[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 57 (Thursday, May 11, 2006)]
[House]
[Pages H2566-H2573]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         OUR NATION'S SECURITY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Campbell of California). Under the 
Speaker's announced policy of January 4, 2005, the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Schiff) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of 
the minority leader.
  Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Speaker, the single most important function of the 
Congress is to ensure our Nation's security. Since the time of the 
Revolutionary War when the Continental Congress directed the efforts of 
our fledgling Nation to free itself from British rule, the legislative 
branch has made the security of our Nation a priority.
  Bipartisanship has been at the center of America's national security 
policymaking for much of our history.

                              {time}  1900

  In standing behind our Armed Forces and standing up for our 
diplomatic priorities, in supporting the Intelligence Community, and in 
supporting the President in times of crisis, Congress has often spoken 
with one voice. This unanimity was never stronger than the aftermath of 
the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
  When President Bush addressed Congress and the Nation on September 
20, there were no Democrats or Republicans in this Chamber. There were 
only Americans. That unity extended around the world to friends and 
foes alike.
  In London, 2 days after the attacks, Queen Elizabeth ordered the 
Coldstream Guards to play the Star Spangled Banner at the changing of 
the guard at Buckingham Palace, the first time a foreign anthem had 
been played at that ceremony.
  In Paris, the newspaper Le Monde ran an editorial on September 12 
that was entitled simply, ``We Are All Americans.''
  In the wake of the attacks, NATO invoked for the first time in its 
history, article 5 of the NATO charter, declaring an attack on the 
United States to be an attack on the alliance.
  As American military assets rushed towards Afghanistan in preparation 
for the invasion that would topple the

[[Page H2567]]

Taliban regime, NATO Airborne Warning and Control System, AWACs air 
craft patrolled American skies in round-the-clock patrol to protect us.
  Four and a half years later, this national and international unity 
seems quaint. Here at home, our country is now bitterly divided. Our 
States are red or they are blue. Our communities are divided too. 
Americans don't even get their news from the same place anymore. Many 
Republicans only watch Fox, and many Democrats will only watch, well, 
anything else.
  Overseas, we are isolated. Where America was seen as a victim in the 
wake of 9/11, in the capitals of even some of our closest allies we are 
now too often viewed as an aggressor. American troops are fighting and 
dying in Iraq while many of our closest friends sit on the sidelines 
refusing to provide even promised economic support.
  The policies of the current administration and majority in Congress 
have not only squandered domestic unity and international goodwill; 
they have poorly managed the war on terror and failed to adequately 
improve our security here at home. Even as we spend $1 billion a week 
in Iraq, basic security at home remains underfunded. And as we shall 
hear from my friend and colleague, Chris Van Hollen, Afghanistan is in 
danger of slipping back into the grip of the Taliban.
  In the days after September 11, the President vowed to capture Osama 
bin Laden, dead or alive, and that we would smoke al Qaeda out of their 
caves. Tragically, Mr. Speaker, Osama is still very much alive, and the 
inability of the pre-eminent super-power to capture him is as dangerous 
as it is emblematic of the need for a new strategy in the war on 
terror.
  Tonight I have a message for the American people: the Democrats have 
a plan to win the war on terror. Our plan is tough, it is smart, and it 
is comprehensive. This plan is part of an overall effort to reconfigure 
America's security for the 21st century, a plan that we call Real 
Security.
  Several week ago, Members of our party from both the House and the 
Senate unveiled a comprehensive blueprint to better protect America and 
to restore our Nation's position of international leadership. Our plan, 
Real Security, was devised with the assistance of a broad range of 
experts, former military officers, retired diplomats, law enforcement 
personnel, homeland security experts, and others who helped identify 
key areas where current policies have failed and where new ones were 
needed.
  In a series of six Special Order hours in the evening, my colleagues 
and I have been sharing with the American people our vision for a more 
secure America. The plan has five pillars, and each of our Special 
Order hours has been addressing them in turn.
  The first is building a military for the 21st century. The second is 
winning the war on terrorism. The third is securing our homeland. The 
fourth is a way forward in Iraq. And the fifth is achieving energy 
independence for America.
  Two weeks ago, we discussed the first pillar of our plan, building a 
military for the 21st century. This would involve rebuilding a state-
of-the-art military, making sure that we have the world's best 
equipment and training, providing accurate intelligence and a strategy 
for success, providing a GI bill of rights for the 21st century, and 
strengthening the National Guard.
  In future weeks we will address Homeland Security. In the wake of 9/
11, there have been numerous commissions and investigations at the 
Federal, State, and local levels as well as a multitude of private 
studies. All of them have pointed to the broad systemic and other flaws 
in our homeland security programs.
  Almost 2 years ago, the independent bipartisan 9/11 Commission 
published its report, but most of its recommendations have yet to be 
implemented.
  The Homeland Security plan will implement the 9/11 Commission 
recommendations. We will screen all containers and cargo. We will 
safeguard nuclear and chemical plants. We will prohibit the outsourcing 
at ports, airports and mass transportation to foreign interests. We 
will train and equip first responders, and we will invest in public 
health to safeguard Americans.
  We will also be discussing a new course in Iraq that will ensure that 
2006 is a year of significant transition to full Iraqi sovereignty, 
with the Iraqis assuming primary responsibility for securing and 
governing their country with a responsible redeployment of U.S. forces. 
Democrats will insist that Iraqis make the political compromises 
necessary to unite their country and defeat the insurgency, promote 
regional diplomacy, and strongly encourage our allies in other nations 
to play a constructive role.
  Our security will remain threatened as long as we remain dependent on 
Middle Eastern oil. The fifth pillar and the one with the most far-
reaching ramifications for our country and the world is to achieve 
energy independence for America by 2020. This will involve eliminating 
reliance on Middle Eastern oil, increasing the production of 
alternative fuels in America, promoting hybrid and flex fuel vehicle 
technologies, and manufacturing and enhancing the energy efficiency and 
conservation incentives.
  The pillar of Real Security that we are going to address tonight is 
in many ways at the center of all of these issues. Since 9/11, the war 
on terrorism, specifically radical Islamic terrorism, has affected our 
entire conduct of national security policy. Unfortunately, there is a 
clear consensus among most experts that we need a new strategy to win 
the war on terror.
  Tonight, I would like to introduce you to our plan. When Democrats 
are in charge, we will finish the job by eliminating Osama bin Laden, 
by destroying terrorist networks like al Qaeda, by finishing work in 
Afghanistan and ending the threat posed by the Taliban. We will double 
the size of our Special Forces, increase our human intelligence 
capabilities, and ensure our intelligence is free from political 
pressure. We will eliminate terrorist breeding grounds by combating the 
economic, social, and political conditions that allow extremism to 
thrive; lead international efforts to uphold and defend human rights; 
and renew longstanding alliances that have advanced our national 
security objectives.
  We will secure by 2010 loose nuclear materials that terrorists could 
use to build nuclear weapons or dirty bombs. And we will redouble 
efforts to stop nuclear weapons development in Iran and North Korea.
  Our first priority is to eliminate Osama bin Laden and destroy al 
Qaeda and its other terrorist networks. Who would have imagined on 
September 11 that after more than 4\1/2\ years, the man responsible, 
the mastermind of the greatest single loss of American life in a single 
attack, Osama bin Laden, would still be at large? And now, in fact, al 
Qaeda has morphed into a worldwide amalgam of discrete cells that are 
even more difficult to track down.
  Under Real Security, Democrats will use all of the tools at our 
disposal, military, intelligence, diplomatic, legal, to fight 
terrorism. To destroy al Qaeda and other terrorists on the ground, we 
will double the size of our Special Forces.
  Special Forces were instrumental in working with local Afghan forces 
to drive the Taliban from Afghanistan, and they are uniquely suited to 
counter insurgency and counter terrorist operations. Unfortunately, 
many of the Special Forces units that were working to build a new 
Afghanistan were diverted to Iraq and replaced with less versatile 
troops.
  Building a military for the 21st century begins with an 
acknowledgment that we are in a new era that has a set of challenges 
and threats distinct from those we faced during the Cold War. In this 
new world, we need a military that is highly mobile, self-sustaining, 
and capable of operating in small units.
  On the one hand, our ability to use air power has extended our global 
reach and allows us to engage enemies without large numbers of ground 
troops being employed, as was the case in Kosovo and Afghanistan.
  On the other hand, the war on terror, ongoing operations in Iraq, and 
the increasing need for American forces to play a stabilizing role as 
peacekeepers and peace enforcers demands the sustained commitment of 
American forces. Special Forces units are mobile, lethal, adaptable, 
and trained to work with indigenous forces, a key to winning against 
insurgencies and terrorists who are expert at portraying

[[Page H2568]]

Americans as infidels bent on destroying Islam, undermining local 
societies and local customs and culture.
  But even the best military cannot obtain its objectives without good, 
sound intelligence. In many respects, 9/11 was a failure of 
intelligence. Agencies that should have been sharing information with 
each other could not or would not, and tantalizing, vital threads were 
left unconnected. This failure was followed by the deplorable failure 
of our intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction in which 
dissenting voices within the intelligence community were stifled, and 
group think took hold and steered analysis.
  The U.S. intelligence community is made up of some of America's 
brightest minds and most dedicated servants, but these talented 
individuals are working harder and harder just to maintain a status quo 
that is increasingly irrelevant to the new challenges presented by 
weapons of mass destruction.
  America's enemies today are different from those we faced during the 
Cold War and pose far more complex threats to our national and 
international security. We have more numerous and diverse intelligence 
targets today, with dozens of national and hundreds of non-state 
entities able to strike a devastating blow to our territory and our 
economic interests.
  Furthermore, the weapons that pose the greatest dangers to our 
strategic and economic interests are difficult to detect and even 
harder to counteract. Both the 9/11 Commission and the Silbermann-Robb 
Commission advocated sweeping reforms of the intelligence community to 
streamline procedures and facilitate better flows of information and 
analysis. Both commissions identified resistance to change as the 
greatest obstacle to better intelligence for senior policymakers.
  What we need is an intelligence community that is flexible, able to 
respond quickly and effectively to an ever-shifting environment and to 
the rapid pace of today's technological changes. The dispatch of Porter 
Goss as CIA director indicates that these changes at the agency have 
still not been undertaken. The coordination we need is still not 
present in our intelligence community.
  The Intelligence Reform Bill that Congress passed in 2004 created a 
new Director of National Intelligence, but gave the office only 
ambiguous authorities to carry out its broad responsibilities. The 
challenges faced by the DNI are myriad, building better human 
intelligence networks, improving the quality of analysis produced by 
the 15 agencies under its control and rebuilding the morale of a 
community that has been badly shaken by 9/11, by Iraq and which 
continues to this day.
  Even as the DNI, the Director of National Intelligence, struggles to 
control numerous organizations with separate missions and cultures, he 
needs to preserve a diversity of analysis and a community-wide culture 
that encourages structured debate among agencies and analysts over the 
interpretation of information while cooperating in a common purpose 
with a shared strategic vision.

                              {time}  1915

  For too long, the demands for current intelligence have presented the 
intelligence community from adopting a broader strategic perspective. 
Such an approach is essential for developing long-term plans, for 
penetrating today's difficult targets, and identifying political and 
social trends, shaping tomorrow's threats.
  Perhaps the most important piece of our plan is a commitment to 
eliminate terrorist breeding grounds. Terrorists who attacked this 
country on September 11 emerged from a part of the world where 
oppression often finds its outlet in jihadi extremism and hatred of the 
West, especially the United States.
  After the 9/11 attack, the President and other senior administration 
officials vowed to ``drain the swamp'' that birthed al Qaeda and other 
radical Islamists. Despite this boast, the administration has done 
little to combat the social, economic and political conditions that 
allow extremism to thrive.
  Under Real Security, Democrats will fight terrorism, not only 
militarily, but also by leading international efforts to eradicate 
poverty, universalize education and provide economic opportunity for 
those who now provide such a fertile ground for the recruitment of 
suicide bombers.
  We will also renew the long-standing alliances that have advanced our 
national security objectives for more than a century. We will encourage 
the growth of civil society, democracy and free-market economics in the 
Middle East. Extremism thrives and spreads in countries where brittle, 
autocratic regimes jealously guard wealth and political power while the 
vast majority of its citizens languish in poverty.
  For example, despite the Arab's world vast oil wealth and its rich 
cultural history, the region has languished in large part because its 
leaders refuse to enact the liberalization necessary to release the 
power of hundreds of millions of people. We will use the power of 
diplomacy and economic aid much more consistently and effectively to 
bring about real meaningful change that allows for the growth of 
political, secular institutions. As we have seen in too many cases in 
recent years, millions of Arabs face the choice between secular, 
authoritarianism and theocratic rule by religious extremists.
  Strong diplomatic relations are essential to America's security. As 
Madeleine Albright, who served as Secretary of State under President 
Clinton, has said, diplomacy is our first line of defense. During the 
last several years, we have failed to use this essential tool of 
American power wisely, and it has cost us dearly. Democrats will again 
make human rights central to our conduct of national security, living 
up to our values, even as we make ourselves safer.
  In a few minutes, I will address in specific terms the threat posed 
by loose nuclear materials and the lethargy at which we are trying to 
secure those materials.
  But before I do, I want to introduce my friend and colleague, Chris 
Van Hollen of Maryland, to share his thoughts on the dangers posed, in 
particular in Afghanistan, but also his thoughts on intelligence reform 
and on the Democrats' Real Security Plan.
  I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.
  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Well, let me thank my colleague from California (Mr. 
Schiff) on his leadership on national security issues and helping to 
lay out the Democratic national security plan, and thank him for taking 
us back to 9/11/2001 and the new security challenges that posed for our 
country, indeed for many others around the world, and reminding all of 
us that at that time the American people rallied behind the President 
and the Congress and said we need to take action against al Qaeda, we 
need to take action against the Taliban.
  This body, the United States Congress, was united, Republicans and 
Democrats alike, in taking that action, toppling the Taliban 
government, and working to try and root out al Qaeda and find Osama bin 
Laden. Indeed, as Mr. Schiff mentioned, the international community 
rallied behind us as well.
  So let us go back to that point in time and see what has been done. 
If you look at the recent trip that President Bush took to Afghanistan 
and India, Pakistan last March, it was a reminder to all of us that was 
probably, number one, the closest he will ever get to the man who 
masterminded those attacks on September 11th, on the United States, 
Osama bin Laden, who is believed to be hiding in Pakistan along the 
very rugged Afghan-Pakistan border. It was a reminder that we have not 
accomplished our mission of destroying Bin Laden and al Qaeda.
  We all recall back in May of 2003 aboard the aircraft carrier, the 
USS Lincoln, when the President unveiled a big banner that said, 
``Mission accomplished.''
  Well, before that time, before the unveiling of that banner, there 
had been 138 American troops who died in Iraq, 542 wounded. Since 
declaring ``Mission accomplished'' aboard the aircraft carrier, there 
have been 2,405 American troops dead and over 17,000 wounded. As we all 
know, the situation in Iraq continues to be a very difficult one.
  But certainly that ``Mission accomplished'' banner could not have 
applied to the main objective we had after September 11, 2001, to 
destroy the al Qaeda network and capture, destroy the person at the top 
of that network, Osama

[[Page H2569]]

bin Laden, and fulfilling that mission. Preventing a resurgence of the 
Taliban will depend on the actions that we take today and in the months 
ahead in Afghanistan. This is no time for us to be reducing our 
commitment in Afghanistan.
  At the very time the President was in Afghanistan last March, the 
Director of U.S. Defense Intelligence, General Michael Maples, was 
testifying before the Congress, and he testified that the Taliban 
insurgency is growing and will increase this spring, presenting a 
greater threat to the Afghan central government's expansion of 
authority than at any point since late 2001.
  Under these circumstances, the plan, the current plan in place to 
replace 2,500 U.S. troops in southern Afghanistan later this summer 
with contingents of Canadian, Dutch, British, Romanian and Australian 
troops should be considered. We welcome having those additional troops 
there, but given the intensifying Taliban insurgency, we should 
consider whether or not those new forces should augment and supplement 
the forces we have there and not replace them. Replacing them could 
send exactly the wrong signal to the people of Afghanistan and to Osama 
bin Laden and al Qaeda. Now, it is hard to ignore the fact that the 
Taliban has stepped up its operations recently.
  Last year, attacks by the Taliban and other anti-government troops 
jumped by 20 percent, according to the Defense Intelligence Agency. 
Suicide bombings increased almost fourfold, and strikes with improvised 
explosive devices, which is a tactic imported from Iraq, doubled last 
year.
  The main battlegrounds in this insurgency are in the provinces of 
Qandahar, Oruzgan, Helmand and Zabol, the Pashtun areas that form the 
Taliban stronghold in southern Afghanistan. And as recently as January 
10 of this year, Mullah Mohammad Omar, who was the Taliban leader, who 
was born in southern Afghanistan and forged a very close tie with Bin 
Laden, rejected a call to reconcile with the new government of 
President Hamid Karzai and publicly exhorted his followers to fight.

  It appears from all indications that his followers have been 
listening. The Assistant Administrator of USAID told Congress earlier 
this year about the deaths that have been taking place in many of the 
provinces and the attacks, school teachers killed. As a result, 200 
schools in Qandahar and 165 support schools in the province of Helmand 
closed for security reasons, and on and on. February was a deadly 
month, and March and April.
  In May, earlier this month, The New York Times wrote an article, 
headline, Taliban Threat Is Said to Grow in Afghan South. I am just 
going to read a few excerpts. The Taliban and al Qaeda are everywhere, 
a shopkeeper told the commander of American forces in Afghanistan. He 
said it is all right in the city, but if you go outside the city, they 
are everywhere, and the people have to support them. They have no 
choice.
  The article goes on to note that the fact that American troops are 
pulling out of southern Afghanistan in the coming months and handing 
matters over to NATO peacekeepers, who have repeatedly stated they are 
not going to fight terrorists, has given a lift to the insurgents and 
increased the fears of Afghans.
  I think it is very important that we not send a signal that we are 
reducing our commitment to the people of Afghanistan and to the fight 
against al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. But stopping that action is going 
to require forceful action, stopping that violence and stopping the 
Taliban attacks.
  Until now, the NATO forces have been stationed in relatively quiet 
areas. Their role has been primarily limited to peacekeeping rather 
than combat operations, and there are real questions about whether they 
will be able to engage the Taliban as aggressively as U.S. forces 
there.
  It is also likely that the withdrawal of these 2,500 U.S. forces from 
Afghanistan will weaken our ability to put pressure on the Pakistan 
government to cooperate with us in trying to track down al Qaeda 
elements in Pakistan. We know that Pakistan Interservices Intelligence 
Agency has historically had a very cosy relationship with the Taliban. 
Many in the Afghan government, if you talk to them, doubt Pakistan's 
commitment to denying the sanctuary to Taliban fighters along the 
Afghan-Pakistan border. So we should be careful about the signals that 
we send.
  Afghanistan's stability depends on strengthening the central 
government, developing the economy and limiting the booming opium trade 
there. Progress on these fronts requires that the Taliban be 
neutralized and security improved.
  It has been said now from a number of Afghan leaders that the 
anticipated withdrawal of some of the U.S. forces has already caused 
some local leaders to hedge their bets with respect to the Taliban and 
figure if we are not going to be protected by U.S. forces, maybe we 
ought to bet on the Taliban being the future here. That is a very, very 
dangerous thing indeed.
  It is important for us to remember that the Taliban came to power in 
Afghanistan in the chaos that followed the Soviet Union's withdrawal 
from that country, and the subsequent U.S. disengagement and lack of 
interest in the region.
  With the Bush administration and much of political Washington focused 
on Iraq, many Afghan leaders worry whether the reduction in our forces 
there signals a lack of commitment and a signal that we will again lose 
sight of Afghanistan. We do so at our peril because we need to 
remember, as my colleague reminded us, that the September 11 attacks, 
September 11, 2001, did not come from Iraq. They were from Afghanistan. 
That raises a very serious question about how we came to be in Iraq and 
raises the question of failure of intelligence.
  I think it is important to note that whether or not you were for 
taking military action in Iraq or against military action in Iraq, we 
all should be in favor of getting the intelligence information right. 
It is especially important in this time when we are trying to disrupt 
terrorist networks.
  The fact of the matter is the President told the American people we 
were taking action in Iraq for two reasons. He said, there are weapons 
of mass destruction there, and he said that there was a connection 
between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. Well, we know now that both of 
those statements proved false. It is important, going forward, that we 
get the intelligence right.
  One of the essential components of the Constitution of our country is 
a system of checks and balances, making it clear that every branch of 
government has an obligation to take the responsible actions within its 
own sphere. Unfortunately, this Congress, especially this United States 
House of Representatives, has failed to exercise that responsibility. 
Instead of being a check on the executive branch, we have been a blank 
check for this administration. Instead of being a balance, we have been 
a rubber stamp.
  The result of that failure of oversight has been to allow the 
mistakes and failures of this administration in the area of 
intelligence gathering to continue, because if you don't pay attention 
to failure, if you look aside from failure, if you ignore failure, you 
are going to get more failure.
  One of the greatest failures, of course, has been the failure of this 
Congress to hold the administration accountable for its failures to 
gather intelligence information and for its abuse of the use of 
intelligence.
  Now, every administration, Republican or Democrat, is entitled to 
have its own policies. But they are not entitled to their own facts. 
Facts are stubborn things.
  In the war on terror it is critical that we gather good intelligence 
information. We need to base our policy on the facts, not decide to 
make up the facts based on our policy.
  Now, we should all agree that we don't want to put our troops in 
harm's way because we don't have adequate intelligence. We shouldn't 
sort of make up the facts in a way that leads to those consequences.
  But in the lead-up to the war in Iraq, many in the administration 
ignored those professional voices within the executive branch, the 
civil servants, who had been there for years, have years of experience, 
who got it right.

                              {time}  1930

  For example, the professionals in the Bureau of Intelligence Research 
at the State Department and the professionals at the Department of 
Energy

[[Page H2570]]

said these aluminum tubes were not evidence of a nuclear weapons 
program in Iraq; they were evidence of a rockets program. Yet their 
information, their input, was relegated to a footnote, because people 
did not want to see beyond the world as they wanted to see it to 
justify their own policy decisions.
  Those intelligence failures have consequences. Not just immediate 
consequences for our military and our Armed Forces; they also undermine 
our credibility around the world and are coming back to haunt us.
  Secretary of State Colin Powell, we all remember when he went before 
the United Nations. He had his charts; he had his displays. He said to 
the world, Iraq is developing weapons of mass destruction, in fact, has 
weapons of mass destruction. They did not. Secretary Powell has 
acknowledged that was one of the low points of his career.
  Contrast that to the Cuban missile crisis, when our ambassador to the 
United Nations, Adlai Stevenson, showed the world satellite photos that 
the Soviets were putting missiles in Cuba. The Soviets had been denying 
it, but they couldn't deny it in the face of those facts and that 
evidence. It was a high point for credibility at the U.N. Our display 
there was a low point.
  The problem is not just that we look bad. The problem is it is hard 
to make back lost credibility. As we go to the U.N., as we go to 
international partners around the world now and talk about the 
situation in Iran, we talk about the situation in North Korea, we talk 
about the situation and threats elsewhere in the world, people remember 
what we said before, and even the President, President Bush, has 
acknowledged that we face increased skepticism as a result of our 
failures of intelligence. Those have serious, serious consequences.
  There is a lot more that can be done in the intelligence area, and I 
think tonight we should talk about some of the missteps that were made 
and how we intend to correct those missteps going forward. But I think 
we should all agree, Republicans and Democrats alike, that getting the 
intelligence information right is essential to our national security. 
We need to allow the professionals with the experience to call the 
facts as they see them, not how any administration would like to see 
them to justify a certain policy.
  I yield back to my colleague from California as we continue this 
discussion about how we think that this Congress can do a much better 
job of enhancing the national security of this country.
  Mr. SCHIFF. I thank the gentleman for all of his leadership on these 
issues and the superb work he has done to improve the Nation's 
security.
  You mentioned the growing problems and growing threats we are 
experiencing with IEDs, with suicide bombings in Afghanistan. I have 
had a chance to visit our troops there a couple of times.
  I was very struck by what one of the soldiers I talked with said 
during my first visit. He said, You know, we all feel we are in the 
third front of a two front war, Iraq being the first, then the war on 
terror, and Afghanistan being the forgotten war. We have Americans 
fighting and dying there, unfortunately, all the time. For those that 
are on the ground, Afghanistan is very much the first front. Given the 
origin of the attacks of 9/11, it really is the first front in the war 
on terror. Given the presence of Osama bin Laden somewhere in the 
mountainous regions between Afghanistan and Pakistan, that is the 
central front on the war on terror.
  I want to touch on some of the last two planks of our war on terror 
plan, and then I would like to come back to some of the comments you 
made on the lack of oversight in this body, because I think your 
remarks are right on the money, and it is really an institutional 
abdication of this Congress not to do its job of oversight.
  Under Real Security, we will confront the prospect, the specter, the 
danger of nuclear terrorism by greatly accelerating the pace at which 
we are securing nuclear material that can be used to make a nuclear 
weapon or a dirty bomb, by eliminating loose nuclear material by 2010. 
We will also redouble our efforts to stop nuclear weapons development 
in Iran and North Korea.
  While Democrats understand that no option can be taken off the table, 
we are committed to muscular diplomacy as the best option for curbing 
Pyongyang and Tehran's nuclear ambitions.
  Osama bin Laden once termed the acquisition of weapons of mass 
destruction a religious duty. Intelligence officials have warned that 
al Qaeda and other radical Islamists are committed to obtaining a 
nuclear weapon and using it against the United States.
  A number of experts feel if we fail to change course, an act of 
nuclear terrorism is only a matter of time. They are equally united in 
the conviction that we can avert such an attack by taking a series of 
steps to prevent nuclear material from falling into the hands of 
terrorists.
  The President has repeatedly called the prospect of a nuclear attack 
by terrorists the greatest national security threat facing the United 
States. However, the administration's lackluster efforts to prevent 
terrorists from acquiring WMD demonstrate a failure of leadership. In 
fact, the 9/11 Commission Public Discourse Project gave the 
administration a D grade in this area on its December 2005 report card.
  The Democratic Real Security plan commits to an aggressive effort to 
secure by 2010 loose nuclear material that terrorists could use to 
build nuclear bombs or dirty bombs. The Democratic approach to prevent 
terrorists from acquiring WMD is tough and smart. It uses our resources 
and know-how to make weapons material and capabilities secure and to 
deter countries from building weapons in the first place.
  In many cases, we know where there are nuclear and chemical 
facilities and materials that aren't adequately protected. Around the 
world, there are hundreds of tons of weapons grade nuclear material 
without the level of security we have established for our own nuclear 
material. This material is spread across hundreds of sites in dozens of 
countries. We must lock down these materials before they fall into the 
wrong hands.
  But we are moving very slowly. At current rates of progress, it could 
take us decades to secure materials that could be used in a nuclear 
attack, a nuclear terrorist attack on the United States. We can do 
better. To do anything less is grossly negligent with our Nation's 
future.
  A comprehensive strategy to prevent terrorists from acquiring weapons 
of mass destruction has several parts. It involves securing nuclear 
material around the world to a gold standard and actually removing 
nuclear material from the most vulnerable sites. It involves detecting 
and defeating efforts to smuggle nuclear material and technologies. It 
involves strengthening the international community's efforts to prevent 
the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
  To protect Americans as fully as we can, we must work in a global 
partnership to keep these weapons away from terrorists and governments 
that would use them against us. The United States can't be everywhere, 
can't catch every violation or pay for every inspection. Illegal 
weapons networks now span the globe, and our partnerships to stop them 
must be equally global. We need other nations to help do this hard, 
expensive work and help communicate the benefits of playing by the 
rules and the consequences when the rules are broken.
  We need our allies to share in the burden of global security. To get 
our allies' support, Democrats will press to include the security of 
nuclear material in the agenda and diplomatic efforts at the very 
highest levels. Without the necessary leadership, cooperation 
negotiated by mid-level bureaucrats will be limited to the slow pace of 
the last decade.
  In addition, Democrats will work with the international atomic 
watchdog group, the IAEA, to develop comprehensive gold standards for 
the security of nuclear material and assure that other nations have the 
ability and will to implement these standards. The international 
community has demonstrated its support for this approach through U.N. 
resolution 2004. It will require American leadership to translate this 
vision into action.
  Here in our government, Democrats will demand interagency cooperation 
and program innovation to accelerate progress on combating loose nukes.

[[Page H2571]]

  There are several Federal programs working to secure nuclear material 
that do not interact well with each other. Further coordination will 
improve the best use of resources and the sharing of best practices.
  The President has not charged the Federal bureaucracy with creating 
fresh and innovative programs to secure nuclear material, and business 
as usual or modest increases in funding to limited programs will not 
reach the goal of securing all bomb-making material by 2010.
  We must also move quickly to secure the global supply chain. Millions 
of containers move around the world every year containing the goods 
that we need. However, they are also an easy target for terrorists to 
smuggle WMD material. Under the Real Security plan, every container 
shipped to the United States will be scanned at the point of origin.
  Despite the urgency of this global threat, the administration and 
majority have not taken action commensurate with the threat. On more 
than one occasion, legislation has been introduced by Democrats to 
provide real security, but has been blocked.
  An amendment by Representative Obey would have provided an additional 
$2.5 billion for homeland security, including substantial support for 
nuclear nonproliferation activities, but it was blocked by the 
majority. An amendment offered by Representative Markey to scan all 
shipping containers was also blocked. Legislation that I introduced to 
require the screening of cargo on commercial planes, on passenger jets, 
commercial cargo on passenger jets was also denied a hearing. The 
administration and majority have failed to translate the urgency of 
preventing WMD and nuclear terrorism into action. This must change.
  After the attacks of September 11, senior officials repeatedly 
asserted that we had failed to prevent the attacks because of a failure 
of imagination. This was the central finding of the 9/11 Commission.
  We know about the danger of nuclear terrorism. We are in a race with 
terrorists who are actively seeking nuclear weapons. The choice is 
ours: accept the present failure of leadership and risk a nuclear 
disaster, or take action to prevent it. When one considers the 
consequences, the choice is really no choice at all.
  But I would like to turn now to an issue that was raised by my 
colleague from Maryland, and that is the role that we have in this body 
to provide oversight, oversight of the security of our troops overseas.
  Today I offered an amendment to the defense department authorization 
that requires periodic reports on our efforts to disable, to interdict, 
and to destroy these improvised explosive devices that are claiming the 
lives of so many Americans.
  I have lost at least four of my constituents in Iraq, most of them 
from improvised explosive devices. I am not satisfied that we are doing 
all we can to up-armor our vehicles, to provide the state-of-the-art 
body and side armor that will keep our troops alive. I am not satisfied 
that we are acting swiftly enough to deploy these technologies that are 
being developed to jam and otherwise disable these improvised explosive 
devices.
  My constituents would be willing to line up around the block to work 
in a factory overnight around the clock to produce these materials to 
protect our troops. There is no lack of a willingness to serve. There 
is no lack of a willingness to sacrifice among the American people. But 
they have to be asked, and we in Congress have to provide the 
leadership to make sure that we are doing everything we can to provide 
the protection of our troops.
  We also have to make sure we are doing our oversight in this body, to 
make sure that we have the intelligence agencies doing the work to 
protect us, and, at the same time that we protect our Constitution.
  My friend from Maryland makes the point that administrations and 
majorities can choose their own policies, but they can't choose their 
own facts. I would add to that, Mr. Van Hollen, they can't choose their 
own Constitution either. We all operate under the same Constitution. It 
is a Constitution that has served us very well. It is a Constitution 
that has allowed us to adapt to the changing needs of the Nation and 
its people and to the emerging threats facing the country.
  As one of our justices said some time ago, the Constitution is not a 
suicide pact. It doesn't prevent us from taking the steps we need to 
protect the country. But it does do an awfully important job of making 
sure, at the same time, that we protect our civil liberties.
  I, like my colleague, have been very concerned that some of the NSA 
programs which could be done under the oversight of the FISA court, and 
in my view are legally required to be done under the oversight of the 
FISA court, are not being done with court review.
  Today there was yet another revelation of a broader NSA program that 
may be obtaining information about tens of thousands, perhaps millions, 
of calls within the United States, a program that probably until news 
leaks today, Americans and Members of this body were unaware of.

                              {time}  1945

  Now certainly there is a need for confidentiality. But at the same 
time in this body, in classified hearings, there is a need for 
oversight. And we have not been willing to do it. There has been an 
allergy by the majority to do the oversight, to make sure that the 
limits on the executive go beyond the mere good faith of the executive.
  When the Attorney General testified in the Judiciary Committee, I 
asked him what were the limits of the authority as Commander in Chief? 
Could they bug purely domestic calls without court approval? And the 
Attorney General said, well, he would not rule it out.
  If that is the case, then what is the limiting principle? It is 
nothing other than the good faith of the executive, and that is not the 
limiting principle of our Constitution.
  I would be delighted to yield to my colleagues the gentlemen from 
Maryland.
  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from California in 
his leadership on these issues. We both serve on the Judiciary 
Committee. And we know the revelations about the domestic wiretapping 
program came out back in December. And as of today, we have not had a 
single nearing in the House Judiciary Committee devoted specifically to 
that issue.
  And whether people are for it or against it or undecided, we have an 
obligation as a separate branch of government to do our oversight, to 
get the facts, to ask the hard questions. And that committee has been 
AWOL on this issue, just as it has been, this Congress has been on so 
many other issues.
  And I am very pleased that my colleague pointed out in the 9/11 
Commission's sort of final report card they issued last November with 
respect to the issue of nuclear nonproliferation. They did give this 
Congress and the Bush administration a big fat D, D on that effort.
  My colleague from California has been active in proposing different 
ideas for how we can strengthen those, but this Congress has not moved 
ahead. I just want to cite from that report card where it says, 
``Countering the greatest threat to America's security is still not the 
top national security priority of the President and the Congress.''
  What is that top priority, they say? A maximum effort by the U.S. 
Government to secure WMD. The fact of the matter is, we know after 9/11 
that the most toxic combination of all would be some terrorist group 
getting their hands on weapons of mass destruction and the consequences 
to the people of our country.
  We are getting a D on that. We can do a lot better. That same report 
card gives this Congress a D in another area, an area we have been 
talking about. Under the category of congressional and administrative 
reform, there is a subcategory, intelligence oversight reform.
  Grade D. We would be embarrassed if our children brought back Ds from 
school, and yet Congress gets a D for this. And it is important to 
point out in this area, this is an area entirely under the control of 
the leadership in Congress. The Republican leadership could decide 
today to fix this.
  This one has nothing to do with the administration. This has to do 
with decisions that can be made tomorrow by this Republican leadership. 
They have decided not to do it. Apparently a D is acceptable to them. 
And I think it is

[[Page H2572]]

important to go back to the consequences of that failure of oversight.
  Now, we know in the lead-up to the Iraq war the failures of 
intelligence. The former Director of CIA, George Tenet, very decent 
guy, said it is a ``slam dunk case'' that there are weapons of mass 
destruction.
  Well, what happened? Well, first the President awarded him the 
Presidential Medal of Freedom. The guys in intelligence and research in 
the State Department who got it right, they have never gotten any 
recognition. And then what happened?
  Mr. SCHIFF. If I can interject, Mr. Van Hollen. Prior to the vote on 
the authorization to use force, several of us were invited to the White 
House to sit down with Mr. Tenet. I was most concerned about the 
nuclear program, Iraq's nuclear program, about the evidence that you 
discussed a moment earlier.
  And I asked Mr. Tenet and then head of the NSA, our now Secretary of 
State, Condoleezza Rice, how confident were they in the intelligence on 
Iraq's nuclear program? On a scale of 1-10, how confident were they?
  They were a 10. They were supremely confident. And they were 
supremely wrong. And as you very well point out, this has had the most 
enormous of consequences in terms of this Congress making a decision to 
go to war, in terms of our credibility vis-a-vis Iran now.
  When we talk about oversight, the lack of oversight has these most 
far reaching consequences.
  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, that is exactly right. Very serious 
consequences for the American people. And that is why it was 
surprising, I must say, that after George Tenet left the CIA as 
Director, that the administration decided to replace him with Mr. 
Porter Goss. Now Mr. Goss is a very decent, well-meaning person. But 
the fact of the matter is he was the chairman of the House Intelligence 
Committee at a time when this House failed to ask the hard questions 
and failed to do its oversight job. It accepted what the administration 
told them at face value, and it was a rubber stamp when it came to 
taking the administration's word on intelligence.
  And yet he was the one they decided to make the head of Central 
Intelligence. And he brought with him some of the members of his 
committee staff. He brought his staff director and some of the other 
people who were very politically close to him, including his staff 
director, Patrick Murry.
  And what was the result of that? Well, I think it is important to 
take us back to, this is what happened right after that appointment at 
the CIA. And I am reading from a Post story back from November 2004.
  The deputy director of the CIA resigned yesterday after a series of 
confrontations over the past week between senior operations officials 
and CIA Director Porter Goss's new chief of staff that have left the 
agency in turmoil, according to several current and former CIA 
officials.
  John McLaughlin, a 32-year CIA veteran who was Acting Director for 2 
months this summer until Goss took over, resigned after warning Goss 
that Goss's top aide, former Capitol Hill staffer Patrick Murry, was 
treating senior officials disrespectfully and risked widespread 
resignations.
  The day after this, the story says, the agency official who oversees 
foreign operations, Deputy Director of Operations Stephen Kappes, 
tendered his resignation after a confrontation with Murry.
  It goes on to say, it is the worst roiling I have ever heard of, said 
one former senior official with knowledge of the events. There is 
confusion throughout the ranks and an extraordinary loss of morale and 
incentive.
  That was the result of the Goss appointment at the CIA. Now, we see 
that Goss is being pushed out. And they are trying to bring back the 
guy, Kappes, in fact it looks like he will be coming back, that Goss's 
chief of staff essentially pushed out. He got in a confrontation and 
Kappes said, the person with great experience said, I am out of here.
  But a recent Post article of today, looking back on this period, 
said, former and current intelligence officers say Goss never had a 
strategic plan for improving spying on terrorist networks.
  I think it is also important to note another recent development with 
respect to people who were brought in at the top of the CIA, because 
another one of those people was a gentleman by the name of Kyle 
``Dusty'' Foggo. It says, and I am quoting from a very recent 
Washington Post story, other Goss lieutenants at the agency also appear 
to be on the way out following Goss, who resigned Friday.
  Kyle ``Dusty'' Foggo, brought in by Goss as the CIA's Executive 
Director, number 3 official, announced to agency staff in an e-mail 
yesterday he plans to resign as well.
  The FBI said it is investigating whether Foggo steered contracts to a 
friend, Brent R. Wilkes. People may recognize that name, Wilkes. He is 
the defense contractor who got caught up in the Duke Cunningham bribery 
scandal that we all know about and is an example of what is wrong in 
this House.
  So these people who are at the CIA were appointed by this 
administration. I do not think it gives people confidence to know that 
the same people who appointed Michael Brown as the head of FEMA were 
the people who made these appointments to the CIA, an agency the 
American people depend on to gather good intelligence for our security.
  And yet we have been a rubber stamp in that area. And the 9/11 
Commission report continues to give us a D. And this Congress deserves 
a D because the Republican leadership has not done anything. Until we 
get our act together with respect to conducting serious oversight in 
the intelligence area, we are going to continue to get policies that 
are not based on fact, but instead policies that are based on the world 
as people would like to see them, not the world as it really is.
  In this day and age, we need people who are clear-eyed and can see 
the world as it is, because that is necessary for our national 
security.
  I yield.
  Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague. I was struck, and 
perhaps you were too, as some of the networks pointed out with the near 
identity of language that the President used in describing his proposed 
nominee, General Hayden, for the post of Director of the CIA, saying 
that he was the right man at the right time for the right job, which 
was merely identical to what he said about Porter Goss a year and a 
half earlier, which kind of begged the question about what time he was 
referring to today. Is his proposed nominee the right man at the time a 
year and a half ago, or the right man right now when the last right man 
is being pushed out the door?
  But I suspect what it means is that during the last 18 months the 
agency has been adrift and that we are not much farther ahead than we 
were a year and a half ago in assimilating our intelligence agencies 
and coordinating them and improving the quality of our human 
intelligence which was identified as such a glaring weakness within our 
overall intelligence capability.
  But getting back to the consequences of all of this, the consequences 
of Congress' lack of oversight. When we talk about Congress being in 
the dark about this new NSA program, for example, the problem is that 
without someone being able to review whether these programs make sense, 
whether they are getting the results we need, we may be expending 
enormous sums of money and manpower and time and energy in fishing 
expeditions that lead us nowhere.
  Even if they were within the confines of the Constitution, which is a 
substantial enough question, that does not mean that they are actually 
effective. We may have mountains of data about domestic calls to the 
United States that is of little or no value except to raise the anxiety 
of the American people that their privacy is being eroded.
  There would be nothing worse than the erosion of our privacy without 
any commensurate benefit to the national security. But unless we do our 
oversight, it is impossible for us to know. And, unfortunately, I think 
that dearth of oversight has allowed these intelligence reforms to 
drift along or, worse, allowed the coordination of intelligence to 
degenerate over the last year and a half.
  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, that is right. If I can just say to my 
colleague, you know this Congress was

[[Page H2573]]

relatively quick when the 9/11 Commission recommended changes to the 
executive branch, in redesigning our national security review 
apparatus. We have the Director of National Intelligence now, Mr. 
Negroponte, and trying to change around the oversight within the 
administration, even though it is important to remember that the Bush 
administration originally resisted that reform and fought the reform.
  They realized that when the 9/11 Commission on a bipartisan basis 
came out in favor of that recommendation that change would have to be 
made.

                              {time}  2000

  But here in the Republican-led Congress they have not done anything 
to address the 9/11 Commission's recommendations with respect to 
oversight. And I think everybody understands that at a time when we are 
trying to identify terrorists who are trying to do harm to our country 
and respond against them, it is absolutely essential that we get it 
right. It is important that we get it right for our military men and 
women. It is important that we get it right for the American people. It 
is important that we get it right for our own credibility.
  In order for us to do that, we know we have to expand our abilities 
in human intelligence gathering overseas. You need to have people who 
know more foreign languages. It is a shift in paradigm somewhat. And 
what is absolutely clear is that this administration has not had that 
paradigm shift when it comes to intelligence. Certainly the leadership 
in this House of Representatives has not had a paradigm shift, because 
they have not supported the bipartisan recommendations of the 9/11 
Commission with respect to the issue of oversight. And so unless we do 
something, we are going to be caught with our lenses looking one way 
when the danger to this country sneaks up from another direction.
  We need to get it right. We need this oversight. It is like a board 
of directors that decides to go on vacation for four years and not pay 
any attention to the company. That board of directors would be sued for 
malpractice by the stockholders if something went wrong. We know some 
things are not going right and you have got to hold people accountable. 
And when you reward people who fail to punish or ignore people who get 
it right, you have got a recipe for failure. We need a recipe for 
success.
  Mr. SCHIFF. That is very well put, and we have seen the consequences 
of our intelligence failures. They manifest. We have seen the 
consequences of our diplomatic failures as we are seeing in abundance 
now with Iran where we just had a terrible setback in our efforts to 
mobilize the international communities to deal with Iran's weapons 
program.
  We have seen the consequences in our failure to stop North Korea from 
proliferating. But I am confident with our Real Security plan we can 
reverse the decline in our own national security, and I want to thank 
the gentleman from Maryland again for all of his great work and for 
joining this Special Order hour.
  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I thank my colleague from California.

                          ____________________