[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 3]
[House]
[Pages 3960-3963]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




           TRANSFER OF NUCLEAR TECHNOLOGY PUTS NATION AT RISK

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Reynolds). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 6, 1999, the gentleman from California (Mr. 
Rohrabacher) is recognized for 30 minutes as the designee of the 
majority leader.
  Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New 
Mexico.


Introduction of Radiation Exposure Compensation Improvement Act of 1999

  Mr. UDALL of New Mexico. I thank the gentleman from California (Mr. 
Rohrabacher) for yielding.
  I rise, Mr. Speaker, to introduce the Radiation Exposure Compensation 
Improvement Act of 1999. There is a companion bill in the other body 
authored by Senator Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico. This bill seeks to 
compensate uranium miner victims for their losses. It also seeks to 
compensate the millers and transportation workers who received 
radiation exposure. The Federal Government was aware of the dangers and 
yet it allowed thousands of men to be exposed to high levels of 
radiation, causing death and serious injuries. The Congress has acted 
once before on this issue, but we did not go far enough. The bill moves 
us in the right direction. It moves us in a just direction.
  Mr. Speaker, for more than 50 years, the U.S. Government has ignored 
a group of its citizens who are most in need of its attention.
  For years, our government asked its citizens in Arizona, Utah, 
Colorado and New Mexico--many of whom lived on the Navajo Reservation--
to serve their country by mining, milling, and transporting uranium.
  For 50 years, these citizens did what was asked of them. But slowly, 
Mr. Speaker, over the years they began to realize that their lives were 
changing. More and more of them were becoming sick. They were 
developing respiratory problems. They were developing cancer.
  Although the Federal Government had adequate knowledge of the hazards 
involved in uranium mining, miners were sent into inadequatly 
ventilated mines with little or no knowledge of the dangers they were 
being exposed to.
  In 1990, Congress realized that something had to be done. So it 
passed the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) to compensate 
underground miners in several of the states where uranium mining 
occurred.
  Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, we did not go far enough.
  Over the past 9 years, we have learned much more about the effects of 
radiation on our health and communities.
  We know now that exposure to radiation was not limited solely to 
miners, but to those who milled and transported the ore.
  We know now that exposure to uranium is responsible for more medical 
conditions than originally thought.
  And we know now that the devastating effects of exposure to uranium 
extends far beyond the few states included in the original law.
  Mr. Speaker, it is time for us to make things right.
  That is why today I introduce the Radiation Exposure Compensation 
Improvement Act of 1999. This bill has bipartisan support and is co-
sponsored by my colleague from New Mexico, Mr. Skeen.
  The credit for this bill belongs to those activists who have 
dedicated their lives to correcting this injustice. This is a companion 
bill to legislation introduced in the other body by Mr. Bingaman of New 
Mexico, and co-sponsored by the Democratic leader in that body, Mr. 
Daschle.
  First, our legislation expands the geographic area eligible for 
compensation to include the Navajo Reservation. According to a recent 
study by the National Cancer Institute, Navajo children in the 1950s 
found themselves exposed to extremely high levels of radiation during 
the period of heaviest fallout from the Nevada Test Site.
  There are several differences between this legislation and similar 
legislation introduced in this body during the last Congress.
  (1) We include transport workers who may have been exposed to 
radiation while transporting the uranium away from the mines.
  (2) The compensation we provide for the so-called ``downwinders'' 
includes diseases that were not previously attributed to radiation 
exposure, and are not included in the House bill. These include 
salivary, urinary, colon, brain, ovarian and male breast cancer. The 
RECA improvement bill needs to keep pace with medical knowledge.
  (3) We direct the Secretary of Health and Human Services, in 
consultation with the Secretary of Energy, to report on the known 
health effects to communities where there were uranium mines and mills. 
A report on the status and outcomes of reclamation of uranium mines, 
mills, and mill tailings is required along with recommendations for 
further action.
  (4) Finally, we ask the Secretary of HHS to evaluate access to and 
quality of diagnostic health services for all affected populations.
  Mr. Speaker, this issue belongs to the people. We would not be as far 
along without the help of many people from throughout the affected 
areas. I would like to recognize some of those individuals.
  J.C. Begay, Delegate to the Navajo Nation Council
  Herbert Benally, Churchrock Chapter President
  Timothy H. Benally, Sr. Uranium Education Office
  Roxanna Bristow, Colorado Uranium Workers Council
  Doug Brugge, Ph.D.
  Cibola County, New Mexico County Commissioners
  Suzan Dawson, Ph.D., University of Utah
  Carole Dewey
  Leroy Esplain, Office of Navajo Uranium Workers
  Anna Frazier, Dine CARE
  Curtis Freeman, Utah Uranium Workers Council
  John Fowler, Navajo Uranium Millers Radiation Victims
  Tom Gregory, Albuquerque Miners and Millers
  Phil Harrison, Jr., Navajo Uranium Radiation Victims Committee
  Paul Hicks, New Mexico Uranium Workers Council
  Al Waconda, Laguna-Acoma Coalition for a Safe Environment
  Alexander Thorne, Northern AZ Navajo Downwinders/Radiation Victims
  Hazel Merritt, Utah Navajo DownWinders Committee
  Tommy Reed, Jr., Post '71 Uranium Miners
  The Navajo Nation Council
  Melton Martinez, Eastern Navajo Agency & Western States RECA 
Coalition
  Bill Redmond, Former Member of Congress
  Liz Lopez-Rall, Mayor of Milan, New Mexico
  Paul Robinson, Ph.D., Southwest Research and Information Center
  Lloyd Totalita, Governor of Acoma Pueblo
  Ron Ortiz, City Councilman, Grants, New Mexico
  Gary Madson, Ph.D., University of Utah
  Alice May Yazzie, Community Organizer
  Ben Shelly, McKinley County, New Mexico County Commissioner
  Kevin Martinez, Esq.
  Ken Martinez, New Mexico State Legislator
  ``Mag'' Martinez, Vice President of New Mexico Uranium Workers 
Council
  Bill Snodgrass, Mayor of Grants, New Mexico
  Mr. Speaker, this bill to amend the 1990 RECA is the beginning of a 
long process to remedy these injustices. It corrects omissions in the 
current law and makes the law consistent with current medical 
knowledge.
  The time for us to act is now. The people of the affected areas 
deserve no less.
  Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, this week shocking information became 
available to the American people that cries out for a change in U.S. 
policy toward Communist China. Some of us have long warned about the 
deadly transfer of American technology to a government that is the 
worst human rights abuser in the world. The Communist regime in Beijing 
has long benefited from a policy that ignores its

[[Page 3961]]

genocide, its militarism, its abuse of religious believers and its 
fundamental antagonism toward the Western democracies. Now we find that 
American technology, developed with billions of U.S. tax dollars during 
the Cold War, intended to deter nuclear strikes against the United 
States by the Soviet Communists, that this awesome technology has now 
made its way into the hands of a regime that hates everything America 
stands for and is determined to dominate the 21st century.
  Specifically, this weekend the American people, through an 
investigative report by the New York Times, found out that China has 
made a quantum leap in modernizing its nuclear missile force with the 
help of American technology and know-how. Beginning last year, I have 
come to this floor on numerous occasions, perhaps sounding like a 
bellwether in the night, a warning bell, trying to get people's 
attention that something dreadful was happening to our national 
security. I have done my best to alert my colleagues and the American 
people to the danger that we are now beginning to realize. What we are 
talking about is a dictatorship that is hostile to the United States, 
that is militaristic and expansionist in its policies.
  The most recent revelation is that this Communist Chinese regime has 
obtained secrets from the Los Alamos nuclear weapons laboratory that 
has permitted them to produce miniaturized nuclear warheads that 
enables them to deliver a devastating attack against the United States 
and its allies. The Communist Chinese as a result now have the ability 
to carry more than one warhead on their rockets and to launch nuclear 
weapons from submarines and other vessels at every American State and 
every American city. This is a nightmare. It is almost beyond 
comprehension. It is a nightmare even more so when we realize that 
people like myself and others have been trying, have been struggling 
over these past months, over these past years, to draw attention to the 
potential danger. And now we find out that not just the Chinese rockets 
have been upgraded by American aerospace companies, with the 
acquiescence of this administration, these rockets, their capabilities, 
and the reliability of those rockets improved by American technology, 
but now we find out that stolen from us in a sustained and 
comprehensive espionage effort by the Communist Chinese, they have 
managed to steal from us the very secrets that will permit them to 
build nuclear weapons that are of a small enough size to put in those 
rockets and to be delivered to the United States which might cause the 
death of tens of millions of Americans.
  Mr. and Mrs. America, it does not get much worse than this. The 
Communist Chinese have had an ongoing and a sustained espionage 
campaign targeting America's most sensitive weapons technologies. Our 
country has been put in grave jeopardy. The safety of every man, woman 
and child in every community in our land has been put at risk. The 
transfer of American nuclear technology, coupled with the upgrading of 
Communist Chinese rockets by American aerospace corporations, is the 
worst betrayal of our country's safety since the Rosenbergs. The New 
York Times story reported this very point, that it is the worst 
betrayal since the Rosenbergs. In that New York Times story, this very 
point was made by the CIA's counterintelligence chief.
  It is time for us to wake up. It is time for our outrage to be felt. 
It is time for us to change our policies before a catastrophe happens. 
What do we need? Do we need a detonation of a weapons system that was 
developed by the taxpayers of the United States in a city of the United 
States by a hostile power before we wake up?
  In short, the transfer of weapons technology to the Communist Chinese 
has been a debacle of historic proportions. This could well shift the 
balance of power in the world and change history, as well, of course, 
put millions of Americans at risk. What we have been able to do in the 
last decade has been based on a very fragile balance of power. We have 
a rogue nation in Communist China that obviously does not care about 
the losing of millions of its own citizens. Yet we have tried to engage 
this very same government entity that controls Communist China, this 
dictatorial regime. Instead of drawing closer to our allies in the 
Pacific, we have tried our best to try to draw closer to this Communist 
regime in the nonsensical belief that the closer you get to tyrants 
would make them less aggressive and less tyrannical, less abusive. This 
has demoralized our democratic allies in the Pacific, and it has 
actually increased the disdain that the Communist Chinese rulers in 
Beijing have for the people of the United States. The more that our 
people that represent the United States like Madeleine Albright who was 
recently in Beijing, the more they go into the Communist Party 
headquarters in that country and proclaim a belief in human rights and 
a belief in democracy, yet we are unwilling to do anything to back up 
those words with deeds in any way, the more disdain they have for us, 
the more they are committed to wiping out the degenerate Americans who 
mouth cliches but have no belief in anything. It underscores our 
weakness to these dictators. Strength of purpose, strength of 
protecting our own national security interests, strength of protecting 
the people of the United States who rely on us, these are the things 
that dictators and militarists understand. They do not understand 
sincerity and honesty and laying it all out and going through some sort 
of sensitivity training with these militarists.
  Perhaps the most irksome aspect of this whole, and I would say 
debacle, this whole revelation that our weapons systems that we paid so 
dearly for during the Cold War to protect our own country, now having 
been made available and put into the hands of Communist Chinese who 
hate our way of life, perhaps the most irksome aspect of this is that 
the Clinton administration has for years downplayed this information 
and belittled those of us who were trying to counteract this danger. 
This administration has in fact interfered with investigations and 
undermined the efforts of patriotic government watchdogs to address 
this threat.
  High level officials told the New York Times that although the White 
House was fully briefed on the scope of the Communist Chinese espionage 
aimed at our country, they were briefed on this as early as 1997, that 
the matter was ignored and even covered up because it would interfere 
with the Clinton administration's policy of engagement with Communist 
China.
  The chief of intelligence at the Department of Energy, who first 
discovered the Los Alamos case, this fact that our most sensitive 
nuclear laboratory had been compromised, he briefed the National 
Security Council of the Clinton administration and the CIA and he was 
ordered by senior administration officials not to tell Congress about 
this grave threat to our security, to the well-being of our people, 
because critics might use his findings to attack President Clinton's 
China policy. Well, that is certainly true. While we were complaining 
that American technology was being used to upgrade Communist Chinese 
rockets and missiles, while we were complaining that sensitive weapons 
technology was going into the hands of the world's worst human rights 
abuser, the Communist Chinese government, yes, we would liked to have 
known that the espionage of the Chinese Communists had permitted them 
to get their hands on the technology and the information and know-how 
they needed to produce miniaturized atomic bombs, and to let my 
colleagues know the magnitude of this, those miniaturized atomic bombs 
have the strength and the power of 10 times the power and the nuclear 
capabilities of the bomb that we dropped on Hiroshima, 10 times that 
destructive power in these miniaturized weapons. Smaller atomic bombs 
could then be put on rockets, Communist Chinese rockets that have been 
increased in their capability and reliability by American technology.
  As I say, this is catastrophic. It takes the breath out of one's 
lungs to consider the magnitude of the words that I am saying and the 
magnitude of that New York Times report. But that the

[[Page 3962]]

Clinton administration knew of this and continued its efforts to 
downplay our attacks on the technology transfer, it is more than 
wishful thinking. This has got to be more than wishful thinking. It has 
got to be looked at as insanity, an insane policy.

                              {time}  1645

  This coverup is of critical national security information, so we 
would not know that the Chinese communists had gotten their hands on 
these atomic weapon secrets. This coverup is of severe consequence to 
our country because we in the House of Representatives and in the 
Senate of the United States have not now been able to do our job and 
watch out for the interests of our people, which is our job, as well as 
that of the President.
  To put this in perspective, President Clinton has insisted on 
labeling our relationship with the Communist regime that controls the 
mainland of China as a strategic partnership. This insistence that they 
call the Communist Chinese our strategic partners was going on at a 
time when his administration had been briefed of a espionage effort 
that had resulted, already resulted, in the Communist Chinese obtaining 
these nuclear weapon secrets that enable them to put our people in 
jeopardy. They are insisting on calling it a strategic partnership, and 
when I asked an administration official what was that all about, it was 
strategic partnership against whom, there was nothing to say.
  Strategic partnership; what does that mean when we have a partnership 
with a country that is the most oppressive government of the world, the 
world's worst human rights abuser? Does it mean that we are in 
partnership against the democratic government of the Philippines where 
they now are expanding and trying to take over the Spratly Islands, the 
islands that are 800 miles off of their shore, but 150 miles off the 
Philippines? Is anywhere going to end a partnership against Japan? Does 
it mean we are in a partnership against Taiwan? How about a partnership 
against Malaysia or Singapore? Does it mean that we are in a 
partnership against the people of China itself? That we are the 
partnership with the regime, the dictators, against those people who 
would struggle for democracy, who would struggle for democracy in China 
itself? How this administration can use this word and insist on using 
this phraseology knowing that the Chinese Communist espionage effort 
had already acquired our atomic secrets, knowing that American 
companies had gone over and improved the capability of their rockets. 
Knowing about the repression that is going on there, it is beyond me.
  I yield to my colleague.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from California, and 
he addresses concerns that have been on the minds of the American 
people in the wake of revelations that we first saw, Mr. Speaker, on 
the pages of the New York Times, because as my colleague from 
California (Mr. Rohrabacher) knows, and indeed, Mr. Speaker, as you 
full well know, given the culture of this particular town and the way 
in which certain revelations are sometimes labeled, it almost seems as 
if on the part of some folks in this town there is a little box that 
reads: in case of emergency or a public relations meltdown, break glass 
and say everybody did it and everybody has made mistakes. But let us 
reiterate for the Record from the pages of the New York Times what was 
reported this weekend.
  Quoting now at the Energy Department:

       Officials waited more than a year to act on the FBI's 1997 
     recommendations to improve securities at the weapons 
     laboratories and restrict the suspect's access to classified 
     information.

  And even more tellingly, Mr. Speaker, the article continues, quoting 
again now:

       The department's Chief of Intelligence who raised the first 
     alarm about the case in 1995 was ordered last year by senior 
     officials not to tell Congress about his findings because 
     critics might use them to attack the administration's China 
     policies.

  Mr. ROHRABACHER. Would that be considered coverup?
  Mr. HAYWORTH. What it should be considered at the very least is 
outrageous behavior that sacrifices the legitimate national and 
security interests of the United States to political designs, and 
political campaigns and of public relations effort, quite apart from 
policy indeed, as my colleague from California is aware, and, Mr. 
Speaker, as you, too, are well aware.
  There is a very interesting book that has been published and appeared 
on the scene entitled Year of the Rat which talks about allegations, 
allegations that now have been borne out by independent press inquiries 
that sadly, Mr. Speaker, this administration sought campaign cash not 
only from American citizens, as is their want under the law under legal 
circumstances, but apparently sought campaign cash from officials 
affiliated with the Peoples Liberation Army, so the accounts have been 
reported.
  ``Curiouser and curiouser,'' said Alice about such developments, but 
this is not Wonderland, this is the real world, and the future of 
American security is at stake.
  Mr. ROHRABACHER. To amplify, if I may reclaim for a moment, on that 
point, and again this is a little bit too horrifying for Americans to 
comprehend. I mean this is one of those facts that we like not even to 
think about. We want to turn off the TV and pretend it does not exist. 
But the fact is that during the last election the top contributor to 
the President's reelection effort was Bernie Schwartz, who was the head 
of Loral Corporation, and we now have ample evidence that Loral 
Corporation was one of the American aerospace firms that helped upgrade 
the capabilities and reliability of Communist Chinese rockets. Couple 
that with now this understanding that the espionage effort by the 
Communist Chinese, which was ongoing, had collected these miniaturized 
atomic bombs, the ability for the Communist Chinese to make them, this 
is the most heinous betrayal, and who can think worse?
  Mr. HAYWORTH. And, as my colleague I am sure will agree, Mr. Speaker, 
it is incumbent upon this House, if no one else, especially at the 
other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, will act as a steward of national 
security, it is incumbent upon this House, if the White House will not 
release the findings of the Cox Select Committee in its report, it is 
incumbent upon this House to go into closed session and to vote out 
that report so that every American can understand the extent to which 
our security may have been compromised.
  Mr. ROHRABACHER. It is beyond belief that we have a report by the Cox 
Select Committee into this ongoing systematic espionage by the 
Communist Chinese as well as the transfer of technology over the recent 
years and that that report, the Communist Chinese know what they got 
from us, our government now knows what they got from us. The only 
people who do not know are the American people.
  And during this time period, as I say, while the American people are 
being kept in the dark about something that is threatening the lives of 
their children, and their families, and their communities, this 
administration continues to call the Communist Chinese our strategic 
partners. This is beyond, as I say, beyond comprehension.
  Then by the way, even after the White House was alerted to the scope 
and the magnitude of the Chinese nuclear weapons build up and the 
transfer and the theft of American technology, the White House 
continued its efforts to loosen the controls of the sale and the other 
forms of transfer of dual-use weapons technology from American 
corporations to Communist China.
  Just the other day we had a major vote in the Committee on 
International Relations on this issue, and the administration was 
proposing what I considered a loophole, and a way for getting more 
weapons technology. Indeed there was civilian applications for these 
technologies, but they were clearly weapons-related technologies as 
well, setting up some sort of a loophole for them to get into China.
  And last summer, when President Clinton was in Beijing meeting with 
Communist Chinese, the Chinese military successfully tested. While he 
was

[[Page 3963]]

in Beijing, they tested the first time a motor for their new DF-31 
missile, a missile that will enable them to hit the United States with 
a nuclear attack from the mainland of China. This happened while the 
President was there. The President was alerted to this, and yet there 
was no indication that he raised this issue with his hosts.
  What are the Communist Chinese to think? We give them these 
platitudes about human rights, and then we have nothing to back it up, 
there is no action at all taken to back it up, that we insist on a 
change in their policy. They must mean we do not believe in that. And 
then we are there at a time when the President of the United States is 
there with them, they are conducting a weapons test, making a mockery 
of his visit, and the President does not have the courage to bring this 
up? No wonder they hold us in disdain.
  I yield to the gentleman from Arizona.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from California for 
yielding, and, Mr. Speaker, I would point out the comments of the 
majority leader in the other body on this Hill, Senator Lott saying in 
a televised interview this weekend that in the wake of these 
revelations concerning China, and technology transfers and espionage in 
the nuclear field that it is entirely reasonable, prudent and proper 
for this Congress to reevaluate whether the People's Republic of China 
should gain admission to the World Trade Organization. Mr. Speaker, 
what should be understood by the Communist Chinese is that provocative 
actions carry consequences.
  If my friend would indulge me, a personal recollection in my first 
term. The Counsel General of the Chinese Embassy from Los Angeles paid 
a visit to Arizona, and he said, paraphrasing: ``We want to be 
friends.'' And I said to him, ``Good, let us speak as friends.'' It is 
extremely disturbing to hear the bellicose statements of the Chinese 
defense minister who threatens our mainland in the wake of a crisis 
involving Taiwan and Formosa by saying, quote:

       We believe the Americans value Los Angeles much more than 
     they value Taiwan.

  I asked him, and I would ask all in this body and all within the 
sound of my voice, especially our friends, Mr. Speaker, from the PRC 
who may be monitoring this, how else do we interpret those remarks 
other than a threat?
  Mr. ROHRABACHER. Reclaiming my time for a moment, that was clearly a 
veiled threat, if not an unveiled threat, and what was it made over? 
Why were they threatening us? They were threatening us because we were 
standing between them and intimidating the people on Taiwan not to hold 
free elections. They were involved with an act of aggression upon 
people who were trying to conduct a free election.
  So now we have in the United States, we have a government that has 
declared the Communist Chinese our strategic partners and continue to 
do so even after they have made threats to blow up Los Angeles, even 
after they have conducted aggression in the Spratly Islands and in the 
South China Sea against the democratic countries and with the 
knowledge, as we know now from this New York Times report, that the 
Communist Chinese were in the midst of obtaining sensitive atomic 
secrets that we had paid for to build their own nuclear weapons and 
that we and American aerospace companies with the acquiescence of this 
administration had been, as my colleagues know, upgrading Communist 
Chinese rockets' reliability, and their effectiveness and their 
capabilities.
  What message are we sending to the Communist Chinese, what message 
are we sending to our democratic allies? No wonder why the Chinese are 
becoming more aggressive and disdain the Clinton administration when 
the Clinton administration tries to warn them about anything. There is 
nothing that that administration can say that will be taken seriously 
by these militarists in Beijing when they know that our administration 
knows about these vile acts and these threats against us.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. I would simply add, Mr. Speaker, my colleague, that 
those who watch around the world, Mr. Speaker, would do well to 
remember that ours is a constitutional republic with a Chief Executive 
who is, quite correctly, our commander in chief. But they should 
understand a lesson that ofttimes escapes them in terms of the nuances 
of the big picture, and it is this. This Congress constitutionally is 
charged with oversight. When it comes to our national security, when it 
comes to the well-being of this American Nation, when it comes to our 
legitimate concerns overseas, it is this Congress which maintains 
oversight of the Executive Branch, and those who feel they can inject 
themselves into the American political system with campaign 
contributions and other forms of influence and somehow change our 
policy, while there may be evidence of that occurring sadly, it will 
change.
  The American people deserve nothing less than a government that deals 
with them honestly and protects them.
  Mr. ROHRABACHER. Let me reclaim my time so we know the administration 
will try to fuzzy this issue by claiming that some of these thefts that 
we are talking about started during the Reagan years. And let me be 
very specific when they were making this attempt to cloud this issue.
  During Ronald Reagan's term of office I was working in the White 
House. During that time period there was a strong democracy movement 
building in Communist China, and, yes, we cooperated with the Communist 
Chinese in order to split them away from the Russians, a tactic that 
ended the Cold War. But at the same time we pushed for democracy.

                              {time}  1700

  We did not give meaningless platitudes to requests for democracy and 
human rights, and there was a thriving democracy movement that we 
thought could well take over China. We thought it was irreversible at 
the time, and it was not until the massacre at Tiananmen Square that 
that optimism should have been reversed.
  The fact is that we could well have had a democratic country in China 
by now, but what happened was during those years some of this 
information the communists were able to steal from us but we realized 
that the government itself in China may be undermined by the democratic 
movement there.
  There was an excuse for having looser controls at a time when 
communist China was becoming more democratic. After Tiananmen Square, 
when they massacred the human rights workers and the democratic 
movement, there is no excuse as the country, as communist China, slid 
further into militarism, into tyranny and into hostile positions to the 
United States of America. So, thus, during the Reagan years, yes, some 
problems happened, but during the Clinton years, when there was no 
excuse whatsoever because the democracy movement had been annihilated 
and in fact the human rights report last year of the Clinton 
administration noted that there has been a substantial decline in human 
rights even from last year, which was already on the way down, that 
there was no excuse for this administration to try to cover up the 
wrongdoing of that regime and no excuse for them to cover up the threat 
that that regime was putting itself in to threaten our well-being and 
our security by upgrading their own military capabilities, especially 
in their weapons of mass destruction.
  So I would hope that my colleagues and the American people are not 
confused, intentionally confused, by this administration in an attempt 
to shuck the responsibility and to throw off the responsibility. For 
the fact that our country has been put in terrible jeopardy, at a time 
when they knew the facts, when China was becoming more totalitarian, 
when they had been briefed on this threat, they continued to belittle 
those of us who were calling attention and sounding the alarm.

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