Congressional Record Weekly Update

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1A) National Defense Authorization
Mr. UDALL of New Mexico. Mr. Chairman, the legislation before us is of great importance, perhaps today more than ever. Even as we debate this legislation today, our brave men and women are serving in harm's way. That is why I strongly support many provisions of this legislation; particularly the 4.1 percent across-the-board pay increase for military personnel, as well as the vital readiness, modernization, and infrastructure improvements, which will keep our forces the best-trained and best-equipped in the world. As we are all painfully aware, there are many security challenges that face our great nation. As such, it is critical that we provide the necessary investments in our national defense. However, because of several highly controversial provisions in what is traditionally a bipartisan bill, I have strong reservations about supporting H.R. 1588 as it is currently written. One of my primary concerns pertains to the environmental provisions in this legislation that weaken environmental protections. Although I fully support maintaining the highest possible level of military training and readiness, I believe such readiness must also be balanced against our duty to protect at-risk species, especially in light of existing Department of Defense exemptions in current environmental laws. H.R. 1588 does not adequately address this concern.

The Department of Defense contends that military training on the approximately 25 million acres of land at the more than 425 installations nationwide is greatly constrained by environmental laws such as the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act. However, a GAO report issued in June 2002 found that training readiness remains high and that the ESA and the MMP are not hampering military readiness. In addition, existing environmental laws already have national security exemptions, yet DoD has never bothered to apply for them. Although I support Chairman HUNTER's attempt to temper this extreme anti-environmental provision, I am dismayed that Democrats were denied the right to offer the Rahall/Dingell amendment, which would have addressed these environmental exemptions in a much more comprehensive manner.

Another provision that is of great concern to me pertains to the DoD's civilian personnel. H.R. 1588 contains broad, sweeping provisions that grant the Secretary of Defense authority to create an entirely new civilian employee system for DoD's 700,000 civilian workers, which strips these employees of some of their basic rights, such as the right to notice before they are fired and the right to join a union. Representatives COOPER, DAVIS, and VAN HOLLEN offered an important amendment before the Rules Committee tomake major modifications to these provisions, in order to protect fundamental employee rights in any new National Security Personnel System designed by the DoD. Disturbingly, the Republicans disallowed this important amendment from being considered on the floor today. I wish I could say I was shocked at this action, but unfortunately it has become standard fare for the Majority to stifle debate and discussion on the important issues of the day.

Last, and certainly not least, is my concern over the nuclear weapons provisions in H.R. 1588. This legislation authorizes previously prohibited research on low-yield nuclear weapons and also authorizes $21 million to study the feasibility of developing a Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator.

Our military needs improved capabilities to hold at risk hardened, and deeply buried targets in rogue nations that might contain prohibited weapons of mass destruction programs. However, instead of building new nuclear weapons and sending the signal to our allies and enemies alike that it's okay to build nuclear weapons, I believe we should fund weapons that have just as strong a deterrent capability, but do not encourage new uses for nuclear weapons or encourage a new nuclear arms race.

The military has not even asked for nuclear weapons to do the job because there are already several conventional programs underway that would allow us to get at the same targets. A recent article quotes Adm. James Ellis, head of U.S. strategic command, as saying he wants to ``reduce the country's dependence on nuclear weapons by using conventional, precision-guided bombs and missiles.''

Mr. Chairman, let me reiterate, I strongly support a strong national defense to address the many national security challenges we face in this uncertain world. Excluding these extraneous, highly controversial provisions, H.R. 1588 contains many important provisions to improve our nation's defenses. I support the important provisions that provide good pay, housing and training for the men and women in uniform and fund important modernization priorities that will ensure that we have the most technologically advanced military in the world. I am very hopeful that the environmental, civil service, and nuclear weapons provisions are addressed in conference in order to make this a more acceptable and bipartisan piece of legislation.

1B) Feinstein-Kennedy Amendment
Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, today I submit into the record a statement to clarify my position on the development of low yield nuclear weapons. Circumstances prevented me from voting last week on the Feinstein-Kennedy amendment to the FY2004 defense authorization bill which would have struck any provisions that might permit research, development, testing, or deployment of low yield nuclear weapons. At the time, my vote was announced as an ``aye'' in favor of a motion to table the amendment. Through no fault of the distinguished Senator from Nevada who announced my vote, if I had been here, I would have voted ``nay,'' and supported the common sense proposal of the Senators from California and Massachusetts.

   Last week, in a statement entered into the RECORD, I made clear my opposition to the development of low yield nuclear weapons, as well as the robust nuclear earth penetrator. It is absurd to think the United States will start development on a new generation of nuclear weapons at the same moment we seek the world's support in an effort to halt the spread of nuclear weapons and technology.

   Senator Feinstein and Senator Kennedy were correct. These weapons don't make us safer. And I thank them for their continued leadership on this vital issue.

1C) Inspections in Iran
Calling for robust inspections in Iran.

Whereas the spread of nuclear weapons threatens world peace and stability;

Whereas the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons was written to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and has been signed by 188 countries around the globe;

Whereas the International Atomic Energy Agency was created to perform inspections and detect nuclear weapons programs and has 135 member states;

Whereas the Islamic Republic of Iran possesses an estimated 10 percent of the world's reserves of oil and an estimated 20 percent of the world's reserves of natural gas, yet, with assistance from the Russian Federation, is constructing nuclear power plants, ostensibly to generate electricity;

Whereas the Islamic Republic of Iran is digging uranium mines and constructing uranium processing plants and spent fuel reprocessing plants, which, when combined with nuclear power plants, will allow the control of the entire nuclear fuel cycle, ultimately leading to the accumulation of both highly-enriched uranium and nuclear-weapons grade plutonium;

Whereas the Islamic Republic of Iran was among the first countries to sign the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons on July 1, 1968, ratified the treaty on February 2, 1970, and is thus constrained by international law from developing nuclear weapons;

Whereas the Islamic Republic of Iran joined the International Atomic Energy Agency in 1958 and, through its safeguards agreement with that Agency, is required to allow inspections of all declared and suspected nuclear and nuclear-related facilities;

Whereas the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran has publicly acknowledged his nation's pursuit of all of the necessary nuclear components for the construction of a nuclear bomb;

Whereas in 1997 the International Atomic Energy Agency concluded an Additional Protocol that requires member states to submit an expanded declaration that includes the identification of all buildings at any nuclear-related facility, regardless of purpose, and grants inspectors greatly expanded access rights, including access to nuclear-related locations at which nuclear materials are not necessarily present and the ability to perform large- and small-scale environmental surveys to determine compliance;

Whereas the Islamic Republic of Iran remains the only state party to the International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards that has neither signed nor ratified the Additional Protocol and has rejected calls for enhanced International Atomic Energy Agency inspections to ensure only civilian use for nuclear energy in that country; and

Whereas the International Atomic Energy Agency has demonstrated the ability to locate and secure illicit nuclear weapons programs when given both the ability and the mandate to do so, but lacks the mandate to search for a nuclear weapons program in the Islamic Republic of Iran: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That the House of Representatives--

(1) expresses its deep concern that the Islamic Republic of Iran may be attempting to acquire a nuclear weapons capability, in violation of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and that country's International Atomic Energy Agency Safeguards Agreement;

(2) calls on the President of the United States, the United Nations Security Council, and other countries to urge the Islamic Republic of Iran to accept an additional, safeguard-strengthening agreement that gives the International Atomic Energy Agency far greater access in the Islamic Republic of Iran to assure against the presence of undeclared facilities or the diversion of materials or technologies from safeguarded facilities; and

(3) calls on the Islamic Republic of Iran to demonstrate its commitment to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and to peace and stability in the Middle East by accepting such an agreement.

3A) Global Pathogen Surveillance Act of 2003
 Mr. KIRK. Mr. Speaker, today the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Tauscher) and I will introduce the Global Pathogen Surveillance Act of 2003. Identical to the Biden-Lugar bill in the Senate, it will assist in fighting the threats of bioterrorism and naturally-occurring infectious diseases.

   International trade and travel offer new opportunities for pathogens to cross national borders. Infectious disease epidemics, wherever they occur, are a potential threat to all nations. Americans have become all too familiar with the threat from bioterrorism and deadly agents capable of spreading death, anthrax, Ebola, smallpox , and SARS. They are just the most recent examples.

   The Kirk-Tauscher bill authorizes $150 million over 2 years to assist developing countries to train personnel in epidemiological techniques, acquire laboratory equipment, and obtain equipment to communicate inside the country and with the World Health Organization. Our legislation has the strong support of Dr. David Heymann, the highest-ranking American at the World Health Organization. It will contribute to our homeland security while at the same time making other countries safer for Americans traveling abroad. I thank the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Tauscher) for cosponsoring this important bill.

3B) Support for the Global Pathogen Surveillance Act
Mrs. TAUSCHER. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to introduce the Global Pathogen Surveillance Act of 2003 with my colleague, Congressman MARK KIRK. This important bipartisan legislation mirrors legislation offered by Senators BIDEN and LUGAR, and will reduce the risk of infectious diseases entering this country. As we have learned from the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, and the anthrax attacks, nature and terrorists do not stand still while the world finds ways to improve its preparedness against biological threats. Indeed, new diseases--no matter where they start--can spread to the United States in days or even hours. Many of them, including smallpox , SARS and the plague have lengthy incubation times, lasting two to twelve days. The flight time between any two cities, however, is under 36 hours. Any of the 140 million people who enter the United States by air each year can, unknowingly, carry these dangerous pathogens with them. SARS, for example, came to the world's attention in East Asia in March. Today, there are over eight thousand cases worldwide, with the highest number of cases in the United States occurring in my home state of California. Because it was not reported immediately and a strong international network was not in place to monitor and control it, SARS has become a worldwide epidemic. It has put a severe strain on hospitals and health care systems and caused financial chaos in dozens of countries. While Congress has been generous in funding measures to improve domestic biopreparedness, rapid detection of outbreaks requires significant improvements in international disease surveillance. While developing nations are most likely to experience rapid disease outbreak, they don't have the trained personnel, the laboratory equipment or the public health infrastructure to deal with epidemics--much less warn the rest of the world. Our bill would help train public health professionals in developing countries to use electronic syndrome surveillance systems and traditional epidemiology methods to better detect, diagnose and contain infectious disease outbreaks. Our bill would also help developing countries purchase public health laboratory equipment for health surveillance and diagnosis as well as communications technology to transmit information about infectious diseases. This legislation would also develop and enhance existing regional health networks and establish lab-to-lab cooperative relationships between the United States and public health laboratories and foreign counterparts. It would also strengthen the reporting capabilities of the World Health Organization, whose decision to issue a global alert in March allowed health officials around the world to take appropriate measures to control the spread of SARS. All these provisions strengthen a global surveillance network which will detect the unique symptoms of an epidemic before it spreads and allow earlier diagnosis and better containment measures. I call on my colleagues to support this important bill and help us close the huge gaps in our defense against emerging diseases.

4A) Report Concerning Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction

Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, as the President arrived in Europe during this recent and historic journey, culminating, we hope, in progress today in the nation of Jordan, several days ago he was greeted with what can only be described as a hysterical European press attack on what were called the lies and distortions of this administration relative to its pronouncements about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction in the months leading up to Operation Iraqi Freedom.

   After that hysteria in the European press, even some editorial pages in the United States have gone forward with similar recriminations and I thought that it would be useful tonight, Mr. Speaker, to rise and talk about the facts of weapons of mass destruction. I do so having literally just come this morning from a briefing by the Under Secretary for Arms Control for the United States Department of State, Mr. John Bolton, perhaps one of the most distinguished and informed leaders in our Nation, on the subject of arms control and weapons proliferation.

   Mr. Bolton spoke before us today of the efforts within Iraq, the Iraq survey group, that he believed would bear fruit soon, in his words, in finding both evidence of a WMD program and also ultimately weapons of mass destruction themselves. He said that he believed that we would be soon finding weapons and the means of production in due course. But where comes his confidence, Mr. Speaker? Perhaps it comes with a brief recitation of the history of the region. People are very quick to forget, especially in the European press that seems to suggest that this idea of Iraq having weapons of mass destruction was somehow invented out of whole cloth.

   Many seem to forget that it was Iraq themselves, 18 April 1991, that provided an initial declaration required under U.N. resolution 687 declaring themselves, Iraq declared themselves in the possession of chemical weapons and materials and 53 al Hussein and Scud type long-range ballistic missiles. At that point in April of 1991, they denied the presence of any biological weapons. By May, Iraq submitted a revised declaration covering additional chemical weapons and a refinement of the missile declaration. And then after pressure from UNSCOM, Iraq admitted in August of 1991 that they had a biological research program for defensive military purposes.

   According to UNSCOM estimates, Iraq acknowledged that they were in possession of 10,000 nerve gas warheads, 1,500 chemical weapons and 412 tons of chemical weapon agents. 1991. As Under Secretary Bolton said today, it has been the unchanged position throughout the Clinton administration and through the Bush administration that those weapons are unaccounted for to this day. Both administrations held, in Mr. Bolton's words as a representative of the State Department, precisely the same view of these weapons, that were not invented by some political spinmeister in the run-up to Operation Iraqi Freedom, they were admitted to by the regime in Baghdad, who went on year after year delaying inspections, denying their presence and refusing to prove their destruction, leading up to the 1998 expulsion of U.N. weapons inspectors, resulting in President Clinton's attack on Iraq with cruise missiles. And President Clinton, of course, gave the reason at that time that he needed to ``attack Iraq's nuclear , chemical and biological programs and their capacity to threaten their neighbors.''

   And so I thought it important tonight, after hearing on the International Relations Committee, Mr. Speaker, from John Bolton, the Under Secretary of Arms Control, that there is confidence that the Iraq survey group at the State Department will bear fruit. We will continue to find evidence, like the mobile labs, like the unarmed aerial vehicles, we will continue to find evidence of a WMD program in Iraq.

[Time: 21:15]

   That confidence arises not from the heart of the White House or the West Wing, but, rather, from the pronouncements of the regime in Iraq about their own possession a decade ago of hundreds of tons of chemical and biological agents. The facts speak for themselves.

4B) Where is the Justification for War?

 Mr. LEWIS of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, it is very difficult to stand on the floor of the House to question whether those in power deliberately misled and deceived the American people and the community of nations. However, the events in Iraq leave me no other choice.

   Our President, Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense and Undersecretary of Defense told the men, women and children of this Nation and of the world that we must go to war in Iraq because the country had weapons of mass destruction. Time and time again, they told us that Iraq posed a clear and present danger to the health, well-being and life of our people.

   Why? Because Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and was prepared to use them or give them to terrorists who would use them.

   So where are the weapons that President Bush promised?

   Saddam is gone. For several weeks, American troops have been free to search Iraq. They have been free to search Iraq, virtually at will. Today we find no weapons of mass destruction. No chemical weapons, no biological weapons, no nuclear weapons. Nothing.

   Where are the weapons? Where is the threat?

   Mr. President, where is your justification for war? The credibility of this administration is at stake.

   Americans died in Iraq because President Bush told us that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Children lost their mothers and fathers. Parents lost their sons and daughters. Women lost their husbands, and husbands lost their wives.

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   For what?

   Excuses and explanations cannot answer this question. We need, we deserve, we demand justification.

   What justified the loss of American lives? What justified taking $100 billion out of the pockets of our children, our grandchildren and unborn generations?

   Three major American news organizations have cited leaks from Federal intelligence officials that the Bush administration manipulated intelligence about weapons of mass destruction, that the President and his advisers told the intelligence community to provide evidence to support the war in Iraq.

   In Britain, senior war correspondent Max Hastings, who supported the war against Iraq, wrote that ``the Prime Minister committed British troops and sacrificed British lives on the basis of a deceit, and that stinks.''

   These accusations cannot go unanswered. We are not just talking about the veracity of the Bush administration. We are talking about the credibility of the United States of America. Our Nation's reputation is at stake.

   The next time we go to our allies, the next time we go to the United Nations, they will doubt what we say. Our enemies will be safer, and our citizens will be less secure.

   The President and members of his administration have an obligation to come clean, to put their cards on the table and level with the American people. What did they really know and when did they know it?

   They are the ones who toured the country, beating the drums of war. They are the ones who told the American people that we needed to go to war. They are the ones who traveled the globe campaigning for a war to save us all from weapons of mass destruction.

   In the name of our fallen soldiers, in the name of the credibility of the United States of America, in the name of what is right and just and true.

   We need an answer, and we need it now.

4C) Results of Trip to North Korea
Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for allowing me to take the rest of this time. It is tough to follow the gentleman from Georgia. He is not only a nice human being but he is a real genuine person as you can tell by the way he handles issues, totally committed to his job and his family. I want to let the gentleman know he is someone for whom I have the highest admiration and always brings a few laughs to us while he use that kind of down-home southern humor to convey the real message of what the American people want us to be doing. I thank my friend and colleague for his comments.

   Mr. Speaker, tonight I rise for the major purpose of outlining the results of a trip that I led to North Korea this past weekend, but I want to start out by responding to some of the concerns raised by my colleagues on the other side where they have continued to demagog and basically say that President Bush and the administration lied about the reasons for the Iraqi war. I heard one of our colleagues earlier say, show me the evidence of weapons of mass destruction. I could not help let that go by, Mr. Speaker. I am the vice chairman of the House Committee on Armed Services. I work issues involving proliferation of weapons of mass destruction technology, and for anyone to suggest that there just was not a case of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq is just plain wrong. In fact, all one has to do is go to the U.N. and look through the records of the U.N. on abuses of human rights and look at the record of Saddam Hussein.

   In fact, Mr. Speaker, I will at this point in time insert in the RECORD two charts. One is the past Iraqi use of weapons of mass destruction and the second is the amount of weapons of mass destruction that Iraq admitted to having at the time of the war.

         

1. PAST IRAQI USE OF WMDS

Date	Area used	Agent	Casualities	Target pop.
1983	Hajj Umran	Mustard	<100	Iranians/Kurds.
1983	Panjwin	Mustard	3,000	Iranians/Kurds.
1984	Majnoon Island	Mustard	2,500	Iranians.
1984	al-Basrah	Tabun	50-100	Iranians.
1985	Hawizah Marsh	Mustard/Tabun	3,000	Iranians.
1986	al-Faw	Mustard/Tabun	8-10,000	Iranians.
1986	Umm ar Rasas	Mustard	5,000	Iranians.
1987	al-Basrah	Mustard/Tabun	5,000	Iranians.
1987	Sumar/Mehran	Mustard/Nerve	3,000	Iranians.
1988	Halabaj	Mustard/Nerve	800	Kurds.

     

2. AMOUNT OF WMDS IRAQ ADMITS HAVING

Weapon	Effect	Quantity Iraq claimed
VX	Nerve Agent--Paralysis and Death	3.9 Tons.
Sarin	Nerve Agent--Paralysis and Death	812 Tons.
Mustard Gas	Blister Agent--Burns Skin, Eyes, and Lungs	3,080 Tons.
Anthrax	Bio Agent--Lung Infection and Death	2,200 Gallons.
Botulinum	Bio Agent--Death if inhaled or Digested	5,300 Gallons.
Aflatoxin	Bio Agent--Causes Liver Cancer	520 Gallons.

   Mr. Speaker, the facts cannot be refuted. Saddam Hussein was responsible for killing over 20,000 human beings by using weapons of mass destruction. What were they? Mustard gas, tabun, nerve gas. From 1983 to 1988, known facts in this chart which our colleagues can read tomorrow in the Congressional Record are the specific dates, the locations and who was killed. And who was killed? Iranians and Kurds. Innocent people. And what did Iraq admit when in 1991 they in fact were kicked out of Kuwait? What did they tell the U.N. they had? They told the U.N. they had VX, which is a nerve agent, causes paralysis and death. In fact, they publicly said we have 3.9 tons of VX. They said they had sarin gas, nerve agent, causes paralysis and death, 812 tons. They said they had mustard gas, a blister agent, burns the skin, eyes and lungs, 3,080 tons. They said they had anthrax, a biological agent, lung infection and death, 2,200 gallons. They said they had Botulinum, a biological agent, death if inhaled or digested, 5,300 gallons; and they said they had aflatoxin, another bioagent that causes liver cancer, 520 gallons.

   Mr. Speaker, this was the leadership of Iraq publicly telling the U.N. what weapons of mass destruction they had. For my colleagues and friends to stand up here and say they do not have any weapons of mass destruction and therefore the administration lied is just wrong and it is really unfair. In fact, every major debate involving the

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   But let me get to another point for those who criticize the President. What about Saddam's record of human rights violations? My colleagues on the other side were quick to support Bill Clinton 4 years ago when he decided we should go to war in Yugoslavia, an independent nation, because he decided the human rights record of Slobodan Milosevic was so bad that we should remove him with force. Incidentally and ironically coerced by both the French and Germans, we decided not to go to the U.N. but to bypass the U.N. because the Russians were going to issue a veto of any U.N. resolution and for the first and only time ever in the Clinton administration, we used NATO, which is a defensive body, for an offensive purpose, pushed by France, Germany and the U.S., we invaded a non-NATO country to remove the sitting head of state. Why? Because he had weapons of mass destruction? No. Because he was committing human rights violations.

   In the case of Saddam Hussein, every organization on the face of the earth, from Amnesty International to the U.N., has clearly stated that Saddam Hussein's human rights record is far worse than anyone since Adolf Hitler. And so this argument being put forth by the left that somehow the Bush administration was not truthful with Congress and the American people leading up to the war is just plain wrong.

[Time: 23:00]

   It is a case to try to be used by the candidates running for the nomination of the other party to try to get some kind of traction or leverage against President Bush.

   The fact is, we did what we did because Saddam Hussein had a terrible human rights record, he used weapons of mass destruction. We wanted to make sure he never had that chance to use them again, and that is exactly what we have accomplished.

   Mr. Speaker, the real and primary purpose of my special order tonight was to focus on a trip that I just led, we got back yesterday, from North Korea, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

   Mr. Speaker, no one from America in an elected capacity had been to Pyongyang, North Korea, for the past 6 years, and in fact the only contact we have had with the leadership of DPRK has been through our State Department diplomats. We had a team there almost a year ago, or last fall, actually, and we had our Assistant Secretary of State, Secretary Kelly, meet in Beijing to have further discussions with North Korea.

   About a year ago, Mr. Speaker, I decided it was important that the Congress attempt to understand what was happening inside of DPRK, because of the tensions building between North and South Korea. I wanted to make sure we did not end up in another conflict. So I set out to take a delegation of 13 of our colleagues into Pyongyang last May.

   We sat in Beijing and we sat in Seoul for 4 days waiting for the visas to be approved. They never came. The reason given by the North Korean government was that President Bush had referred to North Korea as a part of the axis of evil, and, therefore, they did not think it right we should be allowed admittance to their country.

   But, Mr. Speaker, I persevered, and throughout the last 12 months traveled up to the UN on at least two occasions, met with the Ambassador for the DPRK mission at the UN, Ambassador Han, the only representative of North Korea allowed in America, and I talked to him about taking a delegation in.

   Every time I met with him, as I have done in all of my contacts, I made sure I talked to the folks at the White House, the National Security Council and the State Department, so I kept them informed.

   I used seven or eight individuals and groups that have contacts inside of North Korea to convey the message that it was more important for us to bring in a delegation of non-diplomats. There was an added sense of urgency because in the late summer-early fall our intelligence community gave the evidence to the State Department that in fact North Korea had an active nuclear weapons program under way, which was a clear violation of the 1994 agreed upon framework that was negotiated in the Clinton administration.

   So, for all of those reasons I kept the pressure on to take a group into Pyongyang to meet with the officials of that country, not as diplomats, not as representatives of the President, not as representatives of the State Department, but as elected officials from our country, to put a face on the American people and to tell the people of North Korea that none of us want war, none of us want conflict.

   Approximately 10 days ago, Mr. Speaker, at the 11th hour, after I had planned a trip to go to Moscow and then on into North Korea, we were initially told the visas were not coming forward. Then the day after we canceled that trip I got a call from the New York embassy or New York office of the mission at the United Nations and Ambassador Han said Congressman WELDON, Pyongyang has invited you to bring your delegation into my country.

   Very quickly we reassembled a team, three Democrats and three Republicans, and traveled to Pyongyang on a naval aircraft. The Navy did a fantastic job in providing support to us. We left on a Wednesday evening and flew all night. The trip took us about 30 hours, with the fuel stops that we had to make in the C-9 we were traveling in, and we arrived into Pyongyang, North Korea, from a stop in Japan, at approximately 9:30 a.m. last Friday.

   For 3 days, we were hosted by the leadership of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the DPRK regime.

   Mr. Speaker, I would say at the outset that we let it be known going in we were not going in to represent the President of the United States, nor the State Department. We were not going in to do any negotiations. We were simply going in to put a face on America so that the leadership of DPRK that has been so outrageously nasty within their country toward America and the American people should see who we are, not as diplomats, but as ordinary people.

   The three Democrats and the three Republicans who went to Pyongyang made it be known that we were not going to negotiate because that is not our position, and in fact we were going in supporting the position of President Bush and Secretary Powell; that a multilateral approach to dealing with North Korea in the end had to be

   the vehicle, the way to get this issue of this nuclear threat under control.

   Our goal was to put the human face on, and we did. In fact, during the 3 days that we were in Pyongyang, North Korea, it was an unbelievable experience. I had asked in advance, Mr. Speaker, to visit 10 sites so that we would not just be taken where they wanted us to go, but rather we would pick the type of sites that we would like to see. In fact, half of those sites they agreed to and we visited.

   One was a school, a school with 1,800 children from the age of 3 years to 18 years. It was an impressive sight, a model school for the country. But it gave us an understanding of the support of the DPRK government to educate their children.

   The second was the Pyongyang Computer Center, one of three buildings in the downtown city area that are used to develop North Korea's technology and information and the use of computers.

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   We had to visit a film studio because the leader of North Korea, Kim Chong-Il, has a major interest in producing video productions, actually movies. He does not import any from the West for his people because society in North Korea is totally closed. So I thought it would be relevant to visit what I had heard to be one of the largest studio complexes outside of Hollywood and Orlando, Florida. We visited that site where there are 1,500 employees.

   Mr. Speaker, to say the least, it was unbelievable. We were driven through the back lot. I have been through the back lot of Universal Studios, and I can tell you, that this rivaled that back lot. There were scenes for movies that could be shot about Japan, about China, about Korea, about Europe, about the West. All of these sets were established so that North Korea each year can produce between 20 and 25 feature lengths films that are shown in the movie houses of North Korea, which are all oriented toward the propaganda message and the message of the North Korean leadership. So we visited that facility.

   We had a shopping visit to interact with the ordinary people that were in the city. We visited restaurants.

   Mr. Speaker, on the last day we were there, we were scheduled to meet with the Minister of Trade, but I asked the delegation the night before if they wanted to do that meeting, and they said not really. So I told the representative who handles U.S. issues for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that we did not want to go to the meeting with the Minister of Trade, but instead on Sunday morning we wanted to go to church.

   They agreed. They picked us up at our hotel at 9:45 in the morning, and six Members of Congress went to church in a Protestant church on a hill in North Korea, in the middle of this closed society, where there were no pictures of Kim Chong-Il or Kim Il-Song, his father, but rather were crosses, and with 300 people we worshipped in a Protestant church, much like churches all over America do every Sunday morning. So we had a good glimpse of this closed society.

   Let me say, Mr. Speaker, I have visited the Soviet Union when it was communist many times and I visited China under its communist system. North Korea makes those two societies in their worst days of communism look like an open society. It is an absolutely closed society to the outside world, no access to outside media, no access to newspapers, totally closed. In fact, limitation on people traveling in is also closed.

   But, Mr. Speaker, we are in a tense situation right now, because North Korea has admitted publicly in our meetings that we held that they have nuclear weapons today. They admitted that they are reprocessing the 8,000 nuclear rods from their nuclear power plants and they admitted that that reprocessed nuclear weapons grade fuel will be used to build more nuclear weapons.

   Mr. Speaker, the fact is that if North Korea uses the fuel from those 8,000 rods, they will have the ability within a year to build four to six additional nuclear weapons. That is unacceptable, Mr. Speaker, and that is why we have to aggressively at this point in time move in to find a common way to solve the nuclear crisis that exists between North Korea and the rest of the world.

   The thing I wanted to mention to our colleagues, Mr. Speaker, is after meeting with the leadership, after meeting with the foreign minister, the speaker of their parliament called the Supreme People's Assembly and the vice foreign minister, I came away convinced that we in fact can find a way to get the North Koreans to give up their nuclear capability.

[Time: 23:10]

   Tomorrow morning I will talk to Secretary Powell on the phone, and I will relay to him the exact details of what I think could become the basis for his experts and professionals to conduct negotiations within the context that the President and the Secretary of State have defined to allow us to move away from the brink of nuclear war.

   Mr. Speaker, the alternative is unacceptable. The alternative would be for North Korea to continue to develop nuclear weapons. If we try an economic embargo, they would likely offer to sell their nuclear weapons to other nations, rogue groups, terrorist organizations. That is unacceptable.

   Regime change by means of war I think is unacceptable, at least until we make every possible effort to find a way to convince the North Koreans, as President Putin and Chinese President Hu Jintao have said, to have them remove nuclear weapons from the Korean Peninsula.

   Mr. Speaker, I would like to include the trip report, and I would like to thank our congressional delegation Members, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Ortiz), who was my co-chair; the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Reyes); the gentleman from New York (Mr. Engel); the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Wilson); the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Miller). They were a dynamic team, and together we have now brought back to our colleagues the knowledge and a fuller understanding of this nation that has been so secretive.

   But more importantly, we bring back to America the possibility that we can resolve this nuclear crisis on the Korean Peninsula through peaceful discussions and through peaceful resolution. Hopefully, Mr. Speaker, under the leadership of our great President and our Secretary of State and Condoleezza Rice, our security adviser, we will in fact this year be able to solve this very difficult challenge in a peaceful way.

   The material referred to earlier is as follows:

   U.S. CONGRESSIONAL DELEGATION (CODEL) WELDON VISIT TO NORTH AND SOUTH KOREA--DEMOCRATIC PEOPLES' REPUBLIC OF KOREA (DPRK) AND REPUBLIC OF KOREA (ROK), MAY 30-JUNE 2, 2003

   OVERVIEW

   North Korea DPRK

   The delegation was the largest congressional delegation to visit the DPRK and the first CODEL to visit the DPRK in five years. The visit occurred during a period of escalating tensions between the DPRK, the United States, and nations of the region resulting from the DPRK October, 2002, admission of its nuclear weapons-related uranium enrichment program. Subsequent DPRK withdrawal from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT); confirmation of its possession of nuclear weapons; expelling of IAEA inspectors; declared intentions to reprocess its spent fuel; continued sales of missiles and technology to terrorist nations; and allegations of nation-sponsored drug trafficking all served to further raise tensions between the DPRK and the international community.

   The delegation visit was the culmination of over a year-long effort by Representative Weldon to gain entry into the DPRK for the purpose of engaging senior DPRK officials in informal discussions, free of the formality of traditional posturing and imposed pressures of negotiation objectives, to share mutual perspectives on the major political, military, and economic issues.

   The resulting visit achieved its purpose by providing the Members an opportunity to engage senior DPRK officials (attachment 2) in lengthy, candid, unstructured, and often pointed, yet respectful, discussions, in several venues covering the complete range of outstanding issues. While discussions with senior DPRK officials included the predictable hard line rhetoric associated with recent DPRK public statements, balanced discussion took place in the formal as well as more personal informal sessions. The demonstrated goodwill and willingness to go beyond first level posturing gave the delegation reason to believe that there are options that should be considered to avoid conflict and resolve critical outstanding issues in a way satisfactory to both sides. There is unanimous agreement within the delegation that a way must be found to initiate discussions in an agreed framework at the earliest possible opportunity. Concern exists that failure to address these crictical issues in a timely manner could result in the proliferation of nuclear weapons and/or technology to terrorist organizations and States.

   Repeated statements were made by the DPRK leadership that their brief is that the Bush Administration seeks regime change in North Korea, ``The Bush Administration finds regime change in different nations very attractive ..... and is trying to have regime change, one by one. This kind of conduct damages the U.S. image in the world and weakens the leadership role of the U.S. This is the heart of the question. If the U.S. would sign a non-aggression pact, we would give up nuclear programs and weapons.'' The DPRK seeks normalization of relations and non-interference with its economic relations with South Korea and Japan. Chairman Weldon indicated he did not believe regime change to be the goal of the U.S.--and stated his position of not advocating regime change. The issue of regime change is seen as the determining factor in whether a peaceful resolution to the current standoff is possible.

   Chairman Weldon also stated his concern that the establishment of a DPRK nuclear weapons program would lead to similar programs in surrounding nations. He cited Hu-

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   A major issue often voiced by DPRK officials remains a requirement on their part to achieve a satisfactory framework for bilateral discussions because of their belief that certain issues ``are too serious'' to be dealt with in an multilateral framework. The delegation believes flexibility exists within a multilateral framework to satisfy the DPRK officials desires for bilateral discussions.

   Requested visits by the delegation to the Pyongyang Information (Computer) Center, a school for gifted students, Kim Il Sung's birth place, the North Korean movie studio production facilities, and a Christian church as well as casual evening social events permitted the delegation to interact with a wide variety of North Koreans and to travel to several sections of the city.

   Prior to departure, Ministry of Foreign Affairs officials extended an open invitation to the delegation for a return visit and further indicated a willingness to consider visits to the Yong Byon nuclear facility.

   Seoul, ROK

   In Seoul, the delegation was hosted by President Roh for a breakfast meeting, met with Foreign Minister Yoon, Members of the National Assembly, Ambassador Hubbard, General LaPorte, and other officials to discuss the meetings in the DPRK. The ROK

   officials expressed their appreciation for the efforts of the delegation and reinforced the need for dialogue with the North.

   Observations

   Each of the senior DPRK officials with whom the delegation met cited the importance of the visit, given the current tense relationship between the DPRK and the U.S. They also noted their understanding of the role of Congress and that the delegation was not visiting to negotiate issues for the United States, but to enhance mutual understanding between the two nations.

   In each of the meetings, Chairman Weldon cited the past and continued importance of inter-parliamentary exchanges in improving relationships with nations and improving the well-being of the peoples once considered to be enemies of the United States, including the People's Republic of China and the U.S.S.R., and expressed his belief that this could be the case with the DPRK once normalized relations could be established. He also expressed his belief that no one in the Congress wishes ill-will toward the North Korean people and that no one wants another war.

   Each of the senior DPRK officials noted the tense international situation and sought to place the blame on the U.S. ``because the U.S. seeks to make us give up our military forces which safeguard our political system.'' Each of the leaders also cited their preference for the ``Clinton approach'' in the bilateral relationship and took strong exception to President Bush's inclusion of the DPRK as part of the ``Axis of Evil.'' They stated their belief that such a characterization demonstrates that the U.S. is unwilling to ``accommodate with our country'' and the U.S. seeks regime change. ``Further, the U.S. is enlisting other nations to prepare a nuclear first strike--seeking to blackmail and intimidate us ..... The U.S. does not want to coexist with us ..... And not only does the Bush Administration not want to coexist, but wishes to get rid of my nation with its nuclear strength ..... We see the U.S. preparing for a military strike ..... The U.S. must change its hostile policy.'' Without necessarily supporting the Bush Administration policies toward the DPRK, all members of the delegation agreed with Representative Engel's point to DPRK officials, that violations of the 1994 Agreed Framework by the DPRK were the reason for the current tensions, not Bush Administration policies.

   The DPRK officials stated their belief that the situation can only be resolved by acceptance of the current leadership--coexistence--and dialogue. And in the meantime it intends to continue to develop its ``restraint capability'' (nuclear deterrent). ``We have tried dialogue and have been patient ..... Our willingness to meet in Beijing in April shows our flexibility to allow the U.S. to save face, showing our flexibility and sincerity to resolve the issues at any cost ..... We have not had concrete results. The Bush Administration has not responded to our request for bilateral talks--they are more focused on our first giving up our nuclear program ..... This causes us to believe that the Bush Administration has not changed its policy about disarming my nation ..... We want to conclude a non-aggression treaty between the two countries and avoid a military strike on my country.''

   DPRK officials explicitly reconfirmed their nation's possession of nuclear weapons and repeated previous public statements regarding the reprocessing of the 8,000 spent fuel rods from the Yong Byon facility. They also indicated they will use the reprocessed materials for making weapons. They further indicated that the only option open to them, given their inclusion in the ``Axis of Evil'' and U.S. refusal to engage in bilateral discussions, ``is to strengthen and possess restraint (deterrent) capability and we are putting that into action ..... I know some say we possess dirty weapons. We want to deny they are dirty ones ..... I apologize for being so frank, but I believe you have good intentions and I want to be frank. We are not blackmailing or intimidating the U.S. side. We are not in a position to blackmail the U.S.--the only super power. Our purpose in having a restraint (deterrent) is related to the war in Iraq. This is also related to statements by the hawks within the the U.S. Administration. Our lesson learned is that if we don't have nuclear restraint (deterrent), we cannot defend ourselves.''

   DPRK officials maintained that their nuclear program is only for deterrence and not being pursued to seek economic aid--that ``we only wish to be left alone. The nuclear issue is directly linked to the security of our nation ..... We need frank exchange on nuclear policies.'' DPRK officials indicated that economic sanctions would be viewed as a proclamation of war.

   Attachment 1

   CODEL WELFON--Members of Congress: Curt Weldon (R-PA); Solomon Ortiz (D-TX); Silvestre Reyes (D-TX); Joe Wilson (R-SC); Jeff Miller (R-FL); Eliot Engel (D-NY).

   Professional Staff: Doug Roach; Bob Lautrup.

   State Department Interpreter: Tong Kim.

   Navy Escorts: Commander Lorin Selby; Lt Commander/Dr. Erik Sawyers; Lt Frank Cristinzio; Lt Tamara Mills.

   Attachment 2

   DPRK--PAEK, Nam Sun, Foreign Minister; KIM Gye Gwan, Vice Minister, Ministry of Foreign Affairs; CHAI Tae Bok, Chairman, Supreme People's Assembly (SPA); CHO, Seung Ju, Director General, Bureau of U.S. Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs; RHEE Sang No, Director of External Affairs, Presidium of SPA; PAK Myong Guk, Director of U.S. Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

   ROK--ROH, Moo-Hyun, President; YOON, Foreign Minister; YOO, Jay-Kun, Member, National Assembly; KIM Un-yong, Member, National Assembly; LEE, Jae-joung, Member, National Assembly; SONG, Young-gil, Member, National Assembly; LEE By-yang, Member, National Assembly; PARK, Jin, Member, National Assembly; KIM, Suh-woo, Chief of Staff to the Speaker, National Assembly; SOHN, Jang-nai, former Ambassador to Indonesia; Thomas C. Hubbard, U.S. Ambassador to ROK; General Leon LaPorte, Commander, USFK.

END

4D) There Are Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq

   Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I am going to take two literary allusions and put them together as the background for the points I wish to make. The first one is a novel that has become a worldwide classic called ``1984,'' written by George Orwell. You may recall that in this particular novel, George Orwell describes a terrifying future. And the principal character in his novel, Winston Smith, works at the Ministry of Truth.

   His job at the Ministry of Truth is to go back over old newspapers and clip out things that contradict the current party line and send those down the memory hole; in other words, destroy them, so that if someone comes along and tries to determine whether there is any past support for the present position, the past has been scrubbed to the point where everything there agrees with the present position. Anything that was said previously that disagrees with the present position of Big Brother, the figure that controls the world in the novel, has been sent down the memory hole. It has been destroyed.

   Keep that in mind as I take another literary allusion. This is an exact quote from Ben Bradlee, formerly editor of the Washington Post and one of

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   Journalism is the first rough draft of history.

   I cite those two because I want to put them together in the debate that has occurred on the floor and even more so that is going on out in the world of the media--the debate about whether we had proper justification for going into Iraq. We are being told over and over again that the world was lied to, the American people were lied to, the Congress was lied to because we were told that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. And since we haven't found any, that means we were deceived at the very beginning when the justification was given to us by the Bush administration to move ahead with respect to the operation in Iraq.

   I submit to you, those who make that argument have tried to reconstruct their own memory holes. They have tried to take past information and scrub it from the record and pretend it was never there. In other words, to go back to Ben Bradlee's comment that ``journalism is the first rough draft of history,'' they are prepared, even this quickly after the journalists have reported what was said, to try to change the first draft of history and create, virtually overnight, a new history that never existed.

   Well, my memory hole has not been used. I have not scrubbed from my memory a series of statements and comments that have been made prior to Iraq. And I intend to go through those comments here tonight to make it clear that those who claim that the President misled the Congress, the people, and the rest of the world with respect to his reasons for going into Iraq are, in fact, trying to rewrite history.

   The record is very clear. It is very firm. And unless Winston Smith is suddenly somehow materialized to change history, the record stands in firm denunciation of those who are now attacking the President on this issue.

   Let's go back to the question of weapons of mass destruction. I remember going to S-407 in this building, the room on the fourth floor where we go to receive confidential, highly classified briefings from administration officials. I remember sitting there and listening to Madeleine Albright, Secretary of State, outline for us in detail the reasons we had to attack Iraq. President Clinton, who appointed her Secretary of State, was even more pointed in his public statements of the fact that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. In the President's phrase, ``Saddam Hussein will surely use them.'' We needed, according to the President and the Secretary of State, to move ahead militarily in Iraq.

   I remember walking out of that meeting in S-407 convinced that the bombs would start falling within days. As it turned out, the administration changed its mind and moved away from that particular decision. They backed off. But they never backed off their statement that weapons of mass destruction were there, that weapons of mass destruction would be used, and that Saddam Hussein could not be trusted long term with weapons of mass destruction.

   Vice President Gore--however much he has attacked this administration and its positions--has nonetheless stated on the record his firm belief that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. I think it is clear that if President Bush were involved in some kind of sleight of hand to pretend that weapons were there when they were not, and create some sort of conspiracy among the members of his administration to peddle this false notion, former Vice President Gore would not be part of that conspiracy. As Vice President, he saw the intelligence briefings. He was in a position to evaluate how accurate they were, and Vice President Gore has said publicly on the record, speaking of Saddam Hussein on September 23:

   We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country.

   One of the men in Iraq who worked with Saddam Hussein in creating those weapons had a piece in the Wall Street Journal where he made this statement: ``Inspectors will never find them.'' Also, he pointed out that the artillery shells that had been found by the inspectors that were hollow were, in fact, a demonstration of the fact that there were weapons of mass destruction--that is, chemical and biological weapons--because when the inspectors said, oh, there is no problem here, the warheads are hollow and there is nothing there, this man who worked in Iraq to create these weapons said, of course, they are hollow; the weapons are not put into the artillery shells until just before they are to be used. The artillery shells are prepared for weapons of mass destruction--for chemical or biological weapons--and then stored hollow.

   So instead of saying that the discovery of these weapons proves they don't have chemical or biological capability, in fact, the reverse is actually true. We do not have a storehouse in the American military of hollow artillery shells because we don't use chemical weapons. The Iraqis have hollow shells because they expect to put chemical agents in those shells. All of this is part of the record and was available prior to the current debate of those who just want to look back and find it.

   Senator Bob Graham, who used to be chairman of the Intelligence Committee when all of this intelligence was being developed, and is still the ranking member of that

   committee, had this to say when Colin Powell went before the United Nations and laid out the case:

   I applaud Secretary Powell for finally making available to the world the information on which this administration will base its actions in Iraq. ..... In my judgment, the most significant information was the confirmation of a linkage between the shadowy networks of international terrorists and Saddam Hussein, the true coalition of evil.

   All of this information was available to all these individuals prior to the time we went into Iraq, and all of them were satisfied that it was sound information. All of them were satisfied that it was real. And now the press is pretending that nobody--nobody--believed there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq except the Bush administration, and that everybody simply took the Bush administration at its word and now is being betrayed by the facts because we have not found enough of it to satisfy them; we have only found hollow artillery shells; we have only found chemicals that could be used for pesticides.

   I wonder if anyone has done an analysis of just how many pesticides Iraqi agriculture requires. Looking at the stores of chemicals they have found, chemicals that have dual use--yes, they could be pesticides or they could be a component part of a chemical weapon. Look at the quantities we have found and ask yourself: Do the Iraqis really need this much for pesticides? Or do they have another purpose?

   We have not yet found Saddam Hussein. As KIT BOND said today at lunch, if we don't ever find Saddam Hussein, is that proof of the fact that he doesn't exist? If we don't find him, will that be evidence that the Bush administration made him up? If we don't find him, is that proof that he never was in Iraq? That same kind of reasoning is being applied here. We have not found all of the weapons of mass destruction that all of the critics would like to have as proof of their position, so our failure to have done that so far is, in their logic, proof that these weapons never existed or proof that they were never in Iraq.

   I think Senator Bond's question is a legitimate one. If we don't find Saddam Hussein, does that mean he never existed or he was never in Iraq? Of course not. It means something happened. Either we killed him the first night with that first strike and his remains have been removed by the SSO--his central group of key supporters--so that his body will never be found or he has left the country or he was killed somewhere else. But we know he was there. Everybody knew he was there, and our failure to find him now does not mean he was not there when the attack began. Quite the contrary. Everybody is satisfied he was there.

   The same thing applies to the weapons of mass destruction. As I have demonstrated, starting with President Clinton, we have known they were there, we have known they had them. If we cannot find them all, that means either they were destroyed by us or by the Iraqis or they have been moved somewhere. It doesn't mean they never existed. The evidence that they existed cannot go down the memory hole just to make the present arguments sound more convincing.

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   I read a commentator who quoted Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz, in what the commentator thought was a damning admission on this story, when he said:

   Yes, we had other reasons for going into Iraq, but we stressed weapons of mass destruction because that was the one everybody was focused on.

   According to the commentator, that is a damning admission on the part of the Secretary that we had other motives, and that is part of the attack that is being mounted on the floor, that the Bush administration was duplicitous: They told us they were going after weapons of mass destruction, but they had other motives.

   And here, Secretary Wolfowitz has admitted it; a smoking gun.

   Back to my memory. I remember very clearly that the Bush administration openly and directly said they had other motives. Let me go down them as I remember them.

   Weapons of mass destruction--there are many countries that have weapons of mass destruction. If we were to go after the country in the world, other than ourselves, that has the highest stock of weapons of mass destruction, we would go after Russia. Why don't we? Because weapons of mass destruction alone are by no means justification for attacking another nation. They must be tied to other motives. This is what I am sure Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz was talking about.

   Right now President Putin and President Bush have a good relationship. Russia and the United States have a trusting relationship. Why should we attack Russia just because it has weapons of mass destruction when that relationship exists?

   Iraq was ruled by a tyrant, and not just your everyday tyrant but a brutal, bloody tyrant who had demonstrated that he not only possessed weapons of mass destruction, he was willing to use weapons of mass destruction and has done so--the only person in the world whose government has employed weapons of mass destruction against anyone else--in this case it was his own people--in the last half century. So, yes, there are other motives besides possessing weapons of mass destruction. They are the man's personality and his history.

   We are not just interested in nations that have WMD. We are interested in brutal tyrants who will use weapons of mass destruction.

   Next, Iraq was clearly a crossroads of terrorist activity. That is what Senator Graham referred to, not just al-Qaida. Iraq was one of the principal financial supporters of the terrorist suicide bombings in Palestine. They offered a $100,000 reward to anyone who would kill himself as long as he took a few Jews with him. How many tyrants around the world are willing to harbor terrorists and support terrorists? The list gets a little smaller.

   North Korea has weapons of mass destruction. North Korea is ruled by a brutal tyrant. But North Korea has not invaded any of its neighbors for half a century, and North Korea is not a haven for al-Qaida, Hamas, Hezbollah, and the other terrorist organizations. We are closing down here on the other motives.

   Attacking your neighbors. Saddam Hussein has attacked his neighbors twice in the last dozen years, set off two major wars, and is responsible for killing more Muslims than any other person on the planet.

   The other motives that the Bush administration had in dealing with Iraq were the totality of the situation. Yes, they wanted to deal with WMD. Yes, they wanted to deal with a tyrant who was brutalizing his own people. Yes, they wanted to deal with terrorism. And, yes, they wanted to deal with somebody who was threatening his neighbors. If you take that criteria and apply it to all the countries in the world, you come up with only one that qualifies on every count.

   It was not the single issue that current commentators and candidates, pundits and pollsters are talking about that prompted President Bush to give the order to go ahead in Iraq. It is a distortion of history to hammer again and again on the fraud that says only weapons of mass destruction

   drove us to go into Iraq, and it is our failure to find weapons of mass destruction in this time period in Iraq that demonstrates we were wrong.

   Nobody has gone to the last part of that sentence. Nobody has said yet that we were wrong to have taken out Saddam Hussein. They come close to that in their attack on the President. They say he lied. They say he manipulated. They say he distorted. But they cannot quite bring themselves to say we were wrong to have done it, and no one will say the world would have been a better place if we had not. Why? Because we have discovered some other things we did not know.

   If you are going to talk about intelligence failures, our intelligence community did not know until we got into Iraq about the mass graves. We did not know about the prisons holding children who were put in there as young as 4 and 5 years of age and have been there for 5 years or more.

   We did not know the details of the brutality of this man. We did not know that he treated his own population, those who were hostile to him or, indeed, simply suspect in his eyes, as brutally as Adolf Hitler treated the Jews in World War II in Germany. We did not know that. We have discovered that now. So no one will quite go to the point of saying we made a mistake, that Bush did the wrong thing.

   One commentator closed his attack on the Bush administration with this interesting quibble, in my view. He said: It was the right war but it was fought for the wrong reason. I find it very difficult to reconcile those two. If it was the right war and has achieved the right result, it was the right thing to have done, and it was the right thing to have done for all of the reasons that people who hate this administration are now conveniently forgetting all of the historical buildup to this that has gone down the memory hole that people are now conveniently saying never happened.

   This is a historic Chamber, and it has seen all kinds of debates, high and low. It has seen all standards of rhetoric, good and bad, and, yes, if I may, true and false. There has been a call for the rafters here to be ringing in a discussion of the Iraqi war and America's activity. I wanted to answer that call and do what I can to see that the rafters are ringing with the truth; that the rafters are ringing with real history, not invented history; that the rafters are ringing with a recognition that what the Bush administration has done in Iraq was the right thing to have done; it was based on sound and careful analysis that ran over two administrations; that was vetted thoroughly with our allies abroad, bringing Great Britain, Australia, Poland, and others, into the fight, and the result has demonstrated that the world is a safer place.

   The Iraqi people live in a safer society, and the prospects for the future are better than would have been the case if we had gone to the brink, as President Clinton did, and then changed our minds. President Clinton thought the evidence was overwhelming but decided not to act. President Bush thought the evidence was overwhelming and did act, and the rafters should ring with at least one speech that applauds that decision and that level of leadership.

   I say to my colleagues, I say to the country, I say to my constituents, I believe the history is there that justifies the decision, and I believe the evidence is there after the fact that more than justifies the decision.

   In this case, America and her President can stand proud before the world as having done the right thing for the right reason.

   I suggest the absence of a quorum.

   The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.

   The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.

   Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

   The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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