[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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