[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 13]
[House]
[Pages 19069-19071]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                   STRATEGIES FOR AMERICA'S RECOVERY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Schrock). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 3, 2001, the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Ganske) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. GANSKE. Mr. Speaker, Tuesday, September 11, is forever seared 
into our minds. We will never forget the images of planes flying into 
tall buildings and exploding, people choosing to jump off buildings 
rather than burn to death, buildings collapsing on rescuers, clouds of 
vaporized concrete, steel, glass, rolling down the streets like 
volcanic eruptions; the Stars and Stripes framed by the flaming crater 
that was the pyre of 125 soldiers and civilians at the Pentagon. Our 
hearts go out to the victims and their families.
  Mr. Speaker, we watched those images and they did not at first seem 
real. The spectacle almost disguised the human toll. At first, the 
magnitude of the tragedy made it hard for most Americans to grasp. But 
every day, the newspapers now put faces on the victims and their 
families. The shock has warn off; and we are left with grief, the 
deepest grief. We read those obituaries and we find ourselves tearing 
up. I do not know about my colleagues, but I can only read a few of 
those obituaries each day before I must stop.
  We have learned the stories of the brave passengers on United Flight 
93 who bid their loved ones farewell, pledging that they would go down 
fighting. Their plane crashed, but those Americans saved many lives in 
Washington, perhaps even our own. We are humbled by their courage and 
sacrifice, ordinary Americans who in 45 minutes became heroes. We 
remember the final words, the final recorded cell phone calls of the 
men and women hopelessly trapped above the fiery inferno of the World 
Trade Center, messages of love to their families.
  In Corinthians the Bible teaches: ``So we do not lose heart, even 
though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is renewing, 
for we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a 
building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the 
Heavens.''
  Mr. Speaker, each of us will carry our own memories of 9-11. I 
personally will never forget the sense of unity as 170 bipartisan 
Members of Congress, not Republicans or Democrats, but Americans, stood 
on the front steps of this Capitol in the lengthening evening shadows 
of that Tuesday to say a prayer for our country and its victims.

                              {time}  2100

  Then we sang ``America the Beautiful.'' Our message then and today 
and tomorrow is that this is one Republic, United We Stand. Terrorists 
can challenge this Nation's spirit, but they cannot break it. In 
righteousness we are hunting down, even as I speak, to the end of the 
Earth if necessary, the assassins of our brothers and sisters, mothers 
and fathers, and children.
  We will do what is necessary to win this war that has been declared 
on us. The victims deserve justice and our people deserve security. We 
are meting out justice to those terrorists, and we do distinguish 
between terrorists and those who harbor them and the rest of the Muslim 
world.
  But Christians, Jews, and Muslims must all understand that the Osama 
bin Ladens are leading to the destruction of all religion and society. 
If the Muslim fundamentalists do not realize that, the war will go on 
and on.
  Take the radical Islamic fundamentalist Taliban regime. This is a 
government so oppressive that it executes little girls for the crime of 
attending school. Girls aged 8 and older caught attending underground 
schools are subject to being taken to the Kabul soccer stadium and are 
made to kneel in the penalty box, while an executioner puts a machine 
gun to the back of their head and pulls the trigger. Spectators 
scattered among the stands are then encouraged to cheer.
  An Afghani woman was beaten to death recently by an angry mob incited 
by the Taliban after accidentally exposing her arm.
  Osama bin Laden's treatment of women is so barbaric that he orders 
their fingernails and toenails pulled out if they are painted.
  Women in Afghanistan have almost no health care because male doctors 
are forbidden by the Taliban to touch female patients, and there are 
very few female doctors.
  The beating, raping, and kidnapping of women are commonplace under 
the Taliban. A reporter for CNN recently told of meeting a family of 
three little girls hidden under their scarves and garments while their 
father stared into space. The girls had apparently not moved in weeks. 
They had been made to watch as the Taliban militia shot their mother in 
front of them, and then stayed in their home for 2 days while their 
mother's body lay in the courtyard.
  The reporter asked the girls what the Taliban men did to them during 
those 2 days. They just wept silently.
  And the Taliban is rounding up men from the villages. Those that do 
not join willingly are shot. There are news reports of mass graves, 
some containing as many as 300 Aghanis, scattered throughout the 
country.
  The Taliban is taking more than a few pages from the Nazis. They 
require all Hindus to carry a yellow sticker identifying them as 
members of a religious minority. Hindus are required to put yellow 
flags on top of their rooftops as well.
  The Taliban also controls the heroin trade, and funds its domestic 
and international terrorism with drug money.
  So what do we do? Well, to quote from British Prime Minister Tony 
Blair's magnificent speech:
  `` `Don't overreact,' some say. We aren't. `Don't kill innocent 
people.' We are not the ones who waged war on the innocent. We seek the 
guilty. `Look for the diplomatic solution.' There is no diplomacy with 
bin Laden or the Taliban regime. `State an ultimatum and get their 
response.' We have stated the ultimatum. They have not responded. 
`Understand the causes of terror.' Yes, we should try, but let there be 
no moral ambiguity about this. Nothing could ever justify the events of 
11 September, and it is to turn justice on its head to pretend it 
could.''



  ``There is no compromise possible with such people, no meetings of

[[Page 19070]]

minds, no point of understanding with such terror; just the choice: 
Defeat it, or be defeated by it. And defeat it we must.''
  Words worthy of Churchill, Mr. Speaker.
  Mr. Speaker, I personally will never forget the smell of the 
smoldering crater of the Pentagon, or the smoke unfurling into the air 
of Lower Manhattan while at ground zero the firemen poured water onto 
the ruins of the World Trade Center that is the grave of over 5,000 
innocent people.
  As I stood looking at the mass of twisted steel and concrete, my 
thoughts turned to the words of a little girl's handwriting I had just 
seen at a victims' family center. The words were ``I miss you, daddy! 
Love you, Jenny.'' It is indescribably sad.
  So what do we do? Well, just what we are doing in Afghanistan now: 
destroying the terrorists and their supporters. Our prayers are with 
the brave men and women, soldiers of our Armed Forces. It must be 
galling to the Taliban that some of our bravest soldiers are women.
  What else do we need to do? If we did not realize how important 
airplane and airport security was before September 11, we sure do now. 
The safety and security of our aviation system is critical to our 
citizens' safety and to our national defense.
  The tragedy of September 11 requires that we fundamentally improve 
airport and airline safety. That is why the gentleman from New Jersey 
(Mr. Andrews) and I introduced on September 25 the Aviation Security 
Act, H.R. 2951, which is the companion bill to that offered in the 
Senate by Senators Hollings and McCain. 
  Our bills have bipartisan support in both the House and Senate. Our 
bill would make airplanes' cockpits secure. It would place Federal 
marshals, air marshals, on more flights. It puts the FAA in charge of 
airport security operations, including increased training for airport 
security personnel, and anti-hijacking training for flight personnel.
  The Aviation Security Act would improve the screening of flight 
training, so that a terrorist could not walk up to a counter, plunk 
down $20,000 in cash, and say, ``Teach me to fly a jet, and oh, by the 
way, I am not interested in learning how to take off and land. Just 
teach me how to steer.''
  Our bill would pay for this with $1, a $1 surcharge on airline 
tickets. When I talked to my fellow Iowans, none of them say that is so 
much to pay for increased airport security. I do not want more families 
writing letters, like another one I saw at the victims' family center. 
It went, ``Danny, I will love you always. You will always be in my 
heart. Love, Kris and your son Justin.''
  So what do we do about other terrorist threats, like the possible 
bioterrorist anthrax attack in Florida? First of all, we should not 
panic. I am speaking as a Congressman but also as a physician. 
Selecting and growing biologic agents, maintaining their virulence, 
inducing the agents into forms that are hardy enough to be 
disseminated, and finding an efficient means of distribution is not an 
easy job, even for a nation, much less terrorists.
  However, when we look at the sophistication and the coordination and 
the profiles of the terrorists associated with September 11, I think it 
is clear we have to be prepared for attempts at bioterrorism. There are 
nations such as Iraq that might help these terrorists in their evil 
plans.
  What can we do? Clearly, we must try to root out terrorist cells 
before they strike. Our intelligence services need to be bolstered and 
given the tools they need. Impoverished scientists from Russia that 
have worked on biologic weapons must be prevented from selling that 
knowledge to terrorists.
  But it is important to understand that the first line of defense 
against a biologic attack will not be a fireman or a policeman, it will 
be doctors and nurses. It will be the public health system, because the 
ultimate manifestation of the release of a biologic agent is an 
epidemic.
  Mr. Speaker, smallpox and anthrax are most frequently mentioned as 
agents of bioterror. Officially, there are only two stores of smallpox 
virus in existence, both for research purposes, both in secure 
locations in Russia and the United States. But there may be covert 
stashes of smallpox in Iraq, North Korea, maybe in other places in 
Russia.
  People who were vaccinated before 1972 have probably lost their 
immunity. Routine inoculations were stopped around the world in 1972, 
so most people would be at risk. Smallpox is very catchy, and it is 
about 30 percent fatal. The first victims of smallpox would likely be 
the terrorists themselves, but remember, these are people who commit 
suicide to spread terror.
  Inhaled anthrax is fatal about 90 percent of the time, and 20 percent 
of the time if infection is from contact with animals. But its spores 
are resistant to sunlight. However, manufacturing sufficient supplies 
and then distributing them widely by, say, a cropduster airplane are 
pretty difficult.
  Time Magazine even talks about a terrorist attack aimed at crops and 
livestock. That would be easier, less directly harmful to humans, but 
economically very harmful to our country.
  Foot and mouth disease can be spread with astonishing speed in sheep, 
cattle, swine. An outbreak in the United States could be devastating to 
American agriculture.
  So what do we do? First, we need better coordination between the 
Defense Department, the State Department, the Agriculture Department, 
the Centers for Disease Control, State public health programs and 
directors, and city-based domestic preparedness programs. This is a job 
for the new Director of Homeland Security.
  Second, we must make a systematic effort to incorporate hospitals 
into the planning process. As of today, I think it is accurate to say 
that there are few, if any, U.S. hospitals that are prepared to deal 
with community-wide disasters such as a bioterrorist attack for a whole 
host of financial, legal, and staffing reasons.
  There will be significant costs for expanded staff and staff training 
to respond to the abrupt changes in demand for care, for outfitting 
decontamination facilities and rooms to isolate infectious patients. 
Think about the cost of respirators and emergency drugs.
  The first serious efforts to implement a civilian program to counter 
bioterrorism emerged in the spring of 1998, when Congress appropriated 
$175 million in support of activities to combat bioterrorism through 
the Department of Health, but, Mr. Speaker, we must do much more to 
integrate Federal, State, and city agencies.
  First, we must educate family doctors and public health staff about 
the clinical findings of agents;
  Second, we need to further develop surveillance systems for early 
detection of cases;
  Third, we need individual hospital and regional plans for caring for 
mass casualties;
  Fourth, we need laboratory networks capable of rapid diagnosis, and 
we need to accelerate the stockpiling and dispersal of large quantities 
of vaccines and drugs.
  And these are just a few of the things we need to do. The Public 
Health Threats and Emergency Act of 2000 provides for increased funding 
to combat threats to public health, and we should provide that 
increased funding this year.

                              {time}  2115

  I recently visited Broadlawns Hospital in Des Moines. Public 
hospitals like Broadlawns and public health agencies have not been 
adequately funded for years. They need to be bolstered in order to cope 
with a biologic attack. Even if a catastrophic biologic attack does not 
occur, and we pray that it does not, the investment will still pay 
dividends in many ways.
  Finally, let me return to the question of understanding the causes of 
Muslim fundamentalists' hatred of the United States.
  President Bush asked in his September 20 address to Congress right 
here on the floor, why do they hate us? Those of us here on the floor 
and those at home listening to the President, still stunned by the 
magnitude of that

[[Page 19071]]

attack, wondered what degree of poverty or political resentment or 
religious convictions could lead anyone to revel in the deaths of so 
many innocent people.
  Shortly after the attack, I was asked by the Des Moines Register 
editorial board why I thought there was so much hatred of us in the 
Middle East. In April I had visited Israel, Jordan, and Egypt. Our 
congressional delegation met with the leaders of these countries and 
the Palestinians, but we also met with people from these countries who 
were not in government.
  I told those editorialists that there was much envy of our wealth and 
dislike of our Western culture, particularly the role of women as 
equals. I also said it was clear that our support of Israel was 
significant.
  I think that is an incomplete answer, and I do think we need to 
reflect for a moment on what we hear when, for example, we hear the 
translation of Osama bin Laden's screed. In the end, coping with 
Islamic anti-Americanism has to be a component of our war on terrorism.
  As someone who has traveled rather extensively in Third World 
countries on surgical trips, let me say that not everyone regards the 
United States as a greedy giant. Even critics in other countries of 
America's foreign policy still often praise United States values of 
freedom and democracy, but extremism thrives in poverty.
  Cairo is now a city of 18 million people. In the center of the old 
city is a huge cemetery called the City of the Dead. Years ago, the 
authorities gave up evicting people from living in those crypts. Today, 
it is the home for over a million people.
  Population explosion in these countries is unbelievable. The 
breakdown of services as simple as garbage collection is something that 
few Americans can comprehend.
  Since the early 1970s, the populations of Egypt and Iraq have nearly 
tripled. As a result, per capita income in Arab states has grown at an 
annual rate of 0.3 percent. The labor force in these countries is 
growing even faster than any other region in the world, and that leads 
to large pools of restless young men with no jobs and nothing to do.
  Globalization has accelerated the pace of economic and social change 
and that creates insecurity. Most Islamic states do not have democratic 
governments to mediate those conflicts. Generals, kings, leaders for 
life, parliaments with no power, all these lead to frustrated people. 
When people feel powerless and extremely deprived, either economically, 
politically or psychologically, the ground is fertile for terrorism.
  This sense of deprivation is part of the public backlash in those 
countries against globalization, modernization, and secularism. And the 
United States, regardless of its relationship with Israel, is the 
country most benefiting from globalization. It is the most modern 
Nation and it is the most secular Nation on Earth.
  Two-thirds of Egyptians and four-fifths of Jordanians consider a 
``cultural invasion'' by the West to be very dangerous, according to a 
survey from a couple of years ago. So what can we do?
  First, let me say, as Tony Blair said, there is no compromise with 
people that celebrate killing 5,000 people and who would celebrate even 
more if they killed 50,000. We will hunt down and destroy those 
assassins of our brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers and our 
children.
  We must also understand the region better. We do need to help those 
countries tackle their underlying economic woes. We had to fight a 
Second World War because of the failure of the treaty of Versailles 
after the First, but the Marshall Plan helped us secure a safe Europe 
after World War II. President Bush has already started in this 
direction with Pakistan. The Jordanian Free Trade Agreement is also an 
important step, especially symbolically.
  Education in the region is a real problem. Secondary school education 
is low. Illiteracy is high and fundamentalist Islamic sects have filled 
the void. Those fundamentalists sects educate, feed and clothe the 
poor, and they win converts to their hatred of the West.
  In Egypt and Jordan, the State forbids the teaching of Jihad in those 
schools. As a condition of U.S. foreign aid to Pakistan, I think the 
Pakistan government should do the same. Many of the members of the 
Taliban are products of those schools that teach hatred of us.
  The United States could do more to promote democracy in the Middle 
East. This means promoting free and fair elections, judicial and 
legislative reform and rule of law. An investment in these countries 
will be well worth the cost. Consider that the Wall Street Journal 
today estimated that the World Trade Center attack will cost the 
American economy over $100 billion.
  This war that we are in is a fight for freedom and justice. Whether 
it is our military, our intelligence agencies, our resolve to make 
airports more secure and our public health system better, I see around 
this country the will and resolve to win this war.
  Our parents fought World War II. Each generation is called on to 
sacrifice, and I see today the valor of our fellow countrymen and its 
soldiers, its firefighters, its policemen, its nurses, and ordinary 
Americans, who, in 45 minutes, become heroes.
  This is our generation's challenge. It is our turn to fight for 
freedom and justice. We will do our duty.

                          ____________________