[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 13]
[House]
[Page 17205]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1015
                       THE 9/11 COMMISSION REPORT

  (Mr. McDERMOTT asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, as I got up this morning, I heard on CNN 
news that the Republican leadership had already decided we cannot do 
anything about the 9/11 report until next year.
  What we come to this morning is, first, the gentleman from Florida, 
now the lady from Tennessee, to tell us that the problem is Sandy 
Berger. Hey, folks, do not pay any attention to that report, just look 
at Sandy Berger's picture. Come on, look at Sandy Berger's picture. 
Look at Sandy Berger's picture. That is what you want to do.
  This is a distraction by the White House. This is a damning report, 
and we can spend all the time we want to blaming people here, but the 
question is what are we going to do.
  The Republicans say they care about terrorism. This here is a report 
that gives us concrete things to do; and the leadership of the 
Republican Party says, well, put this up on the shelf, this 9/11 
report, just put it up there, and let us go down and talk about Sandy 
Berger.
  Did anything get lost? Did the commission say they could do not their 
work? Did the Justice Department come to it with any charges against 
Mr. Berger? No.
  Now, we do not want to talk about the White House and Vivian Plame, 
or whatever her name was, that they outed or the majority leader who 
seems to be in some difficulty in Texas. We do not want to talk about 
that stuff. Let us talk about what needs to be done with the terrorism 
report.

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