[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 8]
[House]
[Pages 10809-10810]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                    EITHER WE DO OUR JOB OR WE DON'T

  (Mr. WELCH of Vermont asked and was given permission to address the 
House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. WELCH of Vermont. Last week, the Government Reform and Oversight 
Committee voted to subpoena Secretary Rice and it was faced, the 
committee, with a simple question. We could do our job or not.
  There is no question, no question that the intelligence used by the 
administration to justify the war in Iraq was dead wrong. Secretary 
Rice was the administration's principal spokesperson, and under her 
leadership the

[[Page 10810]]

administration was certain but wrong about the Niger claim; certain but 
wrong about the aluminum tubes, certain but wrong about the al Qaeda 
connection, about the mobile labs, about unmanned aerial vehicles. And 
there are now three questions that Congress must answer. How did the 
White House and Secretary Rice have such confidence they were so right 
when, in fact, they were so wrong? How can we protect the American 
people and U.S. military from such misinformation in the future? And 
was the administration's active dissemination of bad intelligence 
premeditated and deliberate, done with the intention to deceive the 
American people, or was it reckless and cavalier, done to justify a 
decision to go to war that had already been made?

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