[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 147 (Monday, October 1, 2007)]
[House]
[Pages H11063-H11068]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
NATIONAL SECURITY AND AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Cuellar). Under the Speaker's announced
policy of January 18, 2007, the gentleman from California (Mr.
Rohrabacher) is recognized for 60 minutes.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, tonight I'd like to share a few
thoughts about national security and about American foreign policy. We
have many challenges that confront us today, and we live in perplexing
times, but we also live in a time when there are great challenges as
well as great opportunities, as long as we, the American people, have
the courage to live up to our potential as a country that could lead
the world into a better way than we have known throughout the history
of humankind.
We are indeed in a new millennium, and this new millennium, coupled
with the technological capabilities that we have and the vast wealth
that is available to the free societies of the world today make it
possible that we can build a better world than any human being has ever
known. But, again, a lot of this has to fall back on the United States
of America and our willingness as Americans to live up to the
responsibility that we've been handed.
Ronald Reagan used to say that America has a very special role to
play in this world. He used to say that because we Americans are a very
special kind of people. We are not of one race. We're not of one
religion nor one ethnic group, but instead, we are made up of people
who come from every part of this planet and every racial background and
worship God in every way that you can imagine. And in fact, there are
many atheists who don't worship God at all and have that right, but
we've come here to live in freedom and to show the world and to lead
the world as a country that's made up of people from all over, that
lead the world toward that direction which will enable it to overcome
those trials and tribulations, those hatreds, ancient hatreds that have
plagued mankind for so long.
And yes, today, the United States is the great superpower, thanks of
course a lot to Ronald Reagan who I just talked about. The fact that
during the Cold War he was willing to act responsibly to make tough
decisions, in a way that ended the Cold War in a very real sense, he
oversaw the demise of communism in the Soviet Union. It was Ronald
Reagan who everyone knows brought down the Berlin Wall and not George
Herbert Walker Bush, George W. Bush's father.
{time} 2145
But as the Berlin Wall came down because of the policies of Ronald
Reagan, we too must make the right decisions to ensure that the
challenges that we face today are overcome in time for the next
generation to enjoy greater freedom and to free themselves from the
threats of fear that we face today. This will not happen unless we act
responsibly, unless we act with courage, but, most importantly, unless
we stand up and proclaim that, yes, we are from every nation of the
world and every race and every religion, and we are the ones who will
promote freedom and liberty on this planet. It is that alliance that we
can have with those people in every country, that we have are, as I
say, those people within our own society who can reach out to every
country with that message, that we are allied with those good and
decent people throughout the world who would stand with us to create a
world where human freedom and liberty and justice and treating people
with respect is something that is commonplace rather than the
exception.
Sometimes it's a little difficult to think of a world becoming free,
and the expansion of liberty and justice in this world, when we hear
the reports that we heard today coming out of Burma. Burma, for these
last 4 decades, has lived under tyranny, a horrible, horrible tyranny.
It has been a closed society. Burma is a country that is so rich in
natural resources that after the Second World War it was thought that
Burma would be the breadbasket of Asia, that Burma would indeed be one
of the richest countries of Asia.
Instead, Burma has sunk year after year, suffering from tyranny but,
as a result of that tyranny, its people have lived in deprivation and
in hunger and in want that was never ever thought would happen. No one
ever thought that would happen after the Second World War.
But if we have learned anything from Burma and from the other
countries that are poor today, it is that poverty is not created by too
big a population. Poverty is not created by even a scarcity of
resources, natural resources. Poverty is created because of tyranny.
Tyranny and dictatorship bring corruption and bring about a strangling
of those creative impulses within any society and those productive
people within every society that will build, that will create the
wealth necessary to uplift the people of any society. Instead,
[[Page H11064]]
tyranny drags them down, no matter how prosperous the country could be
in terms of its natural resources.
The report today is that Burma had its chance, or perhaps it still
does, but that the ruling regime, the gangsters that have run that
country for decades, have now unleashed their firepower upon the
Buddhist monks and the other people in that society who are calling for
a liberalization of the Burmese regime. Apparently, thousands of people
have been slaughtered.
In fact, an intelligence officer for the Burmese military has
defected, and he now is reporting to Western newspapers that it was his
orders, by his commanding officers, to round up hundreds, if not
thousands of monks, and put them in trucks and take them into the deep
jungle and murder them and dump their bodies in the jungle.
He could not do that, and so he defected. He grabbed his child and
ran for the border. It is time for the other military officers in Burma
and the police not just to take their children and run because they
can't obey an order, but to realize that the orders they are being
given by their generals, their so-called generals, are not lawful
orders. It is time for the army of Burma to side with the people of
Burma.
Any military leaders in Burma today who side with the people will
become national heroes and will be renowned and remembered by their
people for generations to come. They will receive the gratitude not
only of the people of Burma, but to all the good and decent people of
the world. The soldiers in Burma and the police in Burma should turn
their guns on their generals. They should side with the people of
Burma, their fathers, their mothers, their brothers and sisters who
want honest government and clean government. They should not be
slaughtering their fellow family members who want nothing more than
clean, honest, Democratic government.
The regime, as I say, is headed by what they call generals, but these
are not generals. These are gangsters who have put on military
uniforms. No Burmese soldier owes them any allegiance. These generals,
these gangsters, have sold out their country and their countrymen to
foreign interests, namely, the Chinese. Yes, the dictatorship in
Beijing is treating the government, which means the generals, in Burma
as if Burma was a vassal state of China.
In exchange for the $1.5 billion worth of military equipment that
China has given Burma, the Burmese gangsters who run that country are
permitted, the government in Beijing and the Chinese, to rape the
natural resources of the people of Burma, the teakwood, the gems, the
uranium, the rich minerals that Burma has are being taken away. They
are being eliminated from the future of the people of that country in
order to pay for the weapons that repress the people of that country.
The Chinese have demanded of the Burmese Government a facility on their
ocean so that they can be in a position to outflank India and to
interfere with the trade, ocean trade in that part of the world.
All of this is being given away by those leaders, so-called leaders
in Burma. They are giving away the rightful legacy of the people of
Burma to Chinese outsiders, gangsters in China now in league with
gangsters of Burma.
This is the type of relationship that China will have with other
countries if we permit them. And it is clear, for those of us who are
looking, that the military troops that are now shooting down those who
seek democracy in Burma would not be doing so if the Chinese would have
objected and sent any message to their Burmese stooges not to shoot and
not to commit violence against those who are peacefully advocating
change, democratic change in Burma.
Yes, they have a regime. But unlike in other countries, like we faced
in another issue which I will talk about in Iraq, in Burma, there is an
alternative. There is an alternative to the Burmese dictatorship. Aung
San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Prize winner, won with her party elections back in
the 1990s when the generals were so deluded that they believed their
own propaganda in thinking they were more popular than they were, and
they permitted a free election. In that free election, they were wiped
out.
The fact is that Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma and the people of Burma
went to polls and the people of Burma overwhelmingly supported
democratic reform and Aung San Suu Kyi. The election was, of course,
immediately discarded; the generals mobilized their troops. Aung San
Suu Kyi was sent into House arrest.
Aung San Suu Kyi, I went to Burma and met her several years ago, one
of the great heroes of our time, a saintly person, someone who is
depending on us like the people of Burma to make a strong stand. If
nothing else, the American people must let the people of Burma know
that we are on their side, and we must let the ruling junta know that
we oppose them and we oppose their oppression of the Burmese people.
This should be clear to them, and we must make sure that those
Burmese generals and those military officers who were committing
atrocities against the people of Burma realize they are not just
murdering their fellow Burmese, they are committing crimes against
humanity, and they will be followed and pursued just like the Nazis
before them, and they will be held accountable and brought to justice.
I am calling on our government to freeze any assets that any leader
of the Burmese Government might have, and our government should be
working with other governments to issue arrest warrants for any member
of the Burmese Government who travels abroad.
Furthermore, we must join with other nations and suggest that China
is not doing its part and is playing a horrible role when it comes to
freedom in Burma, as it will play the same role in the Philippines and
elsewhere as its strength as a country grows.
China has prevented the United Nations from stopping the atrocities
that are now going on, as we speak, in Burma. China has been pulling
the strings. The Burmese regime would never have opened fire without
permission in Beijing. The people of Burma should know that. The people
of the world should know that.
It is time for the people in the United States to quit closing their
eyes to the monstrous nature of the Beijing regime. Without that
regime, the Burmese dictators, the gangsters in Burma, would not be
able to succeed in holding down that population and by brutalizing
their people.
I have a piece of legislation before the Congress, and I would ask my
colleagues to join me. The legislation is H.R. 610. It is a bill
suggesting that we go on record as being in favor of boycotting the
upcoming Olympics to be held in China.
There is no reason, while China remains the world's worst human
rights abuser, and that includes Burma, I might add, the Chinese are
the world's worst human rights abuser, and why should we ever hold an
Olympics, which stands for some of the higher aspirations of humankind,
why should we ever hold an Olympics in China while it has that type of
monstrously dictatorial government. Yes, in China they not only are
involved with repressing the people of Burma, but they are deeply
involved with criminal acts against their own people, especially
against religious believers.
Isn't it fascinating that in Burma, those who would try to lead the
country to a better and more Democratic way are those Buddhist monks
who now, in a very peaceful way, have presented their case and are
answered with an iron fist. They are answered by bullets, they are
answered by brutality.
In China, it's the same. We have people of the religious faith,
whether they are Muslims in the far reaches of China or whether they
are people in Tibet, who have been so brutalized, or other religious
believers, Christians, Catholics, and, yes, the Falun Gong, the Falun
Gong who have a spiritual belief that is somewhat similar to yoga and
somewhat meditation. Yet, this very simple and pacifist religion has
been vilified by the communist party of China, and thousands and
thousands of Falun Gong practitioners believing in meditation and yoga
have been arrested. They are picked up, and they disappear.
The women are raped in prison; they are murdered. Perhaps worst of
all, when they disappear, they are sent to prisons, and now we have
reports coming out of those prisons that Falun Gong prisoners, people
who are pacifists, who are simply believing in meditation and yoga,
they are, what, they
[[Page H11065]]
are being murdered for their organ parts which are then being sold.
Sometimes they sell them to Americans who come there. Falun Gong
prisoners are killed right before a doctor, who would then remove the
cornea from their eye and sell it to people in the West who spend
thousands of dollars to get these body parts.
If there is anything more ghoulish than this, even the Nazis, I don't
think, could sink that low, but they sank about as low as one could
ever expect. But that is the type of thing that goes on today, and we
are giving the Chinese the ability to hold the Olympics, to cover up,
to put a good face on this type of monstrous regime.
It is time for the people of the United States Congress to join with
me in agreeing that as long as China is doing, number one, what it's
doing in Burma and in Darfur, where they are again behind the scenes
playing a horrible role, it is time for us to join together and say we
will not participate in an Olympics hosted by such a criminal
government.
{time} 2200
And I am happy to announce today Neil Abercrombie, my colleague from
Hawaii, has joined me in supporting this legislation.
China, of course, even beyond, if it was simply a nondictatorship,
there would be major problems with China. China is a predatory nation.
China is a nation, for example, it is a nation, as a nation state it's
huge, and it has more territorial claims than any other major power in
the world. China has been built into a huge power, an economic power,
which is now being translated into military power. Even though it has
claims against India, huge areas of India and Russia, large areas of
the ocean are claimed by China. If one remembers, it was just a few
years ago when one of our planes, our surveillance planes flying in
international waters was forced down in China, and they claimed that
their territorial waters extended way beyond anything the United States
would recognize. And all they wanted for us to get the crew back was
for us to apologize and to acknowledge that we were in their territory.
What does that mean? They would have murdered these American military
personnel in order to assert their claim to huge areas of ocean. In
fact, they claim the ocean right up to the shore line of the
Philippines. They claim the Sprattley Islands, which are only 100 miles
from the Philippines and 500 to 600 miles from China. Huge areas, as I
say, of India and of Russia.
This is a country that we have built an economy over these last two
decades, we have built from a weak country, we now have created a
Frankenstein monster. And when I say ``we,'' I mean the policies of the
United States Government have uplifted the economic capabilities of a
country that has had no liberalization, no political reform of their
dictatorial system.
We were told for 20 years, when I first got here, vote for most
favored nation status for China, because if we interact with China
economically, they will liberalize. What they need to do is, we have to
prove to them not to fear us. This is a reoccurring theme by which
people who live in democratic societies fool themselves into thinking
that the criminals who run other governments, dictatorships are in some
way motivated by the same motives that people are in free societies,
that people in free societies will fear someone, thus they will agree
to certain expenditures, military expenditures.
The Chinese know exactly who we are and who they are. The Chinese
people are not the enemy. Those people in Beijing want to hold on to
power, just as the dictators in Burma want to hold on to power. And as
we move forward and try to determine what our policy should be in the
future, let us note the policies of trying to engage China
economically, permitting huge transfers of dollars of capital assets,
of technology, of American know-how, of opening our markets, even
though their markets were closed, letting them manipulate the currency,
letting them get away with policies that shifted wealth from the United
States into China. That did not have a positive impact on their
government. Their government is still corrupt. Their government is
still a government of criminal dictators, people who oppress their
people and, as I say, are the worst human rights abusers in the world.
So first and foremost, in dealing with China, as in dealing with
Burma, we must differentiate how we treat a dictatorship and how we
treat a democratic country. Those leaders in China should not be
granted the status of acceptability that goes with hosting the Olympics
with our blessing.
Yet, we have, for the last two decades, seen an army of American
corporate leaders rushing to China to invest and build factories and in
partnership with the Chinese Government set up these factories and
create manufacturing units that sell goods back to the United States,
putting American workers out of work, selling goods back to the United
States that have such poor standards that some of them are made of
toxic material, as we've just seen with Mattel Toys, American corporate
leaders, who are looking for two, three, maybe 4 years' worth of big
profit for themselves, then they can cut and run and go off to their
vacationland homes and enjoy themselves.
Those corporate leaders have created a monster with the blessing of
the United States Government, because it's been our policy to permit
them to transfer the technology, the know-how, and the investment
dollars that were needed to build China into what it is today. And
today, the Chinese are destroying the manufacturing base of the United
States, and we have turned a blind eye to the fact that they manipulate
the currency, that they manipulate access to their markets, and that
they steal American intellectual property. We have turned a blind eye
to that, just as we have turned a blind eye to the fact that the
Chinese repress their own people.
And when you talk to these corporate leaders who've gone over there
and built this monster, created this Nazi-like government, you ask
them, they say, well, you know, when we do more and more economic
interaction, we have more business; that's what's going to create more
liberalism and reform there. How many times have we heard that? We've
been listening to that for 20 years. The first speech I heard about
this on the floor for most favored nation status for China was saying
just that 20 years ago, yet it never happens. This is called the ``hug
a Nazi, make a liberal theory.'' Just get close to them and they won't
fear you anymore.
Well, the fact is China has been getting worse since, over these last
two decades. It was Tiananmen Square that was the turning point. Up
until Tiananmen Square, there was a legitimate reason for us to try to
build the economy of China, to create closer ties, because there was an
evolution going on, both economically and politically in China. And
when it reached a point, at Tiananmen Square, you might say the tipping
point, the United States didn't stand up. The Chinese gangsters, just
like in Burma, where the military regime had to make its decision, was
it going to open fire on their own people, the Chinese Government was
facing this decision, and our government did nothing and we said
nothing.
It is my contention that had George Herbert Walker Bush, then
President of the United States, sent a message to China and to the
Chinese leaders that if you murder and try to slaughter the democratic
movement in China, we are withdrawing from our economic cooperation
that we have agreed to, they would not have done so. And I will tell
you tonight, Ronald Reagan would have sent that letter in a
millisecond. Ronald Reagan would have been told that the democratic
movement was on the verge of success, but they would be slaughtered if
they sent the troops in and they need to send a message to the
leadership of China saying that we are going to withdraw our economic
cooperation with them if they, indeed, mowed down their own people.
Reagan would have done it.
This President Bush's father did not; and thus we have had, in the
last two decades, not a transition to democracy, but only a growing of
their economy, which now gives them greater military capabilities and
gives them greater wealth from which to try to undermine the United
States.
And, again, as we look at this threat, what is really important is
the same thing that's important in Burma and elsewhere, the basic
message that we need to understand tonight, that when confronting
regimes like China and
[[Page H11066]]
Burma, and confronting radical Islam that hates America, let's remember
that it is the people who want to live decent lives and live in
democracy who are America's greatest allies. The people of China, the
people of China are the ones we must ally ourselves with. They need to
know that we are on their side. They need to know that the people of
the United States and the people of China all long to treat people
decently and to live in freedom and justice. The people of China will
be on our side if we are on their side. The people of Burma are on our
side as long as they know we are on their side. Good and decent people
throughout the world know this.
But, instead, we have been so busy building an economic
infrastructure that permits wealth to flow to China that we have not
bothered to make the demands on the government or to create, to help
create the democratic movements within China that would move their
government from within.
One example, by the way, of how we have done this is the fact that we
have built a conveyor system for trade across our oceans, especially
across the Pacific, especially from Shanghai into the ports that I
represent, Long Beach and Los Angeles. We have built, with American
taxpayer dollars, an incredibly efficient system so that American
businessmen could go and set up factories in China, manufacture their
goods over there, and ship them to the United States via a system that
we've paid for, and come into our market and undercut our own American
working people and our own American manufacturers who've stayed at
home. We built this for them.
That's why I've long been an advocate of a container fee system so
that at least, at the very least, if they're going to send containers
filled with goods here, why should we build the ports and spend
billions of dollars of infrastructure so that they can very efficiently
send containers filled with goods into our society and undercut our own
manufacturers?
I have not received the support that I believe that idea justifies.
In fact, you see people in both the Democratic Party and the Republican
Party, oh poo-pooing that as if it was a tax on the American people. We
are not charging those American manufacturers who go to China. We're
not. We are subsidizing them in their shipment of goods here to
undercut our own people. That makes no sense. But it makes sense to
those businessmen. It makes not only sense; it makes dollars for them.
And as I say, they make a really quick profit; 4 or 5 years and they're
done. They're even done with their own companies after 4 or 5 years.
But we are the ones with our manufacturing base destroyed who have to
pick up the pieces.
In my own city, in Huntington Beach, where I live, a manufacturer of
paint and coatings was the person who sold the coatings to Mattel Toys
for Barbie dolls. And in the year 2000, Mattel Toys gave an award to
this company as the number one supplier for Mattel Toys. And then
Mattel Toys sold out to the Chinese, decided to manufacture everything
in China. The Chinese came to this gentleman and said, give us the
formula for your coatings, and we will be partners. As soon as he gave
them the formula, the Chinese disappeared. They disappeared, and he was
never able to get a hold of them. And next thing you know, they aren't
using his formula. They're using lead in the formula. And my children
at home, who have Barbie dolls now, and all the other American children
who have Barbie dolls, may have been infected with lead poisoning
because Mattel Toys took the easy way out, along with the other
American manufacturers who went to China in order to not pay our own
American workers a decent wage.
{time} 2215
They want to get a 10 percent or 20 percent higher profit in China
rather than paying American workers a decent wage and having half as
much profit. Who is paying the price for us? The American people in the
end will pay the price as China grows into a massive, economic, and
military power, which goes with that.
Of course, during the Clinton years, what did we find? There was not
only technology transfer in the economic area, but they had actually
polluted our political system as well. Campaign contributions flowing
into the American political system and American missile technology
leaking out in the other direction. The scandal during the Clinton
years of American missile technology being transferred to the Chinese
through Hughes and Lorel Corporation is a disgrace. And the evidence of
Chinese influence and especially financial support during that election
makes that even worse.
But we need to make sure that we bypass our own business leaders,
bypass the leadership, the gangsters that run Beijing and Burma and
like countries, and go directly to the people throughout the world with
our message of hope, democracy, liberty, and justice. The people of
Burma and the people of China are our greatest allies. These Burmese
soldiers now have to make a decision as to whether they will fire upon
their own people. The Chinese people should not permit their children,
and they only have one child per family, to go into the military so
that it can be used to suppress their own people.
This is not unlike the war we fight today, not with Burma or China
but, of course, with radical Islam. China is not an enemy today. China
is an adversary today, a very powerful adversary. We are, in fact,
making that adversary so powerful, it's becoming frightening. But we
are at war with radical Islam. We are at war with radical Islam. And
again let me note that when I say that, I emphasize that Muslims
throughout the world who do not hate America, Muslims throughout the
world who love their faith, as they should, which it has meant very
much to their lives and over a billion people, Muslims throughout the
world who know that their prayer time and their other religious
ceremonies and beliefs have meant a lot to their life and have added
great depth to their life, those people are not our enemies. Those
people are our friends.
We believe in freedom of religion. We respect other people's
religion. We ask only that other people respect our religion. And, by
the way, our respect for religion doesn't just go to other faiths, but
it goes to people who don't believe in God at all, who don't choose to
worship.
Our Founding Fathers did not come here, as some of my conservative
friends say, to create a Christian Nation. We came here to create a
Nation where freedom of religion was respected and that we acknowledged
God but we did not in any way want to force those beliefs on those who
were nonbelievers.
It is right that the people of Islam worship the way they choose,
whether here or abroad. Those people who only want that freedom and are
willing to grant that to others are our friends. But a radical fringe
which hates everything we stand for has now arisen in the Muslim world.
Let me note that during the 1920s we had terrorists and in years past
we had terrorists who were Christians. In 1920, the biggest political
force in this country was the Ku Klux Klan. The Ku Klux Klan, as we
know, carried around banners with crosses and declaring their love of
Christianity. And the fact is that Christian churches in the South did
not condemn the Ku Klux Klan, as they should have. The good and decent
people of the American South, when they knew that these Klansmen were
murdering people, they were terrorizing the black population, murdering
them, hanging them, all kinds of torture that was going on in our
country against our own black population, the Christian people did not
stand up in those areas when they knew that the Klansmen were right
there in church with them.
Well, that was a hundred years ago. Our Muslim brothers we are
expecting to do better than we did when it came to the Klan because al
Qaeda is the Ku Klux Klan of Islam. Al Qaeda are the hate mongers. Al
Qaeda are those who would bring people who believe in God and put them
at war with one another rather than trying to bring them together in
peace and brotherhood.
In Afghanistan after 9/11, the United States went to Afghanistan and
allied itself with moderate Muslims. During the 1990s, there was a
mistake by this government just as we made a mistake with China. We
tried to work with the Taliban. In fact, during the Clinton
administration, the Taliban came into
[[Page H11067]]
being. And, in fact, it is very easy to see the historical record that
the Clinton administration reached an agreement with Pakistan and Saudi
Arabia, and our government was involved in creating the Taliban.
During that time period, I was a Member of Congress, and because I
had spent time in Afghanistan during the war against the Soviets, I
spent considerable time in Afghanistan working with those people who
would oppose the Taliban. I begged the powers that be that they support
King Zahir Shaw, a moderate Muslim, a man who was much beloved by all
Afghans, to support his return. And, instead, our government, under
Madeleine Albright and all the others of the Clinton administration,
did what? They decided to go along with the Saudis and to go along with
the Pakistanis in creating a religious force, that they said because
the people of Afghanistan are devout, this is what will draw them
together, by supporting religious fanatics.
I told them at the time it was ridiculous. I told them that it would
backfire on them during the war with the Soviets. The Pakistanis had
passed on aid to Hikmatyar Gulbadin, a horrendous terrorist who was,
again, a radical Islamist. But there were many others whom we helped
during the war against the Soviets. I was there with them. And whether
it was Abdul Haq or Commander Massoud or others like them, there were
many others, Galani's forces and others, who were very, very mainstream
Islamic people who were not anti-Western but were just trying to free
their own country from the atheistic dictatorship of the communists,
and we helped them. But after that, as we walked away, when the Soviets
walked away, we made this deal with the Saudis and with the Pakistanis
to let them finance the reconstruction and determine who would be in
power in Afghanistan, and that is when the Taliban was born, as I say,
at that time over my serious objections, and I spent 5 years going in
and out of Afghanistan meeting with those people who would later become
the Northern Alliance.
So as we look back on Afghanistan now, years after the Taliban has
been defeated and al Qaeda was driven out of that country, let us
remember the success that we had was because we went to the people.
There is a mistaken belief that we are not ``winning'' in Iraq
because we didn't have enough boots on the ground. We didn't send in
enough American troops. Well, in fact, we had probably 100 boots on the
ground when Kabul was liberated from the Taliban and al Qaeda forces in
the aftermath of 9/11. In fact, that liberation of Afghanistan was
accomplished with very few American soldiers on the frontlines. In
fact, the people of Afghanistan liberated themselves, and we did not
liberate them. And we went into that war, and we reached agreements
with those leaders, tribal leaders. They are often called warlords, but
that was the Northern Alliance. And it was the Northern Alliance and
those good people in Afghanistan who worked with me in the Mujahideen
to fight against the Soviets. Those are the people who drove out the
Taliban.
When we went into Iraq, it was a different story, unfortunately.
Mistakes have been made, yes. Mistakes have been made in Iraq. There is
no doubt. We sent in a military force, a strong military force, and
they did their job. What did not happen was the political job that was
necessary to complement the fact that we had dispossessed Saddam
Hussein of his military might. Instead of making agreements as we did
in Afghanistan with the tribal leaders, we did not, as we did in
Afghanistan, reach out to the local powers that be that were moderate
Muslims, and there are many moderate Muslims in Iraq. What we instead
did was tell the people of Iraq that we were going to rebuild their
entire country and that, for example, there would be no room. Mr.
Bremer is quoted as saying to tribal leaders that there would be no
room in a modern democratic Iraq for tribalism. Thus in our effort to
make the decision for those people, rather than going to the people and
their leaders ourselves, we have put ourselves in what has been a
horrific quagmire.
How we extricate ourselves from Iraq will go a long way in defining
what type of world my children live in and, in fact, what kind of world
the young people who are with us today will have. If we try to pull out
precipitously and look like we are running away, if we look like we are
surrendering, if it looks like we have been defeated, we will embolden
those people in Iraq who hate everything about the United States, and
we will embolden the radical Islamists throughout the world. There is
no doubt about that. That is not to say, again, that we should not be
admitting our mistakes and doing what we can to extricate ourselves in
a responsible way. That is why I have been supporting General Petraeus
and his efforts to have a phased withdrawal, a responsible phased
withdrawal, that will then permit those elements within Iraq that do
not want to be ruled by radical Islam or those elements that would like
to be friends of the West to give them a chance to step up. If we are
viewed as retreating and abandoning those people, there will be a heavy
price to pay.
And let us admit that with the mistakes that I have already
mentioned, it is a tempting target for people involved in our political
system to use what is going on in Iraq as a political vehicle in the
upcoming elections.
Now, the people here in Congress, we have to search our souls to make
sure what we are doing is based not on political motives but instead is
based on what is the long-term interest of the people of the United
States.
I go down and welcome home the troops, the reservists and National
Guard, all the time that come in and out and leave Iraq or are coming
back from Iraq, and I welcome them back, and I know, because I have
supported this effort, that I must pay special attention. But let us
note that we have to be doing this and looking at this and analyzing
what is happening in a nonpolitical way. I am afraid that there are
some forces at play that would try to politicize what is going on in
Iraq.
Those people who oppose our efforts to have a phased withdrawal,
would like immediate withdrawal from Iraq, those people who see America
as the big problem in the world instead of as the world's only hope,
those people cannot attack American soldiers because they realize that
all Americans are proud of the men and women who are defending our
country in uniform. But what we are witnessing now is what I would
consider a maneuver on the part of those who, if they could, would
attack American military troops. What they are doing is attacking
American security companies who have been brought to Iraq to try to
supplement our war effort there. By and large these American security
companies are made up of people who have perhaps 10 times the
experience of our own soldiers. American security companies like
Blackwater, for example, hire on special forces and other
extraordinarily well-trained American military personnel when they
retire from the military so that their skills can still be put to use
in the defense of our country and in the promotion of human freedom.
{time} 2230
Their personnel are essential to the success of any of our military
goals, but they're also essential to the success of a phased pull-out
of Iraq. Otherwise, there will be no buffer. Otherwise, there is no
means for us to have the type of withdrawal with success. Otherwise, it
is a retreat.
Blackwater, as I say, has been working now, I think, since 1997. It's
run by a young man named Eric Prince. He inherited his money. And the
fact is he could have done a lot of other things with his money and
made a lot more money. He could have gone to China and made 10 times
the profit that he makes by creating a security company that would work
side by side with American forces and American diplomats overseas to
try to offer protection to our country and to those State Department
and other people who are working in the United States Government
overseas. He could have gone and made much more money.
Instead, now he's being called, I've seen him called ``murderer,''
I've seen the people in Blackwater being called ``thugs,'' when in fact
almost every one of these people who work for Blackwater, like Eric
himself, are former Special Forces people. Eric was a Navy SEAL for 5
years. And then, rather than just living the life of luxury that he
could have done when he
[[Page H11068]]
inherited his money, he decided to do something good for his country.
Those people who are retiring from our military and have good pensions,
yes, they could live the life of Riley; they could go fishing every
day. But, instead, they are putting their skills to use by putting
their lives in danger for us. Yet, they are being attacked unmercifully
by people who just basically oppose the fact that this President got us
involved in Iraq in the first place.
We should not be taking it out on the people of Blackwater. Those men
and women who are in Blackwater are very honorable people. And not to
say they haven't made some mistakes, just as our own military personnel
have made mistakes; but, in fact, Blackwater probably has a better
record than our own military because they are, as I say, they are
people with vastly more experience than that of our own soldiers and
sailors and airmen.
So tomorrow there will be a hearing on Blackwater. I would hope that
Blackwater and the people of Blackwater, those people who have made
enormous contributions to the safety and security of our operations in
Afghanistan and in Iraq, that they are not brutalized, that they're
treated fairly, and that we do not permit the politicalization of this
fight with radical Islam and this effort that now goes on in Iraq to be
used in a way that will, number one, hurt brave people who are risking
their lives for us, but at the same time, undermine our efforts for the
long-term security of our country so that we will have a phased
withdrawal that will give the good people of this world a chance.
We need to give the people of Burma a chance. We need to give the
people of China a chance. We need to give the people of Iraq a chance.
They are our greatest allies.
The people of the world who would live in democracy and see America
as a positive force and, fortunately, many of them see America as a
positive force, yet many people here in the United States for some
reason do not share that opinion of their own country and believe that
the United States is a negative force in the world. And that's what
motivates many of them in their actions when it comes to Blackwater and
it comes to this war.
Finally, let me note this: this President has made a lot of mistakes.
And I have supported the President when he has been right; I have been
opposed to him when he's wrong. This President seems to be headstrong,
and I think that's a pleasant way of putting it. That does not mean
that all the decisions that he has made have been wrong. We need to
support him when he's right; we need to try to work with him and try to
steer American policy when he is wrong. The idea of a phased withdrawal
from Iraq is right.
But this President did not get us in this war with radical Islam.
This war that we are in with radical Islam was created in the previous
administration. We need to document that. It needs to be documented
what the policies of the Clinton administration were towards the
Taliban. I will be giving a speech in the next few weeks again
detailing that, about how I pled, as a senior member of the
International Relations Committee, for the documents from Madeleine
Albright to prove what our policy was towards the Taliban; why it was
that we were giving our foreign aid to the Taliban in radical Islamic
areas of Afghanistan and giving short shrift to Commander Massoud and
the pro-Western Muslims in Afghanistan.
We need to document these things. We need to document whether or not
bin Laden was someone who could have been handled, if we were
courageous enough to do it, 5 years, 10 years before 9/11.
We know now that some of the documents that the 9/11 Commission was
supposed to read were not available to them. We had a commission that
went to study why we had 9/11, but yet we know today that the National
Security Adviser to President Bill Clinton stole documents out of the
National Archives to prevent that commission, the 9/11 Commission, from
seeing certain information that would be relevant to the war on
terrorism. Part of his agreement, Sandy Berger, the National Security
Adviser to President Clinton, when his theft was discovered, he
volunteered, as part of his plea agreement, to give a lie detector test
to the Justice Department if so requested to determine exactly what
were the documents that he stole from the National Archives.
At the beginning of this year, a majority of Republican Members of
this body signed a letter to the Justice Department, under the
leadership of Tom Davis, asking the Justice Department to give that
polygraph test, after so many years, I think it's been 4 years, it
could be 3. For 3 years Sandy Berger has not been given the polygraph
test to see exactly what documents he stole from the National Archives.
It is time for the American people to demand that we know what caused
9/11, and we will not know that until Sandy Berger, the National
Security Adviser to the Clinton administration, is given a polygraph
test, which won't happen until the Department of Justice gives that
polygraph test and demands it.
Today, I am calling upon the new Attorney General to put Sandy Berger
on the line, to give him a polygraph test and determine what documents
he stole from the National Archives and to give us a full accounting of
what led up to 9/11, what happened during the Clinton administration
that was so heinous that Sandy Berger, the National Security Adviser to
the President, would risk everything, would risk his reputation and go
into the National Archives and steal documents.
Could it be that during the Clinton years that, for example, there
was evidence of technology transfers and Chinese involvement in our
political system? Could it be that a Gorelick memo, who at that time
the lady was an important player in the Clinton administration, she had
a mandate that domestic and international intelligence groups and law
enforcement could not work together, could that have something to do
with a Chinese connection?
What did Sandy Berger steal from the National Archives? We need to
know. We should not be ignored. If this was a Republican, I can tell
you that every newspaper in the country would be clamoring until we
found out exactly what documents were stolen from the National Archives
by the President's National Security Adviser.
So, tonight, I hope that my colleagues would join me, number one, in
telling the people of Burma we're on their side; and joining me in
calling for a boycott of the Beijing Olympics; of supporting a phased
withdrawal, responsible withdrawal from Iraq; supporting our people
both in uniform and in our protective companies like Blackwater, making
sure we do not mistreat them; and finally, join me in calling for the
truth in what Sandy Berger, the National Security Adviser for Bill
Clinton, stole from the Archives. He needs to be given his polygraph
test. The Justice Department needs to act.
So with those requests for my fellow colleagues, I now yield back the
balance of my time.
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