over and above the requirements. And 
I think as Americans we should be proud of what our troops have done in 
containing these enemy combatants, in containing prisoners of war.
  Wherever it is on the globe, we do not commit torture because it is 
against the law. We exceed the requirements of the Geneva Convention. 
So I think that this piece of legislation as modified from the Senate 
is not required. It is, I think, inefficient and it should not be voted 
into law. I think that what we have done is proper and within the law 
and with respect to all human beings on the face of the Earth.
  Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, how much time does each side have 
remaining?

[[Page H11863]]

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Rehberg). The gentleman from Missouri 
(Mr. Skelton) has 20\1/2\ minutes remaining. The gentleman from 
California (Mr. Hunter) has 9 minutes remaining.
  Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, it was William Shakespeare who once said, Me thinkest 
thou protest too much.
  Why are those speaking against this motion doing so? Are not they 
anxious to learn the truth? That is what this is, an informational 
inquiry.
  We have been hearing discussions from our friends on the other side, 
particularly my friend from Kansas, about something else. He did not 
address this particular motion.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. 
Holt).
  Mr. HOLT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time.
  Mr. Speaker, I had not intended to speak tonight, but I felt I must 
in light of what has been said about the operations of the Intelligence 
Committee on which I sit.
  It has been suggested that this motion is unnecessary because we are 
already conducting full oversight. Oversight means collecting the 
information and then acting on it. That is what oversight is. That is 
what is expected of Congress under the Constitution. We have not 
conducted that oversight.
  On the committee, as a committee, the House Permanent Select 
Committee on Intelligence has not collected information about purported 
possible or former detention facilities currently or formerly operated 
by the United States Government, regardless of location, where the 
detainees in the global war on terrorism are or were being held.
  Perhaps the chairman has had some briefings, because there are very 
many things that the chairman of the committee gets to hear that the 
rest of the committee does not, but we have not. The ranking minority 
member has told me that she has not. This motion would be worthwhile to 
be undertaken.
  Mr. McHUGH. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of our time.
  Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the to the gentleman 
from Hawaii (Mr. Abercrombie).
  (Mr. ABERCROMBIE asked and was given permission to revise and extend 
his remarks.)
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, I think it is really a little bit 
beneath what our committee represents on armed services to think that 
Mr. Skelton would be responding to headlines.
  Mr. Skelton brings this motion because of what was in the Senate bill 
that was supposed to be under consideration for us during conference, a 
conference which we have not had.
  Geneva Convention in our known facilities? Perhaps that is true. I 
expect it is true and it should be true, but that is what we are 
talking about.
  Mr. Rumsfeld routinely responds to these questions on behalf of the 
Department of Defense. This question is before us because it is in the 
bill that we have to take up by way of conference. And the question 
that needs to be answered I raised publicly with the chairman while 
Senator Warner was there and while Ms. Harman was there.
  I asked does this language or anything having to do with the 
accusations that have been made whether in the newspapers or elsewhere, 
does any of that find its way into this bill, into our conference 
discussions in a way that deals with the outsourcing of torture, with 
renditions, a word which is now coming into our nomenclature, where we 
send people out for others to do it. That is at stake here and is 
clearly and explicitly involved in the motion to instruct. That is what 
we are trying to deal with.

                              {time}  2230

  Mr. McHUGH. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. I yield to the gentleman from New York.
  Mr. McHUGH. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman has spoken very eloquently 
about the Defense authorization bill and instruction. Will the 
gentleman tell me how this motion to instruct has anything to do with 
the defense authorization bill? If the gentleman will answer the 
question I just posed, because I am confused, which happens often.
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman is confused, it is the 
first time in my entire relationship when such was the condition.
  Mr. McHUGH. The gentleman's very kind but very inaccurate, but in any 
event, the motion to instruct, as I understand it, has nothing to do 
with this Defense bill. It has everything to do with the Intelligence 
Committee.
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, we have gone through this. Whether the 
gentleman likes that it is before us in this context is really beside 
the point. I would have preferred it in another context as well, but we 
have to deal with the reality that it came to us as a result of the 
Senate action and is on the floor. If it was inappropriate, if there 
was some parliamentary reason for it not to be here, I expect we would 
not be having the discussion.
  So my answer to the gentleman is that I am trying to deal with it in 
the context within which it has been presented, and I would like to 
deal with the substance of the issue rather than the process.
  Mr. McHUGH. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  I would say I appreciate the gentleman's comments. My question was 
predicated upon the gentleman's assertion that this motion to instruct 
was related to this Defense bill when, in fact, it is not. The 
gentleman may wish to interject arguments about whether or not it is 
important or is not.
  My single point was this has nothing, with a capital N, to do with 
the Defense authorization bill. It is a motion to instruct another 
committee to do something that this committee does not have 
jurisdiction over.
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. McHUGH. I yield to the gentleman from Hawaii.
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, I quite understand the gentleman's 
position, and what I was trying to do in good faith in response was 
say, I cannot argue the process with you. In fact, I am willing to 
concede even on process, but it is the substance which is before us 
right now in the Defense bill that came to our attention in the House, 
and that is what I think we need and that is what I was trying to 
respond to was the substance. I will not argue with the gentleman about 
whether the process is correct or not.
  Mr. McHUGH. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, my point was not to 
debate the process, not to disagree with the substance, but rather to 
talk about the accuracy of the gentleman's words which were inaccurate.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. McHUGH. I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for yielding.
  I understand the gentleman from Hawaii, and I checked to make sure I 
understood him correctly and the facts correctly, is that the Senate 
has offered an amendment which is included in the Defense bill which is 
being conferenced, the very bill to which this motion is being 
directed, that we take the Senate language that is in the Defense bill. 
So, obviously, it is absolutely relevant on the bill that is going to 
conference. In fact, it would not be relevant in any other piece of 
legislation.
  I suggest to my friend that the gentleman is correct, it ought to be 
offered in a relevant time, and now is the relevant time.
  Mr. McHUGH. Mr. Speaker, if I may reclaim my time, I do not disagree 
with the gentleman that the Senate, as the Senate does, has done 
something that should not be done. It is something inappropriate and 
something totally based upon the rule of no rule. I agree with the 
gentleman.
  However, the gentleman from Hawaii's context was to the House bill, 
which has no application, no provision, to this. That was the relevancy 
in my comments. That is all I was questioning was his comment relevant 
to the House bill. There is no provision, as there should have not have 
been, because this is not relevant to the House bill.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 additional seconds to the 
gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Abercrombie).
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Missouri 
(Mr. Skelton) for the time.

[[Page H11864]]

  My reference, in fact, was to what was in the Senate bill. This is 
the only way we get to discuss it, and here we have spent the last few 
minutes arguing process.
  The substance here is very, very simple and direct. Are we 
outsourcing torture to third parties and pretending, by citing what 
Americans are required to do under American law, that such a thing is 
not taking place? That is what we need to bring forward in terms of 
what this does, and that is what we need to debate here tonight.
  Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  My good friend from New York failed to read the part of the Senate 
bill that makes this all correctly before us. In section 1047, 
subsection A, the President shall ensure that the U.S. government 
continues to comply with the authorization reporting notification 
requirements of Title V of the National Security Act of 1947. The 
National Security Act of 1947 deals with this subject matter before us.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. 
Snyder).
  Mr. SNYDER. Mr. Speaker, the process for consideration of the Defense 
bill this year has been a disappointment. Conferees appointed tonight, 
and the bill will probably come out tomorrow. We have had a very 
limited opportunity to meet, debate and discuss the bill.
  It is my understanding, primarily from press reports, that a 
provision is being considered affecting Channel Islands National Park 
off the coast of California, specifically Santa Rosa Island, 
effectively taking control away from the National Park Service.
  The history of this is that in 1986 our tax dollars spent $30 million 
to make this island part of the National Park Service. A plan has 
continued in which a group of business people who were grandfathered in 
at the time have been managing hunts of trophy elk and deer, literally 
for thousands of dollars a hunt. This will phase out in the year 2011, 
five years from now, and this island will be returned to its natural 
state as part of the National Park Service.
  Here is the problem. This provision is going to be put in the Defense 
bill. I called up today to the management company that manages this 
island. They referred me to a spokesperson. I called that person and 
the call said I will be out of the office from December 13 until 
December 19 and I am not available for questions; I do not think I am 
going to be checking messages. I called back to the management company 
on the island. They say that is it.
  So here is the situation. This provision involving Channel Islands 
National Park was not in the House bill, was not in the Senate bill. 
The gentleman from New York (Mr. McHugh) was talking about 
jurisdiction. There is no jurisdiction for this bill. No hearings, no 
notice, no jurisdiction, no request from the Department of Defense, the 
National Park Service, the Department of Interior or the Department of 
Veterans Affairs.
  Both California senators are opposed. The gentlewoman from California 
(Mrs. Capps), the House Member of the district, is opposed, and yet 
mysteriously this provision is rumored to be appearing in the 
conference report.
  It is not the way to be doing business on the Defense bill in a time 
of war, and I hope that this provision will not be in the conference 
report when we consider it tomorrow.
  Mr. McHUGH. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter), the chairman of the full 
committee.
  Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the 
time.
  The gentleman from Arkansas has just discussed the park for Santa 
Rosa Island and the idea that I wanted to use that great resource for 
Marines and soldiers and paralyzed veterans and allow them a chance to 
have recreational opportunities, and I guess I have to plead guilty.
  This came about when I was passing that island with a car full of 
Marines who had just returned from Iraq. They mentioned to me that that 
is one of the great resources on our coast. It is owned by a family 
which does charge a lot of money to people to hunt and fish. One of 
them said, you know, it would be great if they did not exterminate all 
the deer and elk on that island because the Park Service has a plan, 
and it is a written plan, and I have seen it, to exterminate with 
helicopters every single deer and elk on this beautiful island.
  The Marines continued, it would be great because that is such a neat 
place, and it is the kind of place where people in wheelchairs can 
access that great sport of hunting and fishing, if we could have some 
kind of a permission to continue to hunt and fish there but not pay the 
$10,000 that is presently charged but have that when the U.S. 
government takes it over for paralyzed veterans and disabled veterans 
and not exterminate every single deer and elk on that island.
  That was the intent of this gentleman in placing that provision in 
the bill, and I find it somewhat ironic that the people who profess to 
love the wildlife and love the flora and fauna and the environment seem 
to have no trouble with the National Park Service gunning down every 
single animal on that island in an extermination operation and not 
leaving any of that great resource for the people who defend this 
country.
  I thank the gentleman for the time.
  Mr. McHUGH. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of our time.
  Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman 
from California (Mrs. Tauscher).
  Mrs. TAUSCHER. Mr. Speaker, I am proud to rise in strong support of 
my friend and ranking member Ike Skelton's motion to instruct conferees 
on the defense authorization bill of which I am a conferee.
  Mr. Skelton's motion would ensure that the conference report keep a 
vital Senate provision that is in the bill on the Senate side which 
would require that the Director of National Intelligence report to 
Congress on what may be a covert CIA prison system.
  While it is vital that the military be given the proper intelligence 
to fully prosecute the war on terror, I am deeply concerned, as are 
many Americans, that the administration and the CIA may be resorting to 
illegal and immoral tactics that are destroying our national 
credibility and threatening the safety of our own troops should they be 
captured by the enemy.
  The war on terror is in large part a battle of ideas and accounts of 
prisoners being whisked away off European streets and elsewhere by the 
CIA to be interrogated at secret facilities, beyond being 
unconscionable, undermine our reputation and the spread of our 
democratic values.
  If we had had a conference that actually met, and if we had actually 
been able to talk about this issue, I think we would have had the same 
kind of response that the Senate did, which was an overwhelming vote in 
favor of having these provisions included in the bill, but we did not 
have a conference. We still have not had a conference where we have all 
met.
  What I find to be fascinating as a Member of Congress from 
California, there has been great discussion this evening about the 
prerogatives of the House and jurisdiction, and we have now a national 
park in California that has never had a hearing, that the Member of 
Congress from that district is deeply opposed to having it transferred 
to the military. Look, we are all for saving the deer and the elk, and 
we are certainly all for our veterans, but how about regular order? How 
about doing this the right way?
  We would not have a provision, a shameful provision, in this bill 
that transfers Santa Rosa Island to the military for the purpose of 
private recreation that is inserted in the 11th hour.
  Including this provision is an egregious abuse of power to please 
certain special interests and would certainly embarrass its proponents 
at a time when we should be using this bill only to support the young 
men and women who are fighting and dying in Afghanistan and Iraq.
  The provision supported by Mr. Skelton's motion would restore 
Congressional oversight by providing vital information on the extent of 
these facilities, their location, the number of detainees currently 
being held there and the type of interrogations being conducted at 
these locations.
  Separate but related to this bill I am deeply troubled by a shameful 
provision regarding the transfer of the Santa Rosa Island to the 
military for the purpose of private recreation that was inserted at the 
eleventh hour.

[[Page H11865]]

  Including this provision is an egregious abuse of power to please 
certain special interests and should embarrass its proponents at a time 
when we should be using this bill only to support our young men and 
women in uniform fighting and dying in Iraq and Afghanistan.
  This section was never reviewed by the committee and has no place in 
this bill and I urge its removal.
  I urge my colleagues to support this motion to instruct.
  Mr. McHUGH. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  To my friend from Arkansas, who is the ranking member on the Military 
Personnel Subcommittee of the Armed Services Committee, the 
subcommittee on which I chair, I would simply say that I find it 
somewhat incredible that he would be calling into question provisions 
in the Armed Services authorization bill that provides in the Santa 
Rosa Channel Islands chain the opportunity for disabled veterans to 
have recreational opportunities.
  I would say as the chairman of that subcommittee, the question is not 
why we have done it. The question is, why has it taken us so long to do 
it, and I cannot believe that if a vote were up today to whether or not 
we should authorize that kind of activity in that area, the 
distinguished gentleman from Arkansas would vote no, and yet he 
questioned it.

                              {time}  2245

  Let me say that at the end of the day, Mr. Speaker, this motion to 
instruct is misplaced, it is misguided, and, quite frankly, it is 
political. Let me just read to you the opening lines of the reference 
to the Senate bill that is contained in this instruction. It says: 
``The President shall ensure that the United States Government 
continues,'' continues, as if the President would not, ``continues to 
comply with the authorization, reporting, and notification requirements 
in title V of the National Security Act of 1947.''
  I have stood here, Mr. Speaker, and listened to the entire debate. 
Not once did any speaker on the other side suggest, imply, accuse the 
President, anyone in the administration of not abiding by that 
provision. And yet they are here tonight trying to suggest in a bill 
that has no jurisdiction over the Intelligence Committee that somehow 
we should instruct that Intelligence Committee to comply and require 
that the President do something that he is already doing. This is, 
sadly, Mr. Speaker, politics at its worst.
  There is nothing really substantially wrong in what this instruction 
requires, except that this House, this floor, at a time of war, on the 
very day the Iraqi people went, over 10 million strong, to vote for 
democracy, we should be casting a vote that somehow calls into question 
the integrity of this administration, an administration that has freed 
50 million people between Afghanistan and Iraq, an administration that 
today, with the support of this Congress on a bipartisan, bipartisan 
level, agreed and supported that.
  This instruction should be rejected not on its substance but on its 
politics.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Arkansas (Mr. Snyder).
  Mr. SNYDER. First of all, Mr. Speaker, the allegation that somehow 
this is a political thing is troubling, given that this provision that 
is being discussed by the gentleman from Missouri is part of the Senate 
defense bill. It is why it is on the floor. Our side, regardless of 
what we think about the specific provision, has every right to have a 
motion to instruct on a provision that is in one of the two bills.
  With regard to the provision that is not in either bill, which is the 
one with regard to the Channel Islands National Park, the allegation 
that somehow I am against veterans or against veterans with 
disabilities, by that rationale every national park in the country, we 
should say, is open for hunting by all veterans with disabilities. The 
point is, this is a national park. Under the Reagan administration, $30 
million was paid to make this part of the national park with a 
management plan that is being followed.
  Now, perhaps Mr. Hunter has the right idea with this plan, I do not 
know. We have had no hearings about it. I know that it does not fall 
under the jurisdiction of the House Armed Services Committee; but to 
make an allegation that somehow I am opposed to veterans, I do not hear 
anyone suggesting we take the entire National Park System and because 
we are at a time of war we should open all the national parks for 
hunting.
  Mr. McHUGH. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. SNYDER. I yield to the gentleman from New York.
  Mr. McHUGH. I thank the gentleman for yielding. I would just say to 
him that I never accused him of being against veterans. What I said 
was, I find it incredible that the gentleman would be against this 
provision that opened this park, and I named the specific park, to 
disabled veterans.
  Does the gentleman disagree? Are you against that?
  Mr. SNYDER. Reclaiming my time, I am opposed to this park being taken 
from the National Park System. It is part of the National Park System.
  Mr. McHUGH. Then you are against it. I respect your opinion.
  Mr. SNYDER. There is a place for hunting. This place is open to the 
public.
  Now, the issue is the process by how we got here to preserve our 
national parks. The current management company there has introduced elk 
and deer that are not native to the island. They are threatening the 
species of plant life that are native to the island. That is why the 
National Park Service has a plan to phase out the hunting in the year 
2011.
  Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New 
Jersey (Mr. Andrews).
  (Mr. ANDREWS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for yielding me this 
time.
  This country is blessed with a powerful and brave military. We have 
incredible natural resources and the strongest economy in the world. 
But the greatest strength of this country is our reputation for the 
adherence to human dignity as a core value of our country. The issue in 
this motion to instruct is whether we are strong enough and confident 
enough in that value that we are not afraid to make sure that it is 
true.
  We have heard some comments from the other side about accusations 
being made or not being made about what is happening. There are no 
accusations here. There is a desire to understand what the facts are.
  A country that is strong enough to be self-critical is truly strong, 
an administration that is strong enough to be evaluated is truly 
strong, and a Congress that is strong enough to do its job of oversight 
is truly strong enough to carry out its constitutional 
responsibilities. This country is able to rally people around the world 
to our cause because people around the world believe that we hold human 
dignity as a core value.
  It is my belief that there is probably no record of torture anywhere 
that can be found. And that is precisely the point we want the rest of 
the world to know, so that those who defame us are not telling the 
truth about us. But if we are confident in that core belief and we are 
confident in our behavior, then we will be confident enough within 
reason of national security to let this Congress know, to let the 
country know, and let the world know that we practice what we preach.
  We should vote ``yes'' for this amendment because we are strong, 
because what we say are our core values are in fact our core values in 
practice. Vote for Mr. Skeleton's amendment because its reflects those 
core values.
  Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from 
Ohio (Mr. Kucinich).
  (Mr. KUCINICH asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Speaker, I would ask my friend if he would yield to 
a question, because I am looking here at the motion that he has, and it 
basically refers to the majority's bill and instructs them, according 
to their bill, and it is within our jurisdiction to do that. And it 
gives them the jurisdiction to follow up, does it not?
  Mr. SKELTON. If the gentleman will yield, yes, this part of the 
Senate bill became part thereof as a result of the majority chairman of 
their Senate committee.
  Mr. KUCINICH. Taking back my time, Mr. Speaker, you see, we have a 
right as a Nation to defend ourselves, but we do not have any right to 
shred the Constitution or to nullify the role

[[Page H11866]]

that Congress has as a coequal branch of government or to nullify the 
right we have to give motions to instruct. We have an absolute right to 
do that.
  Now, this all goes back to 9/11, where all the fear has been created; 
and we have people now more concerned about leaks and more concerned 
about open discussion exposing secret prisons than they are in exposing 
those prisons. People want to deny congressional oversight and deny the 
power of coequality.
  I mean, the facts are that there is a real body of evidence 
suggesting that secret prisons do exist; that there has been rendition; 
that people have been basically taken off the streets, moved to 
countries that use torture, and violations of human rights. I mean, 
what is happening to our country?
  Let us look at our Constitution. We have habeas corpus, people have a 
right to be told what crime they have committed, they have a right to 
an attorney and to a fair and speedy trial. Now, why do we have those 
things? Because in America we stand for something.
  So we are, in effect, permitting the shredding of our Constitution. 
The violation of international law. What has become of our Nation when 
we do not challenge that or at least have the opportunity to support 
Mr. Skeleton's motion to instruct, which is our right to do, to go 
along with what has already been approved in the Senate, and to say, 
look, we think that there ought to be a role for the Director of 
National Intelligence to give a report to the Intelligence Committee 
setting forth the nature and cost and otherwise providing a full 
accounting on any clandestine prison or detention facility currently or 
formerly operated by the United States Government regardless of 
location.
  Look, let us remember what we stand for as a Nation. We are losing 
sight of that here. We are becoming something that could be called in 
another era un-American. Let us stand for our American values here and 
support the Skeleton motion.
  Mr. Speaker, I wish to insert for the Record the following articles 
relating to my comments:

                 [From the Free Republic, June 6, 2005]

  U.S. Running `Archipelago' of Secret Prisons: Amnesty International

       Washington.--The U.S. government is operating an 
     ``archipelago'' of prisons around the world, many of them 
     secret camps into which people are being ``literally 
     disappeared,'' a top Amnesty International official said 
     Sunday.
       Amnesty International executive director William Schulz 
     criticized the administration of U.S. President George W. 
     Bush for holding alleged battlefield combatants in 
     ``indefinite incommunicado detention'' without access to 
     lawyers in an interview with Fox News Sunday.
       Schulz was pressed to substantiate Amnesty's claim in a May 
     25 report that the U.S. prison camp at the Guantanamo Bay, 
     Cuba naval base--where hundreds of foreign terror suspects 
     are being held indefinitely--represents the ``gulag of our 
     times.''
       The gulag claim, referring to the notorious prison camp 
     system of the Soviet Union, has drawn withering criticism 
     from the U.S. president, who called it ``absurd.'' Vice 
     President Richard Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald 
     Rumsfeld have also slammed the rights group's claim.
       Russian 1970 Nobel Prize winner Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 
     described the Soviet prison camp system in his best-selling 
     book ``The Gulag Archipelago.''
       Schulz said the gulag reference was not ``an exact or a 
     literal analogy.''
       ``But there are some similarities. The United States is 
     maintaining an archipelago of prisons around the world, many 
     of them secret prisons into which people are being literally 
     disappeared--held in indefinite incommunicado detention 
     without access to lawyers,'' Schulz told Fox.
       Asked how AI could compare the detentions of millions of 
     Soviet citizens in the gulag system to purported anti-U.S. 
     combatants captured on the battlefield, Schulz said some of 
     those held in Guantanamo ``happened to be in the wrong place 
     at the wrong time.
       ``We do know that at least some of the 200 some prisoners 
     who have been released from Guantanamo Bay have made pretty 
     persuasive cases that they were imprisoned there, not because 
     they were involved in military conflict but simply because 
     they were enemies of the Northern Alliance,'' he said.
       Schulz called for an official probe into the alleged rights 
     abuses at U.S. detention centers around the globe.
       Amnesty refers in the May 25 report to Rumsfeld and U.S. 
     Attorney General Alberto Gonzales as alleged ``torture 
     architects.''
       The United States ``should be the one that should 
     investigate those who are alleged at least to be architects 
     of torture, not just the foot soldiers who may have inflicted 
     the torture directly, but those who authorized it or 
     encouraged it or provided rationales for it,'' Schulz said.
       According to Amnesty, Rumsfeld provided ``the exact rules, 
     27 of them in fact, for interrogations, some of which do 
     constitute torture or cruel, inhumane treatment,'' Schulz 
     said.
       The Guantanamo Bay camp and U.S. detention practices have 
     been the subject of renewed debate in recent weeks, sparked 
     by a Newsweek magazine report--since retracted--that 
     Guantanamo interrogators flushed a Koran in a toilet to 
     rattle Muslim prisoners.
       Amnesty is not the only rights group to have called on 
     Washington to investigate alleged abuses at the camp--Schulz 
     pointed to released FBI documents that also raised concerns 
     about Guantanamo interrogations.
       U.S. officials insist such concerns are unfounded, and that 
     the ``war on terror'' detainees are treated as humanely as 
     possible.
       U.S. soldiers have been tried and punished for abusing 
     detainees--notably at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, where at 
     least one captive died--but U.S. officials say those are 
     isolated incidents.
       The furor sparked by Amnesty's claims shows no signs of 
     abating.
       The New York Times said Sunday that the Guantanamo Bay 
     prison should be closed down, saying it had become ``a 
     national shame'' and a ``propaganda gift to America's 
     enemies.''
       ``What makes Amnesty's gulag metaphor apt is that 
     Guantanamo is merely one of a chain of shadowy detention 
     camps that also includes Abu Ghraib in Iraq, the military 
     prison at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan and other, secret 
     locations run by the intelligence agencies,'' the Times said.
       The Washington Post, whose editorial page has been more 
     critical of Amnesty's gulag claim, reported Sunday--citing 
     Schulz--that Amnesty's donations have quintupled and new 
     memberships have doubled in the past week since it released 
     its report. (Wire reports)
                                  ____

             [From the Washington Post, Wed. Nov. 2, 2005]

              CIA Holds Terror Suspects in Secret Prisons

                            (By Dana Priest)

       The CIA has been hiding and interrogating some of its most 
     important al Qaeda captives at a Soviet-era compound in 
     Eastern Europe, according to U.S. and foreign officials 
     familiar with the arrangement.
       The secret facility is part of a covert prison system set 
     up by the CIA nearly four years ago that at various times has 
     included sites in eight countries, including Thailand, 
     Afghanistan and several democracies in Eastern Europe, as 
     well as a small center at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, 
     according to current and former intelligence officials and 
     diplomats from three continents.
       The hidden global internment network is a central element 
     in the CIA's unconventional war on terrorism. It depends on 
     the cooperation of foreign intelligence services, and on 
     keeping even basic information about the system secret from 
     the public, foreign officials and nearly all members of 
     Congress charged with overseeing the CIA's covert actions.
       The existence and locations of the facilities--referred to 
     as ``black sites'' in classified White House, CIA, Justice 
     Department and congressional documents--are known to only a 
     handful of officials in the United States and, usually, only 
     to the president and a few top intelligence officers in each 
     host country.
       The CIA and the White House, citing national security 
     concerns and the value of the program, have dissuaded 
     Congress from demanding that the agency answer questions in 
     open testimony about the conditions under which captives are 
     held. Virtually nothing is known about who is kept in the 
     facilities, what interrogation methods are employed with 
     them, or how decisions are made about whether they should be 
     detained or for how long.
       While the Defense Department has produced volumes of public 
     reports and testimony about its detention practices and rules 
     after the abuse scandals at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison and at 
     Guantanamo Bay, the CIA has not even acknowledged the 
     existence of its black sites. To do so, say officials 
     familiar with the program, could open the U.S. government to 
     legal challenges, particularly in foreign courts, and 
     increase the risk of political condemnation at home and 
     abroad.
       But the revelations of widespread prisoner abuse in 
     Afghanistan and Iraq by the U.S. military--which operates 
     under published rules and transparent oversight of Congress--
     have increased concern among lawmakers, foreign governments 
     and human rights groups about the opaque CIA system. Those 
     concerns escalated last month, when Vice President Cheney and 
     CIA Director Porter J. Goss asked Congress to exempt CIA 
     employees from legislation already endorsed by 90 senators 
     that would bar cruel and degrading treatment of any prisoner 
     in U.S. custody.
       Although the CIA will not acknowledge details of its 
     system, intelligence officials defend the agency's approach, 
     arguing that the successful defense of the country requires 
     that the agency be empowered to hold and interrogate 
     suspected terrorists for as long as necessary and without 
     restrictions imposed by the U.S. legal system or even by the 
     military tribunals established for prisoners held at 
     Guantanamo Bay.
       The Washington Post is not publishing the names of the 
     Eastern European countries involved in the covert program, at 
     the request

[[Page H11867]]

     of senior U.S. officials. They argued that the disclosure 
     might disrupt counterterrorism efforts in those countries and 
     elsewhere and could make them targets of possible terrorist 
     retaliation.
       The secret detention system was conceived in the chaotic 
     and anxious first months after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, 
     when the working assumption was that a second strike was 
     imminent.
       Since then, the arrangement has been increasingly debated 
     within the CIA, where considerable concern lingers about the 
     legality, morality and practicality of holding even 
     unrepentant terrorists in such isolation and secrecy, perhaps 
     for the duration of their lives. Mid-level and senior CIA 
     officers began arguing two years ago that the system was 
     unsustainable and diverted the agency from its unique 
     espionage mission.
       ``We never sat down, as far as I know, and came up with a 
     grand strategy,'' said one former senior intelligence officer 
     who is familiar with the program but not the location of the 
     prisons. ``Everything was very reactive. That's how you get 
     to a situation where you pick people up, send them into a 
     netherworld and don't say, `What are we going to do with them 
     afterwards?' ''

  Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Washington (Mr. McDermott).
  (Mr. McDERMOTT asked and was given permission to revise and extend 
his remarks.)
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, this Congress ought to support Mr. 
Skeleton's motion because the reason we are here is that the United 
States Congress has refused to use its power of oversight to look at 
what we have been doing overseas. Have we had hearings about Abu 
Ghraib? Have we had hearings about secret prisons in Romania, in 
Poland, or wherever?
  The Republican leadership of the House says we are not going to look. 
We simply will hold our hands over our eyes and we will not look out 
there to see what is going on. Unfortunately, there is the rest of the 
world. There is the Guardian newspaper, there are newspapers in France 
and Germany and all over the place looking at this information, and it 
is now worldwide known what we are doing. Yet the Congress walks around 
here, see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.
  This Congress has abrogated, you have given up your responsibility of 
oversight. Mr. Skelton brings out a simple amendment that says, let's 
follow the Senate, which has gotten up on their hind legs and said, 
let's have some oversight in what we're doing, and suddenly you guys 
object.
  It is clear what you don't want people to know. You don't want the 
people to know what went on in the Vice President's office or in the 
White House or what was going on when the Attorney General----
  Mr. McHUGH. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. McDERMOTT. No, I am not going to yield. You don't know how to 
play the game. You have got to learn the rules.
  When you let the Attorney General of the United States say that 
torture in certain circumstances is probably all right, man, you have 
opened the door to disrepute.


                         Parliamentary Inquiry

  Mr. McHUGH. Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Speaker.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Rehberg). The gentleman may state his 
inquiry.
  Mr. McHUGH. The gentleman from Washington suggested I did not know 
the rules. Is it not within the rules for a Member to ask another 
Member to yield?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. It is within the rules for a gentleman to 
ask another gentleman to yield.
  Mr. McHUGH. So in the context of the gentleman's response, I did know 
the rules; is that correct?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. That is correct.
  Mr. McHUGH. I thank the Speaker.

                              {time}  2300

  Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
  Mr. Speaker, the Senate of the United States passed a section to 
which I would like to have as a centerpiece in my motion to instruct 
conferees to adopt. By a vote of 82-9 the Senate adopted this amendment 
which was offered by the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
  I do not understand why some people do not want to learn the truth. 
That is what this is. It is an attempt to have a provision that allows 
us in the Congress of the United States, both the House and the Senate, 
under the provisions of this language to learn the truth. We do not 
want to learn things from the front page of a newspaper. We want to 
learn things as they should be properly reported to us from the White 
House which this motion to instruct would require. It is that simple.
  The other side seems to wish to confuse the issue which causes me to 
scratch my head as to why they oppose this motion to instruct. It is 
clear-cut. A huge majority of the Senators, both parties, voted in 
favor thereof in the Senate.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge adoption of my motion to instruct, and I yield 
back the balance of my time.
  Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the Skelton 
motion to instruct. Two years ago, the image of the United States was 
tarnished by photographs of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib. The 
photographs drew condemnation from members of Congress, the American 
people, and the world. At a time when we were professing American 
values, these photographs told a story of secrecy and disgusting abuse.
  That's why the Washington Post's revelations about the CIA's 
clandestine detention facilities last month are so troubling. We all 
understand the difficult job our interrogators have in trying to pry 
useful intelligence from tough, hostile prisoners. We all believe that 
the vast majority of our interrogators perform their jobs admirably and 
within the rules, and the information they have obtained has served as 
the intelligence foundation of our War on Terror. But at a time when 
the wounds of Abu Ghraib have still not fully healed, fresh allegations 
of secrecy and questions about interrogation have the potential to 
reopen old issues of abuse that we have struggled for months to put to 
rest.
  The President has said that ``we do not torture'' prisoners, and I 
take him at his word, but we have the right to ask for answers about 
clandestine facilities supplied, of course, in classified form.
  The Skelton motion to instruct simply calls on the President to 
disclose to the Congress the nature, cost, location and operations of 
the detention facilities referenced by the Post, and the ultimate 
disposition of the detainees that are held there. This would in no way 
hinder the effectiveness of interrogations, but it would go a long way 
toward showing the world we are serious about preventing prisoner 
abuse. As Senator McCain so eloquently said, ``We are Americans. We 
hold ourselves to humane standards of treatment of people, no matter 
how evil or terrible they may be . . . The enemy we fight has no 
respect for human life or human rights. They don't deserve our 
sympathy. But this isn't about who they are; this is about who we are. 
These are the values that distinguish us from our enemies.'' I urge my 
colleagues to support the Skelton motion to instruct. All it seeks is 
information to which we are already entitled under Title 50 of the U.S. 
Code, and information we need to fulfill our duties under Article I, 
Clause 8 of the Constitution.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Rehberg). Without objection, the 
previous question is ordered on the motion to instruct.
  There was no objection.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion to instruct 
offered by the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton).
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the noes appeared to have it.
  Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, further 
proceedings on this question will be postponed.

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