[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 9]
[House]
[Page 13065]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      REEXAMINING THE WAR IN IRAQ

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, a large majority of Members of the United 
States House of Representatives voted on October 14, 2002, to allow the 
President to wage war, probably an extra-constitutional delegation of 
authority. There was no direct declaration of war, yet it was 
authorized under the War Powers Act by this body, so a great deal of 
the responsibility lies here.
  The rationale at the time that was frequently mentioned in the weeks 
leading up to the vote was the potential for mushroom clouds, as 
mentioned by Ms. Rice, Mr. Cheney, President Bush and others very 
prominently just before the vote in the House, just before an election, 
when Members felt great pressure. There was a lot of talk about the 
delivery system of Saddam Hussein for his widely believed-to-be-
extensive arsenal of chemical and biological weapons and links to al 
Qaeda.
  Now, I attended the briefings, saw the thin gruel that was presented 
to Members, and I certainly was not convinced, but I am sure many 
others were, particularly with a picture of a UAV, which looked like 
something that could not fly. It had aluminum patches riveted on it and 
it clearly could not carry anything. It seemed the Air Force guy giving 
the briefing did not think much of it either. Be that as it may, a 
large majority of this House bought into that rationale and authorized 
the President to go to war.
  Subsequent to that, revelations about ``yellow cake'' and Niger and 
uranium and the potential for nuclear threat was totally dispelled 
shortly, well, actually internally in the administration before the 
President used it in the State of the Union, but publicly after that.
  So much had been dispelled that on February 5, 2003, I introduced a 
resolution suggesting that Members of Congress had been misled, had not 
had good information, and should reconsider this extraordinary 
delegation of war-making authority to the President.

                              {time}  1545

  The Congress failed to act, and we know what proceeded from then.
  But now, I would believe that a majority of the Members, not just 
those of us who opposed the war or some who now feel that they should 
not have supported the war, but a large majority, would want to have a 
full investigation of how this happened. How did this all happen? Was 
it the result of a massive failure of intelligence? If so, then why did 
the President pin the highest civilian honor, the Medal of Honor, on 
George Tenet, the head of the CIA who is now an expensive consultant 
and living in luxury. If he was responsible, then maybe he should 
suffer some consequences.
  Well, that did not happen, but they want to blame the intelligence 
agencies. Now, is it all the intelligence agencies? Is it one 
intelligence agency? Is it because of total misinterpretation and 
incompetence by the administration, or was it selective use, cherry-
picking of intelligence, or was it something even worse, deliberate 
manipulation? We do not know. We simply do not know.
  The Senate held one set of hearings on the failure of intelligence. 
They promised that after the election they would hold yet another set 
and reveal a report on the use of the intelligence. They are now 
refusing to do that with an emboldened and enlarged Republican 
membership. So we do not know. The American people do not know. 
Something that is costing $1 billion a day, almost 1,800 American 
lives, more than 10,000 wounded, and we do not know exactly why this 
administration took us to war and under what auspices they took us to 
war.
  Now we have a memo, the so-called secret Downing Street Memo from 
British intelligence, saying that as early as July 2002 that many of 
these facts were known.
  Now, a number of us were disturbed by that and we wrote to the 
President on May 5. Mr. Speaker, 122 Members have now signed that 
letter. The President has not even acknowledged the letter from 122 
duly elected representatives of the United States House of 
Representatives. He should answer that letter.
  But, better still, the majority should stop stonewalling an 
investigation. If this was all very innocent or if it was just the 
incompetence of the intelligence agencies, then let us find those who 
were responsible. If it is something else, let us find those who were 
responsible. You should not stonewall this important information, so 
that we can learn from our mistakes and move forward with more 
confidence in the Congress and the administration when it might come to 
future threats against the United States of America.
  Now, yesterday, we were sent to the basement, led by the gentleman 
from Michigan (Mr. Conyers), because we were told there were no rooms 
available to hold a hearing on this memo and these issues. 
Unfortunately, it turned out that all of the rooms in that vicinity, 
which were much larger, were vacant, as were many other hearing rooms.
  This Republican leadership should have a full and fair and 
nonpartisan investigation of how America was led to war.

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