[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 154 (Tuesday, November 30, 2010)]
[House]
[Pages H7743-H7749]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   THE STATE OF OUR NATIONAL SECURITY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 2009, the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Franks) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Mr. Speaker, I know that it comes as no 
surprise to this House that I have been one very critical of this 
administration's policies on a number of different fronts, and I 
suppose that will be no different tonight. But Mr. Speaker, I guess I 
wanted to start out tonight by addressing the WikiLeaks issue. I know 
that a lot of people across America have looked upon this with 
interest, and I guess it's significant in my mind that what we've seen 
on the WikiLeaks issue is really more confirmatory than it is anything 
that's informative. In many ways what the WikiLeaks information has 
demonstrated is that this administration has practiced for a long time 
a foreign policy of appeasement, and I think it has been a disaster for 
our country, Mr. Speaker.
  I suppose it goes without saying that the most pressing question is 
how a 22-year-old private first class in a remote location in Iraq 
could have gained access to so many of these documents, especially 
since they are far outside his scope of responsibilities. It 
represents, really, a glaring failure on parts of the State Department 
and even some parts of the Defense Department. And some of these 
commonsense security measures could have been implemented prior to 
this. The Pentagon has since announced that it will be implementing new 
policies, including a technology that makes it impossible to copy 
classified documents to portable storage devices. Now the fact is that 
it has taken too long for such a commonsense policy to sink in, and 
this administration certainly had lead time to consider this long 
before now, but I guess it is, in a sense, indicative of why 
bureaucracies are so inefficient most of the time. It took the leak of 
hundreds of thousands of sensitive documents before this government 
decided to get up to speed with the unique risks posed by one of the 
most basic modern conveniences, that being the computer.
  Private Bradley Manning, the U.S. Army soldier suspected of leaking 
the documents, and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange hid behind the 
claim that the government's so-called ``lack of transparency'' is 
unjustified. This is their main reason for justifying their own 
actions, Mr. Speaker. Unfortunately, in that process they have provided 
a wealth of aid and comfort to groups that are at war with the United 
States of America. Of course Mr. Assange claims to be fighting for 
truth and transparency. The reality is that his desire to promote 
himself has outweighed his concern for scores and perhaps hundreds of 
innocent lives that he has endangered with his reckless publicity in 
this kind of a stunt in the guise of some greater cause.
  But Mr. Speaker, it's telling that the foreign media sometimes is 
almost more comforting to justice than the American media sometimes. 
The American media willingly complied in disseminating this information 
and they are complicit, in my judgment, in any harm that will come to 
American servicemembers or American personnel across the country as 
well.
  Just to give you an example, Mr. Speaker, the same New York Times 
that was reticent to cover the story that's often referred to as 
``Climategate'' willingly ran the WikiLeaks cover story on the front 
page of their newspaper. Now this is a hypocrisy, Mr. Speaker, that I 
think is absolutely astounding. In other words, just to put it in 
perspective, I will just read what one of the bloggers there of The New 
York Times said. Andrew Revkin of The New York Times, he is actually a 
reporter, was one of the first ones to cover Climategate. And in his 
first story only a matter of a few hours after Climategate's blog 
posted, in his story he states, ``The documents''--this is the 
Climategate documents, Mr. Speaker--``appear to have been acquired 
illegally and contain all manner of private information and statements 
that were never intended for the public eye, so they will not be posted 
here.'' Well, how gallant, how noble of Mr. Revkin to want to protect 
some of his perhaps liberal friends from being exposed in some of the 
over-hyped notion of global warming, but yet when people's lives are at 
stake, when American national security is at stake, then all of a 
sudden The New York Times is all too willing to publish the WikiLeaks 
information in the interest of full disclosure and grand journalism, 
and I find that unbelievable, Mr. Speaker. If the Times reporters had 
felt such urges of chivalry when it comes to protecting the men and 
women who give up their lives so that we can all sleep peacefully at 
night, it's just a strange time for them to do that. And to cap it all 
off, Mr. Speaker, it is rumored that the leading candidate for Time 
magazine's ``Man of the Year'' now is none other than WikiLeaks' Julian 
Assange.
  Mr. Speaker, before I yield to one of my colleagues here, I would 
just like to say that, unlike authoritarian regimes across the world, 
democratic governments like ours hold secrets largely because citizens 
agree that they should in order to protect legitimate policy and 
national security. But this massive breach of our national security has 
endangered our ability to build trust and cooperation with our allies, 
it has certainly not served the public's interest, and most of all, it 
has strengthened and emboldened our enemies. Mr. Assange and WikiLeaks 
should be profoundly ashamed, and I think they should be pursued with 
whatever legal actions can be brought, and of course The New York 
Times, for their complicity in this effort, should be ashamed beyond 
measure.
  With that, I would like to yield to my good friend, Congressman 
Lamborn from Colorado, to see if he has any thoughts.
  Mr. LAMBORN. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Let me point out that, to its credit, The Wall Street Journal did not 
accept

[[Page H7744]]

the offer to disseminate these WikiLeaks latest round of documents from 
the diplomatic arena, and I think that that is to their credit. 
Unfortunately, The New York Times did not have the same scruples, which 
is extremely disappointing to me.
  Representative Franks, as we look at some of the reports of what were 
contained in these diplomatic leaks, there are some really troubling 
national security implications that arise. One is that we find, for 
instance, that it is confirmed that Iran has received 19 advanced 
missiles from North Korea. Now we have long suspected that there have 
been ties on a covert basis between those two countries, we have some 
evidence of that; this just makes it more of a glaring issue. And our 
administration needs to be doing more, not just to stop WikiLeaks in 
the future from revealing our national secrets, but in stopping Iran 
and North Korea from the propagation of deadly nuclear and missile 
technology that they seem to be doing. The fact that Iran has received 
19 advanced missiles from North Korea, each of which is capable of 
reaching Western Europe or even Moscow, is very troubling to me. These 
are our NATO allies that we are bound to defend if they are attacked, 
and I don't think our administration is doing enough to stop the 
propagation, the dissemination of deadly technology from North Korea to 
other countries.
  When we are done talking about WikiLeaks, Representative, I would 
like to make sure we talk more about some of these national security 
implications as well.
  I would like to yield back at this time.
  Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Well, thank you, Mr. Lamborn. It is my 
judgment that this would probably be a good time to transition to that. 
And we would also like to hear from Congressman Steve King from Iowa. 
Steve, do you have any thoughts about this? Because some of these 
national security issues I know Doug and I are kind of obsessed with 
them--for good reason, but we know that they care about national 
security in Iowa as well.

                              {time}  2100

  Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank the gentleman from Arizona for yielding and 
for managing this Special Order here tonight and for bringing this 
issue, Mr. Speaker, before the American people.
  This is a critical national security issue. And I'm so grateful that 
we have individuals here in this Congress, as intended by our Founding 
Fathers, that focus on a variety of issues that could clearly see and 
be focused on the intelligence that can bring this before the American 
people in such a way that they can understand, Mr. Speaker, that you 
will turn your focus hopefully on this subject matter.
  There has been a lot of discussion across the country now and in the 
news media about the WikiLeaks issue. And I look at this, and I think 
Julian Assange, an Australian citizen, a person who made his living as 
a hacker, a person who is proud of being able to crack anybody's 
security code and get in there and pull that information out and then 
dump it into the public arena, into the public media sphere. For what 
purpose? What possible constructive purpose could be achieved by an 
individual who is a product of Western civilization pouring forth state 
secrets from Western civilization itself? It has to be for either self-
aggrandizement, for that or the combination of undermining Western 
civilization. An enemy, an enemy of the things that we believe in.
  And I don't stand here with the intent to indict the Aussies. I love 
the Australians. They are a free spirited, strong free market, free 
will group of people. They had to also take a continent and settle a 
continent about the size of the United States itself and make a living 
down there in an environment that's sometimes beautiful and sometimes 
harsh. They have a spirit of their own. They remind me that in every 
conflict that the United States has been in they got there first, and 
some of them they've been in all of them. It's a pretty good thing to 
say about the relationship between the United States and Australia.
  There's not much to say about their citizen--whom I wish today were 
an American citizen, and at that point I think he might be subject to 
charges of treason against the United States.
  So as I listened to the speakers here, I reached into my dog-eared 
Constitution and took up this definition, the constitutional definition 
of treason, and it says--and I know that some have called for charges 
of treason to be brought against Mr. Assange. I know they apply to an 
American citizen. But this says, Article III, section 3: Treason 
against the United States shall consist only in levying war against 
them or in adhering to their enemies--which certainly al Qaeda and the 
Taliban and the enemies of the terrorists who are lining up against us 
are our enemies--and giving them aid and comfort, giving aid and 
comfort to the enemies.
  Well, Mr. Speaker, I think it's a subject that we wouldn't have much 
debate on here in this Congress that Mr. Assange has given aid and 
comfort to the enemy. He's empowered the enemy. He's put Americans at 
risk. He's put the allies of Americans at risk. And in this precarious 
situation around the globe, in this geopolitical-military-economic 
chess game that goes on constantly on the entire planet, he's taken 
away some of our advantage and he's given it to our enemies.
  And I wish and I hope that there's a way that we can find a way to 
prosecute a man like that, that we can protect ourselves. And if we 
fail to do that, or even if we're successful in that and it exposes 
some other vulnerabilities, I suggest, Mr. Speaker, that this Congress 
take a look at some new legislation, a new structure of law, that's 
really not brought about because of the actions of Mr. Assange but 
brought about because of the actions of our enemies, our terrorist 
enemies.
  And I have come to realize, and I think that there will be a 
significant number of Members of Congress that have come to realize, 
that we don't have the tools to fight these enemies; that the idea that 
we could catch terrorists like, for example, Osama bin Ladin's 
chauffeur, and we can't find a way to try that chauffeur and put him on 
trial with legitimate expectations of an effective prosecution and a 
conviction and a penalty.
  We have Khalid Sheikh Mohammed sitting down in Guantanamo Bay yet. 
Two years into the Obama Presidency, when President Obama said he was 
going to close Guantanamo Bay and try these terrorists in civilian 
courts, and now we found out what happens when you try these terrorists 
in civilian courts--a whole bunch of evidence that's essential to the 
conviction has been left out of the prosecution, and they were not 
successful in an effective prosecution and conviction of the last 
terrorist that was tried in civilian court.
  So I look at this and I make the charge that I think our military 
tribunals are a useful way to do this and Guantanamo Bay is the best 
place on the planet to keep them. But we don't quite have the 
legislative tools. We don't have the judicial tools.

  I'm hopeful that this Congress will consider a proposal that's rooted 
in this thought; that we will set up a special court like a FISA court, 
or perhaps even the FISA court, and ask them to immediately adjudicate 
when we catch somebody that's working against the United States, that's 
perpetrating terrorism against the United States, and be able to 
process them immediately through a special court, and have that court 
be able to rule that this was an attack against Americans or whether it 
was an attack against America's civilization that was designed to 
spread terror and fear here rather than a crime that was committed 
against individual Americans, and be able to rule that that individual 
then fit within the category of an enemy of the United States, an enemy 
in this war on terror that we have, and then instantly move them off of 
the shores of the United States and down to Guantanamo Bay or another 
jurisdiction that's even further removed from these courts, and under 
Article III, section 2, strip these Federal courts from the 
jurisdiction of ruling upon these decisions of terrorists that are 
attacking America.
  If we do that--and it's a pretty sticky constitutional question on 
how we would deal with American citizens in that category, but it's not 
when we deal with someone like Julian Assange. An Australian citizen 
could be put into that category, moved over to a place offshore of the 
United States outside of the jurisdiction of the Federal courts, the 
civilian Federal courts in the

[[Page H7745]]

United States, and adjudicated under a military tribunal in a fashion 
that was designed by this Congress and directed by this Congress. 
That's what I'm hopeful that we'll be able to do.
  Mr. LAMBORN. I think this recent civilian trial of the person 
formerly who was in Guantanamo Bay, who was tried in New York City, I 
believe, who was found not guilty of about 250 counts of murder--
although that's about how many people were killed in the terrorist 
attack on the embassy in Africa--but was found only guilty of 
conspiracy to destroy government property when over 200 people were 
murdered in that terrorist attack shows the weakness of using civilian 
trials to try these terrorists who are committing acts of war against 
our country.
  And the WikiLeaks documents, getting back to those, show that this 
administration has been trying to place these Guantanamo detainees in 
other countries around the world, like Saudi Arabia. They are offering 
them money. They are offering them concessions if they'll take some of 
these people off of our hands so that the President can move closer to 
his goal of closing Guantanamo Bay. But that is a misguided policy from 
day one.
  These people should not be released. I think Saudi Arabia said in one 
of the cables that was disclosed, or they said later on, that they 
would just release the people eventually if they were sent to their 
country and they would ultimately, as we know from cases in the past, 
many of them would find their way back to the battlefield where they 
would kill Americans or American allies.
  So I think that the whole misguided policy of Guantanamo Bay being 
closed is exposed by some of these WikiLeaks documents. But still, 
these should have never been disclosed in the first place. This 
administration needs to find a way to punish those involved and make 
sure it never happens again.
  Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. I guess, Mr. Speaker, I would like to agree 
with the gentleman from Colorado because, you know, many of us, 
including the gentleman from Colorado, including the gentleman from 
Iowa, were very vociferous in saying that there would come a time where 
it would be obvious to the world that these civilian trials wouldn't 
work for enemy combatants that are terrorists that were taken off the 
battlefield in Afghanistan or Iraq or wherever it might be, because we 
knew that this would give al Qaeda and other terrorist groups a perfect 
opportunity, a staging ground, as it were, to be able to manipulate our 
system.
  Not only does it give them the ability to have discovery where they 
are able to potentially undermine our security apparatus and gain 
information that is critical to protecting our agents in the field, but 
this also gives them the ability to claim all kinds of things before 
the world. And of course you know the security elements of it are 
astonishing. And of course they use our own court system and our own 
court rules to make it very possible for them to escape justice.
  I thought, to paraphrase President Bush, he said something like this. 
He said, We should not allow our enemies to use, to destroy liberty by 
using the forums of liberty to destroy liberty itself. And the reality 
is is that sometimes we can become victims of our own ostensible 
decency.
  And this administration, in its kowtowing to terrorists, has been 
more committed to protecting terrorist rights than it has been to 
protecting the lives of American citizens. And I think that is profound 
beyond anything I could suggest.

                              {time}  2110

  Because it just tells me that somehow the administration has a 
philosophical bent that is going in a way that I think endangers 
American freedom and future generations. And I am hoping that somehow 
they will wake up in time. But yes, the gentleman is correct that 
WikiLeaks, among other things, has exposed once again this 
administration's effort to try to put these combatants in different 
countries to try to avoid the trap that they have set for themselves in 
America by insisting that this be done in civilian trials.
  And again, it is a disgrace beyond words that this man that was 
instrumental in the murder of about, I think it was 224 people, Mr. 
Lamborn, and yet he gets conspiracy to destroy government property. And 
that is unfortunately--you know, sometimes the administration thinks of 
these things always in sort of academic terms. But this is real life. 
And national security in the 9/11 age is something we should all be 
focused on. And this administration seems to be asleep at the wheel. 
And I just wonder if my colleague from Iowa might have any thoughts on 
that.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank the gentleman from Arizona. And I reflect 
upon a trip that I made down to Guantanamo Bay I believe it was a year 
ago last Easter. And the trip was designed to fill me and a handful of 
other members on the Judiciary Committee in on the practices and the 
facilities that they had at Guantanamo Bay. And I think this is 
something that the American people have not had an opportunity to 
witness or actually hear about within the news, that there is a 
facility that's perfectly structured for the job that we have, which is 
to bring these terrorists to a location and legitimately try them and 
give some resolution to their circumstances.
  And I don't remember the exact number of inmates that they had down 
there at the time, but it was down to the hard core of the hard core. 
They had already released those that could be released. And the rest of 
them were a danger to Americans, a danger to free people everywhere, 
and a danger if they were released to come back, and as Mr. Lamborn 
said, to attack Americans again, but also NATO troops and other people 
that represent the free world.
  And as we are looking at that facility, oh, it's a pretty wonderful 
facility if you want to be in a jail and be a Muslim, for example. And 
you walk into these cells, first of all the temperature is set at 75 
degrees. Seventy-five. My house is a lot warmer than that in Iowa in 
the summertime. Because 75 degrees, they argued, was their cultural 
temperature. And I don't know that that's true. I would think 140 
degrees is more likely some of their cultural temperature. But in any 
case it's set at 75.
  And you open the door on any of the cells, and they have their own 
personalized cells, there is an arrow there that points towards Mecca. 
So they never have to guess which direction that they are praying. 
Every one of them gets a nice fancy prayer rug that's all embroidered. 
It takes a lot of hand work. It's a beautiful piece of work. And they 
get a little skullcap that's also hand-worked and done. And the Korans 
that they get are carried in a ziplock bag so they are nice and 
protected and never touched by the hands of an infidel, because that 
might anger the inmates at Gitmo. And they had their nice television 
and a little break room that they got together. And here is this flat 
screen TV. And that went on pretty fine for a while.
  Oh, by the way, their meals, they get a choice out of nine selections 
a day of Islamicly approved meals. And they can pick three squares out 
of the nine every day that fit within their cultural heritage in their 
way. It isn't like Americans are serving them ham and beans like they 
would give me or you or anybody else that was in there. They get to 
select from this special menu, a special menu for special people that 
get a special rug and a special skullcap and a special ziplock bag-
delivered Koran that is never touched by an infidel.
  And they have as many as 20 attacks on Americans a day at Guantanamo 
Bay. About half of them are physical attacks, where they try to get one 
of our guards down, usually Navy personnel, and get their handcuffed 
chains around their throat and try to strangle them, attack them with 
the metal that's part of their restraints. And the other half are 
throwing human feces in the face of our troops. What is the punishment 
for that? If it happened to be a domestic prisoner in a domestic 
prison, if you continued with that you would find yourself in solitary 
confinement. And eventually, the punishment would go to the point where 
you would be locked up in prison for life. Eventually.
  But what we do is nothing. There is no penalty. If Khalid Sheikh 
Mohammed attacks the guards every day, several times a day, the worst 
thing we can do to him is cut his outdoor exercise down to 2 hours a 
day. Two hours a day outdoors. The rest of the time

[[Page H7746]]

you are in 75-degree air conditioning with your own selected meals, 
three out of the nine that are the choice of the menu there, on your 
own specialized prayer rug with your own Koran. And there was one 
inmate that wanted a Bible in Gitmo. He converted to Christianity. But 
it was verboten to bring a Bible into Guantanamo Bay because it would 
set the inmates off, the other inmates off who thought that a Bible was 
an insult and affront to them.

  And they were watching their flat screen TV in their little break 
room, and a lady came on to do a commercial, and she had a short-
sleeved shirt on and showed her elbow. Showed her elbow. I don't get 
really all that worked up over an elbow. But they got all worked up 
over the elbow and trashed the room, tore up the furniture, broke the 
flat screen TV, scattered it all. It was like a little riot in their 
little break room. What's their punishment for that? New furniture, new 
flat screen TV. We coddle these prisoners. We don't even have a 
punishment for those that attack our American guards.
  And we set up the trial room so that there are microphones, a sound 
system, places for witnesses to sit, places for family members to 
observe, a sound-proof glass that's there. And when it gets down to the 
critical component of the testimony, we have an officer that is 
assigned with the job to cut off the testimony until such time as the 
witnesses that don't have access to classified are marched out of the 
witness chamber, and they pick up the testimony.
  This facility is laid out for the purposes of trying people where 
national security is an issue. And if we had been trying the individual 
you talked about, Mr. Lamborn, I believe he would have been convicted 
in Guantanamo Bay. Because the evidence that was necessary to convict 
him would have been used rather than held back for fear that it becomes 
a spillage of a national secret that becomes the subject here of the 
WikiLeaks.
  So those are things that go across my mind. We have got to do a lot 
more. We have got to be a lot smarter about this. What would be very 
helpful is if we had a Commander in Chief who was making the ask of 
this Congress rather than us trying to push that chain uphill, having a 
President that would actually be pulling it in that right direction. I 
yield back.
  Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Thank you, Mr. King. You know, I suppose that 
there are a lot of different issues we could talk about with the 
WikiLeaks situation here. But I would point out that probably one of 
the big things that it showed is that just our appeasement toward our 
enemies. And I think probably one of the most dangerous areas there has 
been is just the passive nature that this administration has shown 
toward North Korea.
  North Korea is one of the most dangerous police states in the world. 
And they have shown time and again that they are not interested in 
becoming a stable diplomatic partner really to any member of the 
international community for that matter, but certainly not the United 
States.
  And a recent timeline of North Korea's blatant provocations would 
probably be worth looking at here. Just to give you an example, in 
March of 2010 they were involved in the sinking of a South Korean 
submarine. It killed 46 sailors. In November of 2010, U.N. Security 
Council reports revealed that North Korea has been passing, as Mr. 
Lamborn said, forbidden nuclear technology to state sponsors of terror. 
I know Mr. Lamborn mentioned the missile technology, which is more 
recent, but also nuclear technology to sponsors of terrorism, including 
Iran and Syria. Of course the Syrian plant was almost a mirror image of 
the one in North Korea. And fortunately our friends in Israel were able 
to make sure that that one didn't work so well any more. And they did 
the world a great favor in that regard. Because nuclear weapons in the 
hands of Iran or Syria would be a great danger to the human family to 
say the very least.
  In November of 2010, North Korea shelled the Yeonpyeong Island, a 
group of South Korean islands, and it claimed the lives of two South 
Korean marines. Two civilians I believe were also killed. It wounded 
somewhere around 15 marines and three other civilians. And of course 
this administration, while they have some shows of resolve here lately, 
a lot of these things have occurred because they have stood by and let 
North Korea get away with this so long. And really in a sense North 
Korea sometimes does this to get attention, and they have no respect 
for innocent human life. So blowing up a few people to try to get one 
of the Democrat administrations to give them more money is something 
that they don't hesitate to do. And they have done this on a regular 
basis.
  The U.S., Mr. Speaker, must move to re-list North Korea as a state 
sponsor of terrorism and call on all responsible nations to adopt tough 
new sanctions on the North Korean regime. The North Korean regime will 
collapse on itself if China and other countries in the world do not 
continue to prop them up.

                              {time}  2120

  China should be especially called upon to stop enabling this regime 
and to join responsible nations in sending an unequivocal message to 
North Korea, abandon your aggressive agenda now. And, of course, you 
know it shouldn't come as a surprise to us, but China's objections kept 
us from seeing a U.N. Security Council report revealing that North 
Korea has been passing banned technology to nations like Syria and 
Iran, and they delayed that for 6 months.
  In other words, because of China, because of their commitment to 
delay this, Iran was given 6 additional months to work on advancing 
their nuclear capacity without public scrutiny. And there is no telling 
how far they were able, willing to go, really, to advance this effort. 
But they were eventually forced to see this information like the rest 
of the world.
  Mr. Speaker, I just have to say that, you know, weakness and 
passiveness is provocative. It invites aggression, and it is time that 
this administration and the United States embark on one singular goal 
for North Korea, and that is to see that North Korean Government fall 
and North Korea be reunited and somehow, some semblance of freedom come 
to that people and that this country, like many of its people, would 
like for it to be reunited with the world community in a responsible 
way.
  To pursue a lot of diplomacy with North Korea is wasted effort, and 
we should be pursuing now the effort to see a North Korea and South 
Korea reunited under a free government like South Korea.
  I wonder if my friend from Colorado would have any comments on that?
  Mr. LAMBORN. I thank the gentleman from Arizona for yielding.
  I would like to say that this administration has not done enough with 
North Korea. Some good efforts have been made, but much more needs to 
be done and much more needs to be done with Iran.
  I am particularly appalled that we did nothing in the last year, when 
the Green Revolution started, when the fraudulent election took place, 
Ahmadinejad was reelected as President. There was rampant fraud 
throughout the country. It was obvious to any observer, and the people 
of Iran were offended and resented that and they rebelled and took to 
the streets.
  We did nothing to support them.
  That would have been, and maybe still is, the best way possible to 
overthrow this murderous regime in Tehran. But we are doing nothing to 
help the opposition.
  That type of lack of effort, I don't understand it. It's our best 
shot at freeing the people of Iran so that they can become more 
democratic and peace loving. There are many pro-Western Iranians, 
especially young people. Some of them have been to the West, and they 
like the West. And yet we are doing nothing to support those in 
opposition to this government.
  And to find out from WikiLeaks, to have the confirmation that 19 
intermediate range missiles that could go as far as Moscow or Western 
Europe have been sent from North Korea to Iran, and that we know Iran 
is working on a nuclear weapon at the same time to put on these 
missiles, there is no question about that, this is unacceptable. This 
should not be happening. We should not be allowing North Korea to send 
deadly arms to countries like Iran or Syria. Rumors have it that they 
want to do the same with Burma or Venezuela. We have to not let North

[[Page H7747]]

Korea proliferate like this, and our administration should and needs to 
do more.
  Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Before I yield to my friend from Iowa, I would 
just like to kind of follow up what the gentleman from Colorado said.
  You know, sometimes I think we are unaware as a people--and certainly 
this administration seems oblivious--to how serious a nuclear Iran, 
what a serious danger to the peace of the entire human family that 
would represent.
  But just for a moment, let's consider that for a moment. You know, 
the Ahmadinejad government, the government of the mullahs and 
Ahmadinejad there, have, through their very brazen, open statements, 
have condemned Israel, have condemned the United States and threatened 
both of our countries in very specific terms, wanting to see Israel 
wiped off the map and the United States be ended as a world power and 
to see us completely brought to our knees.
  I mean, it's hard to even, to repeat some of the things that this 
Iranian administration has said about America. And it's very clear what 
their intent is, and there are two elements to every threat, Mr. 
Speaker, when it comes to national security. One is the intent of a 
potential enemy and the second one is the capacity of that enemy to 
carry through with their threats.
  And if we have not understood by now the intent of jihad, the intent 
of state sponsors of terrorism like Iran, then we are not listening 
very well, Mr. Speaker. The intent is clear. Iran would see America 
destroyed tomorrow if they could. Now, not the Iranian people, but the 
Iranian Government, as it stands now, would see America in ashes if 
they could.

  So the idea of allowing them to gain nuclear capability seems to be 
just astonishing beyond words to me, Mr. Speaker. I mean, this 
administration seems to have embraced some sort of a surreptitious 
policy of allowing Iran to gain nuclear weapons and then pursuing the 
traditional idea of containment, like we have in other situations with 
the Soviet Union.
  But that won't work with a jihadist government. Because when we were 
dealing with the Soviet Union, we put our security, in a sense, in 
their sanity. We knew that they wanted to survive and we had the 
capability to respond in such an overwhelming way that they were 
deterred from attacking America. But when it comes to the jihadist 
mindset, Mr. Speaker, that is no longer a strategy that can be 
embraced.
  Let me just say, Mr. Speaker, if Iran gains a nuclear capability, if 
they gain nuclear weapons, this world will step into the shadow of 
nuclear terrorism. Terrorists will have these weapons and, Mr. Speaker, 
I can't express to you the danger that that will represent and the 
change that it will represent to all of us in the free world and, 
really, throughout the planet.
  Because Iran has shown themselves willing to make some of the most 
deadly weapons that we face in Iraq and blowing up our soldiers with 
their explosively formed penetrators. They pay money to see some of the 
Taliban kill American soldiers in Afghanistan. They have demonstrated 
their intent very clearly, and this administration seems willing to 
allow them to have the capacity to carry out that intent.
  Mr. Speaker, let me just, while I am walking by the neighborhood, 
remind this administration that Iran has done military exercises that 
appear to every reasonable military analyst to be preparation for an 
EMP attack against this country or some other enemy that they might 
have.
  Mr. Speaker, I think that this administration seems woefully 
unprepared or even unaware of how serious an electromagnetic pulse or a 
high altitude nuclear blast to create an electromagnetic pulse could be 
to this country. Mr. Speaker, if Iran gains a nuclear capability it 
will give them the asymmetric capability to, in fact, launch an EMP 
attack against this country, and that could cripple our infrastructure. 
It could cause an almost inarticulable damage to this country.
  The EMP Commission says a major EMP attack on this country could be 
the one thing that could defeat the U.S. military. It could see more 
than 60 percent of the population of the United States unsustainable. I 
don't know how you wrap your mind around a number like that.
  But, yet, that is the path that we are on with this administration 
continuing to allow Iran to gain nuclear weapons. And I would just call 
upon the Senate, Mr. Speaker, tonight on this floor, to pass the grid 
bill that we passed out of this body some time ago to begin to protect 
our electric infrastructure from either geomagnetic storms or from a 
high altitude electromagnetic pulse from a nuclear weapon that could be 
launched against us like Iran.
  This administration has paid no attention to that, and yet it 
represents a very real, very credible threat against the United States, 
and it is the ideal asymmetric weapon for terrorists, and they know it. 
We have discovered their writings. They understand that and yet we 
stand by, and this administration embraces the notion that we can allow 
a jihadist, terrorist state like Iran to gain the world's most 
dangerous weapons and to be able to potentially launch against this 
country an attack that could be absolutely devastating to our 
civilization.
  I just continue to be astonished that this administration has 
forsaken its number one constitutional duty in making sure that the 
protection of the citizens of this country and the national security of 
this country are job one.

                              {time}  2130

  And I really don't know what to add to that except maybe to ask my 
friend from Ohio--from Iowa--I know you are not from Ohio--to comment.
  Mr. KING from Iowa. Well, I thank the gentleman from Arizona. And I 
loved Ohio until Ohio State beat the Hawkeyes a week and a half ago, 
but I'm holding my judgment until next year when we have some 
reconciliation meeting that takes place.
  I'm very interested in the comment that you have made, the shadow of 
nuclear terrorism, that comment. When we think about this as Americans, 
watching this world, this Western civilization world falling under the 
shadow of nuclear terrorism, if we think worrying about some jet 
airliners being flown into the Twin Towers or into the Pentagon just 
down the road a little ways or off into the field in Pennsylvania, what 
that did to this country, how it shook up this country, how it 
immobilized our financial markets and our daily lives, right down to 
football games and weddings were brought to an immediate halt, even 
though it was more than 1,000 miles away, nearly 2,000 miles away to 
get to the other side of the continent, they stopped their football 
games there, too. They stopped their weddings there, too. And I suppose 
they stopped some funerals for a while. That's how much it devastated 
this country. And I thought that we really should have looked at those 
crises on September 11, 2001 and said it's not going to break our 
stride. We're going to keep our pace. We're going to go forward, and 
we're going to live, and we're going to live while we adapt to the new 
threat that has come upon us.
  But this new threat that's out there now that hangs over our head, 
the shadow of nuclear terrorism that hangs over our head out of North 
Korea, who is completely belligerent today, and out of Iran as well.
  And I will tell you, Mr. Speaker, that I wasn't very happy with the 
job that was done by then-Commander in Chief Bill Clinton on each of 
these issues but primarily with Korea. I thought that he was too soft, 
too tepid, not bold enough, and I looked through that and I thought 
North Korea will march through his path and they'll become a nuclear 
power and nothing is going to stop them because we are not bold, we're 
not strong enough, and we didn't show the resolve necessary to cause 
them to back up and back off, North Korea. Also true with Iran.
  And as I watched President Bush, Bush 43, come into office, I was 
hopeful there would be a bolder position with regard to our posture 
towards North Korea and towards Iran. And I can remember serving here 
in this Congress through some of those years. And I watched how the 
political handcuffs were put on George W. Bush in such a way that he 
didn't have the political support to use the bold actions that I 
believe might have been necessary then to avert the nuclear power that 
has materialized in North Korea nor the impending nuclear power that 
appears

[[Page H7748]]

to be materializing in Iran. I don't think that George Bush was able to 
utilize those tools. I don't know if he had the will. I believe he did. 
I believe he had the judgment, but I don't think he had the political 
tools because this Congress was so lined up against George Bush, there 
were so many debates that emerged from over on this side of the aisle 
that attacked the President, the Commander in Chief, and undermined our 
military when they were in the field where lives were being sacrificed 
for our liberty, 44 votes forced by this Speaker of the House that were 
designed to unfund, underfund or undermine our troops. And all of that 
was designed to expand their political power and diminish the power of 
the Commander in Chief.
  While that was going on, North Korea was furiously building a nuclear 
capability, Iran was building a nuclear capability, and one thing that 
did happen very good, and many of them did happen good under George 
Bush, was he began the process to establish the missiles in Poland and 
the radar in Czechoslovakia and he had it set up to go to protect 
Western Europe and eventually America from missiles coming out of Iran, 
and what happened? We elected a new President, one who I don't think 
has an understanding of this geopolitical chess game that's going on 
with our national security and the destiny of all humanity, who did 
what? Pulled the missiles out of Poland, the radar out of 
Czechoslovakia, and the headlines in the Warsaw paper said 
``betrayed.'' Betrayed. And I believe that that was the largest and 
most colossal foreign policy mistake made by the Obama administration 
that emboldened not just Iran to accelerate their nuclear endeavors but 
emboldened North Korea as well to go to the point of shelling the 
island in South Korea because they know or they believe, and I actually 
think they know, this President doesn't have the resolve to do the 
confrontation necessary to protect our liberty.
  So we live now under the shadow of a nuclear terrorism that is 
emerging.
  And I would just ask this question, does this Nation have the 
capability and the will to shut off that capability, that building 
capability in Iran and in North Korea? If we do, we have a strong 
position to negotiate from. If we do not, we need to achieve that 
ability and negotiate from a strong position.

  There is more I would say, but I yield back to the gentleman the 
Arizona.
  Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. I thank the gentleman. I would like to yield 
to the gentleman from Colorado.
  Mr. LAMBORN. I thank the gentleman, Representative Trent Franks from 
Arizona, and I thank Steve King for making some good points about Iran 
and the mistakes made by this administration in canceling the third 
site. And I was with the group that went and talked to the people in 
Warsaw and Prague, and they were not happy. They put the best face on 
it. They knew it was inevitable, but they were not and are not happy. 
And, yes, there are attempts to contain Iran with a theater defense, 
and that's good as far as it goes. But theater defense for missiles 
against missiles is not the same as defense against intercontinental 
ballistic missiles. And that's what we would have had with the ground 
based interceptors in Poland.
  So, yes, I do like that we will have Aegis ships with theater missile 
defense missiles on them in places around Iran. I'm troubled by the 
role of Turkey. I think they are not as stable of an ally as they once 
were under their current leadership. And I'm not sure they're very 
dependable these days. I hope they become more so. But Iran is 
developing threats that will go beyond our theater defenses faster than 
we will have intercontinental protection in place. So they will be able 
to go beyond our theater defenses before we have intercontinental 
defenses. So their threat is emerging faster than our defenses will be 
put into place.
  And that is what concerns me about the phased adaptive approach, 
which is the theater defense in the alternative to the third site that 
would have been in Poland. And I yield back to the gentleman from 
Arizona, who is an expert on these issues
  Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Well, I think the gentleman is absolutely 
correct, not that I'm an expert, but that your points are absolutely 
correct.
  I would say that it's important to realize that the European site was 
not only a redundant protection to the United States from potentially 
ICBMs coming from Iran, but it was also something that could have 
calculated or factored into the calculus of Iran in moving towards 
developing nuclear capability in the first place, because in a sense, 
Mr. Speaker, missile defense is the last line of defense against an 
incoming missile. And I think everyone can understand that basic 
equation. But it's also the first line of defense against nuclear 
proliferation. Because a rogue state like Iran knows that they face 
great challenges and great dangers by pursuing nuclear weapons because 
they realize that their neighbors understand the aggressive nature of 
that rogue state of Iran and can't abide them having nuclear weapons, 
and they realize that could potentially invite some type of preemptive 
attack. But they continue to do that because they understand the 
strategic advantage that they would gain to threaten their neighbors 
would be overwhelming.
  But if indeed, Mr. Speaker, we could have been in a place in Poland 
to be able to intercept or knock down any missiles coming toward our 
allies in Europe or the United States, it could have demonstrated to 
Iran that they would not have gained any strategic advantage by 
continuing forward, and it may some day in the history books be written 
that that is where we lost the battle because that is maybe where Iran 
began to see that they were going to be able to get away with creating 
a nuclear capability.
  But, Mr. Speaker, it's astonishing that this administration betrayed 
the people of Poland, betrayed the people of the Czech Republic. When 
we had made promises to them, we did everything we could to reach out 
to them to have courage to stand with America in this endeavor, and 
then our own administration pulls the plug and betrays them. And now it 
makes it very difficult for other allies to express that same kind of 
courage.
  Of course the phased adaptive approach is a name that we put on. It's 
a good name. There's nothing wrong with the name. Some of our military 
leaders understand that there are many, as Mr. Lamborn said, many 
important aspects to the phased adaptive approach. The irony is that 
the Bush administration was pursuing the phased adaptive approach long 
before the Obama administration ever even understood that there was 
such a thing. And these things were on the books, and all the Obama 
administration really did was to cancel the third site and 
unfortunately then make it clear that we would not have redundant 
capability to interdict any ICBMs or long-range missiles that Iran 
could place a nuclear weapon on because we simply would not be able to 
do it in time. Our Aegis capability is a wonderful capability, Mr. 
Speaker. But the present Aegis capability does not have the capacity or 
the speed to shoot down ICBMs, unless they're in a perfect spot, which 
is a very rare occurrence. And I would just suggest to you that this 
administration, once again, has placed their ideological commitment to 
the left above national security.

                              {time}  2140

  You know, there may be some day when we wished we had these days back 
again. With all of the challenges we face, it seems like the 
administration forgets its first responsibility, its first 
constitutional duty of defending the citizens and the national security 
of this country. It shouldn't surprise us that they forget the idea of 
property rights, and it shouldn't surprise us that they forget the idea 
of protecting the rights of innocent, unborn children. And it shouldn't 
surprise us that they are willing to put people on the courts that have 
no respect for the Constitution. And it shouldn't surprise us that 
somehow the foundations of the Nation, the right to live and be free 
and pursue our dreams, is subordinated to the notion that we want to 
build a large State. Those things shouldn't surprise us. But if this 
administration continues to go in the direction it is going, Mr. 
Speaker, I am afraid that we will all wish we had these days back again 
when we could have prevented some great tragedies that may befall us 
because of the ideological commitment of this administration to weaken 
America.

[[Page H7749]]

  I wonder if my good friend, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) 
has any comments along those lines.
  Mr. GOHMERT. I have the same concerns my good friend from Arizona 
has. As has been discussed here, people around the world, nations 
around the world watch everything we do to determine are we serious 
about providing for a defense for America. Are we serious about 
providing a defense for our allies. Are we serious about standing up 
against rogue nations, against attacks on freedom and liberty.
  I know there is some disagreement among historians, but there are 
those who believe that when the Secretary of State 60 years ago gave a 
speech which in essence indicated that Korea was really outside our 
sphere of influence, North Korea had been massing and they had been 
preparing, but it happened that they began moving south after that 
speech. People notice when there is a weakness evidenced in America's 
leadership, and often it leads to acts of violence.
  Do you think it was any accident that the flotilla went against the 
Israeli blockade of Gaza where thousands of rockets had flown into 
Israel, destroying, killing, terrorizing Israelis. We agreed originally 
that the blockade was necessary because of all of the death and 
destruction. Was it any accident that the flotilla ends up setting sail 
to try to at least challenge that blockade after this White House snubs 
the prime minister of Israel, treats them worse than Chavez or some 
Third World dictator, treats them so shabbily, and begins to side with 
Israel's enemies, like in May voting with Israel's enemies to make them 
disclose all of their weaponry. I mean, was it any accident that is 
when those who want to challenge Israel's very existence sent the 
flotilla south? I don't think so.
  When it comes to strong leadership that protects America, I mean, my 
friends have been discussing this issue of Guantanamo. I know that you 
would be as delighted as I was to read the headline, ``5 Charged in 9/
11 Attacks Seek to Plead Guilty.'' A New York Times article, Guantanamo 
Bay, Cuba: ``The five Guantanamo detainees charged with coordinating 
the September 11 attacks told a military judge on Monday that they 
wanted to confess in full, a move that seemed to challenge the 
government to put them to death. At the start of what had been listed 
as routine proceedings Monday, Judge Henry said he had received a 
written statement from the five men dated November 4 saying they 
planned to stop filing legal motions and to `announce our confessions 
to plea in full'. Speaking in what has become a familiar high-pitched 
tone in the cavernous courtroom here, the most prominent of the five, 
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed said, `We don't want to waste our time with 
motions.' '' That was what they said.
  This administration, unfortunately, came in after, just a month after 
this because this is December 8, 2008. These guys were ready to plead 
guilty. They were ready to be put to death. They had already 
proclaimed, as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed did, as well as authorized by the 
other four, they were ready to plead guilty and take their punishment. 
Oh, no. The strong leaders in this administration came in and said, 
whoa, whoa, not so fast. We want to give you a show trial in New York 
City, cost ourselves billions of dollars, put New Yorkers at risk so 
you can have a big show, and we can pound our chest and talk about how 
civilized we are.
  What civilized nation would not protect itself so it can remain 
civilized instead of being overtaken by barbarians? The civilized thing 
to do is to protect the civilized people that put you in office. But 
that is not what this administration did. They came in and basically 
said, you know what, hold off on that guilty plea. Once these guys 
heard they were going to get a show trial, well for heaven's sake, they 
pulled back on their guilty pleas and here 2 years later, 2 full years 
later, this administration has now announced basically that we are not 
sure when we are going to get around to bringing them to trial. We are 
not sure where we are going to try them. It has shown weakness in 
leadership.

  I just remind my friend, and I know he knows the quote from John 
Stuart Mill, who said in the 1800s: ``War is an ugly thing, but 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. 
The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing 
which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable 
creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the 
exertions of better men than himself.''
  Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Mr. Speaker, it is kind hard to top that. The 
message I was hoping that could be relayed more than anything else is 
that there has been a general lackadaisical, asleep-at-the-wheel, 
detached perspective of this administration when it comes to national 
security. And unfortunately, we live in a 9/11 world where there are 
those out there who don't hold to the ideals of freedom and protecting 
innocent life, like has been the ideal of America. This administration 
is continuing down this path.
  Mr. Speaker, I don't want to have to come to this floor in future 
days and have to decry what we failed to do. I think there is still 
time for this administration to wake up and realize that allowing Iran 
to gain nuclear weapons, allowing North Korea to proliferate nuclear 
capability, missile capability throughout the world, allowing 
terrorists to use the forms of liberty to destroy liberty itself in our 
civilian courts, allowing the potential of terrorists to gain control 
of an EMP capability that could threaten our whole society, standing by 
while the Senate sits quietly and does nothing to pass the GRID bill 
passed in the House of Representatives, these are very, very important 
things, Mr. Speaker. I just hope somehow this administration realizes 
that their first purpose and their first responsibility to God, 
country, and their fellow human beings is to protect the lives and 
constitutional rights of the citizens of the United States.
  Mr. Speaker, I hope that happens.

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