[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 14]
[House]
[Pages 19817-19818]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     THE CALL FOR AN INVESTIGATION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, 165 years ago the late 1830s, 
Congress passed a rule prohibiting the use of the word ``slavery'' in 
the Chamber of this House, prohibiting debate about the Nation's 
largest blemish, the Nation's largest embarrassment, the institution of 
slavery. For some years Members of Congress, because of this House gag 
rule, could not even debate the issue of slavery in this body.
  Mr. Speaker, in those days Congressman John Quincy Adams, former 
President, elected to Congress after he left the White House, was 
particularly outraged by that gag rule, and he came to the floor of the 
House, to the Chamber of this House of Representatives, week after 
week, day after day in many cases, reading letters from his 
constituents about the issue of slavery. Since he was prohibited from 
the debating the issue, he served as the megaphone, and he let his 
constituents speak about slavery.
  Today, we face a similar situation in which the leaders of this 
Congress have refused to discuss some of the issues about the 
President's behavior in Iraq, about who knew what when, and as a 
result, a group called MoveOn.org, a national Internet organization, a 
group of about 1.4 million citizens, circulated a petition, and the 
petition said ``We believe Congress should support an independent 
commission to investigate the Bush administration's distortion of 
evidence of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program.''
  Several hundred thousand people signed the petition, tens of 
thousands of people actually wrote letters about this petition, about 
this issue. And I would just like to serve as the mouthpiece for those 
Ohioans who are concerned about what we need as a Nation to find out 
about the reasons that we actually went to war, whether the President 
told us the truth.
  Ms. Durkin of Cincinnati wrote: ``The possibility that the 
administration may have misled America (Congress and the American 
people) is a matter not of politics but of integrity.''
  Chris Bache of Poland, Ohio wrote: ``The distortion of intelligence 
concerning Iraq . . . is a gross violation of the duties of public 
office.''
  Jim Waldfogle from Cincinnati wrote: ``Even if well-intentioned, 
distortions of the truth can only hurt the credibility of government in 
the long run. If this has taken place, it needs to be brought as soon 
as possible by Congress, to restore the public's faith that Washington 
will not tolerate abuses of the system.''
  From Akron, Ohio, Mary Benzie writes: ``Was our son in the Army 
Reserves sent to Iraq for a cause based on, at best, inaccuracies, at 
worst, a deliberate deception? How do you think we will feel the next 
time?''
  Timothy A. Bennett of Springfield writes: ``This is an extremely 
urgent issue which requires investigation. Failure to do so would 
undermine the public's faith in our democratic institutions. Please 
support an investigation.''
  Constance Bouchard from Wooster, Ohio, writes: ``We seem to have 
three choices about the missing weapons of mass destruction, none of 
them good. One, our intelligence is deeply flawed or two, our 
intelligence was deliberately distorted by the administration, or, 
three, the weapons have left Iraq and are now in terrorist hands.''
  Suzanne Seals of Worthington, Ohio writes: ``I am very frightened for 
the freedom and welfare of our country when the administration can 
bully the evidence and distort the truth to a naive public without any 
accountability. When this behavior is used to wage war, I become even 
more concerned about the policies of our administration.''
  Deborah Steytler of Mentor, Ohio writes: ``Please support appropriate 
investigations into the methods of war-making and intelligence-
gathering.''
  Victoria Kelsey of West Chester writes: ``I feel that the 
exaggerations employed by politicians to push their agendas have 
overstepped all boundaries in this case and cannot condone it by my 
silence on this important issue.''
  From Kingsville, Ohio, William Venable writes: ``We need to know the 
truth without spin, without obfuscation, and without prevarication.''
  Paul Burnam of Westerville, Ohio writes: ``I am indeed troubled by, 
at best, the use of outdated and inaccurate evidence to make the case 
to invade Iraq. The Bush administration

[[Page 19818]]

needs to be held to account for the which it `marketed' (I am using 
presidential Chief of Staff Andrew Card's word) the war.''
  Elmer Fischesser of Cincinnati writes: ``Because individuals are 
still losing their lives, we have a right to know, as a matter of 
justice, what was known and how the information was acted upon.''
  From Canfield, Ohio, Marcia Malmer writes: ``This cannot be a 
government by the people if we are given misleading and/or false 
information on which to base our decisions.''
  Mr. Speaker, these are all important letters and important concerns. 
We do in fact need an investigation to set the public's mind at rest.

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