[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 153 (Wednesday, October 10, 2007)]
[House]
[Page H11469]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




THE FIFTH ANNIVERSARY OF ONE OF THE MOST TRAGIC DECISIONS EVER MADE BY 
                      THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from New York (Mr. Hinchey) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. HINCHEY. Madam Speaker, this date, October 10, 2007, marks the 
fifth anniversary of one of the most tragic decisions ever made by this 
House of Representatives. It was a decision that was also followed in 
the same way the following day, October 11, 5 years ago, by the United 
States Senate. That decision was based upon a request by this Bush 
administration to authorize the military invasion of the sovereign 
nation of Iraq. And that request by this administration and the 
subsequent authorization by this Congress was done based upon false 
information which was presented by various members of that 
organization.
  After the attack of September 11, 2001, which was carried out by the 
al Qaeda network, this administration began to press the idea that Iraq 
was involved in that invasion. They began to try to manipulate the 
intelligence that was presented by our legitimate intelligence 
agencies. They began to press various parts of those intelligence 
operations to try to get them to provide some information upon which 
they could somehow justify the idea that Iraq was involved in that 
attack of September 11, 2001. That never really happened. The 
legitimate aspects of our intelligence agencies never produced that 
information.
  Nevertheless, this administration provided that form of intelligence 
in an internal way within their own operation, evidence that they used 
to suggest initially that there was a relationship between Iraq and the 
attack of September 11th. They then began to make allegations that Iraq 
was a very dangerous country and we needed to engage them in a military 
invasion, and that military invasion was necessary based upon their 
assertion that Iraq possessed substantial amounts of so-called 
``weapons of mass destruction.'' They were alleging biological and 
chemical weapons. Those allegations, of course, were based upon the 
fact that the first Bush administration and the Reagan administration, 
back in the 1980s, had, in fact, provided biological and chemical 
weapons and other forms of weaponry to the Iraqi Government of Saddam 
Hussein. They believed that perhaps some of those weapons were still in 
existence in Iraq in spite of the fact that they were told over and 
over again that that was no longer the case. So they continued to press 
the idea that we should justify the invasion of Iraq. Unfortunately, 
the majority of the Members of this House and the Senate apparently 
bought into that idea and voted to authorize that invasion.
  Those of us who voted against it had access to information that 
everyone should have had access to, I believe that most people did, 
that there was no connection between Iraq and the attack of September 
11; that whatever chemical and biological weapons had been sent into 
Iraq in the 1980s were no longer there; and that there was no 
justification for the assertion that was made by many members of this 
administration, including the President himself, that Iraq was engaged 
in the production of nuclear weapons.
  On October 7, just several days prior to the vote here in the House 
of Representatives, the President made a speech in Cincinnati, Ohio. 
That speech, in part, was in response to growing evidence that there 
were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. President Bush, like other 
members of his administration, Donald Rumsfeld, Vice President Cheney, 
and others, used the phrase ``mushroom cloud.'' He said, ``You do not 
want the evidence of weapons of mass destruction to be in the form of a 
mushroom cloud.'' That, of course, was designed to create that image in 
the minds of the American people that we were confronting a nation that 
was likely to use nuclear weapons against our country and against 
others, all of which was completely false.
  So we know now that all of the justification for that invasion was 
false, and this Congress now has the responsibility to engage in 
actions to correct it. We need to set a specific date for the 
withdrawal of our military forces from Iraq. We also need to take 
action for a specific provision which will deauthorize that invasion 
which was authorized on October 10, 2002. We need to do that as soon as 
possible.

                          ____________________