[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 7]
[House]
[Page 8601]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                   RUMSFELD TERMINATION/INVESTIGATION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Stupak) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. STUPAK. Mr. Speaker, I rise today for two reasons: to call for 
President Bush to fire Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld for failing 
to act upon reports of the disgusting photographs and inhumane 
treatment of Iraqi prisoners, and I also call upon the U.S. House of 
Representatives to hold hearings into the role private contractors may 
have played in these incidents.
  Mr. Speaker, President Bush has repeatedly allowed the United States' 
reputation with the international community to be tarnished and has not 
held his appointees accountable for this damage. Whether it was going 
to war based upon inaccurate intelligence information, or White House 
officials exposing the identity of one of our own CIA operatives, or 
the most recent revelation about the inhumane treatment of prisoners at 
Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq, President Bush refuses to hold his people 
accountable.
  According to recent media reports, administration officials, 
including Secretary Rumsfeld, have known about these abuses for months, 
yet they failed to act on repeated recommendations to improve 
conditions for thousands of Iraqi detainees. In response, Mr. Rumsfeld 
only received a private scolding from the President.
  This is not a minor problem that can be fixed with just a slap on the 
wrist or by buying million-dollar ads to redefine history. The 
international community is appalled and upset at the cowboy arrogance 
and actions of this administration. Wild west tactics do not work 
anywhere, especially in the Middle East.
  Mr. Speaker, I call upon the House Committee on Government Reform to 
hold hearings into the government-paid contractors in Iraq who may have 
played a role in the actions in Abu Ghraib Prison. In addition, in a 
letter sent to the Department of Justice earlier this week, I and 27 
other Members asked the Attorney General to investigate those 
contractors.
  We need to get to the bottom of this situation right now and show 
American citizens and the international community that such actions 
will not be tolerated. The damage inflicted upon the United States' 
reputation will take years, if not decades, to repair. We need to hold 
our government officials accountable for their actions, just as we hold 
other governments accountable, and it needs to start with Secretary of 
Defense Rumsfeld's termination.
  Mr. Speaker, I would also like to submit to the Record today's 
Washington Post editorial on the leadership decisions made by Secretary 
Rumsfeld since the beginning of this administration. The Secretary 
announced that the United States would no longer be bound by the Geneva 
Convention, that Army regulations on interrogation of prisoners would 
not be observed, and that many detainees would be held incommunicado 
and without any independent mechanism for review.

                              {time}  1615

  As the Post stated, ``Abuses will take place in any prison system, 
but Mr. Rumsfeld's decision helped create a lawless regime in which 
prisoners in both Iraq and Afghanistan have been humiliated, beaten, 
tortured and murdered, and which until recently, no one has been held 
accountable.''
  It was only when photographs of these incidents made it into the 
press that Secretary Rumsfeld paid much attention. According to media 
reports, he had not even read the reports on these abuses that was 
completed in March.
  I find it very troubling that our own Secretary of Defense was so 
dismissive of the abuses that may have taken place under U.S. oversight 
in Iraq and Afghanistan.
  Again, I call upon the President to fire Mr. Rumsfeld, and I call 
upon the House of Representatives to hold hearings about the role 
private contractors and the intelligence community may have played in 
these incidents.

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