[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 79 (Thursday, May 21, 2009)]
[House]
[Pages H5986-H5987]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         THE WAR AGAINST TERROR

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Madam Speaker, President Lincoln said, ``Let 
the people know the facts, and the country will be saved.''
  Today, I listened to former Vice President Cheney give the facts to 
the American people about the war against terror. I think my colleagues 
who didn't get to hear it today really ought to hear some of the things 
that he has said that were very, very important and relevant to the war 
against terror.

                              {time}  1830

  So I would like to read a few excerpts from his speech tonight so I 
hope my colleagues will take these to heart and hopefully put them on 
their Internet sites.
  First of all, he said, ``I was and remain a strong proponent of our 
enhanced interrogation program. The interrogations were used on 
hardened terrorists after other efforts failed. They were legal, 
essential, justified, successful and the right thing to do. The 
intelligence officers who questioned the terrorists can be proud of 
their work and proud of the results, because they prevented the violent 
death of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of innocent people.
  ``Attorney General Holder and others have admitted that the United 
States will be compelled to accept a number of the terrorists here, in 
the homeland,'' in America, ``and it has even been suggested U.S. 
taxpayer dollars will be used to support . . . '' the terrorists here 
in America.
  ``The administration has found that it's easy to receive applause in 
Europe

[[Page H5987]]

for closing Guantanamo. But it's tricky to come up with an alternative 
that will serve the interests of justice and America's national 
security.
  ``Now the President says some of these terrorists should be brought 
to American soil for trial in our court system. Others,'' he says, 
``will be shipped to third countries. But so far, the United States has 
had little luck getting any other countries to take hardened 
terrorists.''
  I think only one of them has been given to another country.
  He says, ``The administration seems to pride itself''--the Obama 
administration ``seems to pride itself on searching for some kind of 
middle ground in policies addressing terrorism. They may take comfort 
in hearing disagreement from opposite ends of the spectrum. If liberals 
are unhappy about some decisions, and conservatives are unhappy about 
other decisions, then it may seem to them that the President is on the 
path of sensible compromise. But in the fight against terrorism, there 
is no middle ground, and half-measures keep you half exposed. You 
cannot keep just some nuclear-armed terrorists out of the United 
States, you must keep every nuclear-armed terrorist out of the United 
States. Triangulation is a political strategy, not a national security 
strategy. When just a single clue that goes unlearned, one lead that 
goes unpursued can bring on catastrophe--it's no time for splitting 
differences. There is never a good time to compromise when the lives 
and safety of the American people are in the balance.''
  He went on to say, ``It is much closer to the truth that terrorists 
hate this country precisely because of the values we profess and seek 
to live by, not by some alleged failure to do so. Nor are terrorists or 
those who see them as victims exactly the best judges of America's 
moral standards, one way or the other. Critics of our policies are 
given to lecturing on the theme of being consistent with American 
values.
  ``But no moral value held dear by the American people obliges public 
servants to sacrifice innocent lives to spare a captured terrorist from 
unpleasant things. And when an entire population is targeted by a 
terror network, nothing is more consistent with American values than to 
stop them.
  ``Somehow, when the soul-searching was done and the veil was lifted 
on the policies of the Bush administration, the public was given less 
than half the truth. The released memos were carefully redacted.'' They 
crossed things out ``to leave out references to what our government 
learned through the methods in question. Other memos, laying out 
specific terrorist plots that were averted, apparently were not even 
considered for release. For reasons the administration has yet to 
explain, they believe the public has a right to know the method of the 
questions, but not the content of the answers.''
  And the bottom line, Madam Speaker, is our intelligence agencies have 
done a great job in protecting this country for the past 8 years ever 
since 9/11. We should not be hamstringing those, and today I think 
former Vice President Cheney really told the story the way it ought to 
be told, and I hope all of my colleagues and every American is paying 
attention.

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