[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 12]
[House]
[Pages 16827-16828]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




 WHEN THE HEAT IS ON, BUSH TEAM USES NATIONAL SECURITY INFORMATION FOR 
                            POLITICAL COVER

  (Mr. PALLONE asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute.)
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, just 3 days prior to the release of the 9/
11 Commission report critical of the Bush administration's lack of 
attention on terrorism, a 7-month-old FBI investigation of former 
National Security Adviser Sandy Berger was leaked to the media. The 
timing of the leak is sort of curious.
  Previously, the Bush team has used national security information and 
memos to disparage 9/11 Commission members who they did not like. Now, 
tomorrow, the 9/11 Commission is preparing to release their report, and 
we know it will be bad for the Bush administration. We know we were not 
as safe as we should have been on September 11, and we still mourn the 
thousands who died that day.
  The Bush administration opposed the creation of the commission. They 
fought against giving the commission enough time to complete its work 
and tried to limit the documents the commission could see.
  President Bush and Vice President Cheney sought to limit any 
questions they received from the commission and National Security 
Adviser Condoleezza Rice tried to avoid testifying publicly at all.
  Now, the commission's report is done and the questions it raises are, 
Are we as safe as we should be today? How much progress have we made in 
correcting homeland security deficiencies?
  Unfortunately, the Bush administration has a lot of work left to be 
done.

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