[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 11]
[Senate]
[Pages 15451-15460]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




             FEDERAL MARRIAGE AMENDMENT--MOTION TO PROCEED


                                Medicare

  Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, today I rise to discuss yet another 
revision by the administration to the new Medicare law. We all know the 
administration refused to give Congress an estimate on how much the 
Medicare bill would cost. We later found OMB estimated that the 
Medicare law would cost $534 billion over the next 10 years, $134 
billion more than was estimated by the Congressional Budget Office.
  We also know the CMS actuary, Richard Foster, said the high cost 
projection was actually known before the final House and Senate votes 
on the legislation last November. But Mr. Scully told him, ``We can't 
let that get out.''
  In an e-mail to colleagues at CMS, Foster indicated he believed he 
might lose his job if he revealed the administration's cost estimates 
for the Medicare legislation.
  Now we are getting another round of revised numbers. In last year's 
debate, Republicans repeatedly claimed the new drug benefits would be 
completely voluntary, that seniors happy with the current Medicare 
system should be able to keep their coverage the way it is. In fact, we 
have heard President Bush say that over and over again. He said that in 
the State of the Union Message in 2003.
  But many of us warned at the time that because of the way the benefit 
was structured, employees with good retiree coverage would lose it. 
People who currently have coverage, currently have prescription drug 
assistance, actually could lose it. At the time the Congressional 
Budget Office estimated 2.7 million seniors and disabled could 
potentially lose--they indicated would lose--their retiree drug 
coverage because of the way this was written, in terms of the interface 
with the private sector retiree coverage. But once again the numbers 
are coming back even worse than was thought.
  In today's New York Times, Health and Human Services now has 
estimated that not 2.7 but 3.8 million retirees will lose their 
prescription drug benefits when Medicare offers the coverage in 2006. 
HHS admitted this represents one-third of all retirees with employer-
sponsored drug coverage.
  I know CMS Administrator McClellan has released a press statement 
disputing the article.
  I hope we get to the bottom of what is going on with this revision. 
But certainly what has happened up to date does not give us confidence 
in the information they have given to us. The administration certainly 
can't possibly think seniors will be happy to hear that up to one-third 
of those who have current coverage will lose it when this new Medicare 
law takes effect.
  When you think about folks who have worked all their lives, and 
probably paid attention to the fact they had health insurance and 
retirement benefits, planned for that possibly over the life of their 
worktime, they took pay cuts in order to guarantee they had that 
retirement benefit, or wage freezes as people are being asked today, 
make sure in their retirement they had that coverage, and now this law 
is estimated to actually lose the private retiree coverage up to one-
third of those who have it today.
  My mother is one of those folks, a retired nurse. She followed the 
debate we had in great detail. One of the questions she had for me 
after the passage of this law was whether she would lose her benefits. 
I had to honestly say: Mom, I don't know.
  One of the things we heard was those who may be in a situation most 
likely to lose may, in fact, be those who are nurses or police officers 
or retired firefighters or others who are in local or State government 
with all of the cutbacks where State and local governments are being 
forced to cut back.
  It is amazing to me that in light of what we are seeing, point after 
point--information that wasn't given, information that wasn't accurate, 
the inability to negotiate group discounts under Medicare, the 
confusion on the prescription drug card--I hate to even call them 
discount cards because we know from AARP and from Families U.S.A. and 
from all of the groups that watched this that, in fact, the drug 
companies increased their prices very rapidly knowing they were going 
to be asked to give a discount through a discount card--we have seen 
prices go up

[[Page 15452]]

10, 20, 30 percent since we passed the law back in November, so they 
could then provide a card with a 15-percent discount or a 20-percent or 
a 25-percent discount. Seniors know after they watched this happen that 
it was not really a discount.
  We have seen the confusion about how to even wade through the 40, 50, 
60, or 70 different cards you may be able to choose from as a Medicare 
beneficiary to see if you can even begin to get a discount. We have 
seen the confusion of low-income seniors who actually have the most to 
gain because there is a $600 credit to buy prescription drugs attached 
to the card, and yet there is such confusion about how to even sign up 
and qualify, and that those who probably need it the most will be the 
ones least likely to receive it.
  We have seen confusion and misinformation and threats to people about 
losing jobs if they tell us the truth and bad policies that over and 
over again have been put into place to help the industry instead of 
helping seniors and helping the disabled.
  While all of this is going on, prices just keep going up. People need 
their medicine every day. Whether it is confusing or not, whether 
people are going to lose their coverage or not, today folks walk into 
the pharmacy trying to get their medicine, or maybe they didn't go in 
because they couldn't afford it, or maybe they went into the pharmacy 
but not the grocery store because they couldn't afford to do both, or 
maybe, as the couple I talked to not too long ago who were on the same 
medicine, the husband takes it one day and the wife takes it another 
day.
  We can do better than that. This is the greatest country in the 
world. Shame on us for not being able to get this right and not being 
able to do it now.
  The good news is we can do it now. We have a proposal in front of us 
that will allow the competition necessary in the pharmaceutical 
industry to bring prices down immediately. It is called reimportation 
of prescription drugs. We have talked about it so many times. I have 
been talking about it since being a House Member, and talking about 
taking bus trips to Canada. Now in my fourth year in the Senate, we are 
still talking about what ought to be done to bring down prices. But the 
good news is that things are beginning to move.
  I was pleased to join with the AARP and with colleagues on both sides 
of the aisle, Senator Snowe, Senator McCain, Senator Dorgan, and I 
today to talk about the fact that we believe we have the votes now in 
the Senate to be able to pass meaningful, safe, reimportation of 
prescription drugs. All we need is the opportunity to vote on it. All 
we need is the opportunity to make the case to our colleagues.
  There was a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing today. We understand 
that the HELP Committee will be meeting hopefully to report out a bill 
later this week. That bill has been introduced and hearings are 
scheduled, and rescheduled. Hopefully, that will happen this week.
  While we are talking about it, while ineffective Medicare legislation 
passed with all this confusion and information, there is a sense of 
urgency on the part of every single person using medicine today because 
they are paying too much. It is not just our seniors, who certainly use 
the most medicine, or the disabled; it is also the family who has a 
child with a chronic disease, or it is a person of any age who is using 
medicine, or it is the businesses that have seen their premiums 
skyrocket in large part because of the skyrocketing prices of 
prescription drugs.
  I come from a great State that makes automobiles. We are very proud 
of that. When I sit down with the Big Three automakers which are 
desperately concerned about the cost of health care and what needs to 
be done, they show me numbers. One-half the increase in their health 
care costs is because of prescription drugs. I know this is also true 
with small businesses which, on overage, have seen their premiums 
double at least in the last 5 years. In fact, it is more likely to be 
doubling every 3 years.
  The opportunity we have to create more competition and to open the 
borders is something that not only would help our seniors, many of whom 
are incredibly disillusioned and, frankly, angry that a Medicare bill 
was passed that may not be of much help at all to them. But we can also 
be helping every single American from the youngest to the oldest as 
well as businesses if we do this and do this now.
  We have 1 more week before we break for the summer. We know there are 
precious few weeks when we come back in the fall. This needs to get 
done now.
  There are 31 in the Senate on both sides of the aisle from all 
different political beliefs who are cosponsoring this reimportation 
bill. Our bill provides substantial safeguards and assures quality and 
affordability. Our bill ensures that licensed pharmacists in the United 
States can do business with licensed pharmacists in Canada and in other 
countries with strong safety standards.
  Our bill provides for inspections for anticounterfeiting technologies 
and chain of custody. Our bill is a well-thought-out, well-designed 
piece of legislation that meets and addresses every legitimate concern 
that has been raised.
  There is no reason Americans should not have access to safe, FDA-
approved drugs that come from FDA-inspected facilities in our country 
or other countries. We have been debating this issue far too long. I am 
extremely hopeful we will be able to see a debate in the Senate and a 
vote before we leave this summer.
  Researchers at Boston University have told me that in the 1-month 
delay for the markup of the HELP Committee--the bill was on the agenda 
a month ago; now it will be on this next week--we could have saved over 
$5 billion by simply allowing citizens to do business with Canadian 
pharmacies.
  That means $5 billion has been spent, coming out of the pockets of 
people choosing between food and medicine, caring for their children, 
worried about being able to have medicine for their disability, or a 
small business struggling to make it through insurance premium 
increases, or a large business. That is $5 billion just by not acting 
this last month. I assume that means $5 billion next month and $5 
billion the month after.
  The legislation we have put together on a bipartisan basis will make 
a real difference. It is something we can do now.
  I commend my House colleagues on both sides of the aisle who have not 
only passed legislation similar to the legislation we now have worked 
on and developed on a bipartisan basis, but they have, once again, 
placed language in the Agriculture appropriations bill that would stop 
any enforcement against reimportation and allow it to continue. This 
passed the House of Representatives just yesterday.
  It is time for the Senate to step up and to make this happen. In the 
past, there has been an effort to require certification by Health and 
Human Services regarding safety. That, unfortunately, has been a 
barrier by those who simply do not want to do this. So we have taken a 
different route this time. We have decided to sit down and go through 
all the safety standards and regulations and put it in the statute. 
That is what we have done.
  We have also included in the bill an effort that Senator Feinstein 
has worked on regarding Internet drug efforts and safety requirements.
  There is no reason substantively not to pass our drug reimportation 
bill if the goal is to help lower the costs of prescription drugs 
through competition and to lower prices for our seniors and for our 
families and for our businesses. We have the tool. Let's not wait 
another month and another $5 billion, or another 2 months, $10 billion, 
or $15 billion or $20 billion, when we have the ability to join with 
the majority of our House colleagues and get this done now.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.

[[Page 15453]]

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, are we presently acting as in morning 
business?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate is on the motion to proceed to S.J. 
Res. 40.
  Mr. LAUTENBERG. I ask unanimous consent the pending business be put 
aside and that I have 15 minutes to present my speech.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                  ISRAEL-BASHING AT THE UNITED NATIONS

  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I rise today to talk about a serious 
problem that faces our world, one that is reflected directly in the 
activities at the United Nations. It is anti-Semitism. It is what we 
see at the U.N., the distinctly unjust treatment of 1 of its 192 member 
countries, the State of Israel.
  A historic moment occurred last month. For the first time in its six-
decade history, the U.N. actually convened a conference to discuss the 
growing problem of anti-Semitism worldwide. While it is heartening to 
see this development, the fact remains that since its creation in 1946, 
the U.N. has never produced any resolutions specifically aimed at anti-
Semitism. Nor have any of its ancillary bodies ever issued any report 
on the subject of discrimination against Jews and Israel.
  At the conference I just mentioned, Columbia Law School professor 
Anne Bayefsky delivered a remarkable speech. I ask unanimous consent 
that her speech be printed in the Record following my remarks.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (See exhibit 1)
  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, Professor Bayefsky highlighted the 
history of the intolerance of the United Nations and outright 
discrimination against Israel.
  Now, what does discrimination to Israel mean? It is exemplified in 
denying Israel and only Israel admission to the vital negotiating 
sessions of regional groups held daily during meetings of the U.N. 
Commission on Human Rights. It means devoting 6 of the 10 emergency 
sessions ever held by the General Assembly to repudiating Israel.
  In contrast, no emergency session was ever held on the Rwanda 
genocide, estimated to have killed 1 million people, or on the so-
called ethnic cleansing of tens of thousands of people in the former 
Yugoslavia, or on the atrocities committed against millions of people 
in Sudan in past decades.
  More than one-quarter of the resolutions adopted by the Human Rights 
Commission over the last 40 years condemning the human rights record of 
various nations have been directed solely at Israel. There has not been 
a single resolution critical of China for suppressing the civil and 
political rights of its 1.3 billion people. There has not been a single 
resolution condemning the deadly racism in Zimbabwe that has brought 
600,000 people to the brink of starvation.
  It seems that anti-Israeli sentiment pervades the top levels of the 
U.N. hierarchy. The Secretary-General publicly condemns the tactics 
Israelis are forced to use to defend themselves, but he never once 
mentions the terrorist attacks that precipitate the response.
  Because of this blatant bias, it is not surprising that last Friday 
the International Court of Justice--the U.N.'s court--squarely found 
that the barrier the Israelis are building to protect themselves 
violates international law. The ICJ demanded it be torn down and 
insisted that Palestinians be compensated for any damages.
  Now, make no mistake, I believe an organization comprised of nations 
around the world must exist. I believe the United Nations is that 
organization. But it must operate fairly and be balanced. It is 
precisely because of my idealism regarding the role of the U.N. and the 
ICJ in international affairs that I am so disappointed in the court's 
one-sided decision last week.
  The bias emanates not so much from the decision itself but from what 
the judges neglected to mention. They remained absolutely silent about 
the suicide bombers, the terrorist attacks that have killed over 1,000 
Israelis in the past 4 years. In relative terms, it would be the 
equivalent to over 46,000 Americans.
  I think it is informative that 1 week earlier, Israel's own Supreme 
Court also ruled on the barrier. The Israeli Supreme Court determined 
that the barrier is defensible as a security measure but ordered the 
Israeli Army to reroute a section of it in response to Palestinian 
concerns and make it hew more closely to the pre-1967 Green Line.
  The justices wrote:

       We are aware that this decision does not make it easier to 
     deal with that reality, [but] is the destiny of a democracy.

  They added that a democracy such as Israel's:

       does not see all means as acceptable, and the ways of her 
     enemies are not always open before her. A democracy must 
     sometimes fight [back] with one arm tied behind her back.

  The Israeli Supreme Court sent the strongest message, perhaps, to 
Israel's enemies of its uniqueness, resilience, and fundamental 
goodness.
  The Israeli children are never subjected to lessons in the school 
that say: ``Learn to kill your Arab neighbors,'' as contrasted to 
textbook after textbook in surrounding countries that say: ``You must 
learn to kill the Jews and kill the Israelis.''
  As a matter of fact, this morning on television, what I saw was a 
group of very young Palestinian children being taught military methods 
so they can one day give their lives carrying a suicide bomb. It is 
incredible, when you think about it, that the Israelis should pay 
attention to the rights of the Palestinians, when you never hear in any 
of the Arab countries surrounding Israel that they ought to pay 
attention to the rights of the Israelis. It is very hard to even get a 
condemnation from them when some mad suicide bomber comes in and takes 
innocent Israeli lives without provocation.
  Israel's vibrant, even if imperfect, democracy is precisely the 
reason why the U.N. bias against her is so unjust. Israel is a country 
in which huge crowds often gather in Tel Aviv's Rabin Square to demand 
the Government quickly end its support of settlements, challenging the 
views of lots of Israelis who want to use these settlements. But there 
is a fairness, an equity in the views of the Israelis that prevents 
them from going ahead and supporting these activities.
  Israel is a country in which domestic human rights groups, in an act 
of political protest, recently mounted a photo exhibit of Israeli 
soldiers abusing Palestinian civilians--in the lobby of its Parliament, 
the Knesset.
  Could you ever imagine that taking place in Damascus? Or Iraq, as it 
was? Or even a country as friendly as Egypt seems to be?
  Israel is a country in which top reservists in the army and air force 
have refused to serve in the West Bank because they do not support the 
policies of the Sharon Government.
  In an ideal world, Israel could prevent suicide bombers from 
infiltrating its cafes and malls and buses. But the Israelis do not 
live in an ideal world. The security fence is a measure of last resort. 
Israelis felt compelled to build the security fence after Palestinian 
terrorists launched 50 successful suicide bombings in 2002.
  The security fence, as Israel's Supreme Court rightly concluded, is a 
defensive measure. And as a defensive measure, it has been very 
effective. There were 50 suicide bombings in 2002. In 2003, there were 
20. So far this year, there have been eight. That is a very positive 
outcome.
  The most recent bombing attack in Israel occurred this past Sunday, 
July 11, on a Tel Aviv bus, killing one soldier and injuring a dozen 
civilians. One of the injured was a 29-year-old named Sammi Masrawa, an 
Israeli Arab who leads an Arab-Jewish friendship group in the Tel Aviv 
area. Mr. Masrawa told the press he had opposed the barrier. In fact, 
he even took part in protests against it. But the bombing on Sunday 
changed his mind. He said:

       I will now be for [the fence] and form an organization in 
     favor of it.

  I wonder: How might the 15 judges of the United Nations' highest 
court justify their ruling to Sammi Masrawa,

[[Page 15454]]

who from his hospital bed now pledges to lobby in support of the 
security fence.
  His quest for peace underpinned by real security should be the call 
to which the United Nations and the international community respond. 
Instead, the ICJ has allowed an anti-Israel bias to cloud its vision 
and undermine its noble purpose.
  We Americans need to wake up to the fact that the U.N. and its 
ancillaries are fundamentally hostile to Israel. We need to wake up to 
the fact that the U.N. and its ancillaries are unwilling to stanch the 
murderous flow of worldwide anti-Semitism. Why is this important? 
Because what affects Israel affects the United States as well.
  Israeli nuclear physicist Haim Harari recently gave a speech in which 
he grimly but accurately described the virulent new strain of 
terrorists who are not only threatening Jerusalem, they are threatening 
Bali, Istanbul, Madrid, Riyadh, and New York. I urge my colleagues to 
read his message and reflect on what we must do to protect America and 
Israel, fix the U.N., and promote freedom and democracy and human 
rights around the world.
  I hope also to remind our Arab friends in the area--be that Egypt or 
Kuwait or some of the other countries there--we care about these kinds 
of poisons that pervade the atmosphere, and we cannot tolerate that 
kind of an attitude, and won't, in our relationship with the U.N. or 
without or within these countries.
  I ask unanimous consent that Dr. Harari's speech be printed in the 
Record following my remarks.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (See Exhibit 2.)
  Mr. LAUTENBERG. I yield the floor.

                               Exhibit 1

                  [From On The Record, June 21, 2004]

  One Small Step: Is the U.N. Finally Ready To Get Serious About Anti-
                               Semitism?

                           (By Anne Bayefsky)

       (Editor's note: Ms. Bayefsky delivered this speech at the 
     U.N. at a conference on Confronting Anti-Semitism: Education 
     for Tolerance and Understanding, sponsored by the United 
     Nations Department of Information, this morning.)
       I appreciate the opportunity to speak to you at this first 
     U.N. conference on anti-Semitism, which is being convened six 
     decades after the organization's creation. My thanks to the 
     U.N. organizers and in particular Shashi Tharoor [the 
     undersecretary-general for communications and public 
     information] for their initiative and to the secretary-
     general for his willingness to engage.
       This meeting occurs at a point when the relationship 
     between Jews and the United Nations is at an all-time low. 
     The U.N. took root in the ashes of the Jewish people, and 
     according to its charter was to flower on the strength of a 
     commitment to tolerance and equality for all men and women 
     and of nations large and small. Today, however, the U.N. 
     provides a platform for those who cast the victims of the 
     Nazis as the Nazi counterparts of the 21st century. The U.N. 
     has become the leading global purveyor of anti-Semitism--
     intolerance and inequality against the Jewish people and its 
     state.
       Not only have many of the U.N. members most responsible for 
     this state of affairs rendered their own countries Judenrein, 
     they have succeeded in almost entirely expunging concern 
     about Jew-hatred from the U.N. docket. From 1965, when anti-
     Semitism was deliberately excluded from a treaty on racial 
     discrimination, to last fall, when a proposal for a General 
     Assembly resolution on anti-Semitism was withdrawn after 
     Ireland capitulated to Arab and Muslim opposition, mention of 
     anti-Semitism has continually ground the wheels of U.N.-led 
     multilateralism to a halt.
       There has never been a U.N. resolution specifically on 
     anti-Semitism or a single report to a U.N. body dedicated to 
     discrimination against Jews, in contrast to annual 
     resolutions and reports focusing on the defamation of Islam 
     and discrimination against Muslims and Arabs. Instead there 
     was Durban--the 2001 U.N. World Conference ``Against 
     Racism,'' which was a breeding ground and global soapbox for 
     anti-Semites. When it was over U.N. officials and member 
     states turned the Durban Declaration into the centerpiece of 
     the U.N.'s antiracism agenda--allowing Durban follow-up 
     resolutions to become a continuing battlefield over U.N. 
     concern with anti-Semitism.
       Not atypical is the public dialogue in the U.N.'s top human 
     rights body--the Commission on Human Rights--where this past 
     April the Pakistani ambassador, speaking on behalf of the 56 
     members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, 
     unashamedly disputed that anti-Semitism was about Jews.
       For Jews, however, ignorance is not an option. Anti-
     Semitism is about intolerance and discrimination directed at 
     Jews--both individually and collectively. It concerns both 
     individual human rights and the group right to self-
     determination--realized in the state of Israel.
       What does discrimination against the Jewish state mean? It 
     means refusing to admit only Israel to the vital negotiating 
     sessions of regional groups held daily, during U.N. 
     Commission on Human Rights meetings. It means devoting six of 
     the 10 emergency sessions ever held by the General Assembly 
     to Israel. It means transforming the 10th emergency session 
     into a permanent tribunal--which has now been reconvened 12 
     times since 1997. By contrast, no emergency session was ever 
     held on the Rwandan genocide, estimated to have killed a 
     million people, or the ethnic cleansing of tens of thousands 
     in the former Yugoslavia, or the death of millions over the 
     past two decades of atrocities in Sudan. That's 
     discrimination.
       The record of the Secretariat is more of the same. In 
     November 2003, Secretary-General Kofi Annan issued a report 
     on Israel's security fence, detailing the purported harm to 
     Palestinians without describing one terrorist act against 
     Israelis which preceded the fence's construction. Recently, 
     the secretary-general strongly condemned Israel for 
     destroying homes in southern Gaza without mentioning the 
     arms-smuggling tunnels operating beneath them. When Israel 
     successfully targeted Hamas terrorist Abdel Aziz Rantissi 
     with no civilian casualties, the secretary-general denounced 
     Israel for an ``extrajudicial'' killing. But when faced with 
     the 2004 report of the U.N. special rapporteur on 
     extrajudicial executions detailing the murder of more than 
     3,000 Brazilian civilians shot at close range by police, Mr. 
     Annan chose silence. That's discrimination.
       At the U.N., the language of human rights is hijacked not 
     only to discriminate but to demonize the Jewish target. More 
     than one quarter of the resolutions condemning a state's 
     human rights violations adopted by the commission over 40 
     years have been directed at Israel. But there has never been 
     a single resolution about the decades-long repression of the 
     civil and political rights of 1.3 billion people in China, or 
     the million female migrant workers in Saudi Arabia kept as 
     virtual slaves, or the virulent racism which has brought 
     600,000 people to the brink of starvation in Zimbabwe. Every 
     year, U.N. bodies are required to produce at least 25 reports 
     on alleged human rights violations by Israel, but not one on 
     an Iranian criminal justice system which mandates punishments 
     such as crucifixion, stoning and cross-amputation of the 
     right hand and left foot. This is not a legitimate critique 
     of states with equal or worse human rights records. It is 
     demonization of the Jewish state.
       As Israelis are demonized at the U.N., so Palestinians and 
     their cause are deified. Every year the U.N. marks Nov. 29 as 
     the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian 
     People--the day the U.N. partitioned the British Palestine 
     mandate and which Arabs often style as the onset of al naba 
     or the ``catastrophe'' of the creation of the state of 
     Israel. In 2002, the anniversary of the vote that survivors 
     of the concentration camps celebrated, was described by 
     Secretary-General Annan as ``a day of mourning and a day of 
     grief.''
       In 2003 the representatives of over 100 member states stood 
     along with the secretary-general, before a map predating the 
     state of Israel, for a moment of silence ``for all those who 
     had given their lives for the Palestinian people''--which 
     would include suicide bombers. Similarly, U.N. rapporteur 
     John Dugard has described Palestinian terrorists as ``tough'' 
     and their efforts as characterized by ``determination, 
     daring, and success.'' A commission resolution for the past 
     three years has legitimized the Palestinian use of ``all 
     available means including armed struggle''--an absolution for 
     terrorist methods which would never be applied to the self-
     determination claims of Chechens or Basques.
       Although Palestinian self-determination is equally 
     justified, the connection between demonizing Israelis and 
     sanctifying Palestinians makes it clear that the core issue 
     is not the stated cause of Palestinian suffering. For there 
     are no U.N. resolutions deploring the practice of encouraging 
     Palestinian children to glorify and emulate suicide bombers, 
     or the use of the Palestinian population as human shields, or 
     the refusal by the vast majority of Arab states to integrate 
     Palestinian refugees into their societies and to offer them 
     the benefits of citizenship. Palestinians are lionized at the 
     U.N. because they are the perceived antidote to what U.N. 
     envoy Lakhdar Brahimi called the great poison of the Middle 
     East--the existence and resilience of the Jewish state.
       Of course, anti-Semitism takes other forms at the U.N. Over 
     the past decade at the commission, Syria announced that 
     yeshivas train rabbis to instill racist hatred in their 
     pupils. Palestinian representatives claimed that Israelis can 
     happily celebrate religious holidays like Yom Kippur only by 
     shedding Palestinian blood, and accused Israel of injecting 
     300 Palestinian children with HIV-positive blood.
       U.N.-led anti-Semitism moves from the demonization of Jews 
     to the disqualification of Jewish victimhood: refusing to 
     recognize

[[Page 15455]]

     Jewish suffering by virtue of their ethnic and national 
     identity. In 2003, a General Assembly resolution concerned 
     with the welfare of Israeli children failed (though one on 
     Palestinian children passed handily) because it proved 
     impossible to gain enough support for the word Israeli 
     appearing before the word children. The mandate of the U.N. 
     special rapporteur on the ``Palestinian territories,'' set 
     over a decade ago, is to investigate only ``Israel's 
     violations of . . . international law'' and not to consider 
     human-rights violations by Palestinians in Israel.
       It follows in U.N. logic that nonvictims aren't really 
     supposed to fight back. One after another concrete Israeli 
     response to terrorism is denounced by the secretary-general 
     and member states as illegal. But killing members of the 
     command-and-control structure of a terrorist organization, 
     when there is no disproportionate use of force, and arrest is 
     impossible, is not illegal. Homes used by terrorists in the 
     midst of combat are legitimate military targets. A 
     nonviolent, temporary separation of parties to a conflict on 
     disputed territory by a security fence, which is sensitive to 
     minimizing hardships, is a legitimate response to Israel's 
     international legal obligations to protect its citizens from 
     crimes against humanity. In effect, the U.N. moves to pin the 
     arms of Jewish targets behind their backs while the 
     terrorists take aim.
       The U.N.'s preferred imagery for this phenomenon is of a 
     cycle of violence. It is claimed that the cycle must be 
     broken--every time Israelis raises a hand. But just as the 
     symbol of the cycle is chosen because it has no beginning, it 
     is devastating to the cause of peace because it denies the 
     possibility of an end. The Nuremberg Tribunal taught us that 
     crimes are not committed by abstract entities.
       The perpetrators of anti-Semitism today are the preachers 
     in mosques who exhort their followers to blow up Jews. They 
     are the authors of Palestinian Authority textbooks that teach 
     a new generation to hate Jews and admire their killers. They 
     are the television producers and official benefactors in 
     authoritarian regimes like Syria or Egypt who manufacture and 
     distribute programming that depicts Jews as bloodthirsty 
     world conspirators.
       Listen, however, to the words of the secretary-general in 
     response to two suicide bombings which took place in 
     Jerusalem this year, killing 19 and wounding 110: ``Once 
     again, violence and terror have claimed innocent lives in the 
     Middle East. Once again, I condemn those who resort to such 
     methods.'' ``The Secretary General condemns the suicide 
     bombing Sunday in Jerusalem. The deliberate targeting of 
     civilians is a heinous crime and cannot be justified by any 
     cause.'' Refusing to name the perpetrators, Mr. Secretary-
     General, Teflon terrorism, is a green light to strike again.
       Perhaps more than any other, the big lie that fuels anti-
     Semitism today is the U.N.-promoted claim that the root cause 
     of the Arab-Israeli conflict is the occupation of Palestinian 
     land. According to U.N. revisionism, the occupation 
     materialized in a vacuum. In reality, Israel occupies land 
     taken in a war which was forced upon it by neighbors who 
     sought to destroy it. It is a state of occupation which 
     Israelis themselves have repeatedly sought to end through 
     negotiations over permanent borders. It is a state in which 
     any abuses are closely monitored by Israel's independent 
     judiciary. But ultimately, it is a situation which is the 
     responsibility of the rejectionists of Jewish self-
     determination among Palestinians and their Arab and Muslim 
     brethren--who have rendered the Palestinian civilian 
     population hostage to their violent and anti-Semitic 
     ambitions.
       There are those who would still deny the existence of anti-
     Semitism at the U.N. by pointing to a range of motivations in 
     U.N. corridors including commercial interests, regional 
     politics, preventing scrutiny of human rights violations 
     closer to home, or enhancement of individual careers. U.N. 
     actors and supporters remain almost uniformly in denial of 
     the nature of the pathogen coursing through these halls. They 
     ignore the infection and applaud the host, forgetting that 
     the cancer which kills the organism will take with it both 
     the good and the bad.
       The relative distribution of naivete, cowardice, 
     opportunism, and anti-Semitism, however, matters little to 
     Noam and Matan Ohayon, ages 4 and 5, shot to death through 
     their mother's body in their home in northern Israel while 
     she tried to shield them from a gunman of Yasser Arafat's al-
     Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. The terrible consequences of these 
     combined motivations mobilized and empowered within U.N. 
     chambers are the same.
       The inability of the U.N. to confront the corruption of its 
     agenda dooms this organization's success as an essential 
     agent of equality or dignity or democratization.
       This conference may serve as a turning point. We will only 
     know if concrete changes occur hereafter: a General Assembly 
     resolution on anti-Semitism adopted, an annual report on 
     anti-Semitism forthcoming, a focal point on anti-Semitism 
     created, a rapporteur on anti-Semitism appointed.
       But I challenge the secretary-general and his organization 
     to go further--if they are serious about eradicating anti-
     Semitism:
       a. Start putting a name to the terrorists that kill Jews 
     because they are Jews.
       b. Start condemning human-rights violators wherever they 
     dwell--even if they live in Riyadh or Damascus.
       c. Stop condemning the Jewish people for fighting back 
     against their killers.
       d. And the next time someone asks you or your colleagues to 
     stand for a moment of silence to honor those who would 
     destroy the state of Israel, say no. Only then will the 
     message be heard from these chambers that the U.N. will not 
     tolerate anti-Semitism or its consequences against Jews and 
     the Jewish people, whether its victims live in Tehran, Paris 
     or Jerusalem.
       Ms. Bayefsky is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and 
     an adjunct professor at Columbia University Law School.
                                  ____


                               Exhibit 2

                    A View From the Eye of the Storm

   (Talk delivered by Haim Harari at a meeting of the International 
   Advisory Board of a large multi-national corporation, April, 2004)

       As you know, I usually provide the scientific and 
     technological ``entertainment'' in our meetings, but, on this 
     occasion, our Chairman suggested that I present my own 
     personal view on events in the part of the world from which I 
     come. I have never been and I will never be a Government 
     official and I have no privileged information. My perspective 
     is entirely based on what I see, on what I read and on the 
     fact that my family has lived in this region for almost 200 
     years. You may regard my views as those of the proverbial 
     taxi driver, which you are supposed to question, when you 
     visit a country.
       I could have shared with you some fascinating facts and 
     some personal thoughts about the Israeli-Arab conflict. 
     However, I will touch upon it only in passing. I prefer to 
     devote most of my remarks to the broader picture of the 
     region and its place in world events. I refer to the entire 
     area between Pakistan and Morocco, which is predominantly 
     Arab, predominantly Moslem, but includes many non-Arab and 
     also significant non-Moslem minorities.
       Why do I put aside Israel and its own immediate 
     neighborhood? Because Israel and any problems related to it, 
     in spite of what you might read or hear in the world media, 
     is not the central issue, and has never been the central 
     issue in the upheaval in the region. Yes, there is a 100-
     year-old Israeli-Arab conflict, but it is not where the main 
     show is. The millions who died in the Iran-Iraq war had 
     nothing to do with Israel. The mass murder happening right 
     now in Sudan, where the Arab Moslem regime is massacring its 
     black Christian citizens, has nothing to do with Israel. The 
     frequent reports from Algeria about the murders of hundreds 
     of civilians in one village or another by other Algerians 
     have nothing to do with Israel. Saddam Hussein did not invade 
     Kuwait, endanger Saudi Arabia and butcher his own people 
     because of Israel. Egypt did not use poison gas against Yemen 
     in the 60's because of Israel. Assad the Father did not kill 
     tens of thousands of his own citizens in one week in El Hamma 
     in Syria because of Israel. The Taliban control of 
     Afghanistan and the civil war there had nothing to do with 
     Israel. The Libyan blowing up of the Pan-Am flight had 
     nothing to do with Israel, and I could go on and on and on.
       The root of the trouble is that this entire Moslem region 
     is totally dysfunctional, by any standard of the word, and 
     would have been so even if Israel would have joined the Arab 
     league and an independent Palestine would have existed for 
     100 years. The 22 member countries of the Arab league, from 
     Mauritania to the Gulf States, have a total population of 300 
     millions, larger than the US and almost as large as the EU 
     before its expansion. They have a land area larger than 
     either the United States or all of Europe. These 22 
     countries, with all their oil and natural resources, have a 
     combined GDP smaller than that of Netherlands plus Belgium 
     and equal to half of the GDP of California alone. Within this 
     meager GDP, the gaps between rich and poor are beyond belief 
     and too many of the rich made their money not by succeeding 
     in business, but by being corrupt rulers. The social status 
     of women is far below what it was in the Western World 150 
     years ago. Human rights are below any reasonable standard, in 
     spite of the grotesque fact that Libya was elected Chair of 
     the U.N. Human Rights commission. According to a report 
     prepared by a committee of Arab intellectuals and published 
     under the auspices of the U.N., the number of books 
     translated by the entire Arab world is much smaller than what 
     little Greece alone translates. The total number of 
     scientific publications of 300 million Arabs is less than 
     that of 6 million Israelis. Birth rates in the region are 
     very high, increasing the poverty, the social gaps and the 
     cultural decline. And all of this is happening in a region, 
     which only 30 years ago, was believed to be the next wealthy 
     part of the world, and in a Moslem area, which developed, at 
     some point in history, one of the most advanced cultures in 
     the world.
       It is fair to say that this creates an unprecedented 
     breeding ground for cruel dictators, terror networks, 
     fanaticism, incitement, suicide murders and general decline. 
     It is also a

[[Page 15456]]

     fact that almost everybody in the region blames this 
     situation on the United States, on Israel, on Western 
     Civilization, on Judaism and Christianity, on anyone and 
     anything, except themselves.
       Do I say all of this with the satisfaction of someone 
     discussing the failings of his enemies? On the contrary, I 
     firmly believe that the world would have been a much better 
     place and my own neighborhood would have been much more 
     pleasant and peaceful, if things were different.
       I should also say a word about the millions of decent, 
     honest, good people who are either devout Moslems or are not 
     very religious but grew up in Moslem families. They are 
     double victims of an outside world, which now develops 
     Islamophobia and of their own environment, which breaks their 
     heart by being totally dysfunctional. The problem is that the 
     vast silent majority of these Moslems are not part of the 
     terror and of the incitement but they also do not stand up 
     against it. They become accomplices, by omission, and this 
     applies to political leaders, intellectuals, business people 
     and many others. Many of them can certainly tell right from 
     wrong, but are afraid to express their views.
       The events of the last few years have amplified four 
     issues, which have always existed, but have never been as 
     rampant as in the present upheaval in the region. These are 
     the four main pillars of the current World Conflict, or 
     perhaps we should already refer to it as ``the undeclared 
     World War III''. I have no better name for the present 
     situation. A few more years may pass before everybody 
     acknowledges that it is a World War, but we are already well 
     into it.
       The first element is the suicide murder. Suicide murders 
     are not a new invention but they have been made popular, if I 
     may use this expression, only lately. Even after September 
     11, it seems that most of the Western World does not yet 
     understand this weapon. It is a very potent psychological 
     weapon. Its real direct impact is relatively minor. The total 
     number of casualties from hundreds of suicide murders within 
     Israel in the last three years is much smaller than those due 
     to car accidents. September 11 was quantitatively much less 
     lethal than many earthquakes. More people die from AIDS in 
     one day in Africa than all the Russians who died in the hands 
     of Chechnya-based Moslem suicide murderers since that 
     conflict started. Saddam killed every month more people than 
     all those who died from suicide murders since the Coalition 
     occupation of Iraq.
       So what is all the fuss about suicide killings? It creates 
     headlines. It is spectacular. It is frightening. It is a very 
     cruel death with bodies dismembered and horrible severe 
     lifelong injuries to many of the wounded. It is always shown 
     on television in great detail. One such murder, with the help 
     of hysterical media coverage, can destroy the tourism 
     industry of a country for quite a while, as it did in Bali 
     and in Turkey.
       But the real fear comes from the undisputed fact that no 
     defense and no preventive measures can succeed against a 
     determined suicide murderer. This has not yet penetrated the 
     thinking of the Western World. The U.S. and Europe are 
     constantly improving their defense against the last murder, 
     not the next one. We may arrange for the best airport 
     security in the world. But if you want to murder by suicide, 
     you do not have to board a plane in order to explode yourself 
     and kill many people. Who could stop a suicide murder in the 
     midst of the crowded line waiting to be checked by the 
     airport metal detector? How about the lines to the check-in 
     counters in a busy travel period? Put a metal detector in 
     front of every train station in Spain and the terrorists will 
     get the buses. Protect the buses and they will explode in 
     movie theaters, concert halls, supermarkets, shopping malls, 
     schools and hospitals. Put guards in front of every concert 
     hall and there will always be a line of people to be checked 
     by the guards and this line will be the target, not to speak 
     of killing the guards themselves. You can somewhat reduce 
     your vulnerability by preventive and defensive measures and 
     by strict border controls but not eliminate it and definitely 
     not win the war in a defensive way. And it is a war!
       What is behind the suicide murders? Money, power and cold-
     blooded murderous incitement, nothing else. It has nothing to 
     do with true fanatic religious beliefs. No Moslem preacher 
     has ever blown himself up. No son of an Arab politician or 
     religious leader has ever blown himself. No relative of 
     anyone influential has done it. Wouldn't you expect some of 
     the religious leaders to do it themselves, or to talk their 
     sons into doing it, if this is truly a supreme act of 
     religious fervor? Aren't they interested in the benefits of 
     going to Heaven? Instead, they send outcast women, naive 
     children, retarded people and young incited hotheads. They 
     promise them the delights, mostly sexual, of the next world, 
     and pay their families handsomely after the supreme act is 
     performed and enough innocent people are dead.
       Suicide murders also have nothing to do with poverty and 
     despair. The poorest region in the world, by far, is Africa. 
     It never happens there. There are numerous desperate people 
     in the world, in different cultures, countries and 
     continents. Desperation does not provide anyone with 
     explosives, reconnaissance and transportation. There was 
     certainly more despair in Saddam's Iraq then in Paul 
     Bremmer's Iraq, and no one exploded himself. A suicide murder 
     is simply a horrible, vicious weapon of cruel, inhuman, 
     cynical, well-funded terrorists, with no regard to human 
     life, including the fife of their fellow countrymen, but with 
     very high regard to their own affluent well-being and their 
     hunger for power.
       The only way to fight this new ``popular'' weapon is 
     identical to the only way in which you fight organized crime 
     or pirates on the high seas: the offensive way. Like in the 
     case of organized crime, it is crucial that the forces on the 
     offensive be united and it is crucial to reach the top of the 
     crime pyramid. You cannot eliminate organized crime by 
     arresting the little drug dealer in the street corner. You 
     must go after the head of the ``Family''.
       If part of the public supports it, others tolerate it, many 
     are afraid of it and some try to explain it away by poverty 
     or by a miserable childhood, organized crime will thrive and 
     so will terrorism. The United States understands this now, 
     after September 11. Russia is beginning to understand it. 
     Turkey understands it well. I am very much afraid that most 
     of Europe still does not understand it. Unfortunately, it 
     seems that Europe will understand it only after suicide 
     murders will arrive in Europe in a big way. In my humble 
     opinion, this will definitely happen. The Spanish trains and 
     the Istanbul bombings are only the beginning. The unity of 
     the Civilized World in fighting this horror is absolutely 
     indispensable. Until Europe wakes up, this unity will not be 
     achieved.
       The second ingredient is words, more precisely lies. Words 
     can be lethal. They kill people. It is often said that 
     politicians, diplomats and perhaps also lawyers and business 
     people must sometimes lie, as part of their professional 
     life. But the norms of politics and diplomacy are childish, 
     in comparison with the level of incitement and total absolute 
     deliberate fabrications, which have reached new heights in 
     the region we are talking about. An incredible number of 
     people in the Arab world believe that September 11 never 
     happened, or was an American provocation or, even better, a 
     Jewish plot.
       You all remember the Iraqi Minister of Information, Mr. 
     Mouhamad Said al-Sahaf and his press conferences when the US 
     forces were already inside Baghdad. Disinformation at time of 
     war is an accepted tactic. But to stand, day after day, and 
     to make such preposterous statements, known to everybody to 
     be lies, without even being ridiculed in your own milieu, can 
     only happen in this region. Mr. Sahaf eventually became a 
     popular icon as a court jester, but this did not stop some 
     allegedly respectable newspapers from giving him equal time. 
     It also does not prevent the Western press from giving 
     credence, every day, even now, to similar liars. After all, 
     if you want to be an anti-Semite, there are subtle ways of 
     doing it. You do not have to claim that the holocaust never 
     happened and that the Jewish temple in Jerusalem never 
     existed. But millions of Moslems are told by their leaders 
     that this is the case. When these same leaders make other 
     statements, the Western media report them as if they could be 
     true.
       It is a daily occurrence that the same people, who finance, 
     arm and dispatch suicide murderers, condemn the act in 
     English in front of western TV cameras, talking to a world 
     audience, which even partly believes them. It is a daily 
     routine to hear the same leader making opposite statements in 
     Arabic to his people and in English to the rest of the world. 
     Incitement by Arab TV, accompanied by horror pictures of 
     mutilated bodies, has become a powerful weapon of those who 
     lie, distort and want to destroy everything. Little children 
     are raised on deep hatred and on admiration of so-called 
     martyrs, and the Western World does not notice it because its 
     own TV sets are mostly tuned to soap operas and game shows. I 
     recommend to you, even though most of you do not understand 
     Arabic, to watch Al Jazeera, from time to time. You will not 
     believe your own eyes.
       But words also work in other ways, more subtle. A 
     demonstration in Berlin, carrying banners supporting Saddam's 
     regime and featuring three-year old babies dressed as suicide 
     murderers, is defined by the press and by political leaders 
     as a ``peace demonstration''. You may support or oppose the 
     Iraq war, but to refer to fans of Saddam, Arafat or Bin Laden 
     as peace activists is a bit too much. A woman walks into an 
     Israeli restaurant in mid-day, eats, observes families with 
     old people and children eating their lunch in the adjacent 
     tables and pays the bill. She then blows herself up, killing 
     20 people, including many children, with heads and arms 
     rolling around in the restaurant. She is called ``martyr'' by 
     several Arab leaders and ``activist'' by the European press. 
     Dignitaries condemn the act but visit her bereaved family and 
     the money flows.
       There is a new game in town: The actual murderer is called 
     ``the military wing'', the one who pays him, equips him and 
     sends him is now called ``the political wing'' and the head 
     of the operation is called the ``spiritual leader''. There 
     are numerous other examples of such Orwellian nomenclature, 
     used every day not only by terror chiefs but also by Western 
     media. These words are much more

[[Page 15457]]

     dangerous than many people realize. They provide an emotional 
     infrastructure for atrocities. It was Joseph Goebels who said 
     that if you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe 
     it. He is now being outperformed by his successors.
       The third aspect is money. Huge amounts of money, which 
     could have solved many social problems in this dysfunctional 
     part of the world, are channeled into three concentric 
     spheres supporting death and murder. In the inner circle are 
     the terrorists themselves. The money funds their travel, 
     explosives, hideouts and permanent search for soft vulnerable 
     targets. They are surrounded by a second wider circle of 
     direct supporters, planners, commanders, preachers, all of 
     whom make a living, usually a very comfortable living, by 
     serving as terror infrastructure. Finally, we find the third 
     circle of so-called religious, educational and welfare 
     organizations, which actually do some good, feed the hungry 
     and provide some schooling, but brainwash a new generation 
     with hatred, lies and ignorance. This circle operates mostly 
     through mosques, madrasas and other religious establishments 
     but also through inciting electronic and printed media. It is 
     this circle that makes sure that women remain inferior, that 
     democracy is unthinkable and that exposure to the outside 
     world is minimal. It is also that circle that leads the way 
     in blaming everybody outside the Moslem world, for the 
     miseries of the region.
       Figuratively speaking, this outer circle is the guardian, 
     which makes sure that the people look and listen inwards to 
     the inner circle of terror and incitement, rather than to the 
     world outside. Some parts of this same outer circle actually 
     operate as a result of fear from, or blackmail by, the inner 
     circles. The horrifying added factor is the high birth rate. 
     Half of the population of the Arab world is under the age of 
     20, the most receptive age to incitement, guaranteeing two 
     more generations of blind hatred.
       Of the three circles described above, the inner circles are 
     primarily financed by terrorist states like Iran and Syria, 
     until recently also by Iraq and Libya and earlier also by 
     some of the Communist regimes. These states, as well as the 
     Palestinian Authority, are the safe havens of the wholesale 
     murder vendors. The outer circle is largely financed by Saudi 
     Arabia, but also by donations from certain Moslem communities 
     in the United States and Europe and, to a smaller extent, by 
     donations of European Governments to various NGO's and by 
     certain United Nations organizations, whose goals may be 
     noble, but they are infested and exploited by agents of the 
     outer circle. The Saudi regime, of course, will be the next 
     victim of major terror, when the inner circle will explode 
     into the outer circle. The Saudis are beginning to understand 
     it, but they fight the inner circles, while still financing 
     the infrastructure at the outer circle.
       Some of the leaders of these various circles live very 
     comfortably on their loot. You meet their children in the 
     best private schools in Europe, not in the training camps of 
     suicide murderers. The Jihad ``soldiers'' join packaged death 
     tours to Iraq and other hotspots, while some of their leaders 
     ski in Switzerland. Mrs. Arafat, who lives in Paris with her 
     daughter, receives tens of thousands dollars per month from 
     the allegedly bankrupt Palestinian Authority while a typical 
     local ringleader of the Al-Aksa brigade, reporting to Arafat, 
     receives only a cash payment of a couple of hundred dollars, 
     for performing murders at the retail level.
       The fourth element of the current world conflict is the 
     total breaking of all laws. The civilized world believes in 
     democracy, the rule of law, including international law, 
     human rights, free speech and free press, among other 
     liberties. There are naive old-fashioned habits such as 
     respecting religious sites and symbols, not using ambulances 
     and hospitals for acts of war, avoiding the mutilation of 
     dead bodies and not using children as human shields or human 
     bombs. Never in history, not even in the Nazi period, was 
     there such total disregard of all of the above as we observe 
     now. Every student of political science debates how you 
     prevent an anti-democratic force from winning a democratic 
     election and abolishing democracy. Other aspects of a 
     civilized society must also have limitations. Can a policeman 
     open fire on someone trying to kill him? Can a government 
     listen to phone conversations of terrorists and drug dealers? 
     Does free speech protects you when you shout ``fire'' in a 
     crowded theater? Should there be death penalty, for 
     deliberate multiple murders? These are the oldfashioned 
     dilemmas. But now we have an entire new set.
       Do you raid a mosque, which serves as a terrorist 
     ammunition storage? Do you return fire, if you are attacked 
     from a hospital? Do you storm a church taken over by 
     terrorists who took the priests hostages? Do you search every 
     ambulance after a few suicide murderers use ambulances to 
     reach their targets? Do you strip every woman because one 
     pretended to be pregnant and carried a suicide bomb on her 
     belly? Do you shoot back at someone trying to kill you, 
     standing deliberately behind a group of children? Do you raid 
     terrorist headquarters, hidden in a mental hospital? Do you 
     shoot an arch-murderer who deliberately moves from one 
     location to another, always surrounded by children? All of 
     these happen daily in Iraq and in the Palestinian areas. What 
     do you do? Well, you do not want to face the dilemma. But it 
     cannot be avoided.
       Suppose, for the sake of discussion, that someone would 
     openly stay in a wellknown address in Teheran, hosted by the 
     Iranian Government and financed by it, executing one atrocity 
     after another in Spain or in France, killing hundreds of 
     innocent people, accepting responsibility for the crimes, 
     promising in public TV interviews to do more of the same, 
     while the Government of Iran issues public condemnations of 
     his acts but continues to host him, invite him to official 
     functions and treat him as a great dignitary. I leave it to 
     you as homework to figure out what Spain or France would have 
     done, in such a situation.
       The problem is that the civilized world is still having 
     illusions about the rule of law in a totally lawless 
     environment. It is trying to play ice hockey by sending a 
     ballerina ice-skater into the rink or to knock out a 
     heavyweight boxer by a chess player. In the same way that no 
     country has a law against cannibals eating its prime 
     minister, because such an act is unthinkable, international 
     law does not address killers shooting from hospitals, mosques 
     and ambulances, while being protected by their Government or 
     society. International law does not know how to handle 
     someone who sends children to throw stones, stands behind 
     them and shoots with immunity and cannot be arrested because 
     he is sheltered by a Government. International law does not 
     know how to deal with a leader of murderers who is royally 
     and comfortably hosted by a country, which pretends to 
     condemn his acts or just claims to be too weak to arrest him. 
     The amazing thing is that all of these crooks demand 
     protection under international law and define all those who 
     attack them as war criminals, with some Western media 
     repeating the allegations. The good news is that all of this 
     is temporary, because the evolution of international law has 
     always adapted itself to reality. The punishment for suicide 
     murder should be death or arrest before the murder, not 
     during and not after. After every world war, the rules of 
     international law have changed and the same will happen after 
     the present one. But during the twilight zone, a lot of harm 
     can be done.
       The picture I described here is not pretty. What can we do 
     about it? In the short run, only fight and win. In the long 
     run--only educate the next generation and open it to the 
     world. The inner circles can and must be destroyed by force. 
     The outer circle cannot be eliminated by force. Here we need 
     financial starvation of the organizing elite, more power to 
     women, more education, counter propaganda, boycott whenever 
     feasible and access to Western media, internet and the 
     international scene. Above all, we need a total absolute 
     unity and determination of the civilized world against all 
     three circles of evil.
       Allow me, for a moment, to depart from my alleged role as a 
     taxi driver and return to science. When you have a malignant 
     tumor, you may remove the tumor itself surgically. You may 
     also starve it by preventing new blood from reaching it from 
     other parts of the body, thereby preventing new ``supplies'' 
     from expanding the tumor. If you want to be sure, it is best 
     to do both.
       But before you fight and win, by force or otherwise, you 
     have to realize that you are in a war, and this may take 
     Europe a few more years. In order to win, it is necessary to 
     first eliminate the terrorist regimes, so that no Government 
     in the world will serve as a safe haven for these people. I 
     do not want to comment here on whether the American-led 
     attack on Iraq was justified from the point of view of 
     weapons of mass destruction or any other pre-war argument, 
     but I can look at the post-war map of Western Asia. Now that 
     Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya are out, two and a half terrorist 
     states remain: Iran, Syria and Lebanon, the latter being a 
     Syrian colony. Perhaps Sudan should be added to the list. As 
     a result of the conquest of Afghanistan and Iraq, both Iran 
     and Syria are now totally surrounded by territories 
     unfriendly to them. Iran is encircled by Afghanistan, by the 
     Gulf States, Iraq and the Moslem republics of the former 
     Soviet Union. Syria is surrounded by Turkey, Iraq, Jordan and 
     Israel. This is a significant strategic change and it applies 
     strong pressure on the terrorist countries. It is not 
     surprising that Iran is so active in trying to incite a 
     Shiite uprising in Iraq. I do not know if the American plan 
     was actually to encircle both Iran and Syria, but that is the 
     resulting situation.
       In my humble opinion, the number one danger to the world 
     today is Iran and its regime. It definitely has ambitions to 
     rule vast areas and to expand in all directions. It has an 
     ideology, which claims supremacy over Western culture. It is 
     ruthless. It has proven that it can execute elaborate 
     terrorist acts without leaving too many traces, using Iranian 
     Embassies. It is clearly trying to develop Nuclear Weapons. 
     Its so-called moderates and conservatives play their own 
     virtuoso version of the ``good-cop versus bad-cop'' game. 
     Iran sponsors Syrian terrorism, it is certainly behind much 
     of the action in Iraq, it is fully funding the Hizbulla and,

[[Page 15458]]

     through it, the Palestinian Hamas and Islamic Jihad, it 
     performed acts of terror at least in Europe and in South 
     America and probably also in Uzbekhistan and Saudi Arabia and 
     it truly leads a multi-national terror consortium, which 
     includes, as minor players, Syria, Lebanon and certain Shiite 
     elements in Iraq. Nevertheless, most European countries still 
     trade with Iran, try to appease it and refuse to read the 
     clear signals.
       In order to win the war it is also necessary to dry the 
     financial resources of the terror conglomerate. It is 
     pointless to try to understand the subtle differences between 
     the Sunni terror of Al Qaida and Hamas and the Shiite terror 
     of Hizbulla, Sadr and other Iranian inspired enterprises. 
     When it serves their business needs, all of them collaborate 
     beautifully.
       It is crucial to stop Saudi and other financial support of 
     the outer circle, which is the fertile breeding ground of 
     terror. It is important to monitor all donations from the 
     Western World to Islamic organizations, to monitor the 
     finances of international relief organizations and to react 
     with forceful economic measures to any small sign of 
     financial aid to any of the three circles of terrorism. It is 
     also important to act decisively against the campaign of lies 
     and fabrications and to monitor those Western media who 
     collaborate with it out of naivety, financial interests or 
     ignorance.
       Above all, never surrender to terror. No one will ever know 
     whether the recent elections in Spain would have yielded a 
     different result, if not for the train bombings a few days 
     earlier. But it really does not matter. What matters is that 
     the terrorists believe that they caused the result and that 
     they won by driving Spain out of Iraq. The Spanish story will 
     surely end up being extremely costly to other European 
     countries, including France, who is now expelling inciting 
     preachers and forbidding veils and including others who sent 
     troops to Iraq. In the long run, Spain itself will pay even 
     more.
       Is the solution a democratic Arab world? If by democracy we 
     mean free elections but also free press, free speech, a 
     functioning judicial system, civil liberties, equality to 
     women, free international travel, exposure to international 
     media and ideas, laws against racial incitement and against 
     defamation, and avoidance of lawless behavior regarding 
     hospitals, places of worship and children, then yes, 
     democracy is the solution. If democracy is just free 
     elections, it is likely that the most fanatic regime will be 
     elected, the one whose incitement and fabrications are the 
     most inflammatory. We have seen it already in Algeria and, to 
     a certain extent, in Turkey. It will happen again, if the 
     ground is not prepared very carefully. On the other hand, a 
     certain transition democracy, as in Jordan, may be a better 
     temporary solution, paving the way for the real thing, 
     perhaps in the same way that an immediate sudden democracy 
     did not work in Russia and would not have worked in China.
       I have no doubt that the civilized world will prevail. But 
     the longer it takes us to understand the new landscape of 
     this war, the more costly and painful the victory will be. 
     Europe, more than any other region, is the key. Its 
     understandable recoil from wars, following the horrors of 
     World War II, may cost thousands of additional innocent 
     lives, before the tide will turn.

  Mr. LAUTENBERG. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Collins). The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
order for the quorum call be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                     Message to the American People

  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Madam President, I, like millions of Americans, see 
what is happening on television, listen to what is happening on radio, 
and hear campaign commercials that are being submitted on a fairly 
regular basis. I listen to them and wonder, what is the message to our 
country? What is being said? What is the message we want to give to the 
American people? What do we want to tell them about our concern for 
their needs? Do we want to talk about lower prices for prescription 
drugs? Do we want to talk about educating our children? Do we want to 
talk about health care generally? Do we want to talk about bringing the 
troops home? Do we say enough is enough?
  When we look at the record and see what is happening, the killing 
continues in Iraq. Since we have gone over to an Iraqi interim 
government, the rate of death has not diminished from the time before 
we turned this government over to the Iraqi interim government.
  Today, we heard news of a terrible explosion that killed a bunch of 
Iraqis and injured American soldiers. The toll continues to mount. I 
believe the American people are concerned about that. I hear it from 
parents who say: My son's term has been extended. He thought he would 
be home by now. Now he has to serve 3 more months. Or, my daughter has 
to stay there far longer than she expected. Not only are they 
emotionally torn apart, not only are there family problems from the 
absence of dad or the absence of mom from the household, but 
financially it is a disaster.
  I have tried to get an amendment. I tried to put it on the Defense 
appropriations bill, but I couldn't get the amendment attached. They 
said no, we don't want to give $2,000 a month more for these people for 
the 3 months more they have to serve; $6,000 total cost; maybe $150 
million out of a budget of $400 billion, and we couldn't get an ear to 
listen to it here. We couldn't get the majority to pay attention.
  The job market is not robust. We are still at a loss for the number 
of jobs we have available since this administration took over. When do 
we put these people to work? When do we stop shipping jobs abroad? When 
do we deal with the problems that concern everyday citizens? When do we 
deal with the cost of gasoline, which is up 50 percent almost in the 
last year?
  What we hear in response to those problems are campaign commercials--
$8 million of them in recent weeks. We hear that John Kerry has missed 
two-thirds of the votes that have been taken here in the U.S. Senate. 
We do not hear anybody saying John Kerry served bravely in Vietnam when 
he disagreed with the policy of his country, but he felt loyal enough 
and obliged enough and went ahead and got wounded three times. He got 
three Purple Hearts. I served in the Army 3 years. I didn't earn one, 
but I know what a Purple Heart means in recognition of bravery; a 
Silver Star, very high-ranking medal; a Bronze Star, an important 
recognition of bravery on the battlefield. And we want to hear talk 
about how he has missed these votes.
  Yes, I am a Member of the Senate and am proud of it. I am proud of my 
voting record. But I am also proud of the contribution John Kerry is 
trying to make to this country.
  We ought to talk about comparing service to country, President Bush's 
service and Senator John Kerry's service. Compare the two. Start with 
Vietnam. See what happened there, when President Bush had an 
opportunity to avoid regular service by going to the Air Guard, which 
he didn't really do anything with. But to criticize Senator John Kerry 
for his contribution to our country by pointing out the fact that he 
has missed a bunch of votes, that he found time to vote against the 
Laci Peterson amendment which was offered here, and that he missed 
other votes--talk about the platforms of these two, talk about what 
John Kerry is saying we have to do about jobs, about getting a 
coalition to help us deal with Iraq to try to strengthen our resources 
there.
  President Bush's decision, along with his Cabinet, the Secretary of 
Defense, and the Vice President, was that General Shinseki was all 
wrong when he said we have to have 300,000 people in Iraq. They fired 
him. They got rid of him. They don't want to hear dissent and 
difference. They don't want to hear it. They don't want the public to 
hear what John Kerry has done for his country. No. They want to hear 
that he missed votes. It is too bad that he missed votes, but he is on 
a larger mission. He wants a change in the direction of this country. 
He is not here at times when he is out there delivering messages to 
which people respond.
  Just look at the gatherings. We see people for Senator Kerry and 
Senator Edwards. They are thirsty for information that affects their 
everyday lives. They do not sit around the dinner table talking about 
how much time we are spending--not enough time, they might say--on gay 
marriage and a constitutional amendment. I don't think Mr. and Mrs. 
Working American are sitting around their table praying for the moment 
that an amendment to the Constitution will be put in place where we can 
challenge the rights of a particular group of people when we haven't 
gotten our appropriations bills in place; we haven't voted on moving

[[Page 15459]]

homeland security resources along not funding these things. No, but we 
can spend days here.
  By the way, we may have set a record for quorum calls. We have spent 
a lot of time with two lights on. That should tell the American people 
that there is nothing going on in here. We have had one vote this week, 
and the prospects for another vote are not very bright. What an 
exhausting schedule, two, three votes, possibly five votes in a week. 
Come on.
  Please, Mr. President, clear your message, talk about the things the 
American people are concerned about. Talk about how we get our kids 
home from Iraq, talk about how we get our former allies into the mix so 
they can help share the burden. That is what we want to hear.
  We do not want to hear only critical comments about John Kerry 
because then you force us to compare the two records. If I were 
President Bush, I would hide from the record. If they want to compare 
President Bush's record to Senator John Kerry's record of service to 
country, we would have quite a revelation for the people in this 
country.
  Spending millions on commercials to denigrate Senator John Kerry, a 
war hero, a volunteer, who went to Vietnam--go there, do your duty, 
pull a guy out of the water whose life may be hanging in the balance, 
under gunfire. Pull this man out of the water.
  I have campaigned with one of his former swift boat colleagues. If 
you heard the praise that he gave to LTG John Kerry for his leadership. 
But we do not want to talk about that. We want to try to subdue it with 
sneering commentaries about how he missed a vote and flip-flopped.
  I wish President Bush would look at some of the decisions he made and 
flip them. One of them I tried to pass was to have flag-draped coffins, 
the respect that they earn. People who gave their lives on behalf of 
the country's mission, when they come back to Dover, DE, where the 
coffins are deposited, and we say no, the media cannot show those 
coffins because that would alert people to the penalties of war, to the 
punishment that families endure. We do not want that. Hide it from the 
public. Don't let them understand what the cost of war is.
  They criticize Senator John Kerry, loyal American, who served his 
duty, served it well, served it here. Look at his voting record before 
he ran for President of the United States. Look at the President's 
tours for fundraising and political gatherings. He goes on Air Force 
One and the only cost--and this 747 is a beautiful airplane; most of 
America has seen it--all that has to be paid is the cost of the first-
class transportation on a commercial airliner. Take this huge airplane, 
lift it into the sky and say: Well, we will reimburse it because we 
used it for fundraising or for political campaigns.
  Mr. President, change your tune. Let's hear your view on what America 
has to have to satisfy the needs of our constituents. Please, you have 
gone too far with this character abuse, with this character 
assassination. You have gone too far.
  Look at the American people. Look them in the eye and say, yes, I, 
President George Bush, approve of this message, and give a positive 
message about when drug prices are coming down, about how we will fund 
Head Start for 300,000 children who will now be dropped, or other 
programs that are talked about but not funded. Please, Mr. President, 
speak up on behalf of the people in America so we can build strength, 
so we can have some harmony and not the divisive attitude we find 
prevailing.
  It is not fair to the American people. When we deny a hero's 
recognition, we do something far worse. It was done in the State of 
Georgia in a senatorial election recently. A fellow named Max Cleland, 
with whom we served, and whom we all felt very close to, lost three 
limbs in Vietnam. They managed to paint him in a somewhat cowardly 
fashion, that he was soft on defense. One arm missing, half of one arm 
missing, two legs missing. It takes him 2 hours to get out of bed in 
the morning, and they made him look like he was soft on defense. What a 
disgrace. The American people have to look at that.
  And now the game is to denigrate John Kerry's record to make him look 
as if he is just absent and not doing anything worthwhile. He and 
Senator Edwards are trying to put this country on the right path. The 
voters will decide, by the way. But we ought to let the record be out 
there so that everybody knows what each of the parties is doing.
  Enough, Mr. President. Please change the tone of your commercials. It 
is not fair to have an airplane in the sky saying: Senator John Kerry, 
if he had his choice, would have voted against the interests of the 
troops. It is a foul lie, that is what it is, not true at all. If a 
vote was made, it was made in the context of an entire amendment. It 
was not made simply to take money away from our serving troops. 
President Bush knows that.
  I wish he would change his tone. It does not ring properly for the 
President. It does not become the President of the United States to be 
looking at Senator John Kerry's record and make jokes about his 
attendance, about his flip-flop. No, no, no, look at the things he has 
done. We can all pick out the blemishes of the other, but that is no 
way to run a country. That is the way to run a schoolyard fight. It 
does not become the President of the United States.
  I yield the floor, but I hope President Bush will change his tone.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Alexander). The Senator from Pennsylvania.


                   In Memory of Carey Lackman Slease

  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I have sought recognition to inform the 
Senate family of the passing of Carey Anne Lackman Slease, my chief of 
staff, who passed this morning at 5:30 a.m.
  During the course of the day, my office staff and I have been deluged 
with expressions of sympathy showing the very high regard and high 
esteem that she was held in by our Senate family.
  She was afflicted with the terrible problem of breast cancer. She had 
a long, lingering illness. She received the very best of modern day 
medicine with the assistance of the National Institutes of Health. My 
deputy, Bettilou Taylor, who handles the Subcommittee on Labor, Health, 
Human Services and Education, has had extensive contact with the 
National Institutes of Health. When I saw Carey last night, less than 
24 hours ago, she had expressed her gratitude for the kind of care 
which she had received.
  She said, in her own words, she had a good run and she was 
understanding and at peace with herself as she knew her imminent fate.
  She had left the hospital shortly after being married to her 
sweetheart, Clyde Slease, III, on Saturday. We have a beautiful set of 
wedding photographs, a clear remembrance of her from just a few days 
ago. And she came home, setting up a hospice, in effect, in her home.
  As I say, when I saw her yesterday, she was reconciled and at peace 
with herself, and considering the circumstances, as composed and as 
brave and as resolute as any human being could be. She said she was 
advised that it was a matter of a few days or a week or two. She was 
taken this morning, as I say, at 5:30.
  Her life was really the U.S. Senate. She graduated from Radford 
University. She was the oldest daughter of a retired colonel, William 
F. Lackman. She is survived by three sisters and three brothers--a 
large family of seven children--and her mother.
  She came to the Senate family at the age of 24, and she spent most of 
the remaining half of her life in the Senate, dying at the age of 48. 
She was a legislative assistant to Senator John Heinz from 1979 to 
1985. She then founded her own firm in Los Angeles for a period of 6 
years. She then came back to work for me in the early 1990s. Except for 
a very short stint, again, with her own firm in biotech in the public 
sector, she was on my staff, coming back to work for me some 2\1/2\ 
years ago in December 2001, when called to active duty.
  She did an extraordinary job for me. She was beautiful in many ways: 
a statuesque blonde, an amiable personality. She worked well with her 
colleagues. She worked well with the

[[Page 15460]]

young staff. She was a mentor. She was very accomplished, brilliant, 
studious, analytical, and handled the substantive problems of the 
office with aplomb, dignity, and efficiency.
  She was one of the first women to be chief of staff in the U.S. 
Senate. She was acclaimed by PoliticsPA as one of Pennsylvania's most 
politically powerful women.
  She had an extraordinary career, regrettably cut short by her 
untimely passing at the age of 48.
  Funeral services will be held in Middleburg, VA, on Friday at 10 
a.m., with a viewing tomorrow evening.
  She has made quite an impact in many realms of her professional 
pursuits, but really most of all in the U.S. Senate, where she had made 
so many friends and was held in such very high regard, really beloved 
by the Senate family.
  So it is a sad occasion for the entire Senate family, but most of all 
for her colleagues in my office and for me to note her passing at the 
very tender age of 48.
  Senator Santorum was in the chamber and wanted to speak but could not 
wait until the other speakers had concluded.
  I thank the Chair and, in the absence of any Senator seeking 
recognition, suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Coleman). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

                          ____________________