[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 13]
[House]
[Pages 17907-17908]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




               AMERICANS SHOULD KNOW THE TRUTH ABOUT IRAQ

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from New York (Mr. Hinchey) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Speaker, the decision to go to war is the most 
profound decision that any nation can make. It should be done, of 
course, judiciously and only with the utmost of care and only as a last 
resort. This is especially true of democratic republics such as ours, 
when the actions of the government must be with the consent of the 
governed.
  In order for the governed to give their consent, that consent, of 
course, must be informed. And it is the responsibility of the 
government to inform its citizens in an honest and straightforward way 
with regard to the background and information that it has that causes 
it to make such profound decisions.
  On January 23 of this year, the President of the United States in 
this room addressed the Joint Session of the Congress as well as the 
people of the United States. And in that address he made a number of 
assertions with regard to the state of Iraq and why it was important 
for us to engage that country in hostility. Among those statements he 
made was one with regard to the importation of processed uranium from 
Niger. The President said in his statement that the British Government 
had informed them that the Government of Niger was importing processed 
uranium, and that was in the context of Iraq's trying to develop a 
nuclear weapon.
  Now, we know that the President had that information on a first-hand 
basis. He did not have to quote any information from the British 
Government. He had it on a first-hand basis because the Vice President 
of the United States back in March of last year went to the Central 
Intelligence Agency and asked them to conduct an investigation as to 
whether or not Iraq was importing processed uranium from Africa.
  The Central Intelligence Agency then asked former Ambassador Wilson, 
who had a long and distinguished career in the Foreign Service 
including positions in West Africa, asked Mr. Wilson if he would go to 
Niger to discover whether or not it was possible for Niger to export 
processed uranium to Iraq for the purpose of building a nuclear weapon.
  Ambassador Wilson went there. He spent a considerable amount of time, 
something in the neighborhood of close to 2 weeks. He interviewed 
dozens of people. He came back and reported to the Central Intelligence 
Agency that he found no reason to believe whatsoever that any processed 
uranium has been exported from Niger. Why? Because the uranium 
companies there are owned by essentially European countries and the 
controls are very, very

[[Page 17908]]

strict and rigid. He examined a number of people who were involved in 
the companies and their controls, as well as people in the Niger 
Government. He came away believing there was no way that processed 
uranium could be exported from Niger to Iraq.
  He reported to the Central Intelligence Agency. The Central 
Intelligence Agency obviously then reported to the Vice President of 
the United States, who we can only imagine and expect reported to the 
President of the United States.

                              {time}  2015

  Nevertheless, the President then came here before the House and said 
that Niger was exporting processed uranium to Iraq when the government, 
our government, the administration knew, based upon firsthand 
information as a result of a CIA-sponsored investigation, that that was 
not the case. In addition, though, now we know that is not the case 
because we have the report of Mr. Wilson and we have other information 
that can only compel us to conclude that the President was wrong in his 
statement; and, in fact, he has admitted he was wrong in that 
statement, blaming Mr. Tenet.
  Also in that address before a joint session of the Congress, the 
President mentioned the presence of vast quantities of chemical and 
biological weapons that were also in Iraq, according to his statement 
to that joint session. He also said that there were delivery mechanisms 
that were in Iraq and that those delivery mechanisms could be armed 
very, very quickly with those biological and chemical weapons and they 
could be used to bring those weapons into conflict against countries in 
the surrounding region, including Israel, against others, and that this 
constituted a direct threat to the United States and to our allies.
  It has been now nearly 3 months that we have been searching for 
chemical and biological weapons as well as the means to deliver them in 
Iraq, and we have found absolutely nothing.
  Based upon these two sets of facts, one has to question, what else 
did the President say that was false and why did we go to war in Iraq? 
This Congress needs to initiate a full and complete congressional 
investigation as to the causes surrounding our entry into that war and 
the prosecution of that war, and it must do so forthwith.

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