Congressional Record, Volume 152 Issue 84 (Monday, June 26, 2006)

[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 84 (Monday, June 26, 2006)]
[House]
[Pages H4545-H4552]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC POLICY

The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. McCaul of Texas). Under the Speaker's
announced policy of January 4, 2005, the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King)
is recognized for 60 minutes.
Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the privilege to address
you this evening, and I appreciate the fact that my message to you
echoes across America in this technology that we have today.
As I awaited my opportunity to address the Chair, I also reflected
upon many of the remarks that were made by my colleagues in the
preceding segment, and I would like to start out first by stating that
there were some remarks that I do agree with. I know that may seem a
bit unusual, but the objection to the proposed policy by the newly
sovereign nation of Iraq to the rejection of the proposed amnesty is
something that we stand together on, as I heard my friend Mr. Larson
say; and I thank him for raising that issue tonight.
As I think about what that means, to offer amnesty to someone for
killing Americans or killing coalition troops but not amnesty if they
happen to attack Iraqis, whatever stripe they might happen to be, and
the same administration will be making demands on us to prosecute to
the fullest extent of the law and punish American soldiers that may or
may not, but certainly today we know are accused of those kinds of
activities.
Mr. LARSON of Connecticut. If the gentleman will yield.
Mr. KING of Iowa. I would be happy to yield to the gentleman from
Connecticut.
Mr. LARSON of Connecticut. I profusely thank you and hope you will
join us in signing H.J. Resolution 90 that we have put on the floor and
we hope to bring to a vote before the 4th of July so that we send a
very specific message.
I think that is something that everyone in this Chamber will agree
with.
Mr. KING of Iowa. Reclaiming my time, I thank the gentleman; and I
will take a good look at the text of that. I know that philosophically
we do agree, and I will give it serious consideration, and that is the
spirit that we should operate in in this Chamber. I appreciate the
gentleman's work on this cause.
I do also, though, have an obligation to lay out a disagreement, and
that disagreement is with the language we

[[Page H4546]]

heard with regard to permanent bases. We know that a year ago there was
language that was inserted into the Department of Defense appropriation
bill, and this was language that I understood a year ago was introduced
by the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Murtha). This language
prohibited any of the funds from being used to negotiate for or to
establish any bases in Iraq.
Now that language was taken out in conference. It passed through this
Chamber, and no one caught it, evidently, and it was taken out in
conference, I understand, at the request of the White House, because
the President is the Commander-in-Chief. That is something, Mr.
Speaker, we didn't hear over here in the last hour, about who it is
that conducts foreign policy in America. Constitutionally, the
President of the United States has the duty to conduct foreign policy,
and he is the Commander-in-Chief of our Armed Forces.
The rest of this verbiage and rhetoric that comes out is an effort to
try to fence him in, limit his options, and sometimes make him look bad
across the globe. But the President is the one who conducts our foreign
policy, and he is the Commander-in-Chief. But the Murtha language a
year ago would have tied the hands of the President, would have tied
the hands of the Iraqis and prohibited them from even negotiating for a
temporary base, no matter how essential for the entire nation of Iraq.
Well, that language was stripped out in conference, thankfully so;
and the bill went to the President without the Murtha language. This
time, the bill came to the floor with the same language back in it
again. The language, they argue, prohibits permanent bases. But there
is nothing in that language that says permanent. It just says no money
will be used to either negotiate for or establish bases in Iraq. All
bases, no matter how temporary. Not even to talk about it.
Now we have a sovereign Iraq, with a new prime minister, Prime
Minister Maliki, and we have a new minister of defense and a new
minister of the interior, and now that they are finally standing on
their own two feet, within a matter of weeks. We are tying their hands
as well as the hands of the Commander-in-Chief, the President of the
United States, the conductor of foreign policy by Constitution, with
language in the DOD appropriation bill that says that not $1 of those
funds can be used to even negotiate for a temporary base, no matter how
desperately it might be needed by the newly sovereign Iraq.
Now, that is a shortsighted policy. That is a foolish policy, Mr.
Speaker. It is a policy that if we had followed that policy in each one
of the other conflicts we had been in, for example, we wouldn't have
bases to operate out of in Kuwait. We wouldn't still be in Germany, a
pretty handy place to have. We utilize those bases considerably in
Germany. We wouldn't be in places across the Pacific.
And, in fact, that place we finally found out was the horizon. When
the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Murtha) said that we should
immediately redeploy back to the horizon, we couldn't get him to define
what the horizon was for months. Finally, he has defined horizon. Out
on the horizon from Iraq, so you can quickly deploy in case there is a
crisis, and I don't know why you would want to let it get to a crisis
stage, but that was the strategy, and now he has said that horizon is
Okinawa. We should redeploy to Okinawa. From there, we could mount air
raids into Iraq, perhaps with some
B-52s and do some carpet bombing to teach them a lesson, I guess.
But when you are taking on a terrorist entity, you have to beat them
on the ground where they are. You can't pull out and let things brew
and then come back in with overwhelming force. The gentleman from
Pennsylvania knows that. He knows that if we ever pull out of Iraq,
they will do everything they can to make sure we don't go back for any
reason whatsoever, no matter what the consequences.
And I can tell you, Mr. Speaker, the consequences would be
cataclysmic if we pull out of there, let things fall apart, and then
the terrorists will have the very thing they were seeking to establish
in Iraq in the first place.
So the Murtha language in the Department of Defense appropriation
bill did make it through this floor in the House of Representatives. We
could have made some better decisions on that, but it will go over to
the Senate, where hopefully it will get pulled out, but I am just
confident, if that is not the case, that it will be pulled out by the
White House at their request in conference.
No president should have their hands tied behind their back and then
be drubbed here every night on the floor of the House of
Representatives and prevented from conducting his foreign policy. That
is what happened at the end of the Vietnam War, and the end of that
cost three million or more lives in Southeast Asia because this
Congress tried to tie the hands, and effectively did tie the hands, of
the Commander-in-Chief.
Now, we also hear that they are quite offended by the term ``cut and
run.'' And you can describe it a lot of ways, but I can't describe it
any better than cut and run. That is what I heard they want to do. Why
can't they simply wait for the new government of Iraq to get their feet
on the ground and establish themselves and do what they are doing,
which is taking on this enemy? They are taking out the enemy, going
into Baghdad, in some of the neighborhoods in Baghdad and cleaning
those areas out.
Now, war is never pretty. It is always ugly, and it is always costly,
and you can never measure the progress of a war by the minute or the
hour or the day. It has to be looked at incrementally. And sometimes a
battle that is lost might end up being the war that is won, and vice
versa.
We know that the writings that came from General Giap and other
commanders of the Vietnam military, they were desperate. They were
nearly ready to give up. But what gave them hope and what kept them in
that war and kept them from giving up and surrendering was the rhetoric
on the part of the left wing United States Senators and House Members.
In fact, that is something that is in Bud Day's book. Colonel Bud
Day, who is the highest decorated living American war hero, writes in
his book that the first years of his incarceration as a prisoner of war
at the Hanoi Hilton, as a prisoner of the North Vietnamese, after being
shot down over there, the first years they had to write propaganda. But
after a few years, all they had to do was quote people like Senator
Kennedy and Senator Fulbright and Jane Fonda, and, he said, pick your
House Member, that we quote as well.
That is going on in this conflict as well, Mr. Speaker, in the same
way these 30-some years later. The results are going to be different,
because the American people are not going to fall for this same
rhetoric again. They are advocating cut and run. If they would like to
describe it some other way, honestly, I would be happy to pick that
language up, too. I like to use a lot of adjectives. Cut and run is the
short term for it.
They say that 80 percent of the Iraqis want us out of there. I would
like to know more about that poll. I would like to read the question. I
would like to know who they asked. I think you could get a higher
number than that. I think you could get 99 percent of the Iraqis to
want us out of there, the same way they wanted us out of there 3 years
ago. They said so. They said, we are happy to be liberated, and we want
the Americans to go home, some day.
But not any time soon, Mr. Speaker. Not before the Iraqi people have
control of the security of their country, not before the political
solution at least gets some roots down and gets to operate. And the
President has made this clear.
But the people on the other side of the aisle would not let the
President move troops out of Iraq at a rate that he sees fit. They
always want to be a little ahead of him.
If the President says we have 150,000 troops there, and they are
thinking, well, maybe he will pull 10,000 out next month, they might
hear a rumor coming from the Pentagon, and that isn't an air-tight
operation over there either, Mr. Speaker, they might hear a rumor from
the Pentagon that we are going to move 10,000 troops back to the United
States. So people on the other side of the aisle jump to the floor, run
down here and say, I demand the President remove 10,000 troops and
bring

[[Page H4547]]

them back to the United States. And they will pound on the podium and
make that demand in the hopes it actually happens. Because then they
can stand up and say, he finally listened. He wouldn't listen for a
long time, but, finally, he listened. They want to get ahead of things
so they can declare they were the cause of those decisions.
And that just makes it harder for a Commander-in-Chief to make the
right decisions. In fact, running out front and trying to get in front
of an issue reminds me of Robespierre, who was one of the leaders in
France during the revolution, about the 1789 time period. He looked out
his window, and he said, the people are marching in the streets; I
better get in front of them and see where they are going, for I am
their leader. A few months later, Robespierre was a head shorter. I
don't know if he ever learned the lesson that you can't lead from the
rear. You actually have to have some vision of your own.
You can't get up every morning and try to decide who am I going to
attack today; who am I going to make look bad. Surely if I can pull
some people down the ladder on either side of me, I will look better,
if I can drag them down the ladder. That is the mentality that
motivates a lot of the people on the other side of the aisle.
They said that, according to the Pew Foundation, I didn't hear the
percentage, but a significant percentage had a negative image of the
United States, a negative image of the United States. Do you suppose
some of those people listen to the rhetoric on the floor of the United
States House of Representatives on a regular basis? What do they think,
the kind of message they are sending? What do they think of the United
States?
I wonder if they answered to the Pew Foundation's poll, I wonder what
the gentleman that made this argument would say if they asked, do you
have a positive or negative view of the United States?

{time} 2115

I am going to say I would expect they would have said we have a
negative view, because that is all I hear is a negative view from that
side of the aisle. I don't hear solutions. I hear negative attacks on
the White House, negative attacks on the Republicans and Congress.
Somehow they will learn how to spell Republican with four letters so
we can truly be a four-letter word, instead of this optimistic,
progressive operation that is looking for ways beyond the horizon to
make the world a better place. Then the question was from the gentleman
from Washington, Who was driving the bus when it comes to the Iraq
policy?
When you swear allegiance to uphold the Constitution, you are
supposed to understand what is in there. I need to inform the
gentleman, the person driving the bus, when it comes to Iraq policy, is
the person driving the bus when it comes to foreign policy, and the
person driving the bus when it comes to being Commander in Chief of our
Armed Forces, in Iraq, its President Bush by Constitution.
So I hope that has cleared up some of the issues here. There are no
negotiations going on for permanent bases. There would be no
negotiations going on for permanent bases. We have no permanent bases
anywhere around the globe.
We have no permanent bases here in the United States. They are all
temporary bases. They are all established for a period of time, a term
that can be agreed to by the parties involved. Sometimes it is a short
term, sometimes it is a longer term; but none are permanent. If anyone
thinks that here in the United States we have permanent bases like Fort
Hood, for example, or Fort Campbell would be another, the answer to
that is, no, they aren't permanent either. All bases in the United
States are all subject to the BRAC approach.
We voted on that, and we are closing some bases, and we are
downsizing some bases and shifting some materials around. That ought to
convince anybody in this Congress if they had ever been through a BRAC
vote and a BRAC negotiation, that there is no such thing as a permanent
base, no matter how badly Members of Congress would love to have
permanent bases in their districts, even these Members, there is not
any such thing takes a permanent base in the United States or overseas.
We are not inclined to negotiate for them, but we are inclined to
negotiate for temporary bases where they make sense and where we can
reach an agreement with the people who are the sovereign government of
each individual nation in question, including Iraq.
I would point out also that we have a neighbor to Iraq called Iran,
and this neighbor is developing nuclear capability, not just the
ability to build a bomb and detonate a bomb, but the ability to deliver
that bomb to a target site. They have said that Israel has no right to
exist, and they want to wipe it off the map.
They have named us as one of their number one enemies. So sitting
next door to Iran, with a couple of large military bases, one would
think that it would be a pretty good idea not to foreclose an option to
be able to maybe mount an operation from the very bases that we have
invested so many dollars into.
We have billions of dollars invested in Iraq. We have a tremendous
amount of blood and treasure invested there, and that investment should
return something back on it. It already has. It has returned freedom to
the Iraqi people.
If we play our cards right, and we are able to negotiate with them,
we might one day look at that and say it was a very good thing that we
stripped out the Murtha language and saved the options and the
authority of the President of the United States, who is Commander in
Chief, and who by Constitution conducts our foreign policy.
I would be happy to yield to my friend from Tennessee, Mr. Wamp.
Mr. WAMP. I thank the gentleman. I am very grateful that he has come
to the floor tonight to discuss these matters that are so important and
even to respond to some of what has already been said here tonight. I
think it is important for us, Mr. Speaker, to come and talk about what
sacrifices are made on the other side of the world on our behalf.
British philosopher and historian John Stuart Mill once wrote this
about war: he said war is an ugly thing, but it is not the ugliest of
things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling
which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. A person who has
nothing for which they are willing to fight, nothing they care more
about than their own personal safety, is a miserable creature who has
no chance of ever being free unless those very freedoms are made and
kept by better persons than himself.
Mr. Speaker, those persons are the men and women in the uniform of
our Armed Forces. One thing I know, because I respect my friends on
both sides of the aisle, is that the lessons of history, including the
Vietnam lesson, taught America to support the troops, the men and women
in uniform, regardless of how you feel about the mission, regardless of
the decisions made by the Commander in Chief who is charged, as the
gentleman from Iowa said, with making these critical decisions, duly
elected, even re-elected, in the midst of this conflict.
Supported by a majority of the American people, and making these
decisions with an all volunteer force, every man and woman in uniform,
today, volunteered to serve. I have been with our President, with tears
rolling down his face, talking about the sacrifices that these mostly
young men and women are willing to make on our behalf, knowing that
this call is a difficult call, knowing that the sacrifices are
extraordinary, and, yes, we have lost over 2,500; many, many more have
been injured.
But I have got to tell you, freedom is never free, and every time it
has been handed from one generation to the next, it has been handed by
the men and women in the uniform, and they are there making that
sacrifice for us. I want them to look back in this interactive world we
live in and see us standing behind them, not talking about leaving
early, never retreating, always finishing what we start.
Let me tell you, I saw a Democratic Senator on television this
weekend talking about what is happening in northern Africa,
specifically Somalia. You and I were in Africa together a year and a
half ago, talking about Sunni extremism that has spread around the
globe and influenced the east coast of Africa. This is not because of
what has happened in Iraq; it

[[Page H4548]]

is happening if we are not in Iraq. It is happening, and it manifested
itself on September 11, 2001, no, 1993 is when they wanted to bring
down the World Trade Center, but they didn't. Their engineering didn't
work.
Did we pay enough attention then, or the other 30 times that our
ships and our interests in hotels that we own around the world were
bombed by terrorist extremist, from radical Islam? No, we didn't pay
enough attention. We even retreated from human intelligence. We cut the
budget.
Mr. Speaker, if we are not on the offensive today, freedom is at risk
again for this generation. Man, I am glad that these men and women will
stand in harm's way on our behalf and stand in the gap. Absolutely we
hail them.
Iraq is difficult, but it is a decision that was made. Over half the
Democrats in the United States Senate voted to use force to remove
Saddam Hussein, and almost half the Democrats in this House voted to
use force to remove Saddam Hussein. They thought it was important to
remove this genocidal mass murderer, terrorist, and they said with
weapons of mass destruction.
Now, sarin gas was found again. We know he used it on hundreds of
thousands of people. We know he is a genocidal mass murderer, just like
Slobodan Milosevic was, and President Clinton chose to remove him from
Eastern Europe. But here we are today, frankly, second guessing,
instead of standing together.
I have got to tell you, I believe deep in my gut, Mr. Speaker, that
it is a matter of time till we are hit again. We cannot sleep. We
cannot rest. We must be vigilant, and the Senator was right. Now, in
northern Africa, what they are looking for is a vacuum, Mr. Speaker.
They are looking for a sovereign nation from which to operate.
You cannot convince me Iraq was not right to be a sovereign nation
from which to operate. You cannot convince me, and I am on the Homeland
Security appropriations subcommittee, been there since we created the
Department of Homeland Security. Briefed at a very high level, you
can't convince me that there were not connections with al Qaeda
operatives and Saddam Hussein.
Now all you hear about this rhetoric here is this November. It is not
about what has happened or what is happening. It is about them retaking
the majority in the Congress. So let us just call it what it is. While
I am on my feet, let me say, Mr. Speaker, that we are blocking and
tackling and trying to do the people's business in this House as the
majority. I am encouraged.
Our economic policies are working, amazingly durable economy today. I
am amazed at that growth that is taking place out there in America. I
am amazed that unemployment is this low, virtual full employment. I am
amazed that everything we have been through from Katrina and Rita to
terrorism all around, that we are still this strong, and it is because
we have enacted sound, economic policies.
Legislative line item veto passed the House last week. It is a
compromise that we know the Supreme Court, or, we believe, will uphold
this time. The President can eliminate unnecessary spending, something
the people back home continue to want from this Congress.
We also came up with a compromise for the death tax, because you
really shouldn't be taxed again when you die. Within 6 months, the IRS
shows up. This is a compromise.

We are reasonable people, but we are going to continue to press the
fundamentals of blocking and tackling and doing the people's business.
I am encouraged that there is some momentum in this House again. I am
encouraged by the leadership of this House.
I tell you what, I know this is the silly season. Next 4\1/2\ months
you will hear all kind of rhetoric and all kind of talk. But America is
too great to dumb it down to election-year rhetoric.
I have come to the House floor tonight to just try to rise above it.
I rarely do this. I have tremendous friends on both sides of the aisle
here, and I respect this institution so much. What a privilege it has
been for me to be here for 12 years.
But I have to tell you, Mr. Speaker. When the going gets tough, the
tough get going, and it is tough, if we left Iraq tomorrow with Sunni
extremism, al Qaeda, Hezbollah.
Hamas was elected in Palestine, a terrorist organization was elected
to the government, and now more people are being elected terrorists in
Somalia. Terrorism is on the rise. We are on the offensive, or we are
in retreat. Take your pick. Take your pick. You can't have it both
ways.
I am glad this President has been strong and tough and consistent.
The other people around the world are paying attention. Don't tell me
Moammar Gadhafi turned over his nuclear weapons because we weren't
strong. He turned them over because we were strong and consistent. He
did not want to be on the list of countries that we were watching
closely and concerned were aiding and abetting terrorist networks with
weapons of mass destruction. So he turned them over.
This is a strong President, exerting leadership during very difficult
times, extraordinarily difficult times. Because this war doesn't really
have a front line, and there is no one to sign a truce or a treaty with
at the end, because global terrorism now is spreading around the world
through the Sunni extremism, this makes this the toughest of all
fights.
It is the easiest to cast doubt about. It is the easiest to throw
rocks at. There will be some rocks thrown in the next 4\1/2\ months. I
think it is time for some people to come to this floor and speak out
about what is at stake. Number one, the main thing that people expect
of a President or this Congress is to protect them from threats.
If you don't think that Sunni extremism and radical terrorism is a
threat, it is why we are working so hard in the House to secure our
southern border, not come up with some notion of how to encourage other
people to come here illegally, like we got out of the other body, but
securing the other border, stopping the inflow of people into this
country that can bring damage to us and bring harm to our people.
Security is the main thing.
I tell you, in the wake of September 11, I know mistakes have been
made, but I would rather be on the offensive, fighting them on our
terms and their land rather than on their terms and our land. It really
does boil down to that.
Again, I respect everyone who comes up with their open plan, and I
believe the debate ought to come to this House for it, and we ought to
do it in a civil way. But I tell you, I believe that those people that
understand this threat and know historically what has been necessary to
deal with these threats should come down here and defend, not only the
men and women that are carrying it out, but the principle that says
sometimes freedom comes with a price.
We have got to promote our way of life around the world, not be
policemen around the world, but to promote freedom. Free countries do
not war with one another. I believe in that. I think that is a Bush
doctrine, and I believe in that. Twenty-two Arab League countries, none
of them really have our form of government.

{time} 2130

None of them really freely elect their leaders. None of them really
respect the dignity of an individual. None of them really give women
full rights and privileges. None of them really have freedom of the
press, freedom of religion, freedom of thought. Those are the kind of
freedoms that will contain and eliminate terrorism over time.
This is a bold proposition. It is a world-changing proposition. I
actually believe it is the right thing to do.
Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank the gentleman from Tennessee, and I wish to
associate myself with every remark made here in this spontaneous
demonstration of Mr. Wamp's heart and head and involvement in this big
effort that we have. I don't think it can be overemphasized, and I am
going to make it a point to go back and look at the Congressional
Record and read through those words again. Sometimes there is a gem
that shows up here on the floor; and this is something that happened
tonight, Mr. Speaker. I do greatly appreciate it.
I want to emphasize that I believe that our United States military
that is involved in this conflict, this global war on terror, it is the
very highest quality military ever sent off to war. And I don't say
that to diminish the contribution on the part of anybody, especially
the greatest generation or those wars that came behind. I say this

[[Page H4549]]

to build on top of that reputation, not diminish it.
But some of the reasons we heard from Mr. Wamp were, first of all,
they are an all-volunteer service. And not only that, they are people
that have all volunteered for this conflict, because this conflict has
gone on long enough that everyone had a chance to re up. So everybody
that is in uniform got to consider the current state of conflict
globally, and they signed back up again in numbers far larger than ever
anticipated.
They said, I am going back for a second tour, I will go back for a
third tour, I will put my life on the line, and I will certainly put it
on hold for a year or more to give the Iraqi people a chance at
freedom. Because they believe, as Zach Wamp and I believe and as
President Bush believes, that we never go to war against another free
people. Free people resolve their differences at the ballot box, not on
the battlefield. That demonstration of that has been true throughout
history, and it can be true in the Middle East as well.
I continually point out this example, and that is on 9 November,
1989, when the Berlin Wall went down, when people climbed over the top
of it and chiseled pieces of it out and broke champagne bottles on it
and families were reunited, the story in the mainstream media was all
about how families were reunited, and they seemed to think it was all a
personal thing, that now they didn't have to write letters across the
wall or maybe wave through the Brandenburg Gate at each other or go to
Checkpoint Charlie and figure out how they might get through.
No, it wasn't about that. It wasn't about that at all. It was about
the end of the Cold War. It was about the Iron Curtain crashing down
November 9, 1989, not predicted until you look back at Ronald Reagan
when he said, Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall. And the people tore
down the wall out of a desire for freedom.
That desire for freedom, once that wall went down, November 9, 1989,
within about 2 to 3 short years, freedom echoed across eastern Europe,
almost bloodlessly. And I will say virtually bloodlessly in the single
most significant historical event of my lifetime, the end of the Cold
War, Mr. Speaker. That freedom that echoed across eastern Europe for
hundreds of millions of people can be the same freedom echoing across
the Arab world for hundreds of millions of people. And that is a
formula for a final victory in the global war on terror.
But not until then. Because there is a habitat that breeds
terrorists. There is religious fanatical beliefs that their path to
salvation is in killing people who are not like them. And we are some
of their preferred targets. Wherever we are, they will attack us until
that ideology is defeated. You have got to do it boots on the ground
there, and you have got to give people freedom and hope, and that is
what we have been doing ever since September 11, 2001. The American
people have voted on that issue. They have elected their Commander-in-
Chief.
I heard these Presidential debates in Iowa. First in the Nation
caucuses and continually eight or nine and sometimes ten candidates for
the White House would get up every morning and decide what can I say to
tear down President Bush. And they would have advisory teams out there
trying to find soft spots that they could attack the President on. They
didn't stand up and debate the differences between them as candidates,
to determine who would be the nominee for the presidency. They decided
that they would line up and take shots at the President. Whoever could
be the most aggressive criticizer of the President presumably would be
the one who then won the nomination and went on to run for the
presidency and perhaps the White House.
That is when Howard Dean melted down, John Kerry emerged. The John
Kerry who stood there and said over and over again, wrong war, wrong
place, wrong time. First I voted for it before I voted against it. That
example of leadership, that gift that kept on giving, and probably the
biggest reason why we have this fine leader in the White House today is
that that gift that kept on giving kept reminding the people that there
was a stronger leader that had a clearer vision; and that has been true
in spite of relentless, relentless attacks.
My friend from Tennessee also talked about how important it is for us
to be a sovereign Nation that secures our borders; and I wish to pick
up on that subject matter, Mr. Speaker.
Because, as I watch this situation, and we knew that when we were
attacked by enemies from within, most of whom had violated our
immigration laws in one form or another, faulty paperwork or let their
visas expire, entered into the United States by a method that may or
may not have been legal, but certainly the majority of them were not
legal at the time that they attacked the United States, the 19
hijackers from September 11, tell us that if they want to come here to
do us ill, then we needed to secure our borders.
So we got busy and spent a lot of money and set up a lot of new
standards; and we have things now that are halfway in place, like US
VISIT, where we have a computer database now that tracks everybody that
comes into America, that is not quite yet tracking everybody that goes
out of America, so we don't have a balance sheet list of who is here.
We just have a list of who came. If they come back again, then we can
presume that they left and went home again and then came back again.
But, other than that, we have not caught up with US VISIT.
We set up the security in our airports where it is locked down tight.
Yes, they make mistakes and sometimes things get through. But for a
while there, you couldn't get a nail clipper onto an airplane without
them breaking off the file that you might use to clean your nails and
file them with. That is how tight it has gotten. And our matches and
cigarette lighters, things like that have been shut off of our
airplanes. So we have done a lot. We have done a lot to create a TSA
that is there protecting our airports.
And we are doing a better job at our ports. In fact, the job that is
being done at our ports is far better than the critics would have you
believe, because it has got a random and statistical selection process
of these containers that are sealed containers, and it is more
important than opening every one and looking through them to use our
resources to pick which ones to open, which ones to x-ray, which ones
to look through.

In fact, I have been the witness to some of that success as they have
gone through sealed containers in our ports and uncovered contraband
material that is in there.
But our most porous and most open vulnerability that we have, Mr.
Speaker, is the vulnerability in the 2000-mile border between us and
Mexico. Down there, when you have that kind of travel of people flowing
across the border, and I sit on the Immigration Subcommittee, and for
now 3\1/2\ years, I have heard continual testimony, nearly every week,
that deals with how many people are coming across our border. And that
number, the most consistent number that I come up with as I listen to
this testimony from border patrol officers, high-ranking officials, it
is their job to know this, and they will say that, well, that number is
perhaps four million a year coming across our southern border. Four
million. And they will testify that they stop 25 to 33 percent, a
fourth to a third of those that seek to come across our borders, which
means you have a positive opportunity, a chance, the odds are better
that if you want to come into the United States illegally across the
southern border, it is better that you make it that you don't.
We stopped, out of that four million that come across the border a
year ago, we had stopped 1,159,000. That was for 2004. For 2005, we
stopped 1,188,000 of those. Most of those were put on a bus, turned
around and taken down to the port of entry, and they got off the bus,
and they watched them walk through. Some of them got picked up within
24 hours when they came back in again.
We have a catch and release program that will stop them seven to 14
times before we adjudicate them and punish them, rather than just take
them back.
But I would be happy again to yield to my friend from Tennessee at
any time.
Mr. WAMP. I think, Mr. Speaker, in all fairness, we should point to
some successes by the Department of Homeland Security since last
September in

[[Page H4550]]

changing the policy from catch and release to catch and return. As I
tell people back home in Tennessee, that the policy really was, going
back to 1986, that you would actually release people coming across the
southern border that were apprehended, you know, pending a court date.
And there is always a chuckle in the audience because they know that
that illegal immigrant would not show up for court. And so effectively
the policy allowed them to come into this country and disappear.
But I have just got to say, the folks that I represent, and this is
really where we need to stay focused, the people back home, they know
that we have a system in this country that people who are sick can walk
into the emergency room of safety net hospitals and receive free health
care, regardless of their ability to pay, regardless of their
socioeconomic condition or even whether they are a citizen of this
country. And as long as we have that system, then that system is very
much at risk if we allow the continued increase of illegal immigration
into this country.
Now, they also say all we really care about, you people in Washington
need to know is that you secure the southern border and slow and
hopefully stop the influx of illegal immigration across the southern
border.
I had a person ask me this past Saturday, at home at a meeting, what
about the Canadian border? Well, it is important, too, but that is not
where the influx of illegal immigration is coming across. It is the
southern border.
So you have got to go, you know, the hunters go where the ducks are.
You know, if you are trying to stop the flow of illegal immigration,
you go where it is happening. And the lawless environment on our
southern border demands action.
People say, well, you can't build the Great Wall of China on the
southern border. You don't have to. In this day and age, you can put a
protective fence around your yard of your home to keep your animals
from leaving that you can't see. If you can do that, you can have the
technology with a protective barrier. Some of it is going to be a
fence, literally. Some of it is going to be the latest in technology.
But, listen, and I know the gentleman who is sitting in the Chair
tonight knows from his extraordinary service in Homeland Security, we
have not deployed the technology that we have available to us in the
area of homeland security. You talk about US VISIT. It is going fast
now. But through biometrics and the latest in technology, we are
actually going to be able to keep track of people from all around the
world. We really are.
We are almost at 300 million people in this country. But in terms of
our intellectual capability and the advancement of technology, we are
so close to being able to keep track of these people coming across the
border and also deploy systems, technologically, to detect people
coming across the border, all across the southern border.
So job one is secure that border. The other thing my people are
concerned about are illegal immigrants tapping into Social Security,
which we already know is under great stress and duress, and Medicare.
The greatest government expenses now are Social Security and Medicare.
These are guarantees to people that reach a certain age in the work
force or 65 for health care, and we cannot allow a system that invites
people into that system that haven't paid into that system.
And I have got to tell you, the legislation we see coming out of the
other body, it is a recipe for more Social Security deficits in this
country, because it will invite illegal immigrants into the Social
Security system. We cannot tolerate that. So if anybody thinks we are
heartless, we are protecting, honest to goodness, we are protecting
seniors by securing the border and not going for an amnesty plan to
blanket people into this country.
Listen, I had a young lady come up to me a few years ago, not more
than three, in Cleveland, Tennessee. She was from eastern Europe. She
came up to me; and she, too, had a teary eyed, choking voice and said,
Congressman, it took me over 5 years to become a United States citizen.
I worked an hourly job, and it cost me several thousand dollars for a
long period of time to become a U.S. citizen. And the day that I
received my citizenship, she had a real strong eastern European accent,
she said, it was the happiest day of my life. And her eyes gleamed, and
she said, please do not dishonor my commitment by granting citizenship
to people who came here illegally.
Let me tell you, that is something that is lost in this debate. What
about the people who did go through the effort to do it right? What
about the people who we, you know, we embrace immigration. The history
of this country is embracing immigration. We want people to immigrate
here; and, frankly, we want people to come here and work.
I have got to tell you, a lot of people that are coming across the
southern border are hard-working people. No question about it. But just
because they are hard-working people and just because they are
providing a benefit to us doesn't mean we have to say, okay, we are
going to stamp you as a citizen because you came here illegally.

{time} 2145

No. That doesn't mean that. As a matter of fact, that means we are
throwing the rule of law out the window. We are watering it down. Let
me tell you, once you go down that slippery slope of not honoring the
rule of law all the time, that is one of the things that on this floor
is debated and frankly in strong support for making sure that everyone
is held accountable under the rule of law and that no one is exempt
from the rule of law. No one. No Member of Congress is exempt from the
law. No one is. So why would we embrace this notion that illegal
immigration is okay and that those folks too will become citizens? No.
There is a process that you go through, and we want to honor that
process and honor the commitments made by those who came here legally.
Another tough issue, no question, and we face many. I think the
fundamentals are as challenging as they have been in 30 years right now
in this country. But as I said earlier, when the going gets tough, the
tough get going. It is time for us to step up. Every generation sooner
or later is called on to meet these great challenges, and our
generation is meeting those great challenges.
I have to say that I think the Greatest Generation, the World War II
generation, from September 11 forward is looking at our generation
saying, I will be darned, they do have what it takes. They have stepped
up. I know that a lot of people say we are the ``me'' generation and
that we are selfish. No. I see people giving back. I see a lot of our
sons and daughters, every parent of a person in our military today,
they are giving back. Our sons and daughters are giving back. They are
stepping up to meet our generation's challenge. So we have got to pull
together, Mr. Speaker.
And I thank the gentleman from Iowa for letting me weigh in.
Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I thank the
gentleman and appreciate his delivery here on the floor.
I would point out for his edification that at that town where you met
that lady in Cleveland, Tennessee, is where I believe this suit was
made. You will be glad to know that I look around to find American-made
suits, and I buy them off the rack in Denison, Iowa, and I am proud to
do it.
I appreciate that contribution to this succession here tonight as
well. And I point out also, Mr. Speaker, that it isn't just Americans
that believe this way. It isn't just Americans that concur with the
statements of Mr. Wamp and myself, but I have a survey in front of me.
That survey is of the Hispanics in America, and some of these polls are
this: that opposing increasing overall levels of immigration, overall
immigrations of immigration, legal or illegal, 56 percent of Hispanics
oppose it, and 31 percent say let us go ahead and increase the levels
of immigration. But 56 percent, a significant majority, are opposed to
increasing those levels of immigration.
Benefits for illegal aliens, 60 percent of Hispanics oppose; 20
percent support benefits for illegal aliens. And then even a guest
worker program is kind of split. It leans a little bit in favor of a
guest worker program, but it is not decidedly in favor of that.
A pathway to citizenship, Hispanics in America oppose that for people
who are in this country illegally today, 52 to 38 percent.

[[Page H4551]]

So this is not something that alienates Hispanics in America when you
stand up for the rule of law. It is one of the reasons they came here.
And they followed the law. They jumped through the hoops, and they
respect this. And they want us to honor their citizenship and support
this rule of law and also defend our border.
And the time I spent on the border, and there have been a number of
times that I have gone down and invested my time there, I sit down had
and, of course, I meet with the highest ranking people that are there,
and I see the display of all the equipment that they have and the
technology they use and the tactics that they use, and the
effectiveness that comes with that gives me a nice warm feeling.
Then I go back down there, and I sit alongside the border, and I talk
with the rank-and-file people that are the boots on the ground, Mr.
Speaker, and I listen to what they have to say. I listen to the Texas
border sheriffs, what they have to say, and the local law enforcement
along through Arizona as well, and I come up with a little bit
different picture. And that picture is, as I said earlier, 4 million
people pouring across our southern border every year; and yet if we
appropriate the funds requested by the President, it will be $8 billion
to protect our sovereign border, 8 billion. And yet the numbers of
illegal crossings are going up, not going down. The dollars' worth of
illegal drugs coming across the border are going up, not going down.
So one would think if money were the answer, if we just threw more
money at it, and we had more Border Patrol officers and we had the
National Guard down there that the border crossings would go down.
Well, they will in some areas until they retool and do their end-run
and go through the areas that are vulnerable. And the President has
said that we simply cannot stop people at the border that want to come
here for a better life. If they want jobs to provide for their
families, they are going to come. That has kind of been his answer and
it is almost the same tone. As he contends that we cannot stop people
that want to come here for jobs, I would argue that we can. In fact, of
the forces pushing on our southern border, the easiest force to stop is
the one of the honest hardworking people that just want to have a job
and a better way of life. Those are the easier ones to stop. And if we
cannot stop them, then we sure in the world are not going to be able to
stop the criminals, the terrorists, those that want to come here to do
us ill, those that are carrying $65 billion worth of illegal drugs
across our border.
That is a tremendous amount of force, $65 billion pushing against our
border and the drugs that come through there. Ninety percent of the
illegal drugs in the United States come across the border from Mexico.
Has anyone heard the Commander in Chief speak about that subject
matter? Has that been uttered in a press conference? Is it anything
that seems to be part of the lexicon or the rhetoric that comes from
the White House? And I think no. But I think that needs to be a very
big part of this debate. If we want to take a position that we cannot
stop honest people from coming into the United States, why do we think
we can stop the dishonest ones that want to come into the United
States?
And that is why I contend that the time that I spent on the border,
the time that I sat down there in the dark and listened to the illegals
unload from their vehicles that drive up near the border, get out, pick
up their backpacks and infiltrate into the United States, those that I
have seen that are crossing illegally, the things that you see in the
streets, 500,000 marching in the streets of Los Angeles with Mexican
flags, that ought to give us an image to go by. They are feeling so
confident, so self-assured, so strong that they go to the streets to
demonstrate against us, thinking that they will scare us into granting
them amnesty.
I mean, the threat of can you imagine a lawn that wasn't neatly
trimmed or can you imagine having to cook your own steaks? Some of
those things are arguments that have been made, Mr. Speaker. So I think
the American people did get a message from that. I think they
understand that there is a growing force here in the United States, and
it is growing faster than 450,000 or so a year illegals coming in,
growing faster than most realize.
Because if 4 million come in and we stop a little over 1 million and
take those physically back to the border and watch them go back through
the turnstile, some are back the next day. Some are not going back to
the border because the Mexican consulate has all of the credentials for
them to have access to our stations everywhere along the border, and
they decide which ones go back and which ones do not. Now, why do we
let the Mexican Government decide that? That is the same mentality of
one who would write into a bill that we have to go consult with Mexico
before we could build a fence on our southern border.
Now, I do not disagree with the gentleman from Tennessee. There is a
lot of technology that we ought to be using. But I am a little bit more
of a fellow that says I know what does work. We do not know that the
technology works. I hope it does, but I know what does work. And as I
sat down there on that border and I watched them catching drug dealers
and pulling 180 pounds of marijuana out from underneath the bed of a
truck and then hauling a Mexican across the border from Mexico that had
been stabbed in the liver in a knife fight that just happened while I
was there, those incidents come along so often that it is just part of
the daily life down there. And the only way that you can shut that off
with that force is to build a fence and a wall.
And I do not submit that we do all 2,000 miles all at once. I submit
that we do so where the highest pressure is, and then when they start
going around the end, extend the fence and extend the wall. But I would
put a 10-foot high chain link fence on that border. And I would put
that fence all the way. We need to define the border, and ``virtually''
does not define the border. So I would put a 10-foot high wall. I would
put razor wire on top. I would put a sign on the south side about every
200 feet in Spanish that says: Here is the Web page you can check with
your wireless laptop, how to get in connection with the U.S. consulate
and how you come to the United States legally. Go apply here. Do not be
knocking on the gate on this fence because it is not open unless you
have the credentials to come here legally.
Every nation has to do that. And as they begin to tear down that 10-
foot high chain link fence and cut holes through it and do it like I
saw them down there south of Lukeville where they had cut through the
chain link fence and chained it back up again and put a hinge in there
and a gate through our chain link fence with a double padlock on it and
a great big guard dog on the Mexican side, that is their passage into
the United States, Mr. Speaker, and it has got to be shut off. Those
are people who mean us ill will.

So I am going to submit this: this box, before I cut the notch in it,
this represents, let us say, the New Mexico, the Arizona, and the Texas
part of the border, maybe part of California. Now, just plain old
desert. We go in here to build this wall and we dig a trench through
here. This is, Mr. Speaker, the trench that one would dig. And as we
dig this trench, we build some machines up in Iowa that do a good job.
They are the kind of machines that you pull this trencher along here,
and as you do that, you pull the slipformer in behind it, and you pour
a slipformer of about a 5-foot-deep tongue down in here. And it has got
a slot in it, a notch in it. And you move along with that trencher and
that slipformer, pouring a footing for this concrete wall that goes
across the desert. A 5-foot-deep slot in it with a foundation so that
it holds the vertical wall up and it is rigid.
And then you get a footing that looks something like this. It won't
quite be above the ground, Mr. Speaker, because this area right here
would be flush with the ground. But, nonetheless, one gets the image
here that we are working with.
And then you bring in truckloads of these precast concrete panels.
These panels would be 10 feet wide, about 12\1/2\ feet tall, tongue and
groove, reinforced with steel, and you would just pick them up with a
crane. They weigh about 188 pounds, and you drop them in the slot one
at a time. The first one would go in like that. Then you pick up the
second one and you put it in like

[[Page H4552]]

this. And pretty soon we end up with a wall here that will keep
illegals out. It will keep the illegals out, and it will also keep out
the drug runners, the smugglers, the terrorists.
And this is a pretty quick operation. It is not hard to do at all.
Our little construction company, which I sold to my oldest son, could
do about a mile of this a day. Now, we are not going to be in the
business of bidding this. I want to tell you that in the beginning.
That is not my interest. I am just taking my background, Mr. Speaker,
and using it to demonstrate how simple it is to put together a design
that they are not going to get across.
Now, it doesn't mean that they are not going to have some kind of
human catapult and launch people across it or that they will not design
and build some kind of a 12-foot-high ladder. Yes, they will. But it is
not going to be that easy because we are going to put some of this wire
right on top of there called concertina wire, or razor wire. I only put
on one roll, but you could put on two or three, set that the concrete.
We can then put cameras on the backside, if we choose, or on the front
side. This would be about 100 feet inside the chain link fence. So
there would be 100 feet of no man's land that one could patrol. So they
would have to come through our 10 feet high chain link fence on the
south side with the razor wire on top of that. And they will try to do
that.
When they get to this wall, they would probably carry their 12-foot
ladder through the fence. They would put it up on top and they would
try to get over here on this side. They do not know what is over here.
They cannot see the sensors, the cameras, the vibration sensors, the
infrared, whatever is there that would trigger our warning, and that
will let the Border Patrol converge on that area.
We can shut this traffic off going across our southern border at
least 90 percent and maybe even a number approaching 100 percent if we
make a commitment to the manpower to patrol a wall like this. And it
will take far less manpower. We are spending $8 billion on our southern
border, $8 billion. That is $4 million a mile. And I would say this: if
you would pay me $4 million and say, Steve, you protect that mile, I am
going to protect that mile. There will not be a species of anything
getting across that mile if that is what my contract says.
So I will submit that the easiest way to do that with the least
amount of manpower is build a fence, build a wall. This can be
constructed for about $1.3 million a mile. One point three, when we are
spending $4 million for that mile, every mile, to wear out Humvees and
have our Border Patrol park on the X and watch people come through,
sometimes a border that is not even marked, let alone fenced. And if it
is fenced, it is not even a barrier for human beings.
We are talking about building a lot of fences along the border that
are vehicle barriers so semi-trucks full of marijuana cannot get
through and straight trucks full of marijuana cannot get through and
pickup trucks that have drugs in them, it is harder for them to get
through.
But, still, what they do is they just create burreros, pack horses,
human pack horses. So they will bring the drugs up to the border, and
if there is a vehicle barrier there, they will throw their marijuana
through, their drugs through, go through and load their backpacks up
with that, and each one of them carries 50 pounds of drugs, 25 miles
across the desert, up to a predetermined location point where they will
then take their packs and toss them in the back of the semi or the
straight truck.

{time} 2200

Some of those people then, the illegals that are carrying drugs in
that pack train, the burreros in the pack train, climb in the truck and
they go on into the United States. Some of them are continuing drug
dealers. Some are criminals, some want just an honest day's work. And
some turn around and walk 25 miles back down in the desert and pick up
another load and come back again.
When they tell us that maybe 4 million people came into the United
States, but a lot of them went back home again, some of them are going
back to get another load of illegal drugs.
That is how $65 billion worth of illegal drugs comes into the United
States, and we can't stop that if we are simply going to sit down there
and think that we are going to do this by a virtual approach to the
border. We have to do it physically. We have to stop it.
$20 billion gets wired back to Mexico out of the wages and labor that
is there. Another $20 million gets wired to the Caribbean and Central
America from the labor of the United States of people that are here. So
there is $40 billion that goes south of the board that comes off of the
labor. Out of the $75 billion worth of labor at the hands of illegal
people in the United States, most of it comes out of there. It is $40
billion going south. Additionally, there is another $65 billion paying
for the drugs that comfort north.
So we have got altogether over $100 billion being used for drugs and
the economic incentive for Vicente Fox. Over $100 billion. And what is
the next highest economic factor in the Nation of Mexico? Oil. $28
billion worth of oil. But this overall drug and human package for just
Mexico is $85 billion, nearly 3 times the value of the oil in Mexico.
So we must stop this. We must do it with a human barrier. We can do
it with this wall. We can build this for $1.3 million a mile. I will
stand with it. We will design the machines to do it. We will build it,
Mr. Speaker, and we need to stand together as a country.

____________________