[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 2]
[House]
[Pages 1657-1662]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                               IRAQ WATCH

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 7, 2003, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt) is 
recognized for 60 minutes.

[[Page 1658]]


  Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, we are here again this evening. As I am 
sure many of our colleagues are aware, during the course of the past 8 
months, several of us have taken to the floor to discuss issues 
surrounding Iraq, Afghanistan, and other issues of concern related to 
the war on terror, particularly as it is focused in the Middle East.
  I am joined tonight by two members of that group. We call ourselves 
the Iraq Watch, my colleague who is sitting to my right, the gentleman 
from Washington (Mr. Inslee); and I know that the gentleman from Ohio 
(Mr. Strickland) will soon join us.
  Earlier today before the House Committee on International Relations, 
Secretary of State Colin Powell appeared and testified concerning the 
budget proposal put forth by the Department and by the administration 
for the coming year. The Secretary had to leave earlier than some of us 
would have hoped, but I commend him for bearing up, if you will, for 
some 3 hours before the House Committee on International Relations.
  During the course of his testimony, he mentioned the tragedy that 
occurred in the town of Halabjah, a town he well knows because during 
the course of President Reagan's last 4 years he served in the capacity 
as the national security adviser and during the administration of 
George Herbert Walker Bush he served in the capacity of chief of staff 
of the Joint Chiefs. So he was very familiar, obviously; and many of us 
remember his service to the country during the Gulf War and prior to 
that what was occurring in the region.
  If I had had an opportunity to question him, I was going to indicate 
to him that I have a profound concern about what we are currently doing 
in terms of establishing alliances and relationships with some 
extremely unsavory regimes that very well might come back to haunt us. 
Some can only be described as extremely harsh dictatorships with 
abysmal human rights records. Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan come to mind 
immediately.
  Now we have a base in Uzbekistan where last year the Department of 
State used the following language in describing the abuse of human 
rights in that particular Nation. Let me quote, ``The security services 
routinely torture, beat and otherwise mistreat detainees. They 
allegedly use suffocation, electric shock, rape and other sexual 
abuse.'' The list goes on and on and on.
  Of course, the budget proposal put forth by the Department of State, 
under the leadership of Colin Powell, directs millions of dollars to 
Turkmenistan, whose leader has created a Stalinist personality cult 
that rivals anything we saw with Saddam Hussein. He even went so far as 
to rename the month of January after himself and the month of April 
after his mother.
  I remember observing the interview between Mr. Russert and President 
Bush this past Sunday; and the President described, appropriately so, 
Saddam Hussein as a madman. I might have used a different word. He 
might be crazy but he is not stupid, I guess is what I would say; but 
the new President, if you will, of Turkmenistan, who has changed his 
name to Turkmenibashi certainly seems to fit that particular 
description, and Karimov in Uzbekistan is nothing more than a thug with 
ambitions for regional power, again, very similar to Saddam Hussein.
  When the Secretary of State alluded to Halabjah, it provoked me to 
think that, are we repeating the same mistakes that we made in the 
1980s when the United States Government supported Saddam Hussein? Let 
us remember, it was the United States Government that removed Saddam 
Hussein from the terrorist list. We now hear that he supported 
terrorist groups. He was doing that in the 1980s, but the Reagan-Bush 
administrations removed him from the terrorist list, but they did not 
stop there. They went further. They restored full diplomatic relations 
with Saddam Hussein. In fact, they provided him credits and loan 
guarantees and, in fact, provided him intelligence during the course of 
his war with Iran.
  What I found particularly disturbing, and later when one of my 
colleagues speaks, I have a chart that shows just a minuscule number of 
transfers of dual-use technologies that were approved by the Reagan-
Bush administration, the Reagan-Bush White Houses, if you will, that no 
doubt became the building blocks of the tools for Saddam Hussein to 
develop that nuclear program that was discovered in the aftermath of 
the Gulf War. I mean, it was those White Houses, those administrations, 
that allowed the transfer of those dual-use technologies.
  Let me tell my colleagues where I received that information: not from 
a newspaper report, not from a think tank with a particular bias, but 
with an institution that everyone in this Chamber would acknowledge is 
free of bias, is what we all rely on to do our research, the 
Congressional Research Service.

                              {time}  2100

  That particular report was authored and produced in June of 1992. But 
I guess what is particularly disturbing is when I hear the Secretary of 
State refer to Halabjah and say that we know he used chemical weapons 
against his own people. In this case, it was the Iraqi Kurds in the 
north who had aligned themselves with the Iranian forces with which 
Iraq was at war at the time.
  The only action that I can discover in terms of my research was mild, 
off-the-record condemnations by the United States Government. And when 
this Congress back in 1988, 1989 and 1990 passed legislation, both 
branches independent of each other, that would have imposed sanctions 
on Saddam Hussein, it was the administration of George Herbert Walker 
Bush that blocked it. I agree obviously with the Secretary of State, he 
did use these weapons against his own people.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland).
  Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, the fact is, at the time he used those 
weapons we were cooperating with him. The first Bush administration was 
cooperating with him. He was a part of our team, so to speak, because 
we felt it was best if Iraq would be able to prevail over Iran at the 
time. And then to think that, 10 or 12 years later, there is no 
evidence that I know of or that the administration has brought forth to 
show that Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons following that incident 
some 12 or so years ago. And then to come back after a decade and use 
that as an excuse to launch a preemptive war simply does not make 
sense.
  When Saddam Hussein used these chemical weapons against his own 
people, our government was silent. We knew it was happening, and we 
were silent. And then for these self-righteous statements to be made a 
decade later does not make sense.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, not only were we silent, and it is very 
important that the historical record be revealed to the American 
people, and that is why we are tonight. If any viewer has any questions 
about the accuracy of what we state, I am sure that the gentleman from 
Ohio (Mr. Strickland) and the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) 
and any other member of Iraq Watch, we would be happy to respond and 
see that the reports, unbiased, that were authored back in 1992, would 
be provided to anyone who has an interest. They can contact our office.
  But it was not just silence. It was absolutely, according to this 
report, action to block the imposition of sanctions at that point in 
time. I dare say what would have happened if in 1988 and 1989 and 1990 
there were sanctions on Iraq, that would have been a message to Saddam 
Hussein. We can speculate that maybe we would have avoided the first 
Gulf War if we had taken on that thug then. But, no, we were not 
sending that message. We continued after the conclusion of the war. I 
have heard the argument while we tilted towards Iraq, that was the 
language that was used, we tilted towards Iraq because of our concern 
with Iran and the Ayatollah Khomeini.
  As I said earlier, what are we doing now? We are allying ourselves 
with two

[[Page 1659]]

more despots, two more thugs who I dare say years from now could very 
well be the new Saddam Husseins.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, if I may just respond, I think many of 
us watched the President's interview last Sunday morning with Tim 
Russert, and the President continuously called Saddam Hussein a madman. 
I have no problem with that. He is a despicable human being. The 
President talked about the chemical and biological threat, and he 
talked about the fact that he used chemicals on his own people.
  What the President failed to say was that he did that in the late 
1980s when the President's father was in the Oval Office, when Colin 
Powell was a part of the administration, and we did nothing except 
block the efforts of Congress to impose sanctions.
  My point is all of these years later to come forth and try to use 
that argument to convince the American people that we should launch a 
preemptive war that to this point has cost over 530 precious American 
lives, has resulted in the injury of thousands of our troops, has 
consumed about $150 billion of resources, the word ``hypocrisy'' comes 
to mind here.
  The American people, when we hear that Saddam Hussein used chemical 
weapons against his own people, assume that we are talking about 
something that happened within the last few months or last few years, 
not over 10 years ago. When you tell a half truth or a partial truth, 
it gets pretty close to being a lie. I think the American people really 
have been manipulated, misled and purposely deceived in the kind of 
information that they have been given about why we needed to enter into 
this preemptive war.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, to point out two other facts, the initial 
approach to Saddam Hussein in 1983 at the direction of President Reagan 
was done by a special envoy.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. I think that special envoy is our current Secretary 
of Defense.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, that is correct.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. That is Mr. Donald Rumsfeld, and we have pictures of 
Mr. Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam Hussein. Back in those days, the 
fact that he was a dictator and cruel and vicious to his own people and 
used chemical weapons against the Kurds, back in those days it did not 
seem to mean a lot, apparently, because we took no action. In fact, the 
administration at that time actually blocked, proactively blocked, the 
imposition of sanctions.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. In 1988, 1989, and 1990 the United States Congress took 
action.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. Tried to, certainly.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Both the House and the Senate passed legislation that 
would have imposed sanctions, and it was the White House of George 
Herbert Walker Bush that blocked it.
  Pausing again, going back in memory, who was the Secretary of 
Defense?
  The Secretary of Defense was Mr. Cheney, the current Vice President. 
His Under Secretary of Defense was Paul Wolfowitz.
  So, again, the dots here have to be connected. It is important, I 
believe, to present that historical record to the American people to 
give them the information that they need to conduct their own analysis.
  I challenge anyone from the administration or a Member of Congress to 
come to the floor and debate that particular unfortunate reality. If 
congressional action had been approved and the President, this 
President's father, had signed a bill that would have imposed 
sanctions, we can only speculate what would have happened.
  What I would have suggested, if we knew it and we speak again of 
human rights and how bad and claim a certain moral authority, what 
should have occurred is the President of the United States should have 
stepped up and requested an international tribunal and brought that 
thug, Saddam Hussein, before it for a trial, for a prosecution, and let 
justice happen.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. Absolutely. If I can just point out something that I 
think the observer of this Iraq Watch may be asking, why are these 
Members going so far back in history? Why are they regurgitating facts 
that happened more than 10 years ago?
  I think it is important to point out that the same people that were 
responsible then are making decisions now, and the same people who I 
think neglected to do the right thing more than 10 years ago are the 
people who have advised this President and urged this President to 
engage in preemptive war. They are the same individuals who want to 
remain in power. We can only guess what their next adventure may be if, 
in fact, they are allowed to remain in power. They continue to advise 
the President. They continue to justify this preemptive war.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to take a moment to share something else 
which I think many Americans do not fully understand, and I think they 
will find it interesting.
  There is a story in The Hill newspaper here, which is one of the 
Capitol Hill newspapers, about an effort by the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Waxman) to get some answers regarding something that 
happened in this country following the attack on September 11.
  As it turns out, when our country was attacked, there were a number 
of Saudi citizens, some of them relatives of Osama bin Laden, in this 
country. They were here in this country. As we know, most of those who 
flew those airplanes into the Towers and into the Pentagon and those 
that were responsible for the plane crash in Pennsylvania were Saudi 
citizens. They were not from Iraq or Iran or Syria. They were from 
Saudi Arabia. Now this is what gets interesting.
  A few days after 9/11, a significant number of those Saudi citizens, 
including relatives of Osama bin Laden, were allowed to leave this 
country. Apparently, they were allowed to leave this country before 
they were ever questioned. Did they know anything about the al Qaeda 
terrorism network? Did Osama bin Laden's relatives who were in this 
country at the time perhaps know of his whereabouts?

                              {time}  2115

  We do not know. The FBI does not know because apparently they did not 
bother to ask the question. We are trying to find out from Attorney 
General John Ashcroft who made the request that these Saudi citizens be 
allowed to leave our country. Who made the decision to allow them to 
leave without being questioned? Can you imagine a few days after the 
attack upon our country when these pilots were Saudi citizens and we 
knew almost certainly that Osama bin Laden was responsible for those 
attacks, that members of his family, two members especially, Abdullah 
bin laden and Omar bin laden, were allowed to get on an airplane and be 
taken out of this country.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Has the Attorney General responded? Has he identified 
those officials that were responsible?
  Mr. STRICKLAND. He has not responded. If I can just share this with 
the gentleman, at a Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee 
hearing just last year, Richard Clarke, who has headed the National 
Security Council's counterterrorism security group said, and this is a 
quote: ``What happened was that shortly after 9/11 when it became clear 
that most of the terrorists of 9/11 were Saudis, the Saudi government 
feared that there would be retribution and vigilantism in the United 
States against the Saudis. That seemed to be a reasonable fear.''
  If our government felt that vigilantism and retribution was going to 
endanger the lives of these Saudi citizens and Osama's relatives who 
were here in this country at the time, why did they not just simply 
take them into protective custody, at least until the FBI had an 
opportunity to question them? Is it possible that the Saudi citizens 
and Osama bin Laden's relatives could have known about the attacks? 
Might they have known where Osama bin Laden was located? We will never 
know because our government let them leave without first of all 
subjecting them to questioning.
  Mr. INSLEE. If the gentleman will yield, there is some additional 
information he may be interested in that I

[[Page 1660]]

 have read in press accounts. Again, these are press accounts because 
our government to date has not shared this information with the public; 
but not only did this administration allow these people to leave 
without being fully interrogated by the FBI but the press accounts that 
we have read stated that while everybody else was grounded from 
traveling, and we know how many people had to drive across America to 
get home for a week or so after September 11, that this administration 
actually cleared a special jet that flew around the country as one of 
the only few planes flying in America at that time to pick up members 
of the bin Laden family to shepherd them out of this country as soon as 
possible. So not only did we not fully question these folks, we 
actually accommodated them flying around while John Q. Citizen could 
not fly himself to get from Dubuque back to Seattle.
  Let me also indicate that to my knowledge, and again we do not have 
full information from our administration to date, but to our knowledge 
these people have never been interrogated by the FBI, even today, about 
what happened. And now we have a war in Iraq, rather than adequate 
research and interrogation of Saudi citizens today as to what happened 
on September 11.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. I think it is legitimate to ask this question: Were 
these Saudis, were these members of Osama bin Laden's family given 
special treatment? Why would they have been given special treatment? 
Can you imagine how we would have felt, how we would have reacted if 
those who piloted those planes into our trade towers had been Iraqi 
citizens? Or Syrian citizens? Can you imagine how we would have reacted 
if there had been relatives of Iraqis or of Saddam Hussein in this 
country after such an attack? Why were the Saudis given such special 
treatment? Could it be because of the oil and because of the close 
connection between the oil industry and the Saudi government and the 
Bush family and the Saudi royal family? I think these are questions 
that deserve to be answered.
  I think Attorney General Ashcroft should answer questions regarding 
who made the request that these citizens be allowed to leave the 
country without questioning. I think we should find out for certain 
that the FBI had said they had no interest in questioning them. I 
cannot imagine the FBI within days of the towers being struck saying we 
have no interest in questioning relatives of Osama bin Laden. I just 
cannot imagine that that is the case.
  Mr. INSLEE. I feel very strongly that these are just some of the 
questions that our government has a duty to answer. One of the reasons 
I feel so strongly about that is that this afternoon, I had a very 
painful discussion with a family in Bremerton, Washington, with whom I 
have been working for about a week or two now whose son and husband has 
been missing in Iraq, a soldier in Iraq. I have been working with this 
family to try to do what we could to assuage their concerns and make 
sure that we were doing everything we could to bring him home. Today I 
had to talk with that family, and they found out this morning that 
their son and husband would never be returning to them.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. I think it is appropriate that we bring this back to 
the human price that is being paid for our policies, because Sunday 
evening back in my district in southeastern Ohio, I visited a funeral 
home, attended the wake of a young soldier who had just returned, a man 
leaving a 14-year-old son, a 5-year-old daughter, three sisters, a 
mother, and wife. Saturday morning I went to the air base in 
Youngstown, Ohio. I met with about 30 soldiers and their families and 
their children; and in that early morning hours as the snow was 
falling, I saw those soldiers get on that plane, and I saw that plane 
take off down that snowy runway and disappear into the heavens. Tonight 
those soldiers are in the desert. The fact is that as we talk about the 
policies of our Nation, I do think it is appropriate, and I thank the 
gentleman from Washington for bringing our attention to the fact that 
we talk about policies, we talk about decisions in an almost 
theoretical sense sometimes here, but the fact is that there are real 
families, real soldiers, real deaths, real injuries.
  I also, and I will end my remarks with this, over this past weekend 
was able to attend a happy occasion because I went to the homecoming 
party of a young soldier who had just returned from Iraq. He was there 
with his grandfather, his father and his 4-year-old son, four 
generations. The mother of this 4-year-old son, the wife of this young 
soldier who had just returned, told me that during this soldier's 
absence, their 4-year-old son was so disturbed that the pediatrician 
suggested that he may need to go see a child psychiatrist, and she said 
his daddy is home and he is back to normal. Everything that we do here 
in this Chamber, but especially the decisions that we make regarding 
war and peace, affect real people, real families. I think we should 
never, ever forget that.
  I thank the gentleman for bringing up that situation that occurred in 
his district as well as giving me a chance to talk about the situation 
in my district.
  Mr. INSLEE. Unfortunately, all of us probably in every district have 
had these tough times with families.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. I can tell of a very sad moment when I attended a 
funeral in my hometown of a young man, 36 years old. His widow was 
there; his parents were there. His dad, Charlie Caldwell, taught my 
daughter in the local public school. He was killed. He was killed in a 
humvee. When we pause and think of it, the pain that this has caused. 
We have had this discussion before. Not only is it causing pain today; 
but in very real terms with the cost of this effort, if you will, we 
have already spent $187 billion. And while it is not in the President's 
budget, because clearly he has an interest in not increasing the 
deficit any more than it is and it is absolutely out of control, we 
know that and I think the American people know that, but we hear, and 
it has been reported that there is an additional $50 billion that will 
be in a supplemental. Of course, it will not happen before the 
election. But if I can just for one minute, because I want to go back, 
I want to let those who are watching, and maybe it is impossible, they 
cannot see this list; but this is just a small piece of exports to Iraq 
by U.S. companies from the year 1985 to 1990.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. Can I ask a question about that, because the heading 
across the gentleman's chart says ``Licensed Dual Use Exports to Iraq 
by U.S. Companies, 1985 to 1990.'' When we use the phrase ``dual use,'' 
does that mean that what has been exported can be used perhaps for 
legitimate purposes but also could be used for illegitimate military 
purposes or offensive purposes if that government chose to use them in 
that way?
  Mr. DELAHUNT. That is absolutely the correct definition. I think 
sometimes when we speak among ourselves because we know the terms, we 
seem to forget that oftentimes viewers and constituents and others, 
really, I am sure they are wondering, what are we talking about. I 
really thank the gentleman for making that clear. Yes, dual use means 
they can be used for peaceful purposes, or they can be used for the 
development of programs such as the nuclear program that Saddam Hussein 
began, started. It was well along the way in terms of its development 
when in 1990 during the Gulf War he was defeated, and under the 
agreement, the U.N. inspectors went in and found that, yes, he did have 
a nuclear program at that point in time. Actually, the United Nations 
inspection team did a superb job. But where did the technologies come 
from for the development of Saddam Hussein's nuclear weapon program? It 
is right here.
  Let me just read several. There are computers for possible use in 
nuclear weapons development. Computers useful for missile development. 
Computers that U.N. inspectors believed monitored uranium enrichment 
for atomic bomb fuel. Computers useful for graphic design of atomic 
bombs and missiles. Computers for manufacturing tool design and 
graphics. Computers for possible use in atomic bomb or missile 
development. This is the moneys that

[[Page 1661]]

were paid to American firms under a license approved in the first Bush 
administration.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. From 1985 to 1990?
  Mr. DELAHUNT. From 1985 to 1990. Again, I just do not think that we 
can overstate the historical record because I think it provides the 
American people, particularly those who are watching us here tonight, 
with information for them to reach their own conclusions. The reality 
is, he did have chemical weapons; and as Secretary Powell indicated 
today, they knew he had chemical weapons when they launched Desert 
Storm in the first Gulf War and our soldiers were prepared; but, of 
course, he did not use them.

                              {time}  2130

  He did not use them. He only used them against his own people.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. More than 10 years ago.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. In 1988 in Halabja, and he murdered somewhere between 
5,000 and 10,000 Iraqi Kurds, and we were silent then when we should 
have imposed the sanctions and insisted that he be brought to trial. So 
that is the full story. That is the full story.
  Again, today, Secretary Powell continued to talk about intent. And 
there was evidence of intent, and I hear Dr. Rice, Condoleezza Rice, we 
know he used them. Yes. Back in 1988 and 1989, and we did nothing then, 
and here we are in 2002.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, may I point out something to my friend. 
The U.N. inspections worked. The U.N. inspectors were in Iraq. They 
were asking for additional time. It was this government that terminated 
the inspections right before this war began. And the fact is that if 
the inspections had continued, we would have uncovered the fact that 
these weapons of mass destruction did not exist in Iraq at the present 
time. And it is so sad, it is tragic that we rushed to a decision, that 
we told the U.N. inspectors their time was up and that we initiated 
this preemptive war. And we cannot, we must not, forget that over 530 
of our fellow Americans have lost their lives, and we are losing lives 
in Iraq every day, and there is no end in sight.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, just to pick up on the gentleman's point 
that in terms of the work that the U.N. teams did, respectively it has 
been established that there were no stockpiles. There were no weapons 
of mass destruction. In fact, David Kay, appointed by President Bush, 
came back and told the American people, to use his words, we were all 
wrong. I think it is so important to analyze and understand all of the 
dots here and what lies in the future. As I said in my opening remarks, 
we are now creating alliances and working with people who rival Saddam 
Hussein in terms of their tyranny, their abuse of human rights, and 
their willingness to do anything to enhance their power.
  I mentioned earlier we have a military base in Uzbekistan. And the 
President of Uzbekistan, here he is with our Secretary of Defense. The 
gentleman, if the Members will, to Secretary Rumsfeld's right, his name 
is Karimov, Islam Karimov. He is a tyrant. He is a thug, and we are in 
bed with him. The American people should know that. In Turkmenistan, I 
had mentioned earlier the leader of Turkmenistan, and we are sending 
him millions of dollars. Talk about a madman. He is a certifiable nut, 
changing the names of the calendar, April for his mother and January 
for himself. What are we doing? We are making the same mistake, and 
that is why it is important that those that are watching Iraq Watch 
tonight take this information, read on their own, and look to the 
future and understand that we are now or could be planting the seeds 
for another Saddam Hussein that will wreak havoc in the region, that 
obviously these two will continue to abuse human rights and what about 
our claim to moral authority when we are losing prestige in the world 
today?
  Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, because he is 
bringing up moral authority, which is very important; and we were 
talking about the families we have been working with who have lost 
their sons and daughters in Iraq, and there is a moral obligation by 
the United States Government to come forward and answer some of these 
questions that we have been asking tonight. And the gentleman mentioned 
something about reading and some folks may find some reading material 
of interest. I want to refer to people about a moral question that our 
government owes to the American people, and that is the question of how 
this war was started based on what, according to Mr. Kay, was a false 
premise.
  The people of this country, the families who have servicepeople 
serving in Iraq, those who have lost members of their families, they 
deserve a clear, cogent, and complete answer of how a war was started 
based on a false premise about what the status of weapons was in Iraq. 
And the gentleman mentioned things he was reading. I read something 
extremely disturbing to me this weekend. It was printed in the Knight 
Ridder newspapers. I read it in the Seattle Times February 10, an 
article entitled ``Doubts and Dissent Removed from Public Report on 
Iraq. Secret version President Bush received was more cautious about 
threat.''
  We know at this point, according to Mr. Kay, our expert in the field 
and now even according to the President apparently, that the premise 
that gave rise to this war was false about the status of weapons of 
mass destruction in Iraq. And that is disturbing enough. It is it 
disturbing for our soldiers and sailors. It is disturbing of our 
standing in the world, starting a war on a false premise. But this 
article was more disturbing to me because the conclusion and premise of 
this article was not only was this premise false but that the 
Government of the United States of America in a sense distorted in 
significant ways the nature of intelligence that it had available to it 
before the war started. For instance, and again this is in the 
newspaper, and I cannot vouch for its authenticity. It makes reference 
to some intelligence reports. This is not coming from myself. It is 
coming from the Seattle Times and the Knight Ridder newspaper. But they 
made reference to a statement essentially by the President that there 
is no doubt, and that is a quote from this President, that the 
President of the United States looked at the American people and said 
there is no doubt, no doubt, that Iraq had some of the most lethal 
weapons systems devised by man before this war started.
  But this article disclosed that the intelligence reports given to the 
President of the United States showed there was tremendous doubt about 
this situation. And I will quote from this article: ``Whereas the 
President of the United States was essentially saying there is no doubt 
that Iraq had reconstituted, in the words of the Vice President, a 
nuclear program.'' Listen to what the intelligence report said, 
according to this article, that was given to the President of the 
United States. This was an intelligence report prepared by the State 
Department's intelligence arm, which is called the Bureau of 
Intelligence and Research, known as the INR.
  This is a quote. That report said ``the activities we have detected 
do not, however, add up to a compelling case that Iraq is currently 
pursuing what INR would consider to be an integrated and comprehensive 
approach to acquire nuclear weapons. Iraq may be doing so, but INR 
considers the available evidence inadequate to support such a 
judgment.'' The report goes on to say, ``INR is unwilling to project a 
timeline for the completion of activities it does not now see 
happening.''
  So while the President of the United States, the leader of the free 
world, was telling the world and American soldiers and sailors and 
citizens that there was no doubt that this country had a meaningful, 
real, and contemporaneous nuclear program, our own intelligence 
services, at least one of them, was telling him they did not think so. 
This was not told to the American people. And even if one believes 
today that this war was totally justified based on the civil rights of 
the Iraqi citizens, and I respect people who have that view, even if 
one believes that, it is a moral wrong not to share this information 
with the American people and the U.S. Congress when this debate is 
going on.

[[Page 1662]]


  Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. INSLEE. I have one more point I want to be sure I make, but I 
yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, when the President was interviewed on 
Sunday, he told the American people that the Congress had the same 
intelligence available to them as he had available to him. And that was 
not true. No one told us that there was ambiguity. The President and 
the Vice President spoke with surety. They said, as the gentleman has 
pointed out, there was no doubt.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. I should interrupt the gentleman to say that Secretary 
Powell made that statement again. And not having had the opportunity 
because he left early, I was stunned by that particular remark. I do 
not know any Member in this body that had these different reports. With 
the caveats and the qualifiers, what we got was something different, 
Mr. Speaker.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. We cannot even find out who served on the Vice 
President's energy task force, let alone have access to all the 
intelligence that the President has available.
  Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, let me make a point, because I think it is 
important. It is not just this nuclear threat. As the gentlemen know, 
Condoleezza Rice made repeated references to the mushroom cloud, which 
is a most disturbing image to all of us having suffered through 
September 11, and a real potential threat from Iran and North Korea. 
But it is not just the nuclear threat, but the American people were not 
given the full scoop in this regard.
  The gentlemen will recall when the President and others made repeated 
references to the unmanned aerial vehicles that they told us was a 
threat to the continental United States, that Iraq could fly over 
American cities and spray biological material over the United States 
and none of us can always ever eliminate any threat. Today somebody may 
be planning to do that today as we speak. I do not want to be 
Pollyanna-ish about this, but the President told us that our 
intelligence services were telling us that was going on.
  According to this article, let me tell the gentlemen what the United 
States Air Force was telling the President of the United States. What 
it said was: ``The Air Force does not agree that Iraq is developing 
UAVs, unmanned aerial vehicles, primarily intended to be delivery 
platforms for chemical and biological warfare, CBW agents. The small 
size of Iraq's new UAV strongly suggests a primary role of 
reconnaissance, although CBW delivery is an inherent capability.'' We 
were told that Iraq was developing these weapons that could fly over 
Philadelphia and spray biological and anthrax over it when the Air 
Force was telling the President of the United States they did not 
believe that was the case.
  Let me finish one more point. During our national debate, I respected 
the President of the United States' statement that Saddam Hussein was a 
tyrant and a thug and was massively abusive to his own people, and 
perhaps he rightfully argued that he believed preemptive action was 
appropriate. That is an argument we would respect and listen to. But 
during this national debate, before this President sent our citizens to 
die in the sands of Iraq, he did not owe us 30 percent of the truth. He 
did not owe us 75 percent of the truth. He owed us the whole truth and 
nothing but the truth. Hans Blix, who was defamed mightily by this 
administration prior to this war, I think said it best when he got this 
information. He said, ``We deserve more than what a car salesman might 
give.

                              {time}  2145

  We deserve the whole truth.''
  If these reports are accurate, again, I have not seen these, but I 
read about them in the newspaper, if these reports are accurate, we 
need to get to the bottom of what happened here. That is why this 
commission that the President has appointed needs to take it upon 
itself not only to look at the bureaucracy at the Central Intelligence 
Agency, but they need to know why the President of the United States 
and his administration was not entirely forthcoming about the 
intelligence in this regard.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. You know what I would like to do? I would commend for 
reading, to those that are watching us have this conversation tonight, 
this Newsweek article. It is the publication of November 17, 2003, 4 or 
5 months ago. Obviously, this is a picture of the Vice President, and 
it is entitled ``How Dick Cheney Sold the War: The Inside Story.''
  Again, I think we and the citizens have an obligation to do as much 
homework as we can to fully understand the reality. Those points that 
the gentleman made, I have heard them on the floor today. Earlier the 
President went to Poland and spoke about those two mobile trailers that 
allegedly were being used in a bio-weapon program. The CIA refuted 
that. Again, it is important to be accurate.
  It is interesting, everybody in Washington at least knows and the 
American people should know that there has been tension within the 
administration between the Vice President on one side and Secretary 
Powell on the other side. If I had had an opportunity today, I was 
going to ask the Secretary if this story in The Washington Post was 
accurate.
  There was a lengthy article; and it was, again, published on February 
1 of this year. If you remember, when Secretary Powell went before the 
United Nations, what the article relates is that he was very careful 
and thorough in terms of what he believed to be accurate intelligence, 
and he had this CIA analyst come in and discuss it with him.
  The CIA originally drafted his speech, which then went to the White 
House. But when it emerged, it looked entirely different. The Vice 
President's chief of staff, one individual by the name of Scooter 
Libby, and his National Security Advisor, Stephen Hadley, and other 
national security staffers had produced draft language for Powell, 45 
pages on weapons of mass destruction, 38 pages on alleged links to 
terrorism, and 16 pages on Iraq's human rights abuses. Within 1 day, 
Powell's task force had largely abandoned the 45-page document on 
Iraq's weapons of mass destruction produced by Cheney's office and the 
National Security Council, using instead a classified National 
Intelligence Estimate assembled by the CIA in October.
  Again, let me suggest this: a vision and a view and an ideology that 
had a conclusion and was looking for facts. We all know in the 
selection of facts, and, again, this can be done without even a 
conscious intent to deceive, but the attempt to make the case like 
lawyers do in a courtroom. But this is not a courtroom; this is not 
advocacy.
  But, again, I was going to ask the Secretary, was that report true. 
When that speech that he had prepared had come out of the White House, 
out of the Vice President's office, changed so dramatically, did he 
abandon it and go and rely on the National Intelligence Estimate?
  Do you know what? The American people have a right to know that 
process, the world has a right to know that process, because that was a 
presentation to the world by the representative of the United States to 
the world.

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