[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 6]
[House]
[Pages 8292-8293]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           NATIONAL SECURITY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Cole). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Nadler) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, the President, as you can see from the 
poster, said at his press conference last week that he was not aware of 
any mistakes that he had made. Let me tell my colleagues and him a few 
mistakes he has made, three major mistakes:
  First, in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, the Bush administration 
chose deliberately to mislead the people of New York about the safety 
of the air and the environment in the aftermath of that disaster. We 
now know from the Inspector General of EPA's report that the White 
House instructed the EPA to mislead the people of New York. The former 
administrator of EPA, Mrs. Whitman, said 2 days after the disaster the 
air is safe to breathe, when they had no test data to show that.
  Because of that misleading, Federal, State, and city government 
followed policies that have resulted in catastrophe. We now know from 
recent medical reports that an absolute majority, most of the first 
responders, the heroes, the fire officers, the police officers, the 
construction workers who descended on Lower Manhattan to help with the 
rescue operations, most of them now, 2\1/2\ years later, have serious 
respiratory disorders which will probably plague them for the rest of 
their lives. We know that women who live within a mile, 1.6 kilometers, 
of the World Trade Center, today are giving birth to low birth weight 
babies at twice the natural rate because the White House chose to 
mislead the American people.
  Second, the White House chose to get us into a useless, stupid war in 
Iraq to divert our attention from the war against us by the Islamic 
terrorists. We know that there were no weapons of mass destruction, 
contrary to what they told us in Iraq, no great stockpiles of weapons 
of mass destruction. We know the Iraqi people did not, as the White 
House told us they would, greet our troops as liberators. We know that 
when the President stood there before the sign and said mission 
accomplished and said that major combat was over, he was wrong. We know 
this administration did not plan adequately for an occupation. We know 
they sent too few troops there to properly secure the country. We know 
they fired General Shinseki because he had the impudence to say the 
truth in advance. We know that they disbanded the Iraqi army without 
having enough troop strength to replace it and they are now trying to 
reassemble it.
  We know, in short, they got us into a quagmire and so thoroughly 
alienated the rest of the world by the arrogant attitude of this 
administration that we cannot get any significant help, we cannot 
internationalize the conflict, we cannot share the burdens or at least 
we cannot do these things as long as George Bush is President because 
no one trusts him abroad anymore.
  But perhaps the greatest mistake that this administration has made is 
that this administration has not and does not take seriously enough the 
terrorist war being waged against us by the Islamic terrorists. From 
before 9/11, when this administration ignored

[[Page 8293]]

many warnings, to this very day, they refuse to spend the money 
necessary to protect the American people. Two months after 9/11, 
leaders in Congress proposed to spend $10 billion to protect our 
chemical and nuclear facilities and our transportation terminals 
against attacks that could kill or wound hundreds of thousands of 
people. President Bush said he would veto such an appropriation. It was 
not done. This administration refuses to spend the money to buy the 
weapons grade plutonium and uranium now in the former Soviet Union that 
can easily be smuggled to al Qaeda to make atomic bombs because they 
care more about tax cuts for the wealthy than about protecting the 
American people. It is a mistake not to prevent al Qaeda from going 
nuclear by buying that plutonium and uranium quickly.
  This administration inspects only 2 percent of the 6 million shipping 
containers that come into this country every year, any one of which 
could hide a chemical or biological or nuclear weapon. It is a mistake 
not to insist that no container is placed on a ship bound for the 
United States until that container is inspected and certified and 
sealed by an American inspection team in the foreign port.
  This administration will not spend the funds to protect our 
commercial aviation. It is a mistake not to place a missile deflection 
system on every commercial airliner as the Israelis are doing by this 
summer so that we do not have to worry about our airlines being shot 
out of the sky by shoulder-fired missiles. In short, it is a mistake 
not to place the priority where it belongs, on protecting the American 
people from terrorism instead of protecting tax cuts for the wealthy.
  Mr. Speaker, if the President wants to know about some mistakes, here 
are some mistakes. Here are some mistakes that he can correct if he is 
willing to protect the American people at the cost of the tax cuts for 
the wealthy. His major mistake is his priority. Tax cuts for the 
wealthy, yes. Protect the American people from terrorism, no. That is 
some mistake.

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