[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 18]
[House]
[Pages 24407-24413]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       30-SOMETHING WORKING GROUP

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Conaway). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 4, 2005, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) is 
recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, we are going to keep on rolling here. 
We have so many facts to deal with.
  Part of the conversation that we were just engaged in is we know that 
Karl Rove lied to the American people. We know that Scooter Libby has 
misrepresented facts and been indicted on five counts: one obstruction 
of justice, two making false statements, and two committing perjury, 
lying to Federal agents and lying to the grand jury.
  We know that the Vice President of the United States has clearly, 
clearly withheld information from the American people, that the 
indictment has said that he knew all about, regarding the Valerie Plame 
investigation.

                              {time}  2200

  Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, I think it is important to understand that 
not only did the Vice President and his chief of staff, Mr. Libby, 
withhold information from the American people; they have made a 
decision to withhold from the Senate Intelligence Committee key 
documents. It was reported just this past week in a national magazine, 
the National Journal, that the Vice President and Mr. Libby overruled 
advice from some White House political staffers, some White House 
political staffers and lawyers, and decided to withhold crucial 
documents from the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2004. The withheld 
documents included intelligence data from Cheney's office and Libby in 
particular, that they pushed to be included in Powell's speech, 
referring to his presentation before the United Nations.
  The new information, and I am reading here, the new information that 
Cheney and Libby blocked information to the Senate Intelligence 
Committee further underscores the central role played by the Vice 
President's office in trying to blunt criticism that the Bush 
administration exaggerated intelligence data to make the case to go to 
war.
  They withheld it from the Senate. They withheld it from the Senate. 
And because there is no conduct of vigorous oversight either in this 
Chamber or in the Senate, our democracy is being shrouded in this cloud 
of secrecy.
  The gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz) earlier said, 
What did we do it for? Why? Why? Why, I guess, is going to be the 
question that people will ask far into the future. If you remember, 
first it was about the weapons of mass destruction. No weapons of mass 
destruction. It was about some alleged al Qaeda links, a haven for 
terrorism. No al Qaeda links. Saddam Hussein despises Osama bin Laden 
and vice versa because Saddam Hussein, albeit an evil individual, was a 
secularist. He is not one of these fundamental Islamists. He is just a 
regional thug. And then finally it was to bring democracy to Iraq.
  I think it is so ironic that we are bringing democracy to Iraq and 
simultaneously eroding democracy because of the secrecy in Washington, 
D.C.
  What a tragedy.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. 
Delahunt) said we are eroding basic freedoms here. And if you do not 
believe that, if you do not believe all of these facts that we are 
giving to the Speaker and to the American people and to our colleagues 
through third-party validators, if you weaken the Central Intelligence 
Agency, all you have done is weaken a country. That is all you have 
done.
  And through the leak, through the outing of Joe Wilson's wife, and 
outing Brewster-Jennings and Associates, the small Boston company that 
was a front company for the CIA, you also out every contact that this 
woman has established over a 20-plus-year career. All of her contacts 
over 20-some years that maybe she could go back to and elicit and 
solicit information from them, she cannot any longer.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Maybe somebody can help me, because this is a question 
that the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) posed, but this is 
directed to this specific case.
  What does it tell you about an administration that will not confront 
a direct challenge as former Ambassador Joe Wilson put forward? Why not 
just simply say he is wrong and we are confident that he is wrong? But, 
no, furtively, in the shadows, sneakily calling reporters, we have got 
something. His wife works for the CIA. Whether it was illegal, whether 
this indictment will result in guilty, whether Karl Rove is indicted, 
whether others are indicted, the bottom line is what does it say about 
the sleaze factor that exists here in Washington when you do it that 
way?
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I can tell you right now, this goes 
far, once again, beyond politics. This is serious business.
  We have Members here who have traveled abroad. I have. I am on the 
Armed Services Committee. I am on the Homeland Security Committee. If 
you know how it was to go down to a hotel lobby and go to a restaurant 
where you are staying there at a hotel, you come back to a hotel after 
official meetings with the government and you do not understand what 
people are saying, need it be French, need it be Arabic, need it be 
Spanish or what have you, now, just think for a minute. If I were a CIA 
agent in a foreign land, or someone in a friendly country that works 
with the United States as it relates to sharing sensitive information, 
how do they feel right now? How do they feel about America right now? 
How do they feel about our executive branch right now? And how do they 
feel about the Congress? This is going to hurt us.
  The gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) put it just as clear as it can be. 
It is weakening a country when it comes down to getting the 
intelligence to protect all of us here in the United States and our 
allies. And I think it is important, I think it is important, and the 
gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) hit the nail straight on the 
head. Like we say down in Florida, he hit the nail straight on the head 
just like a good carpenter.
  The bottom line is that we are not here to hand down guilty verdicts; 
but we are here to say the statements that were made to FBI agents, 
statements that were made to the grand jury, statements that were made 
to the special prosecutor were incorrect and misleading. Statements 
that were made on national television on Sunday shows, need it be 
talking to the press in the press corps, at the White House, we now 
find were incorrect.
  Now, as it relates to indictments and the conviction of Mr. Libby or 
possible indictment as it relates to Mr. Rove, this thing is far beyond 
Mr. Rove and Mr. Libby. This is about outing individuals that have 
dedicated their lives to go behind enemy lines and live amongst them to 
get information to protect everyday Americans. I cannot help but think 
of the veterans that laid their lives down right now, 2,000-plus 
recently, Gulf War I, Vietnam, Korea, other conflicts, World War II.
  I was riding through the Mall with my children just about 2 or 3 
weeks ago, and we stopped by the World War II Memorial. We saw the 
different States as you look at the World War II Memorial with the 
water, a very nice memorial. We dedicated it last year. I was telling 
my kids about it and the allied force and all of those folks that gave 
their lives so we could salute the

[[Page 24408]]

Flag and it is flying high. It was a coalition of countries that fought 
for democracy on the face of the Earth. For people to not think of that 
commitment and that sacrifice, that those individuals, and some are 
still walking this Earth, some have gone on to a greater place, for 
them to selfishly think of political gain to out these individuals is 
beyond me and unconscionable.
  So I say there must be Members on the majority side who have the 
power to do the right thing in this case, but they have opted not to. 
So when folks start, when you said before what are we doing, we are 
pushing the card not on behalf of the Democratic Party; we are pushing 
the card on behalf of Americans and those veterans that are without 
limbs right now, those veterans that have to get assistance to get up 
out of bed right now, who fought for the Flag to fly over this very 
Capitol.
  I am not saying that Members who are not focused on this issue are 
unpatriotic. That is not what I am saying. I am saying that we have a 
responsibility as the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) has said, 
not only in the White House but in the Congress to make sure that the 
truth comes forward so we can protect American lives. Period. Dot. That 
is just what it is.
  This is far beyond a campaign against a certain Congressman or 
President or Vice President or a party. This is about national security 
of our country and countries that are working with us.
  Do you think that someone wants to put their agents up front with an 
American agent, not because the American agent they feel lacks 
qualification to get sensitive information. They are scared because 
someone may out their agent and our agent because of a political 
campaign. That is what this is all about.
  This is not about one day someone woke up and grabbed a doughnut and 
coffee and said, I think I will out a CIA agent today. I think I will 
do that because I feel like it. No. It was about saying that we know 
our intelligence is bad and anyone that rises up and says different we 
will destroy them. We will destroy him and we will destroy his wife. We 
will do what we have to do to make sure that we win.
  What is happening is that the American people are more in danger 
under that philosophy than under what we are supposed to be doing 
statutorily. And when you have a security clearance, let me tell you, 
there are a lot of things I want to share with some folks but I cannot, 
because I took an oath and I signed an oath that I will hold secrecy 
not because I am not fearful of losing my security clearance. I am 
fearful that someone may lose their life behind enemy lines because I 
thought I wanted to say something to prove a point.
  It does not come to that. This is blood. This is life and death. And 
we do not even know, someone could have lost their life behind this. We 
do not know that yet. We need to get to the bottom of this, and the 
bottom line is if the majority is not willing to do what they must do, 
not what they should do, not if they could, what they must do, if they 
are not willing to do it, then that is something the American people 
have to take into account.
  I tell you one thing, the ride to the soccer game and sitting there 
feeling that you have a sense of security may not be what it is right 
now if this kind of activity continues.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, I just keep asking myself where 
is their outrage, where is their shame? Why are we the only ones that 
appear upset about this? Why by their deafening silence does it seem as 
though they are sanctioning the activity that is going on in the White 
House? Sanctioning the corruption, sanctioning the cronyism and the 
culture that has been established here?
  And it would be one thing, you could say, all right, we are going to 
compartmentalize, many people compartmentalize things. There are many 
Americans that may say, you know, foreign policy is not my concern. Of 
course, everybody in America cares about the loss of life, and I am 
sure that there is not one American that does not feel sadness over how 
many troops we have lost, but let us say you have Americans that can 
compartmentalize the foreign policy and comfort themselves by saying, I 
know, I think what has gone on is awful, but they are making up for it. 
The administration makes up for it with their fabulous domestic policy 
with the way they are taking care of things at home.
  Are we satisfied with the direction we are going? Tonight in south 
Florida, today all day and tomorrow it is expected again to be pouring 
down rain. I have 90-year-olds, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek) 
and I have 90-year-olds and older sitting in squalid apartments tonight 
with molding wet carpeting, with holes in their roofs who are not 
getting the assistance they need because FEMA is a disaster of an 
organization. It is supposed to be a disaster relief organization. They 
are a disaster all by themselves.
  I want to tell you what my 6-year-old daughter said this morning. We 
were watching TV. I was getting ready and I was watching the news and 
she was in there with me. And she said, Mom, is Hurricane Rita coming? 
Because 6-years-old do not know the difference. Rita. Wilma. They just 
hear the names on TV, and there is not a lot of clear understanding.
  I said, No, Hurricane Rita is long gone. You can imagine a 6-year-old 
living in Florida. There is a lot of fear of the concepts of hurricanes 
and one after the other after the other keeps coming down the pike.

                              {time}  2215

  So my telling her that Rita was long gone and there was no need to 
worry anymore, that satisfied her.
  The report on the news about hurricanes in general went on for a few 
minutes, and I was not near the TV so I could not hear exactly what 
they were saying, but all of a sudden she said, Mom, I know what it is; 
hurricane FEMA is coming. I laughed, and I explained to her what FEMA 
was and tried to help her understand, that FEMA is supposed to be an 
agency that gets us ready when a hurricane is coming and takes care of 
us after a hurricane passes and makes sure that people are okay again.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. A point that you made earlier and you referenced the 
natural disaster, and I am thinking of Katrina. We are talking about 
whether America is safer today than we were prior to 9/11, and we all 
know and I am sure the American people that are listening to our 
conversation here tonight appreciate this, that those levees in New 
Orleans, they could have been sabotaged. They could have been 
victimized by a terrorist cell. It did not necessarily require a 
natural disaster.
  But here we are. We have spent billions and billions and billions of 
dollars on homeland security, and where are we? We are nowhere. But the 
American taxpayers are picking the bill up. As we discussed last week, 
not only are the American taxpayers spending money here and not 
effectively, not effectively, this has been an administration that 
spends the American taxpayers' dollars.
  But, by the way, we are also spending money to rebuild Iraq. But 
rather than, like every other major donor country in Iraq that loaned 
the money to the Iraqi government and said we will give you good terms 
but pay us back, this White House, in an act of unparalleled excess, in 
my judgment, made it a giveaway program: Welfare for Iraqis, but 
nothing for Americans. I mean, up is down and down is up. This is the 
Alice in Wonderland administration.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. That is the pattern. Because there is no 
accountability in Iraq, and just giving away the store, contracts 
without any accountability.
  In Florida, we have been hit by eight hurricanes in 15 months. A year 
ago, FEMA gave out $31 million in reimbursement and assistance to 
people who were not even hit by a hurricane in Miami Dade County, one 
of the counties that I represent. So my answer to my daughter this 
morning was, honey, even though this is an agency, a department in the 
government that is supposed to take care of people after a hurricane 
comes by, many people think they are doing such a poor job that it

[[Page 24409]]

feels like they got hit by hurricane FEMA after they have come through. 
That is what is going on in Florida tonight as we speak.
  You still have them make mistake after mistake, no communication, and 
yet this leadership and this Congress still refuses to appoint an 
independent Katrina commission to ensure that we can review the 
aftermath of that storm, the aftermath of Rita and Wilma and find out 
why they were not ready, what happened.
  We still have 4 weeks left of hurricane season. We are in a 15- to 
20-year run of expected really tough storms, and I mean we have an 
administration that we have to count on now until 2008. Do we want to 
leave these people in peril in charge of every branch of our 
government? Do the American people have that kind of confidence? 
Culture of corruption, cronyism, and incompetence.
  It is time to make some changes so we can take this country in a new 
direction and reinstate Americans' confidence in their government's 
ability to do right by them. Up and down the line, they have proven 
that they do not deserve that confidence. They have not earned it.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. If maybe they paid a little more attention to 
actually administering government instead of, A, running it down and, 
B, trying to use the levers of government to try to hurt our own CIA 
agents, can you imagine the amount of time that was spent trying to 
organize this outing of this agent after Joe Wilson came back? Can you 
imagine how much that consumed the White House? Instead of thinking 
about better, more efficient and effective ways to administer 
government, they were spending all that time trying to out Joe Wilson's 
wife. What a misuse of government power. That is a clear abuse of power 
and the sleaze factor of the whole deal.
  I will be happy to yield to my friend.
  Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, I suppose we should feel ourselves fortunate 
that the administration, after the failures in Katrina, did not out 
some other intelligence agent, one of their critics. So I do not know 
if they have learned their lesson or not. I should not be facetious 
about such an important thing.
  Let me ask a question on this. The gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) 
points out accurately, imagine the incredible high level of energy that 
the highest level of government in the United States, what they were 
focused on when the truth came out that they told something untrue 
about the uranium yellow cake in the State of the Union. What did they 
do? Instead of saying, let us get to the bottom of how this happened so 
it does not happen again, the first thing they did is say we are going 
to attack our critics and we are going to attack them by outing the 
wife of one of the critics. We are going, as you indicated, to spend 
this enormous amount of energy.
  Karl Rove, Chief of Staff to the President of the United States, is 
it the most important thing he can do is try to destroy the credibility 
of Joe Wilson who wrote what turned out to be a true article for the 
New York Times? Is it the best use of time for the Chief of Staff for 
the Vice President of the United States to organize this sophisticated 
campaign to smear Mr. Wilson?
  Why was it they were willing to make this such a high-priority issue? 
I think there is a clear answer to that.
  The reason that they were so concerned about this is that they 
realized that their case for war on Iraq was built on this sort of one-
legged stool of the mushroom cloud. What they figured out was that the 
vision, the image of the mushroom cloud could scare Americans so badly 
that they could win the right to go to this war. Once that was gone, 
their justification for the war was gone. It was imperiled once the 
truth came out, because the only thing they had was this uranium yellow 
cake which was shown to be a fraud.
  How do I know it was a fraud? It was not Mr. Wilson. By the way, some 
people have said Mr. Wilson's report did not show that; it was 
inaccurate. Well, hogwash. The President of the United States retracted 
the 16 words from his State of the Union speech once Mr. Wilson blew 
the whistle. They would not have retracted it unless it was wrong, and 
it was wrong, and they finally retracted it, but then they went on to 
smear Wilson.
  I want to make a couple of comments about Joe Wilson, and the reason 
I do so is he has made clear it is not about Joe Wilson. This issue, he 
is not the important element here. It is the security of the American 
people and preventing the deterioration of our security service. That 
is the important thing.
  But this administration you would think they would learn to quit 
attacking their critics after this has caused all this damage to the 
administration, but, no, they still have their hound dogs out there 
attacking Joe Wilson, still trying to damage his credibility and say he 
is the lowest form of life on the planet.
  I want to say two things about this guy, and I got to know him a 
little bit about this. He came out and spoke in Seattle about the Iraq 
situation.
  During the first Iraq War, he was our last foreign service agent out 
of Baghdad. The very last representative of the United States who left 
Iraq was Joe Wilson. I tell you two little stories about him, what kind 
of guy he is.
  I ran into a Foreign Service worker by accident on a bus heading to 
an airplane about 3 months ago who told me that, in the weeks leading 
up to the first Persian Gulf War, she had a family who came and had 
some children who were in possession of a stepfather in Mosul. She 
called Joe Wilson and said, can you help me make sure these kids are 
okay? She said, I know I am asking you a lot because right now the war 
could break out at any moment. There is chaos on the roads. Security 
forces were already in Iraq. Joe Wilson personally made sure that kid 
was okay at risk to his own life, and he did not tell me that story. I 
just ran into this Foreign Service worker who told me about it.
  The second thing, when Joe Wilson called all the Americans in Baghdad 
just in the few days before the bombings started and said, I want to 
try to get you out of the country, Saddam Hussein told Joe Wilson, I 
will kill anybody who tries to get an American out of here. He did not 
say so. Obviously, he wanted to maybe hold them hostage. That is a 
direct statement to you. You better leave those people here. Joe Wilson 
got those people into a building in Iraq, and it was not widely 
reported, but put a noose around his neck physically and said, Saddam 
Hussein, you can come get me because I am taking my people home. He 
took every single American home. Not a single American was lost to the 
depravations to that madman thug Saddam Hussein.
  I have to tell you I have some respect for Joe Wilson. He stood up to 
Saddam Hussein, and he stood up to Karl Rove, and I think it took some 
degree of courage to do both. It was a despicable act of Karl Rove, or 
whoever is responsible for this, to go after him, after he stood up for 
America against Saddam Hussein, to destroy the career of his wife and 
put in danger other security agents of this country.
  Karl Rove messed with the wrong guy when he took on Joe Wilson, and I 
think that is something Americans ought to know.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. I would like to just follow up a point that the 
gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) made about the rationale for the 
war. They did know, they meaning the cabal that was described by the 
Chief of Staff to Colin Powell. The cabal knew that they needed the 
threat of the mushroom cloud.
  What is fascinating is that after the release of the initial report 
of the Senate Intelligence Committee, the chairman of the committee, a 
Republican, Senator Roberts from Kansas, and Jay Rockefeller, the 
senior Democrat on the committee, said that they doubted that the 
Senate would have authorized the President to go to war if senators had 
been given accurate information regarding Iraq's programs on the 
weapons of mass destruction. The direct quote of the Republican 
chairman was this: ``I doubt if the votes would have been there.'' That 
is Senator Roberts. They would not have their war if they

[[Page 24410]]

had opened up and provided all of the information.
  I am sure some of you read Bob Woodward's book, the reporter for the 
Washington Post, where he quoted Secretary of State Colin Powell as 
describing the Vice President as having a war fever. He is out of 
control, This is what Powell is saying. You talk about third-party 
validations. It is as if he had a war fever, and here we are today, 
rampant corruption in Iraq.
  We are losing billions of dollar over there, but, as the 
congresswoman says, the most tragic aspect of this is that we are less 
safe, and, painfully, we have lost more than 2,000 American men and 
women.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. On this march to war, as the drumbeat quickened, it 
was we are going to destroy anybody in our path that tries to stop us 
and even if you are a CIA covert agent that has served this country in 
the intelligence community for years.

                              {time}  2230

  Now, earlier, my friend from Florida said, Well, how would these CIA 
agents feel? So I think it is nice for us to give our opinion, but I 
think we should actually quote a couple that have been in the news 
recently. One, former CIA covert agent Jim Marcinkowski on ``60 
Minutes'' the other night said about exposing the Boston company, 
exposing that that was a CIA front, exposing Brewster-Jennings, could 
lead foreign intelligence agencies to other spies. There is a 
possibility that there were other agents that would use that same kind 
of a cover. So they may have been using Brewster-Jennings just like 
her.
  As you said, this is not just about Joe Wilson's wife. This is about 
everybody who she came in contact with, who she worked with, who she 
may have been affiliated with in a CIA front company.
  And then a former 14-year covert CIA operative. Now, you asked, What 
do they think? This is what they think. This is what is in the heart of 
a CIA covert agent right now. This is how they feel.
  ``Because we're talking about lives and we're talking about 
capabilities, we do our work. We risk our own lives. We risk lives of 
our agents in order to protect our country. And when something like 
this happens, it cuts to the very core of what we do. We're not being 
undermined by the North Koreans. We're not being undermined by the 
Russians. We're being undermined by officials in our own government. 
That, I find galling.''
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. If my colleague can read that again, that 
``we're not being undermined by the North Koreans.'' Just go through 
that paragraph one more time.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. A former 14-year covert CIA operative, in regard to 
this whole CIA leak and the administration outing an agent: ``We're not 
being undermined by the North Koreans. We're not being undermined by 
the Russians. We're being undermined by officials in our own 
government.''
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. With that, if I may, what is so disturbing about 
this whole thing, once again, is the fact that like my colleague from 
Florida, this whole culture idea, and we talked the other night that it 
takes a while to get a culture. It is an American culture to have 
picnics on July 4. It is cultural, I guess, for certain religions to 
practice a certain meal on a given day. It is within the culture. That 
means it is preserved. It is something that is accepted.
  What has happened here in Washington, D.C. is that there is a culture 
of corruption and cronyism. When we say a culture of corruption and 
cronyism, that is not something that remotely happened on some given 
day 2 years ago. That is an everyday practice, and you would assume 
that it would stop. You would assume that we would disabuse ourselves 
of that kind of activity. You would assume.
  The gentleman from Massachusetts mentioned ``their war.'' Well, guess 
what, it is our war. It is our war. They are our men and women that are 
laying down their lives right now, whether it be part of our armed 
services or a contractor or foreign service Americans that are working 
in the biggest embassy in the world there in Baghdad, in Iraq. Millions 
upon millions and billions of dollars are being spent.
  We talk about a culture of corruption and cronyism. I would say to 
the gentleman from Washington that the other day we talked about four 
of the big contractors that received no-bid contracts on the Katrina 
disaster that took place. They were under investigation for mishandling 
the taxpayers' money and falsifying documents by our own government.
  I used an example of a company that is under investigation by our 
government where it is pretty much documented that they have 
overcharged the government for the services that they were supposed to 
be providing and, in some cases, never provided those services. Then we 
call them in when Katrina happens and say, Oh sure, here is another 
contract, no-bid, go out and do the work.
  I used this example: it is almost like I run into a 7-11 and I am a 
contractor. I take my gun out and I tell the kid behind the counter to 
give me the money. And I reach in there and grab $200, and I run down 
the street. Then some of Washington, D.C.'s finest stop me. Police 
officers. We gotcha. Wait a minute. Just put that money in your pocket 
and put that gun back in your waistband and go out and rob some more. 
That is encouraging corruption. That is encouraging a crime.
  That is what we have here. That is what we are encouraging here. So 
when folks come to the floor on the majority side or have a press 
conference that calls themselves fiscal conservatives, or we know how 
to run the government and they do not, speaking of Democrats, that kind 
of activity does not speak to it.
  When the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, the 
largest department not only in the Federal Government but in the 
history of the world, takes a former director, Michael Brown, of FEMA, 
and not only removes him from the position of being over the response 
at the time of the response to Hurricane Katrina and the recovery, and 
says, Well, we need to send him back to Washington, we are putting two 
or three other people over his responsibilities; but better yet, we 
will keep him on for 60 days so we can learn.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. As a consultant.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. As a consultant. At the same rate he was making 
as a consultant. And lo and behold, just last week we hear, Oh, well, I 
extended his contract 30 more days so we can learn more. That is 
cronyism and it is on the breach of corruption.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. You are so right.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. And I say to my colleague from Massachusetts 
that I am driving the point straight home. I am not as good as the 
gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) in hitting that nail on the 
head.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. You are doing pretty good, though.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. I am not a carpenter.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. The gentleman is a journeyman.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. This is far beyond someone saying that we are 
being political. This is about the taxpayers' money. This is about the 
responsibility of the Congress. I said it once and I will say it again: 
if the majority is not willing to lead, then there are enough 
individuals that have filed bills to bring about accountability on 
behalf of the taxpayers of the United States of America on this side of 
the aisle that are ready to go.
  Not only are they in the locker room and ready to go; they are on the 
field with their mouthpiece in right now, chin strap buckled, ready to 
go out and hit somebody when it comes down to standing up on behalf of 
the taxpayers. So I think it is important that we do this.
  And what we are talking about here, because this is not just a 
discussion about Iraq, this is not just a discussion as relates to 
outing CIA agents, as heavy as both of those topics are, and they end 
up being intertwined, this is about the culture of corruption and 
cronyism that is going on here in Washington, D.C.
  Just as an example today, the Senate used the rules to do what they 
had to do on behalf of the American people.

[[Page 24411]]

And guess what they were called? Hijackers. They hijacked the Senate 
today, as though someone ran in on the Senate floor with a gun and said 
shut the Senate down. No, they used the rules on behalf of the American 
people. And guess what came out of it from news reports and what I hear 
from some of our friends across the aisle? The fact that they are going 
to do what, a bipartisan, three Democrats and three Republicans, who 
will come together to bring about the report that should have been 
reported on long ago. But it took an act of leadership and courage.
  We need our friends on the majority side who have the power right 
now, because if we had such a rule here in the House we would exercise 
it to go see the wizard and get some courage and fight on behalf of the 
American people. If they do not want to do it, we are willing to do it.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. And the culture that the gentleman is 
describing, he is absolutely right. It is not isolated. It is not like 
you can cordon off this instance and say it was just an anomaly, it was 
unusual. When you have something that is essentially your culture, like 
their culture of corruption, it is what defines you. It is what drives 
you every day. The culture that you are raised in is your belief 
system. It is your traditions. It defines almost everything about you.
  It is clear that up and down this administration, up and down this 
leadership, I wish it stopped just at the administration, but it flows 
all the way down through this institution on their side and beyond. And 
we are in deep trouble because this government is being run by people 
who live by a culture of corruption.
  The gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) talked earlier about the 14-year 
covert CIA operative who talked about how treacherous it was and how 
they were being undermined by officials in their own government. Well, 
I want to go back to what Mr. Melman said in that Chris Matthews 
interview. Not just what he said previously, but in that same interview 
we talked about earlier. Chris Matthews asked him if he thought that 
heads should roll, essentially, for that conduct. And what he said was: 
``I do not believe it would be hard for President Bush to ask that 
person to walk the plank.''
  I do not see the plank. I have not seen Rove walk off of it. He is 
there still. He is still the Deputy White House Chief of Staff with the 
highest security clearance, with the ability to assist the President in 
making the most important decisions that this country faces.
  The New York Times on October 5, 2003, talked about the instance of 
treachery. Within the CIA, they said the exposure of Ms. Plame is now 
considered an even greater instance of treachery, as the gentleman from 
Ohio outlined. Miss Plame, a specialist in nonconventional weapons who 
worked overseas, had nonofficial cover and what was what in CIA 
parlance was called a nok, the most difficult kind of false identity 
for the agency to create.
  So we are not just talking about your run-of-the-mill covert agent. I 
know as I have been following this, and we are obviously not intimately 
familiar with the CIA's operations, I initially thought that Ms. Plame 
was a nominal covert agent. I know there are varying degrees. But 
apparently she had the most difficult cover to develop. It makes 
matters that much worse.
  We have got to make sure that the American people can trust the 
information and the people who are running this country. We have to be 
able to trust the information that comes out of the White House.
  I have spoken, I know all my colleagues have too, to our colleagues 
on the other side of the aisle who have said that they no longer trust 
the information that comes from the White House; yet they continue to 
walk the plank for the administration and for their leadership. They do 
whatever they are told. They never stray.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. If the gentlewoman will yield, Mr. Speaker. That is 
the point I think that we have been trying to make all night here, in 
our first hour and in this second hour, that this outfit who runs this 
Chamber and who runs the Senate and who runs the White House have over 
the past 11 years in the House, in the Senate on and off, and in the 
White House since the 2000 election, have consistently and constantly 
put the Republican Party before the interests of the United States of 
America.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Where is their backbone?
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Every single time. Whether it was lying about the 
prescription drug bill and the amount it would cost, $400 billion, and 
then we found out months later it would be 500, 600 and then $700 
billion. The war, the oil for reconstruction, the greeted as 
liberators, and all the nonsense we heard. Then the whole CIA leak 
investigation. Every single instance. Tax cuts for billionaires, 
cutting poverty programs and raising tuition and health care on the 
middle class. Every single instance.
  Every single instance has put their party before the interests of the 
United States of America so that they could go down the shakedown 
street and raise money that the lobbyists will put in the Republican 
Party coffers and just keep the game going. From here to shakedown 
street, shakedown street into the Republican coffers, and then you get 
the legislation you want. And not in one instance has it been in the 
best interest of the country.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. The gentleman is absolutely right. It would be 
one thing if they could look us right in the eye and look the American 
people in the eye and their own constituents and say, I have 
consistently been voting exactly the way I feel. The votes I have cast 
go to the core of my principles, and I have always voted how I believe.
  Only we know that not to be true. They could not possibly do that. 
They cannot have town hall meetings in their districts and look their 
folks in the eye and say, I have always voted my own convictions, 
because we have watched the read lights change to green lights, and the 
green rights change back to red lights. We watched this board over 
here.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Tears are shed, threats are made, and arms are 
twisted.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Oh, my God, puking blood. It is just 
unbelievable. They have this timer that they set with 5-minute votes 
that turn into 40-minute votes, like the energy bill. I was not here, 
but the Medicare bill, a 15-minute vote, over 3 hours. And all the 
while our vote board with our names up here in lights, arm-twisting, 
blood-puking, the green turning to red, yes to no, and literally the 
angst that I have watched on some of my colleagues' faces knowing they 
want to cast their vote with how they truly believe, but they care more 
about the money continuing to flow, about the chairmanships continuing 
to come their way, and about the appropriations continuing to remain in 
the budget.

                              {time}  2245

  It is all about them. And when I ran for office, I thought it was 
supposed to be about the people I represented. That is why I came here. 
I am not sure why they came here. They have made it pretty clear, but I 
know that it is obvious that we came here for different reasons than 
they did.
  Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I yield to the gentleman from Washington.
  Mr. INSLEE. Just a couple of comments, Mr. Speaker. I want to applaud 
our Republican colleagues. I am told now there are a couple of 
Republicans in the other Chamber who are willing to see to it that the 
American people get this report from the Senate committee about the 
White House involvement and this misinformation. I think that is very 
important, and I applaud our Republicans in the Chamber who are 
standing up to do that.
  But I want to mention why that is so very important. The gentlewoman 
from Florida talked about the fact that Valerie Plame was, in fact, an 
undercover agent; but I think it is really important to realize what 
she was working on. Her specialty was trying to suppress weapons of 
mass destruction.

[[Page 24412]]

That was her specialty in the CIA. What a great irony of it that here 
is a woman who dedicated her professional life to try to suppress the 
expansion of weapons of mass destruction, and yet she gets attacked and 
her career destroyed because the administration used bogus information 
in their State of the Union to assert there was a weapon of mass 
destruction when the evidence itself showed there was not. And I think 
her career ought to be respected.
  And, by the way, I mentioned this admiral I was talking to today. We 
talked about the need for spies for the intelligence agency. I was not 
talking about this specific situation. But this bottom line is about 
the security interest of the United States, and both Republicans and 
Democrats ought to care about that, and both Republicans and Democrats 
ought to be behind getting to the bottom of this. That has not happened 
and it ought to.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I appreciate the 
gentleman's comments.
  We are kind of wrapping things up here, and we have got some late-
breaking news here that I think we want to share with the American 
people that just recently we got some information on.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. This just came in.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. And this kind of feeds into every single thing. 
This is always happening because we are paying so little attention to 
what the administration and government should be.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, let me just 
pick up on a point that I think all three of my colleagues made. And 
the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) and I, with our colleagues 
in Iraq Watch, Mr. Hoeffel and Mr. Abercrombie, always commented on the 
absolute lack of capacity to acknowledge mistakes, and we all commended 
and respected David Kay.
  If my colleagues remember David Kay, he was designated by this 
President, by President Bush, in the aftermath of the so-called major 
failures of combat in Iraq, to go find the weapons of mass destruction. 
He was an advocate for the war. He believed in the premise of weapons 
of mass destruction. He listened to that cabal that put out that 
information. And he came back and testified before that Senate 
committee, and those words that he said ring so true now: we were all 
wrong. We were all wrong.
  And you know what? If the President had made a statement similar to 
that, as all of my colleagues here have said in different ways, it 
would have been applauded and we would have respected it. But they do 
not want to share information.
  For example, this information, a Pentagon official in Washington 
confirmed Tuesday that al-Farouq, a top al Qaeda operative, escaped 
from a U.S. detention facility in Bagram, Afghanistan on July 10, 
months ago; and we are not informed. Some enterprising reporter 
presumably discovered this information; and here we are, five Members 
of Congress and I am sure our colleagues on the other side and members 
of the other branch on both sides of the aisle, unaware of this 
information. Why? Because it was an embarrassment. We all make 
mistakes. That is what we are saying. We acknowledge our imperfections. 
But the bottom line is that it is so tragic that we cannot come 
together, all of us, and make America better, go back to those genuine 
values that are the foundation for democracy of openness and 
transparency and accountability and the courage to stand up and say 
simply, I made a mistake.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, we have a culture in Washington.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. The gentleman is right. You have all hit it.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. What we want for kids, for young people, it is not 
that we do not want them ever to make a mistake. We want to teach them 
that when they do make a mistake, they learn and they overcome and they 
become better. Every one of us in our own lives looks back on mistakes 
we have made and we say it was painful, it hurt, it was embarrassing, 
but today I am better because of that mistake. And to have the leaders 
of the country send a message out to the kids across the country, one, 
that it is okay to lie, that it is okay to withhold information because 
it may be a little bit embarrassing, that you are never able to make a 
mistake, that is bad for our kids. It is bad for our country. It is bad 
for our institution. It erodes the basic tenets of our democracy that a 
lot of people made a lot of great sacrifices, sometimes their lives, to 
uphold this concept that we have.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, the 
most troubling aspect of what he just said is the question why will 
they not admit that they made a mistake. And the troubling aspect of 
that is that they did not make a mistake. It was deliberate. There is a 
strong possibility, given all the things we talked about here tonight, 
that they took us into war because they wanted to take us into war, 
because they had some grand plan. They had motivation. They had ``war 
fever,'' as the gentleman referenced earlier that Colin Powell 
indicated that Vice President Cheney had. The ability to admit mistakes 
when one believes they made them, but one has to first believe they 
made one. That is kind of the first rule. And the lack of capacity to 
acknowledge that they made mistakes is just astonishing. It really is, 
and they continue to astonish us on this floor and the American people.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I yield to the gentleman from Florida.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I cannot help but think, when I 
talk about commitment and sacrifice, I just represent too many veterans 
for me to even look beyond the front line that allowed us to even have 
this discussion here, kept this country free. I cannot help but think 
of the parents, wives, fathers that have a picture of their child, son, 
daughter, husband, wife hanging on the wall right now next to a Purple 
Heart. They lay down their life for this country. So this discussion is 
far beyond comprehension for me. I have gone to too many funerals, 
talked to too many parents, read too many stories for people to take 
this lightly.
  I know we have said it once and we have said it twice and if we have 
got to say it 10,000 times, trying to keep up with a lie, my mother 
told me when I was young that if I tell a lie, I have to remember what 
I said when I said it. And that is the problem right now in Washington, 
D.C. There are so many lies that have been told to the American people, 
it is difficult to keep up with what was said in the first place. If it 
was the truth, it would not be a problem because it is enshrined in 
one's memory and in one's character.
  So I will leave it with that. There is nothing more that I can add to 
that; but the reality for so many Americans, so many Americans that we 
represent, so many parents and wives and fathers and mothers that were 
handed a freshly folded, crisp American flag on behalf of their loved 
one and family member who lay down their lives for this country, their 
lives, literally, for those individuals who have to be fed by tubes 
right now, for those individuals who cannot get up and go to the 
restrooms like many of us right now, for those individuals we have got 
to continue to fight on their behalf and on behalf of their children 
that are without a father and mother.
  So I commend the Members for coming to the floor. I am glad the 
gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) has claimed this hour, and I think we 
have to do the things we must do within our power to stand up for those 
individuals.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I would also like 
to thank everyone for being here for the 30-Something Group.
  And I want to make one final point because we have heard this on the 
talk shows from a lot of different sources about the CIA leak: well, 
they went after Libby for outing a CIA agent, and they only got him on 
perjury and false statements and obstruction of justice. And as we 
close here, I want to just reiterate what the prosecutor said. He said, 
I am the umpire and as I am trying to umpire the game here and figure 
out exactly what is going on, by their

[[Page 24413]]

committing perjury, they were throwing dirt in my eye.
  So maybe someone will end up getting indicted on this count or 
several counts of outing a CIA agent. But what Fitzgerald is saying is 
that when one lies to the grand jury and they lie to Federal agents, it 
is very difficult for him to prove his case because he cannot get to 
the truth. And I think in my experience, just reading cases like this, 
if one really wants to get a prosecutor upset, as my two friends here 
probably know much better than I, start lying to him. And I think the 
end is not yet in sight, and it is going to be very interesting to see 
how Karl Rove ends up in this whole deal. And we know that there have 
been misleading statements and outright lies to the press and the 
American people.
  So to our friends at home: [email protected]. They can 
send us an e-mail, and we will continue to try to organize these facts 
and let everyone know that the Democratic Party wants to put the 
country before our own party as we have before.

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