[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 195 (Wednesday, December 19, 2007)]
[House]
[Page H16915]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           THE PURPOSE OF GOVERNMENT IS TO PROTECT THE PEOPLE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Poe) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. POE. Mr. Speaker, the purpose of government is to protect the 
people. It is a very simple but yet fundamental principle of the United 
States Constitution.
  Our Federal Government has to protect us from enemies from abroad, 
and our government does a good job of doing that. Our government also 
has the secondary responsibility to protect citizens in our country, 
and our government does a fairly good job of that.
  But there is a unique problem where our government seems to be 
lacking, and that's protecting citizens that are working overseas for 
American contractors against other American citizens who commit crimes 
against them.
  Today, Mr. Speaker, in the Judiciary Committee, a brave young lady 
came and testified about what happened to her, an individual by the 
name of Jamie Leigh Jones from my congressional district down in Texas.
  As a young 20-year-old she went to work for KBR Construction Company 
overseas in Iraq. She was there just a few days when she was sexually 
assaulted by several individuals. After she was assaulted, Army doctors 
intervened and treated her initially for her medical injuries, which 
were devastating. The medical doctors took and prepared a rape kit, as 
is supposed to be done in cases like a criminal investigation, and for 
some reason, they never turned that rape kit over to the Federal 
Government, to the Justice Department, to the FBI. They turned it over 
to the company, and it has subsequently been damaged and destroyed.
  After Jamie Leigh Jones was sexually assaulted, she was imprisoned as 
a hostage in a trailer, as she says, where she was not allowed to 
leave, was not allowed to eat or drink water. She frantically was able 
to find a cell phone that one of her guards let her borrow. She called 
her father in Texas, and he called me. And within 48 hours the State 
Department had dispatched two agents from Baghdad Embassy, found Jamie 
Leigh Jones, rescued her, and brought her back to the United States.

  We would hope, then, that our government would continue this 
investigation to find the rapist who committed this crime against Jamie 
Leigh Jones.
  This occurred in the year of 2005, and for these 2 years we have 
heard blissful silence from the United States Justice Department on 
what they are doing, if anything, to find these criminals who committed 
this crime.
  After Jamie Leigh Jones has now come public with this, my office has 
received numerous phone calls from other workers who were contract 
workers, civilians, all females who were assaulted while working in 
Iraq who are now coming forward to tell their stories. And in their 
case, like Jamie Leigh Jones, nobody has been prosecuted and held 
accountable for the crimes committed against these women, these 
American citizens, these American patriots who are working overseas 
with our military, but yet crimes are being committed against them. And 
there is silence from the Justice Department about what is being done, 
if anything.
  It seems to me, Mr. Speaker, that Iraq and what has taken place 
against civilian workers is reminiscent of the days of the Old West, 
the Wild West, where crime was committed and no one was held 
accountable for their conduct.
  There are hundreds of Department of Justice officials in Baghdad 
doing all kinds of things. Why aren't they investigating crimes against 
civilian workers that are being committed by other Americans? We don't 
know the answer. It's important that our government fulfill its first 
duty to its people, which is to protect them, and when crimes are 
committed against American civilians by other Americans in foreign 
lands, where we have jurisdiction in the green zone of Baghdad, that 
our government be relentless in bringing those people, those criminals, 
to the bar of justice and put them in jail rather than remain silent 
and not responding at all to these crimes.
  So I would hope, Mr. Speaker, as this year ends and the next year 
begins that our Federal Government, our Justice Department, has a 
renewed interest in the Americans that are overseas. More Americans are 
serving in Iraq that are civilians than are serving in the military. 
And we know that crimes are being committed against them. It's 
important that those criminals be brought to the bar of justice and 
held accountable in a public trial because, Mr. Speaker, justice is 
what we do in America.
  And that's just the way it is.

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