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3A) Port Security and WMD Terrorism
Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, I was intending to offer an amendment to this title of the bill, but the amendment is to increase the appropriation in the bill by $5 billion for the purpose of stationing American inspectors in every foreign port from where ships leave for the United States in order to inspect every container before it is put on a ship bound for the United States. Unfortunately, I could not find a $5 billion offset in this bill. What I wanted to do, obviously, was to reduce the tax cuts, the hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars of tax cuts, by $5 billion to offset this. But the rules of the House do not permit that, so my hands are tied.

Let me address for a moment the necessity of this amendment, if not in this bill then elsewhere. The greatest danger this Nation faces, which we are not addressing in any real shape or form, is that some foreign terrorist group, al-Qaeda, whoever, or some rogue nation, will get hold of a nuclear bomb and attack the United States. We are spending about $100 billion on an anti-ballistic missile system ostensibly to meet that threat. But think about it a minute. The leader of any rogue nation who had a few atomic bombs and wanted to attack the United States would not put them on a missile, because a missile has a return address. We would know from where the missile came, if God forbid someone attacked American cities. That leader would know that if he launched nuclear-tipped missiles at American cities, his country would cease to exist, along with his regime and him, would cease to exist a half-hour later. So he would not put the atomic bombs on a missile, he would put them in a ship.

Mr. Chairman, six million shipping containers come into this country per year. We inspect less than 2 percent of them. Ninety-eight percent of those six million containers, for all we know, have atomic bombs in them. It does not do any good to inspect them in Newark or New York or Los Angeles where they night explode. I know Secretary Ridge and others are saying we are going to set aside a few hundred million dollars and send some inspectors to foreign ports to look at some high-risk containers. High risk? Well, if we look at the high-risk containers, the bombs will be in the low-risk containers, or at least those that used to be low risk.

Mr. Chairman, the catastrophe that could be caused from one atomic bomb in an American city would make 9/11 look like child's play. That catastrophe would cost half a million lives immediately, probably trillions, trillions in economic damage. We cannot afford to risk one nuclear explosion in an American city. President Bush said, when he was trying to motivate a war with Iraq, that we could not wait for the mushroom cloud. Well, I am not so sure the facts justified that reference with respect to Iraq, but they most certainly justify that reference with respect to six million shipping containers coming into this country with God knows what inside.

So, Mr. Chairman, my amendment that I would have offered, if the majority did not prevent me from offering this amendment, would have appropriated $5 billion, which is little

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enough for this purpose, and would have sufficed to enable an American inspection team to see to it that no container, not one container, is put on any ship bound for the United States in a foreign port until that container is searched and sealed and certified by an American inspection team in the foreign port to say there is no weapon of mass destruction on board that.

Mr. Chairman, if we do not do this, during the war that we are engaged in now and maybe for the next 10, 20, 30, or 40 years with the terrorists, then we ought to have our collective heads examined. Any American city could be destroyed, millions of lives lost by one atomic bomb in any container in any ship. We cannot afford not to spend the money to search and inspect every single container, whether our intelligence people think it is a high-risk or a low-risk container, every container in a foreign port with an American inspection team to make sure there is no weapon of mass destruction on board that container.

For $5 billion, Mr. Chairman, we could do that. Five billion dollars a year. Compare that to trillions of dollars in tax cuts that we have passed in these last 2 years. Where does the risk lie for the American people? I would urge, and I would challenge the Bush administration to make the $5 billion a year available and to institute this and to say to foreign countries that no container gets put on a ship in their port without being inspected first by an American inspection team.

And, by the way, if they did not want an American inspection team in their ports, that is fine, they are sovereign, but they cannot ship anything to the United States. We must hermetically seal this country from nuclear bombs possibly contained in ships, and this is the only way to do it. The failure of this Congress and of the administration to deal with this subject seriously is one that I hope will not result in cataclysmic catastrophe for the American people.

Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, I could not let the gentleman's statement go unanswered. We cannot talk in this forum about all that we are doing at our ports in searching container freight and other freight. I would be happy to talk to any Member privately about it, but we cannot talk about all that we are doing in a public forum because it is sensitive information.

However, the Customs and Border Protection Agency tells me that they are inspecting 100 percent of all high-risk cargo based on collecting advanced information such as manifests, intelligence, and targeting systems. I have had the experience of going to some of those ports myself and watching the operation. Watching as we use the equipment on these containers that we do search and then the ones that we physically search.

The 2003 spending bill had monies in it for a thing called the Container Security Initiative, essentially operating at about 20 megaports and several smaller ports all over the world. The idea is to push the perimeter of defense off of our shores. We all know if a bad container gets to us, it is too late. If you catch it only when it comes to your port, it is too late. So we have moved offshore to 20 megaports now, places like Rotterdam, Singapore, and the like, and inspecting and searching and securing containers before they ever sail for America.

[Time: 16:15]

Mr. Chairman, the bill provides $62 million to expand that to 30 megaports around the world and especially those in very sensitive parts of the world.

Now we already have in place $165 million from the wartime supplemental that we passed for additional inspectors, agents, technology and $129 million for additional inspection technology in this bill. Those monies will be used to push the border out to these 30 foreign seaports through the Container Security Initiative, but there is also $12 million for government-private partnerships to tighten security in private facilities and $3 million to continue what is called the Operation Safe Commerce to make smart containers and our supply chain even more secure.

I want Members to know that we are focusing exactly on what the gentleman has talked about, and that is container freight. There are more than 17 million containers a year, there is 17 million a year; 7 million comes by sea, 12 million by land across our borders with Mexico and Canada. It is a huge problem to deal with.

However, if we stop and search physically every single container regardless of whether or not it looks to be suspicious for some reason, we would absolutely shut down commerce in the world. So much of our commerce depends on the container freight business. I think we are going about it the sensible way. I am convinced after having visited several ports, spending a lot of time with the folks that are doing this, looking at the machinery and the results and how they go about doing it, that we are doing as good as we can in the span of time that we have had. Obviously it is going to get better. We are going to keep pushing at it. That is the reason we have loaded this bill down with money for that very purpose. I thank the gentleman for bringing this issue to us so we can discuss it.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, I wanted to pick up where the last two speakers spoke, and that is the question of port security and what we know or do not know about the 20 million containers that come across America's borders every year, come by truck and train traffic, and the rest through ports.

I have to say that I appreciate that the committee is doing a lot. The question is when will the committee be done doing its work, and when will the Nation say that it knows enough about the containers coming into its ports. I am not sure that we can inspect every port, but what is very clear is the amount of information that we have to have about these containers from the point of origin to the time that they embark for the United States is incomplete. Even the effort to go into the megaports, which I think is important since some 80 percent of the commerce is shipped through those ports, that does not tell us, that does not give us the kind of information about the containers even coming to the megaports. That is what has to be established. A system, a credible system has to be established so those individuals responsible for the security of this Nation and the movement of those containers across the borders of this Nation are able to make an assessment as to the security of this Nation posed by those individual containers.

We are not going to be able to inspect every one of them because commerce is not going to allow us to do that. It would break down the system. But we can require a great deal more information about the contents of that container, the sealing of that container, the movement of that container, through electronic locks, through GPS systems, so we can start to trace that. Then we can make our decision upon risk. But by the time that container gets into the port of Hamburg or Hong Kong or Long Beach or Oakland, California, it is too late. If one of these container goes up with a dirty bomb, you will shut down the globalized container system in this world because we then will have to inspect every container. That is too late. That is far too late.

The terrorist does not just have to strike. As we saw, terrorists now understand that beyond the initial act are the economic consequences. They now see what that means. But if they are going to come to the United States and they want to do our people harm, they put in a nuclear device, they put in a dirty bomb, inspecting it in the Port of New York, the Port of Long Beach or the Port of Oakland is far too late. It does not matter if it goes up on the ship once it comes through the Golden Gate, if it goes up on the port property, or it goes up on the railroad train, that is too late. Of those, we are inspecting 2-4 percent of the containers.

At some point we have to establish a deadline so that people will know, as the gentleman from New York (Mr. Nadler) said, if they want to engage in commerce in the United States, an inspection system has to be in place going back to the point of origin to follow that container all of the way.

We did this in the oil spill liability provisions after the Exxon Valdez. We said in 25 years if you want to continue to have access and ship petroleum products to the United States, you will do it in double-hulled ships. We should

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be saying to the shippers, to international commerce, by 2004 or 2005 if you want to continue to have access, you have to provide for this monitoring of cargo, for the transparency of the system and the monitoring of the ships.

We have some 40,000 ships roaming around the world with containers on them. This is the kind of system that the American public is entitled to, and why so. As the gentleman from New York (Mr. Nadler) pointed out, many of the experts which have been briefing Congress since September 11, 2001, have been telling us we are more likely to have a dirty bomb come into this country by way of container than we will ever have the risk of it coming in by way of missile. That is the threat to the home front. That is the major threat.

What we see here, while we are taking these incremental steps and I applaud many of them, we do not have a plan for deciding at what point this is going to be a secure system. We have to start putting deadlines on the transparency of this system, on the security of this system, and access to the American markets. That is how we are going to get unified system.

The gentleman from New York is right. The Container Security Initiative, the Operation Safe Commerce, the Customs Trade Partnership Against Terrorism are all important initiatives, but they are taking too long. They are taking too long. What is the price of security? What is the price of the home front? What is the price of a secure port system and a secure transportation system? Those are the questions we have to start asking ourselves, not whether we have put in another $100 million or $200 million; is the system secure. Right now we cannot tell the American public that in the foreseeable future that our system is secure.

4A) Saddam Hussein and Weapons of Mass Destruction
Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, today we are going to be working on the intelligence bill, probably voting on it later this week; and we are going to be hearing a lot from the left in this Chamber that we have not located weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and somehow the President is at fault. I just wanted to remind my colleagues what some of their Democrat Members in the other body said.

Here is a Member from Indiana, October 3, 2002: ``Saddam Hussein possesses chemical, biological weapons and, if events are allowed to run their own course, will some day possess nuclear weapons.''

Here is another Senator from California, a woman. My colleagues get the choice which of the two: ``I believe that Saddam Hussein rules by terror and has squirreled away stores of biological and chemical weapons.'' That was October 10, 2002.

Here is a Senator from West Virginia, one with a very common name: ``The people of the United States and the rest of the world are at risk as long as Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction,'' March 18, 2003.

And here is another one from a Senator from Maryland: ``Over the last 12 years he's ignored U.N. resolutions and embargoes and has illegal chemical and biological weapons .....'' That was March 18, 2003.

Many, many leading Democrat liberals were in support of our going into Iraq in the name of weapons of mass destruction. I just want our colleagues to keep that in mind as we debate this bill today.
 

4B) Iraq and Weapons of Mass Destruction
Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to address the House with a number of my colleagues who will be joining me later, notably the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt) and the gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Abercrombie), to talk about Iraq.

Mr. Speaker, we have had a great military victory in Iraq. Our young men and women performed with great courage and great effectiveness. We are all very proud of our military and the fact that the threat of the Saddam Hussein regime is no longer present to threaten regional and world peace. But we have two questions that we believe need to be addressed: First, is our military mission complete in Iraq? Secondly, having won the military victory, are we winning the peace?

Regarding the military mission, I would suggest to the House that our mission is not complete without a full accounting of the weapons of mass destruction. There is no question that the primary purpose for invading Iraq put forward by the administration last year and accepted by a majority of the Members of Congress, myself included, was for the purpose of disarming Saddam Hussein of weapons of mass destruction. There is no question that Hussein had such weapons in the past. The international United Nations inspectors were finding them in the mid and late 1990s. Hussein used weapons of mass destruction, notably chemical weapons, against his own citizens with devastating and brutal effects. No one has dreamt up or made up the motion that Hussein had in the past weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt that he did. But we cannot find them now. We do not know where they are. Perhaps they are buried in the desert and we will find them next week. I hope that is the case. Perhaps he gave them to some other group or some other country. Perhaps he destroyed them. We do not know what happened, but many of us in the House believe that we must have a full accounting of what happened to the weapons of mass destruction before our military mission is complete, for two basic reasons. First off, we need to know where they are. If they are not in Iraq and have been given or taken someplace else, we need to secure them, to dismantle them. We need to know who has the custody of them.

[Time: 23:00]

If they are in Iraq, we have to find them. We have to make sure that the coalition forces gain custody of those weapons of mass destruction and not another group that might use them for evil purposes. If these weapons have been destroyed, all for the better; but we need to know why our intelligence did not know that fact. We frankly need to know what happened to them so that we could be sure that the world has been rid of that particular group of weapons of mass destruction and that, if they do exist, they are in safe custody.

The second reason that we need a full accounting of the weapons of mass destruction is to determine what has happened regarding our intelligence and the political use of that intelligence by the Bush administration in the arguments to support war in Iraq. There is no question that the Bush administration and the leading senior advisors to the President stated with complete certainty in the fall of 2002 that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, was developing more weapons of mass destruction, and posed an imminent threat to the region and, in fact, to the world. In private briefings and in public statements, the President of the United States and his senior advisors assured Members of Congress and the American people that the weapons of mass destruction existed, that they were being developed in even greater numbers, and that they posed an imminent threat. And many of us, myself included, based our vote in favor of military action against Iraq for the primary purpose of disarming Saddam Hussein of weapons of mass destruction. Now we cannot find them.

More troubling, now stories are appearing in the press and intelligence analysts are stepping forward, only on the record if they have retired, off the record if they still are at work for the United States, saying, in fact, they were not giving such certain advice to the White House in the fall of 2002, that they were saying we cannot be sure what kinds of weapons of mass destruction Saddam Hussein had in the fall of 2002.

On September 26, 2002, the President made a speech in the Rose Garden stating with great certainty that Saddam Hussein had chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction and was developing additional chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction, and yet at the same time it now has become public. The Defense Intelligence Agency in September, 2002, was circulating a report through the White House in the highest levels of the administration saying ``there was no credible evidence that Saddam Hussein currently had weapons of mass destruction or was developing more weapons of mass destruction.'' There was some evidence, but no credible evidence that that was a certainty. And that lack of certainty did not make its way into the public and private arguments made by the administration. So many of us feel that the Bush administration has a growing credibility gap regarding the weapons of mass destruction.

Why does this matter? It matters greatly for the President's new doctrine of preemption, of the preemptive use of military power to stop an enemy. I do believe in an age of terror when we are dealing with adversaries that do not always come from another country who do not always have a capital city to defend or a homeland to defend when we are dealing with terrorists who are not only faceless but stateless that it may be necessary to take preemptive military action if we are faced with an imminent threat to

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this country. But that presupposes that we have accurate intelligence. It is one thing to respond to an attack against us. That is the way America has always gone to war once we have been attacked, and it is easy, of course, in the traditional sense of warfare to see an armada massing in the bay or an army building on our borders to know that an attack is imminent.

In an age of terror, we will not always have that warning; so preemptive action may be wise and necessary in the future, but we must have accurate intelligence. We must be able to depend upon that intelligence. We must be able to depend upon the intelligence analysts bringing the information forward in a timely fashion, giving their best advice to the President and the White House, and then we have to depend upon the President and the White House using that information appropriately and wisely, using it to inform Congress and the American people, not to mislead Congress and the American people.

We do not know at this point what exactly happened regarding our intelligence. We do not know whether it was misused by anyone intentionally or unintentionally. We do not know whether the White House heard what it wanted to hear in these intelligence briefings. We do not know whether the intelligence briefings told the White House what the briefers thought the White House wanted to hear, nor do we know whether Congress was told what people only wanted us to know or perhaps what they thought they wanted us to know.

But these questions have to be answered because it goes to the very root of our democratic system, our checks and balances, the proper relationship between the executive and the legislative branches and whether or not we can have faith in the accuracy of our national intelligence agencies and in the proper use of that intelligence.

Before I go any further, we have been joined by the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt), a senior member of the House Committee on International Relations and an eloquent spokesman on foreign policy and national security, my good friend; and I yield to him.

Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Hoeffel) for again coming to the floor of this House to raise this issue to the American people because clearly our credibility is at risk; and as time passes, there is a growing crescendo of constituents of mine, of his, and of others of our colleagues inquiring as to what occurred in this particular case.

I think what I find particularly disturbing is that in the State of the Union Address by the President back on January 28, he referred to an African nation. That nation, it was subsequently revealed, is the nation of Niger and that there had been a series of letters exchanged between officials of that nation and the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq relative to the desire of Saddam Hussein to purchase highly enriched uranium from that nation; and that was referenced in the State of the Union Address, as I indicated, by the President of the United States. In fact, it was one of the core ingredients in terms of the Administration's presentation to the American people for its rationale in launching military intervention into Iraq.

Now subsequently it has been revealed that that information was false and that those documents that were relied on by the President, by the White House were, in fact, false. They were forgeries. And that was known to our intelligence agencies, specifically the CIA. Now there appears to be disagreement between the CIA and the Administration as to the information that was brought to the White House by the CIA.

Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, is the gentleman aware that according to reports, the CIA informed the White House of the lack of accuracy of these reports in March of 2002, a full 10 months before the President's State of the Union Address this past January?

[Time: 23:10]

Mr. DELAHUNT. Yes, I am aware of that, and I am also aware of newspaper reports that indicated that there was nothing special, according to the National Security Adviser, about this particular information, and that they just simply did not inquire any further from the CIA as to the reliability of that particular information.

But what I find disturbing, I say to the gentleman, is that a week from that date, the Secretary of State, Colin Powell, presented the administration's case before the United Nations Security Council. And according, again, to newspaper reports, that information was omitted by the Secretary of State because he felt that that information was inaccurate.

Now, something is wrong. If, in the space of 7 days, through a vetting process at the Department of State by Secretary Powell, he made the decision to remove that key piece of evidence from his presentation to the Security Council, then something is remiss, something very, very serious.

Now, I know that the gentleman supported the resolution. I happened to vote against that resolution. We all had our own reasons. But even those who disagree on the issue as to whether there should have been military intervention in Iraq have an obligation, I would submit, to conduct a full and thorough review of what occurred and why this particular intelligence was referred to by the President of the United States as he addressed the American people, and clearly influenced the American people. And I would hope, and we understand that our intelligence committees on both the House and the Senate side, are conducting an investigation because of the concerns not only with this piece of information, but other pieces of information that were relied on or alluded to that supported the claim of the administration as to the intent and the position of weapons of mass destruction by Saddam Hussein.

But I would respectfully suggest that that is inadequate. I think we have to be candid that this is a political institution, the American people are represented by two major political parties, and I dare say that if there is disagreement within the intelligence committees of the House and the Senate, and if that disagreement should break along party lines, there will be accusations that the Republicans were stonewalling, or that the Democrats were seeking political advantage in an effort to embarrass the President. And I do not think the American people deserve that. I genuinely believe that this is a nonpartisan issue. This is an issue about America. This is an issue about democracy. This is an issue that has, I would suggest, consequences far into the future about America's image in the rest of the world.

I would hope that this body and that the President would consider convening an independent commission; take the politics out of this so there will not be any finger-pointing, and bring people on board that have reputations for probity, for integrity, and are eminently qualified to address these issues. We should take it away from this body, take it away from the Senate, so that it is not about politics.

Mr. Speaker, we have already had that experience. The Hart-Rudman Commission that none of us really knew about or thought about or gave special attention to until September 12, the day after. Because that particular commission was comprised of eminent Americans from different fields, all highly regarded, people whose integrity are not in question; people who had no political ax to grind, who did this country a great service and produced a document that predicted, that predicted September 11. They warned that the United States was at risk. That particular document was filed on February 25 of 2001. And tragically, tragically, it sat on a shelf and no one paid any attention to it. Mr. Speaker, I would think that given the work of that particular commission, some of those people might very well agree to serve their country again. Because we have this, as the gentleman describes it, growing credibility gap.

It is important to note that the CIA, again, according to newspaper reports, is in serious disagreement with the White House and the President. According to a Washington Post article that appeared on June 12, the story quoted a senior CIA analyst that this case, and it is referring to the evidence developed regarding the alleged, the alleged purchase of uranium from the country of Niger that proved to be false, a senior CIA analyst said that this case, and I am quoting his words

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now, ``This case is indicative of larger problems involving the intelligence about Iraq's alleged chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons and its links to al Qaeda,'' which the administration cited, as we well know, as justification for war. Information not consistent, and this is a senior Central Intelligence Agency analyst who said this: ``Information not consistent with the administration's agenda was discarded, and information that was consistent was not, was not seriously scrutinized.''

We do not know what the proof is, and that is our obligation. That is why we are here. We have a responsibility to seek the truth, to answer questions. Not for political gain, not to embarrass anyone, but to reassure the American people that the integrity and the professionalism of their intelligence services is not questioned.

Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, let me ask the gentleman a question along this line of the growing credibility gap. I am sure the gentleman has heard about the two supposedly mobile labs that have been found in Iraq after the conflict. I wonder if the gentleman saw the news today about what appears to have been their actual use.

Mr. DELAHUNT. No, I have not, but I am eagerly awaiting to learn.

Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, the latest is that reports are now circulating that instead of being used for biological or chemical laboratories, these two trucks were used to make hydrogen for the purpose of filling up the Iraqi weather balloons needed by Iraqi artillery and used by all artilleries to gauge wind and currents and so forth to make their artillery shooting accurate. It appears that the loose canvas covering on these trucks would not be conducive to their use as chemical or biological laboratories and that the equipment there is probably designed for hydrogen production.

Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, I think it is important for us to be very clear and state that just recently, and I believe it was in Philadelphia, a city with which the gentleman is familiar, the President, once more, stated unequivocally that they will find the weapons of mass destruction. So I will accept the word of the President of the United States.

But this goes beyond just that question, because it is clear that up to this point in time, there have been no discoveries about weapons of mass destruction. It just has not happened.

But this is about integrity. This is about whether information was used in a way so that the American people were misled, or this was information that was given to the President of the United States, that was inaccurate and led him to come to the floor of this House, deliver the State of the Union address to the American people, and tell something and suggest to them something that in fact had not happened.

So again, I would hope that we would get the politics out of this process and seek to establish an independent commission, one of prominent Americans, that would take up this burden, and it is a burden, because it would be again calling on them to serve their country as they did so well when they told us: beware, America is at risk of an attack, a serious attack, that could cause a substantial loss of life by terrorists and no one was listening.

[Time: 23:20]

Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his comments and particularly for his suggestion. I think it is a very good one.

There is no doubt that we need an independent and nonpolitical review of the performance of our intelligence agencies and the use to which that intelligence was put. And I think an independent commission such as the gentleman describes is an excellent idea and one that I would certainly support.

We have been joined by our colleague, the gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Abercrombie), who was a passionate advocate on matters of national security and foreign policy; and I am happy to yield such time to the gentleman from Hawaii.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman very much.

In conjunction with the comments that the gentleman and the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt) have been making, I want to preface my remarks with the observation that part of the complaint that is being made across the country with respect to this attack on Iraq and the subsequent war which is now unfolding is that where are people speaking out on it?

Well, we are here on Special Orders tonight. I think those who are observing our deliberations here on C-SPAN understand that the House is not formally meeting right now. I would think, I want to make it clear to those folks who are observing and listening to our deliberations here this evening, that we do not have the opportunity during the work day to be able to speak at length and in depth on this issue and the issues surrounding the attack on Iraq. We have the opportunities to ask questions and perhaps a followup or two in committee hearings, when we are able to get them, with respect to the defense budget or as we dealt with just recently having witnesses from the Department of Defense. Those are rather formal occasions, as they should be. Presentation is made by the Department of Defense or by the requisite executive agency, and so occasionally a dialogue back and forth.

If C-SPAN is not there, for all intents and purposes, it does not exist. When we go home to our districts and they say, where are the people who are opposed to this or have differing views or want to establish a different perspective, it is important to understand that the mass media in this country is owned by a small number of conglomerate interests, many of whom are associated with the kind of thing that is taking place just today.

I refer you to the Los Angeles Times, Monday, June 23, the business section: California firms lining up to capitalize on rebuilding of Iraq. Hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars involved in this opportunity. If you think for a moment that the national media is going to be covering the Special Orders, do you think we are going to appear even on ``Nightline,'' which is probably the most objective and the most far-reaching of those who want to get the news out, I think we are dreaming.

Now, I look up right now and the galleries are right in front of us. For those of you who are across the country who are observing us and listening to us tonight, the galleries are empty. I suppose the news organizations might have to pay overtime, I am not sure, but there are no reporters volunteering their time because they are interested in what it is that we have to say.

Now, I have come back from a trip with a congressional delegation, the first congressional delegation to get into Iraq, to go to Bagdad, to go to Kirkuk in the north, a bipartisan delegation; and I am referring to the gentleman from Pennsylvania's (Mr. Hoeffel) admonition and to the gentleman from Massachusetts' (Mr. Delahunt) suggestion about an independent commission to examine these issues, a nonpolitical review, if I remember what you said.

Mr. DELAHUNT. If my friend from Hawaii would yield, I think again one cannot overemphasize the need for the information to get out to the American people because it is important to know that the investigations that will be conducted in this House by the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in the other body will be conducted behind closed doors, and what we are looking for is to take the politics out of it.

Now, I hear some say that Democrats are raising these issues to embarrass the President. No one can gauge our sincerity, but I know that the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Hoeffel) and many of us on both sides of the aisle, by the way, Republicans and Democrats, want a situation that does not lead to a political competition.

Here I just ran across a report from The New York Times dated June 18. And let me again quote: ``Despite growing questions about whether the White House exaggerated the evidence about Saddam Hussein's chemical and biological weapons, President Bush and his aids believe that the relief that Americans feel about Mr. Hussein's fall in Iraq will overwhelm any questions about the case the administration built against him. Administration officials and Republican strategists say, `I think we can ride this out,' said an official.''

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This is not a question of riding something out. This is a question of righting a wrong. A wrong, wherever the responsibility should fall, let the American people in an appropriate forum listen to the questions, listen to the evidence and form their own judgments. This is not about politics.

I do not know if either one of the gentleman had the opportunity to see the British Parliament in its inquiry into these issues. I found it extraordinary. It was carried on BBC. It was televised during the day. It received national attention there. And two former ministers of the Blair government who had resigned because they did not believe that the intelligence was accurate and was sufficient, they testified as to their observations. It was civil. It was respectful. It was a debate that I know has informed the British people.

[Time: 23:30]

We need that to happen here, but given the realities of our own political system, I think it is best if the President, the leadership of both branches, agree for an independent commission to have public hearings that are transparent, much like the Blair government has conducted in the United Kingdom.

Naturally, we are not going to expose sources, but I would like to know, for example, what happened between January 28 and February 5. On January 28, the President of the United States in his State of the Union address made this assertion, and on February 5, according to newspaper reports, the Secretary of State Colin Powell had that particular piece of evidence removed from his presentation to the United Nations Security Council. What happened during those 7 days?

The American people should have an answer.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, I think that that is what fits into the premise that I am establishing here, that we need to have the press in that gallery paying attention to what is going on here on the floor because this is the only place right now that such a commission is going to take place.

If someone wants to attribute partisan motives to what we are saying down here, they are going to do that anyway. I have to trust, as we all have to trust, that the people will make a decision as to whether what we are saying, why we are saying it, how we are saying it, where we are going, makes sense to them or not on the basis of ideology alone, as opposed to trying to get at what the truth of the situation is with respect to the national security interests of this Nation.

Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, I think what the American people have to understand is that we are not making allegations. We are not making assertions. We are asking for a process that will reassure the American people.

Others are making allegations, others like a gentleman who recently retired after 25 years in the State Department, the last four of which were in the Bureau of Intelligence, and his name is Greg Fieldman, 25-year veteran, and this is what he said, and I do not know what his political affiliation is. He could be a Republican for all I know. The al Qaeda connection and the nuclear weapons issues were the only ones that you could link Iraq to an imminent security threat to the United States, and the administration was grossly distorting the intelligence on both items.

That is his words. That is not my colleague's words, the gentleman from Pennsylvania's (Mr. Hoeffel) words or my words or Democrat words in a partisan context. I want to hear from him, and the American people have a right to hear from him, and I am sure my colleagues on the other side of the aisle would expect to hear from him, also. I would hope that this idea is seriously considered by both sides.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, on that point, or on these series of points that are being made, for all intents and purposes, the only opportunity that the American people are going to have to have these questions explicated is on this floor during special orders, and I want to indicate, and I believe the three of us are agreed upon this, we are going to be back. Arnold Schwarzenegger is not the only one that is going to be back.

We are going to be back here on this floor. We are going to be asking the questions. We are going to be making the observations. We are going to be putting forward for the American people the opportunity to hear a perspective that is not necessarily or likely to be enunciated in the press, most particularly in the controlled press. We are not going to see this on the evening news. We are not going to see this in the so-called Sunday talk shows. They have the usual suspects on generally when that comes about.

So what I want to do this evening by way of establishing some of the premise is refer back again to the congressional delegation that we made May 23 through the 27 under the chairmanship of the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter), my good friend, our good friend, our able chairman, someone dedicated to the defense of this country by any standard of measure.

Of course, there are differences of opinion that we have in the Committee on Armed Services on which I am happy to be serving as to what the policies might or might not be with respect to the defense of the strategic interests of this Nation, but there is no difference between us on either our desire or our capabilities or our abilities to try to discern what the best course might be. That is precisely why we went. We did not go there to try and get into a contest with anybody on an ideological basis or party basis but rather to try to find out what was taking place.

Maybe tonight will be the first time people will be able to hear anything about what was known as the Organization for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance, which has now become the Coalition Provisional Authority. These are important because we started out one way with a former general, Jay Garner, who has now been removed all of the sudden within almost days, weeks, in terms of workdays, just days, has been removed, and why? Not because General Garner was thought to be a bad person or an inadequate administrator or did not have the proper motivation or understanding, but because the mission to which he had been assigned and the mission which he expected to carry out, namely, a reconstruction effort, somewhat perhaps akin to the aftermath of a natural disaster, a dam bursting or a hurricane or typhoon or something of that nature, turned out to be a typhoon of entirely a different kind, namely, that there was chaos; that there was an inability to provide even the most elemental of protection for those who would be doing the reconstruction; that there was not an understanding and foundation in the population in which this reconstruction was supposed to take place that this was a mutually agreed-upon activity.

There were forces in the street that were, in fact, trying already to get the United States out of Iraq, and therefore, we had to have the intervention of a very competent and highly professional diplomat, Mr. Bremer, Mr. Paul Bremer, who came in and assumed the authority over what has become the Coalition Provisional Authority. What did he propose?

When we went to Baghdad to talk with him, he had put together what I called an outline. Some people would call this a plan, but I think Mr. Bremer is an honest and forthright person. I was very impressed with his desire to speak directly to us on the questions that we posed and the observations that we made. He did not try to finesse anything. He did not try to make anything into something other than what he thought it was. He gave that clear impression, and I think that was agreed upon by all Members there, Democrats and Republicans, who were there.

He came up with what could best be characterized as an outline, not a plan. A plan is something that we know how to implement, we know who is going to implement it, we know where it is going to be done. We did not know any of these things. We still do not know these things. We are making it up as we go along. This is not an accusation, as the gentleman indicates, against Mr. Bremer. On the contrary he is trying to put something together that was not planned for.

This is one of the key elements that we have to think about here when we are talking about we can have authority as General Shinseki said when he retired as Army Chief of Staff on June

[Page: H5709]

11, you can be assigned command authority but you have to earn leadership.

The question here that has to be answered by the President, by the Department of Defense, by Mr. Rumsfeld and others is, are they really exercising the kind of leadership that we need in these circumstances? We cannot equate a political policy with patriotism. If you are trying to tell me, and this is where I draw the line here, if you are trying to tell me that I have to agree with somebody else's political policy or have my patriotism questioned or have my capacity to understand what the strategic interests of this Nation are, then you have crossed over the line, and what you are saying in effect is do not examine closely, do not analyze to any great degree the policies that I am putting forward because if you do then I will equate that with somehow being antipatriotic or against our troops.

If we are putting the lives of young men and women and the United States Armed Forces on the line, then we have to have policies that are worthy of the commitment and dedication and professionalism of those young people.

I got into electoral politics because we failed to do that in the Vietnam War because we decided then that we would equate military activity with political policy, and the military activity became the political policy. That is why we got to body counts in Vietnam to try and justify our insistence on being there militarily, and so we have to account for the key tasks to be completed here in the context of does this advance the interests of the United States at this juncture, pending some further inquiry as to how we got there in the first place.

[Time: 23:40]

And I will tell you that while these, in and of themselves, these 10 points of Ambassador Bremer to be completed, are worthy in and of themselves, they do not answer the question about what will be the role of the United States over the next 5 to 10 years, at least a decade.

And this is where General Shinseki's words become ringing in terms of his retirement and what he said at that retirement about command authority and earning leadership capacity. He said that there should be no confusion about the argument over what the military should be doing or not doing in this country and what its role is going to be in the post-attack phase in the context of the guerilla war that is now underway in Iraq. There should be no confusion as to the commitment of the United States military to civilian control. To raise these issues as to who was in charge is dysfunctional to the discussion. But he warned us, and these words are going to be prophetic, do not get involved in a 12-division policy with a 10-division army.

And what he was saying here is, were we adequately prepared ahead of time? Did we do the kind of planning that was necessary in order to accomplish this task? And was that mission that was outlined adequately underlined and a foundation established that would enable us to say with authority that the interests of the United States in terms of its strategic position in the world and whether or not we were facing imminent danger was in fact at stake? Absent that, then we are in for serious trouble. Because that means we will be engaged in essentially an ad hoc operation perhaps for over a decade to come in Iraq, and we will pay a fearful price for that in the lives and bloodshed of our American military and upon the taxpayers of this country and upon the credibility of the United States with regard to world opinion.

Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, his comments about Vietnam, I think, are very telling and warrant some consideration. One of my great concerns before the military involvement in Iraq started was not whether we would win that military confrontation. That was never in doubt. But how we would act afterwards and would we be perceived in perception or reality as a colonial power, an occupying power, or one that was there to liberate and help Iraqis gain control of their own lives.

Now, I have noticed that the United States asked the United Nations to name us and the British occupying powers, using that phrase in the U.N. resolution of a week or two ago, occupying powers, which seems to me to be sending the wrong signal to the rest of the world about what our role in Iraq should be. And the gentleman's comments about Vietnam, what I most recall about our quagmire in Vietnam was how poorly our Presidents explained the Vietnam policy to the American people.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Whether they were Democrat or Republican.

Mr. HOEFFEL. Absolutely right. And the great failing I see now is the inability of the current President to explain the costs, the challenges, and the time lines facing us as occupying powers, if you will, in Iraq.

The gentleman was there. I would be fascinated to hear his response based upon his firsthand observation.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Well, Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield to me on that point, Ambassador Bremer was very, very direct in his characterization of us being an occupying power. And this was not said with any kind of bravado. It was simply an announcement of the realities that were involved and what his obligations were and what his responsibilities were in Iraq as the director of the coalition provisional authority.

And we ought to get something straight here about this. When we say coalition, we are talking about the United States of America. That is who is in charge here. When the Americans show up, then people mean business. I remember that from the Balkan situation before. And just by way of disclosure, on that I opposed President Clinton on that. So again I point out this has nothing to do with Democrats and Republicans, whether they are in the Presidency or not. This has to do with credibility in terms of whether or not the national interests are involved and to what degree they are involved. As a result, I think that we need to understand very clearly what Ambassador Bremer's dilemma is and what is he to do at this stage when contemplating how to advance civil society.

Now let us talk about the practical consequences of this. There is a reason that young men and women are being killed or wounded almost daily in Iraq today. We have no civil authority in place. When those who criticize those of us who were aware of this attack taking place under the terms and conditions and time that it took place, when they complain about, well, are you now ready to admit that you lost; that somehow we won and you thought we were going to lose. As my colleague from Pennsylvania pointed out, I do not know of anyone, certainly not any responsible person in the Congress, and I cannot think of anybody in the Committee on Armed Services that thought for a moment that the United States military would not succeed. We only have to observe them in action, as we have as recently on this trip at the end of May, to see that the professionalism, the capacity, the capabilities of the United States military is unparalleled.

That is not the question. The question is are the politicians and the politics behind the military activity up to the mark. That is what is at stake here. And that is why we have the situation in which these young people are being shot, are being wounded, are being put in harm's way every day. There is no civil authority there. We are trying to stand up a police force.

Does that sound familiar? It should, because we have been trying to do it since the late 1990s in the Balkans; and we are still, despite much more favorable circumstances in, at best, a very tentative dilemma with respect to whether or not with the NATO troops and United States troops leaving that area, whether or not chaos will descend once again. I will assure my colleagues if we leave any time soon, there will be chaos of a nature that the Secretary of Defense calls untidy.

Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman, and I would yield to my colleague from Massachusetts.

Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to add one observation. The gentleman mentioned the Balkans. What is transpiring today in Afghanistan is close to a disaster, and here again we have young Americans at risk every day. There has been an unfavorable review of what is occurring within Afghanistan. The warlords are still there. The Taliban are reconstituting themselves. The president, who had the support and continues to have the support of the United States, President

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Karzai, is fearful of leaving Kabul. Again, progress has not been measured, but rather the lack of progress is obvious; and we have been there 18 months.

Earlier, my colleague referred to General Shinseki. He had the courage to speak his mind. He had the courage to tell the American people. And by the way, I think we all agree, I think there is unanimity among us that Iraq and the world is better off without Saddam Hussein. That is not at issue here. We have had a changing policy in regard to Iraq dating back for years, including, by the way, in the 1980s, when this President's father, George Herbert Walker Bush, took Saddam Hussein off the terrorist list as Vice President in the early 1980s, in conjunction with, and, obviously, under the direction of President Reagan, installed an embassy in Baghdad, supplied agricultural credits in the amounts of billions of dollars to the Iraqis, and were providing intelligence from our military to the Iraqi military in terms of benefiting in their war with Iran.

I think we have to say it, they were fully aware that the Iraqis at that point in time were using chemical weapons. They knew. They knew what was happening in northern Iraq against the Kurds.

[Time: 23:50]

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, that just goes to show that the interests of the United States at that time were deemed to be such that we could have that kind of diplomatic relationships with Saddam Hussein and the government in Iraq. The present Secretary of Defense was part of that, was in Iraq and trying to do business with Saddam Hussein.

The question is what caused that change? Was it really in the interest of the United States in terms of our defense and imminent danger to the United States to attack Iraq? That is a question that needs to be answered because it is going to inform us and instruct us where we are going from here, whether it is Iran, Syria, North Korea, whether it is the kind of policies that are going to come forward on Iraq itself. This is the kind of thing that needs not just an emphasis but needs explanation.

If we are going to have a policy worthy of the legacy of this Nation's triumph of democracy, we cannot simply assert it on behalf of other people, particularly in a place like Iraq which has never known it and whose entire history since World War I has been nothing but a division of the spoils among Western nations.

Mr. Speaker, I simply want to indicate to my colleagues, and I hope that we will have a dialogue in the future, particularly with those who have different views as to where we should be going and what we have accomplished to this point, or what we have failed to accomplish to this point, because it is the only place that the American people are going to get any kind of a dialogue like that. That is what this House is all about. This is the people's House. You cannot appear on this floor except by way of election. You can be appointed to the United States Senate; you cannot be appointed to the House of Representatives. This is the people's House. We come up for election, as my wife says, every other year, not every 2 years. You can have a driver's license longer than you can have a license to be on this floor, and that is as it should be because it was the intention of the Founders of this Nation that the people in this country have the opportunity to decide who will represent them here against the House of Lords on the other side of the building.

I would indicate that I will be coming back to the floor, and I hope to be joined by others because we do not intend to let this issue slide. We do not intend for anybody to get over this or get by it.

Mr. DELAHUNT. Or ride it out. Mr. Speaker, nobody is going to ride it out.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Not while we have the opportunity and obligation as Members of the House of Representatives to speak out on behalf of the people of this Nation.

Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, I have been here just 5 years. I have often heard of the gentleman's eloquence and passion, and he has proven it tonight with great glory.

Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, let me just close with an observation. It is my understanding that sometime this week we could very well be considering a proposal for prescription drug benefits. I juxtapose that with a headline that I noticed today, and I guess it must have been in the aftermath of Under Secretary Wolfowitz's testimony before the Committee on Armed Services where it was concluded that there was a probability that a substantial American presence would be required in Iraq for a decade and that the cost to the American people would be $54 billion a year.

I ask my colleagues and those that are watching us to reflect for a moment on the cost to the taxpayers and the reality of the deficit that we are facing far into the future and at the same time the needs of our seniors to have a genuine, significant, prescription drug benefit so they can live their lives with dignity and a sense that they are going to be treated as they should.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. And that they are not under siege.

Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt) has framed the issue very well. There are many things we need to be talking about regarding the post-conflict situation in Iraq: how to secure it properly because security is a huge issue; and how to bring not just democracy to the people of Iraq but the institutions of democracy, free press, free speech, a noncorrupt judicial system.

The gentleman talks about the need for a full disclosure by the President of the costs of the commitment, the challenges and the time line that we face in Iraq.

As we close tonight, I cannot think of a better request we can make of the President, to tell the American people and the Congress what we will be facing in Iraq. If the people do not know, they will not support it. And if times get tough, and they have been, 17 people have died in Iraq since hostilities have supposedly ended.

Mr. DELAHUNT. The number I understand now is 43 young Americans have died since the end of the formal phase of combat.

Mr. HOEFFEL. It is staggering. We need a full description and a full setting-forth of the challenge by the President. I thank the gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Abercrombie) and the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt).

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. One closing remark, I do not think the parents and families of the young people who have died make any differentiation between formal and informal. I think those deaths are devastating regardless of the timing associated with it.

4C) Report on Communication between CIA and Office of the VP on WMD in Iraq
AMENDMENT NO. 5 OFFERED BY MR. KUCINICH

Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

The CHAIRMAN pro tempore. The Clerk will designate the amendment.

The text of the amendment is as follows:

Amendment No. 5 offered by Mr. Kucinich:

At the end of title III, add the following new section:

SEC. 345. REPORT ON COMMUNICATIONS BETWEEN THE CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY AND THE OFFICE OF THE VICE PRESIDENT ON WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION IN IRAQ.

    (a) AUDIT.--The Inspector General of the Central Intelligence Agency shall conduct an audit of all telephone and electronic communications between the Central Intelligence Agency and the Office of the Vice President that relate to weapons of mass destruction obtained or developed by Iraq preceding Operation Iraqi Freedom on or after September 11, 2001.

    (b) REPORT.--Not later than 1 year after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Inspector General shall submit to Congress a report on the audit conducted under subsection (a). The report shall be submitted in unclassified form, but may contain a classified annex.

Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Chairman, we now know that there were not vast stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq when the U.S. invaded and that, therefore, Iraq did not pose an imminent threat to the United States, as the administration claimed before the war.

   The question remaining is whether the administration compelled the Central Intelligence Agency to release raw, undisseminated information they knew to be unreliable because it helped support the worst case scenario concerning Iraq's weapons program and, therefore, helped make the case, an erroneous case it turns out, that Iraq posed an imminent threat to the United States.

   The administration has made numerous assertions. The President in his State of the Union said, The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production.

   Number one, the claim about uranium from Africa was forged. Number two, the aluminum tubes were not suitable for a nuclear enrichment program. These assertions made by the President in his State of the Union to justify an immediate war with Iraq were false.

   Did the Vice President play a role in making false information become the public reason the President went to war in Iraq? The Vice President, as reported in the Washington Post of June 5, 2003, Vice President Cheney and his most senior aide made multiple trips to the CIA over the past year to question analysts studying Iraq's weapons programs and alleged links to al Qaeda, creating an environment in which some analysts felt they were being pressured to make their assessments fit with the Bush administration's policy objectives. That is from the Washington Post on June 5, 2003.

   Number two, the Vice President knew or should have known that documents purporting to show that Iraq had bought uranium from Niger were forged. On March 7, the IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei reported the following to the U.N. Security Council: These documents which form the basis for reports of recent uranium transactions between Iraq and Niger are, in fact, not authentic. We have, therefore, concluded that these specific allegations are unfounded. We have found no evidence or plausible indication of the revival of a nuclear weapons program in Iraq.

   It turns out that the forgeries were crude. Anyone with an Internet search engine could determine that these documents were forgeries. Yet on March 16, nine days afterwards, the Vice President repeated the falsehood on national television. He said, We believe, and he was talking about Hussein, has in fact reconstituted nuclear weapons.

   The Vice President knew 1 year earlier, it appears, that the documents were forgeries and, therefore, the allegations false. According to the New York Times of May 6, 2003, More than a year ago the Vice President's office asked for an investigation of the uranium deal. So a former U.S. ambassador to Africa was dispatched to Niger. In February 2002, according to someone present at the meetings, that envoy reported to the CIA and the State Department that the information was unequivocally wrong and that the documents had been forged.

   So public reports indicate the Vice President made assertions which were unreliable, and the Vice President visited the CIA, making analysts there feel, according to the Washington Post, that a certain output was desired from here.

   In summary, what this amendment seeks to do is to probe what role the Vice President played in causing the CIA to disseminate unreliable, raw, previously undisseminated, untrue information about Iraq's alleged threat to the United States.

   Specifically, this amendment would direct the Inspector General of the Central Intelligence Agency to audit all electronic and telephone communications between the Office of the Vice President and the CIA which would answer the question about how extensive the visits by the Vice President to the CIA were.

   Mr. BEREUTER. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the Kucinich amendment.

   The gentleman from Ohio has woven an interesting story and made a number of bald and bold assertions, but I think it is important to look at what the amendment says.

   The amendment calls for the Inspector General of the CIA to conduct an audit of all telephone electronic communications between the CIA and the Office of the Vice President relating to Iraq and WMD. The amendment is unusual and frankly a bit confusing. It purports to address what is allegedly a very serious issue, the altering or shading of intelligence for political, perhaps for strategic, purposes, but then it focuses only on the Vice President and only on his phone and e-mail communications.

   If there was a real problem, one would expect a comprehensive review, but the amendment targets only one individual, the Vice President, and this is an individual who has the right, indeed he has the obligation, to receive information related to, for example, Iraq WMD and a run-up to a war.

   However, the Vice President's telephone conversations are not recorded. Thus, the information that is sought in this amendment does not exist when it comes to telephone calls. Perhaps a record of the number of telephone conversations between the Vice President and the CIA could be compiled, but this would tell us only how many calls were made and when they occurred. Frankly, this is not useful information.

   Mr. Chairman, the fact that the Vice President was in contact with the Intelligence Community should not be surprising. Frankly, it would be very upsetting if there was insufficient contact. These are sensitive communications, of course, on important matters. We should all expect the Vice President's office to talk regularly with the CIA, to visit the CIA for that matter, and the rest of the Intelligence Community. So should not the Vice President and the President be avid consumers of intelligence in order to be well-informed in the decisions that they make?

   Remember what the amendment says. It is targeting the telephone calls between the Vice President, only the Vice President, and the CIA, only that component of the Intelligence Community, and the electronic communications that took place between that individual and that agency.

   So it seems very clear to me that it is not a comprehensive review. It is targeted at the Vice President, and one simply has to realize that it is going to be unsuccessful in really revealing any information that it purports to have as an interest of the amendment.

   Mr. Chairman, I think the amendment should be defeated.

   Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

   Mr. BEREUTER. I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.

   Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Chairman, I want to point out for clarification purposes, and I thank the gentleman for yielding, that the result of this amendment would be both a count of the number of communications and an inventory of the substance of the communications. The count would establish the number of times the Vice President took the unusual step of traveling to the CIA to meet directly with CIA analysts and the inventory would establish the nature of those visits.

   I thank the gentleman for yielding.

   Ms. HARMAN. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words.

   Mr. Chairman, the gentleman from Ohio raises the serious issue of politicization of intelligence. The question of the integrity of the intelligence process is a legitimate one and has

[Page: H5896]

been a continuing concern in the oversight of the intelligence agencies. The question of politicization of intelligence is an area that our committee, the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, will explore in its investigation of Iraq intelligence.

   I must, however, oppose the gentleman's amendment. The amendment, in my view, does not take the best approach to ensuring a comprehensive look at the matter. It is narrowly focused on one possible area for investigation, and it addresses that one area in a way I believe would be counterproductive.

   It is not clear to me that the audit as described in the amendment would develop useful information. The offices of the Inspectors General can be effectively utilized in congressional investigations and oversight, but the resources of these offices should be deployed according to a comprehensive plan of investigation.

   In sum, I believe the gentleman has raised an important issue, and that issue should and will be examined in the context of our committee's investigation. The amendment in this form should be defeated.

   Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?

   Ms. HARMAN. I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.

   Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Chairman, just to point out to the gentlewoman that I think it would be helpful if the committee supported the amendment because, at worst, if the amendment would be repeating the work of the committee, if it would be essentially redundant, then it could not hurt, and I would also want to point out that the gentlewoman is correct.

   I mean, this amendment is narrowly focused, and it is aiming specifically at obtaining information relative to the relationship between the Vice President and the CIA. I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.

   Ms. HARMAN. Just to conclude, Mr. Chairman, I believe that we can get to the issue of politicization of intelligence in a different manner, one that is bipartisan and one that falls within the thorough and comprehensive investigation of this committee. That would be a better way for this House to go.

   Once again, I commend the gentleman for raising this issue but hope that we will decide to take a different course on this subject.

   Mr. LaHOOD. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

   Mr. Chairman, the way I would characterize this amendment is as the cheap shot amendment. This is a totally political amendment. It is a totally cheap shot at the Vice President. It is an extension of a campaign being waged by the gentleman from Ohio who has made a number of speeches on this floor and around the country. I believe it is an extension of his presidential campaign to try and besmirch the record of this administration, to besmirch the good name of the Vice President, and I think when people have an opportunity to really look at the amendment, they can see that it is so shallow in its wording and in its nature, that it is what it is.

   It is a political amendment. It is only brought here to the floor to continue an opportunity for the gentleman from Ohio to try and find something that simply cannot be found.

   It also, I think, degrades the work of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. This gentleman who is offering this amendment has been a Member of this House. He knows of the work of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. He knows that if he had some kind of a complaint about the kind of activity that he is trying to allege the Vice President has engaged in that he could come to the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. He could petition the chairman, he could petition the ranking member. He could ask the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. I guess we are not good enough to do our work that you have to seek some kind of an outside counsel or outside organization to try and look into it.

[Time: 19:30]

   This is unprecedented what this amendment asks for. It is unprecedented in its nature to think that this body, under this amendment, is going to go after the phone records of the Vice President. Now, anybody who does not see the politicizing of what is going on here cannot see the nature of it. You can see it in the words, because they are very shallow.

   Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

   Mr. LaHOOD. I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.

   Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman. Under the gentleman's logic, there would be no reason at all for any amendments to be offered from this floor. We might as well dispense with the amendment process and move to a system in which the committees of Congress report bills for a simple up or down vote from the whole House. So we might as well extend the suspension calendar for all bills.

   Mr. LaHOOD. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Chairman, let me respond to the gentleman by saying this. If this is the authorization for the intelligence bill, and the gentleman is offering this amendment under our authorization, why does the gentleman not give some direction to the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence to look into the matter? Why does the gentleman have to find somebody else to do it? And the gentleman may respond, if he would like.

   Mr. KUCINICH. Well, Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for continuing to yield, and I would say that, first of all, the idea that it is the committee's jurisdiction and, therefore, should be left to the committee, I do not believe the gentleman is seriously proposing what I think is an absurdity, but the argument rests on the same absurd logic. All Members of the Congress have the privilege to offer amendments, and if a majority of the House agrees with the amendment, it passes. However, I do not believe it is legitimate or logical against my amendment to say that the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence should enjoy an exemption from the amendment process.

   Mr. LaHOOD. Mr. Chairman, what I am saying to the gentleman is apparently the gentleman does not think the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence is doing their job. Apparently, the gentleman does not think we have the capability to carry this out, and so he has crafted an amendment to go to some outside group, some outside organization because the gentleman does not have trust and faith in what we have been doing and the work that we have been doing.

   Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will continue to yield, I would ask that the gentleman not take offense. This is certainly, I would hope the gentleman would agree, a salient issue of interest to the American people and that the public does have a right to know, and there have been published statements that provide contradictory information relative to what is really a question of a singular cause of war. So I respect the gentleman's right to make these statements, and I would ask the gentleman to respect my right as a Member of Congress to offer this amendment.

   Mr. LaHOOD. Well, I would say, Mr. Chairman, that if the gentleman wanted to offer an amendment on our authorization bill, at least he ought to give us the benefit of the doubt that we have professional staff and we have people who spend an inordinate amount of time, including the gentleman's ranking member because this is her only committee assignment. She spends all of her time in this Congress working on intelligence activities. Apparently the gentleman does not think enough of her expertise and the expertise of the committee staff on that side to give them some kind of an assignment.

   And why the Vice President? Why not the President? Why not the Director of the CIA? Why not the Director of the FBI? This is a political amendment. This is an extension of a campaign.

   The CHAIRMAN pro tempore (Mr. Upton). The time of the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. LaHood) has expired.

   Mr. LaHOOD. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to proceed for 2 additional minutes.

   The CHAIRMAN pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from Illinois?

   Mr. KUCINICH. Reserving the right to object, I would be happy to grant the gentleman an additional 2 minutes if he would be happy to return the favor to me.

[Page: H5897]

   Mr. LaHOOD. I will be more than happy to yield to the gentleman.

   Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Chairman, I withdraw my reservation of objection.

   The CHAIRMAN pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from Illinois?

   There was no objection.

   The CHAIRMAN pro tempore. The gentleman from Illinois (Mr. LaHood) is recognized for 2 additional minutes.

   Mr. LaHOOD. Why the Vice President? Why not other officials of the government? Why not officials of the government who have direct responsibility for intelligence-gathering information? If there is some kinds of a cabal going on around here, why did the gentleman just happen to pick this individual?

   I believe this is what it is. This is a political amendment. This is an amendment to try and embarrass one member of this administration. This is an amendment to try and embarrass the second-highest-ranking elected official in our government by some way, shape, or form, thinking that if the gentleman gets some kind of phone records he is going to find something out.

   As members of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, we get information every day, 24-7, our staff. Pretty much 24-7, our staff are working on gathering intelligence; and this is a slap in the face at the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, to the gentleman's own members, to our members.

   It really is what it is. It is a political amendment, and I stand by what I said. It is the cheap shot amendment. It is the cheap shot amendment of the year. It gets the award, in my opinion; and I hope people see it for what it is.

   Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent for an additional 2 minutes.

   The CHAIRMAN pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from Ohio?

   There was no objection.

   The CHAIRMAN pro tempore. The gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich) is recognized for 2 minutes.

   Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Chairman, I want to say to my friend, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. LaHood), that I would hope the gentleman would appreciate receiving clear direction for an inquiry. I can only assume that the gentleman does not want the direction of the whole Congress to get to the bottom of the Vice President's role.

   Mr. LaHOOD. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

   Mr. KUCINICH. I yield to the gentleman from Illinois.

   Mr. LaHOOD. Mr. Chairman, I simply would say to the gentleman that he knows that we have established in this bill two advisory committees. We had people on the floor earlier suggesting a commission; but apparently, the gentleman does not think the oversight obligation that we serve, as the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, is enough. And I say it is a slight. It is a slap at us.

   Mr. KUCINICH. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Chairman, I would just tell the gentleman that as a member of the Committee on Government Reform I certainly appreciate the role of government oversight, and I certainly appreciate the role of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence as well. I would say that if the gentleman did not want to get to the bottom of the role of the Vice President, which has been a matter of public contest and controversy long before I have spoken here, that would indeed be a reason to oppose the amendment; but it would not be a reason for anyone else in Congress to vote ``no'' on the amendment.

   And to the Members of Congress, I say if they want to demand a thorough investigation into the role that the Vice President may have played in offering the American public discredited intelligence reports of a nonexisting Iraqi weapons program, then they should vote ``yes'' for my amendment.

   Mr. LaHOOD. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield once again?

   Mr. KUCINICH. I yield to the gentleman from Illinois.

   Mr. LaHOOD. Mr. Chairman, let me simply say this. I would say that the gentleman's ranking member has bent over backwards. It was the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt) and others who asked for the two advisory committees. And it is other people on the gentleman's side who are asking for some kind of a commission. Now, we have not acted on that, and that is not in this bill; but I think every request that was made by the gentleman's side to the chairman has been granted.

   The CHAIRMAN pro tempore. Time of the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich) has expired.

   Mr. LaHOOD. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to proceed for 2 additional minutes.

   The CHAIRMAN pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from Illinois?

   There was no objection.

   The CHAIRMAN pro tempore. The gentleman from Illinois (Mr. LaHood) is recognized for 2 additional minutes.

   Mr. LaHOOD. Really, Mr. Chairman, I think we have done everything we can. Now, to go outside of the jurisdiction of the committee and to take a cheap shot at the Vice President, it makes no sense, I say to the gentleman. It really does not. I think, really, the truth is, after listening to this and listening to the fact that the gentleman's ranking member is not going to support the gentleman's amendment, I think it is in his best interest to withdraw the amendment.

   Ms. HARMAN. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

   Mr. LaHOOD. I yield to the gentlewoman from California.

   Ms. HARMAN. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the kind words, and it's nice that the gentleman from Illinois is worried about me and whether I am respected. I believe I am respected, and I believe that the person who offers this amendment respects me, and I certainly hope that he respects our committee.

   I just want repeat something I said earlier, which is that our investigation will be thorough and it will be bipartisan and we will follow the facts unflinchingly. So I do not want the gentleman from Ohio to assert, because it is not correct, that we are taking things off limits. The reason I oppose the gentleman's amendment is that I think we will do a comprehensive job in a fair way, and all of us, on a unanimous basis, will proceed and go forward. We will do the right job for this House, and we should have a chance to proceed and do it that way.

   Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

   Mr. LaHOOD. I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.

   Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Chairman, I take great pride in serving in the Congress with the gentlewoman and the gentleman. I would say, though, that I do not see this so much as being a battle over turf as I see it being an assertion of the need for pursuing the truth. And I would expect that the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence has the capability to do the job, but I also think that this particular matter is so unique that it receive the attention of the House, which is why I have offered this amendment and why I will continue to insist on it.

   Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words.

   Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to my colleague's amendment, and I put it in the context of the work that this committee has done and that we have accomplished and the vision that we outlined in the Intelligence Authorization Act for 2004.

   I serve as chairman of the Subcommittee on Technical and Tactical Intelligence. As such, one of our jobs is to oversee some of the Nation's most sophisticated intelligence technologies. I have the opportunity and responsibility for critically reviewing new concepts of operation. I must ensure that currently fielded systems continue to be capable of meeting the needs that we have outlined.

   In this area, we are pursuing aggressive oversight. We have worked with the ranking member. We have been to the ranking member's district to meet with some of the contractors there; and I think it is a good example of how, in a bipartisan way, we have asked some tough questions of the intelligence community and of those groups that provide us with the materials and the equipment that we need. We have asked the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency to provide us with a long-range plan and how all of these pieces will fit together and what a strategic plan may look like for the next 6 to 10 years.

   In the comments attached to the bill, we have outlined our disappointment

[Page: H5898]

that that plan has not come forward to the committee, so that we are moving forward with a little bit less information, perhaps, at this time, than what we would like to have had. But I do not think that the amendment that the gentleman is bringing up is one that is going to work in the best interest of what we are trying to get accomplished.

   On a weekly basis, this committee meets with the communities analytic cadre. We have met with them on a regular basis to review the intelligence that they prepared for us and they prepared for the President, the Vice President and Members of Congress; and that information is now available to all 435 Members of Congress so that they can take a look at what we were looking at and how we were shaping our judgments and where we were getting our information from.

   I think it is important for the American people to know that. That information is not secret. We are being very open with our colleagues because we recognize the importance of maintaining the credibility of the process, the individuals, and the analysis that goes into the intelligence that we have gathered. We take this job very, very seriously.

   One of the things that I am concerned about with this gentleman's amendment is that if we pursue this path, and in this case it identifies the Vice President but also implicates the folks at the different intelligence agencies as perhaps not keeping the best interest of the country in the forefront, then what we will end up with, and I agree with my colleague from Illinois that it is a cheap shot amendment because there is not a basis in fact to make these accusations against the Vice President or against the folks at the intelligence agency, but the result and danger is that what we are going to end up with is we are going to end up with a cadre of analysts that are going to be intimidated to such a point that they are going to go through the process, they are going to gather the intelligence, and they are going to be sitting there and saying, you know, I really cannot take the next step of providing some expert judgment, which I have been trained for, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 years. I am not going to be able to share that expert judgment with the folks who recognize the source and the art of this work.

   Remember, the job we give these folks, in plain English, is we ask them to go out and steal other people's secrets. We ask them to do that in an imprecise way and to put the pieces together. And when they have a few pieces of the puzzle, we ask them to try to paint for us what the picture and what the final puzzle may look like. If we put a cloud over their heads and say every time you have a few of the pieces out there and you have painted a picture for us, for us to better understand the environment after the fact, if what you laid out beforehand does not perfectly match what we find out afterwards, you have failed.

   In reality, these are talented people. They are doing a very, very good job.

   The CHAIRMAN pro tempore. The time of the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Hoekstra) has expired.

   (By unanimous consent, Mr. Hoekstra was allowed to proceed for 2 additional minutes.)

[Time: 19:45]

   Mr. HOEKSTRA. They come back and they give us their best judgment. I am impressed with the work of the chairman and the ranking member, how they have set a course that says we are going to go through this in a bipartisan way. We are going to take a look at the information and how the people processed the information. We are going to take a look at how we analyzed it and how decisions were made off that information, but we are going to do that in a bipartisan way and we are going to make sure that we do not take this down a road of pure partisan politics because in the 2 1/2 years I have been on this committee, in a bipartisan way we have kept as our primary focus what is good for this country, recognizing the sensitive nature of the information that we deal with, recognizing the importance of us to work through very, very difficult issues, but to reach a consensus that enables us to move forward.

   That is exactly what the leadership of this committee has done, it is exactly the way that the members of the committee have guided their behavior, and it is what sets the behavior of our committee and the members of that committee apart from the amendment that is brought forward at this time.

   It is a partisan amendment, it has a potential to be used in many, many different ways, but primarily in my analysis it hurts the prospect of truly improving the process so that when we move forward in the future, we will have the intelligence, the capability and the right people in place to ensure that we make the best possible decisions.

   Mr. HOLT. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words.

   I rise to underscore the right of the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich) to offer this amendment and say that he is getting at a very important point, but to say further it is a bad amendment and should be opposed. It is both too narrow and too broad. He is certainly intending to get at an important point, but it is too narrow in that it deals with the phone records of one public official, and it is too broad in the sense that it is a fishing expedition. It is the kind of fishing expedition which I think so sullied some previous Congresses.

   The question of whether intelligence has been cooked or coerced is a critical question, and I thank the gentleman for raising it. But in fact in the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence we have already raised that, and we will continue to raise that issue. I ask the assistance of every Member of this body on both sides of the aisle to help us formulate the questions that need to be asked and to hold us to task that those questions are asked to the satisfaction of all Members of this body and of the citizens of America. But I do not believe that this amendment will help us do that. I must oppose this amendment, and I encourage my colleagues to oppose it.

   Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

   Mr. HOLT. I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.

   Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Chairman, I think it would be useful as we begin these debates for us to reflect on the essential constitutional role of the Congress and on the importance of separation of powers and on the cause which took a Nation into war because we are not talking about just any other matter here, we are talking about a matter that resulted in the people of this country having their sons and daughters sent to Iraq.

   Nothing less than the entire involvement of this Congress will do to be able to hold safe the constitutional prerogatives of separation of powers. No congressional committee can override the requirements of the Constitution and the role of this Congress.

   When Members of this Congress gave the President authority to pursue an attack against Iraq, they took upon themselves a serious and grave responsibility, and since information has been presented that raises grave questions about the cause of our action against Iraq, we have a moral obligation to get into this, and I take nothing away from the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, but I would tell Members, the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence should take nothing away from Members of the House.

   Mr. HOLT. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, perhaps the gentleman did not hear me earlier this evening when I said that what we are looking at are critical questions that have to do with lives and deaths that have occurred or might occur. It has a lot to do with the future direction of our country; but I do not believe that this amendment will help us carry out the investigation that we need to carry out and ask the questions that we need to ask and have for the future the kind of truth-telling intelligence agents and analysts who will help this country get where we want to go.

   Mr. LaHOOD. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

   Mr. HOLT. I yield to the gentleman from Illinois.

   Mr. LaHOOD. Mr. Chairman, I want to respond to the latest speech of the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich), and that is to say if the gentleman really wants the prerogatives of the House to be worked out, let the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence do it. The gentleman's amendment says the IG or the GAO is supposed to

[Page: H5899]

go in and get the Vice President's phone records. If the gentleman thinks it is such a great idea, let us do it. We have been doing it. Why have some outside group do it? That is the flaw in the gentleman's amendment. That is what our committee is supposed to do. That is the flaw, and that is what politicizes it.

   Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

   Mr. HOLT. I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.

   Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Chairman, I would direct the gentleman from Illinois to an article in the Washington Post on June 5 which says that the esteemed chairman of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence said there is ``no indication that analysts at DIA or CIA changed their analysis to fit what they perceived as the desire of the administration officials.''

   The CHAIRMAN pro tempore (Mr. Simpson). The time of the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt) has expired.

   (On request of Mr. Kucinich, and by unanimous consent, Mr. Holt was allowed to proceed for 1 additional minute.)

   Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

   Mr. HOLT. I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.

   Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Chairman, it goes on to say the intelligence oversight panels have received no whistleblower complaints from the CIA or other intelligence agencies on the issue. I would maintain that this would not be a subject of whistleblowing, and only the Office of Inspector General or in this case the investigative agency would have an opportunity to be able to get this in an evenhanded way, and it takes it out of politics at a time when Members suggest this is only political.

   I might further add that I did not make my reputation in this House by raising partisan issues, and I do not see this as a partisan issue, I see this as justifying the administration's claim that this country had to go to war against Iraq because there was imminent threat.

   Mr. GOSS. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words.

   I want to point out two things, and they are meant to be constructive. First of all, it is certainly true everybody in the United States counts on it being true and it is true that the Vice President and the President are responsible for the protection of the national security. The national security team involves the Vice President. The President and the Vice President are regular consumers of intelligence information, and were they not, we probably should be calling for some kind of an investigation.

   I do recall it was not so long ago that one of the complaints from one of the Directors of the CIA was in fact just that, that he did not get enough quality time and enough access with the top leaders of the country and the Intelligence Community was not being well-served. That was at another time and we need not go into that.

   My suggestion to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich), who I have great respect for, is that this amendment is truly not worthy of his best efforts. I do not believe the gentleman is fully informed on it. It appears that the gentleman is basing his amendment and information and his case on media. Again, at the risk of getting impaled by the media, I have this trouble with the errancy problem in the media.

   Media simply does not know everything, and if they did, they would stop asking me and the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Harman) and other members of the committee questions. Believe me, the media does not know everything. They are not fully informed, and if the gentleman is using the media, the gentleman is not fully informed.

   I invite the gentleman to come upstairs, sign the secrecy agreement if the gentleman has not already, and review the material. That is why we have it there. If the gentleman took advantage of that, the gentleman would be better able to understand what we are doing, and I would hope would be supportive of our efforts. Having said all that, I hope we are getting ready for a vote on this amendment.

   Ms. LEE. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words.

   I rise in support of the Kucinich amendment.

   Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?

   Ms. LEE. I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.

   Mr. KUCINICH. The gentleman from Florida (Chairman GOSS) is familiar with the amendment and the letter of the amendment, and I would ask if the chairman would be willing to commit the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence to seeking specifically the information that I am asking here of the Inspector General. Would the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence be willing to conduct publicly an audit of all telephone and electronic communications between the Central Intelligence Agency and the Office of the Vice President as they relate to this matter?

   Mr. GOSS. Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?

   Ms. LEE. I yield to the gentleman from Florida.

   Mr. GOSS. Mr. Chairman, certainly we will publicly not commit to that. We will publicly commit to where the review of the information takes us. We have a bipartisan agreement on that. We have 20 able members who are members of good judgment and good sense who will follow the review and the material that comes in to the appropriate places.

   The gentlewoman from California (Ms. Harman) has used the word ``unflinching.'' It is a fair word. I assure the gentleman I am going where the information takes us.

   Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?

   Ms. LEE. I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.

   Mr. KUCINICH. I would suggest to the gentleman and I would not impugn his answer by stating that his unwillingness to clearly commit to gathering this information publicly would in any way reflect a partisan position on his part, just as my desire to have the Inspector General bring that information forward is not reflective of a partisan position on my part.

   Mr. GOSS. Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?

   Ms. LEE. I yield to the gentleman from Florida.

   Mr. GOSS. There are two reasons why this would be a difficult task to do publicly, and I would not make that broad a commitment. The first is that much of the material that the gentleman is talking about is probably classified if the gentleman is talking about the content of what may or may not be involved in calls, and I cannot go there.

   The second part is the matter of Constitution which does understand that working documents and so forth of the executive are respected and privileged. That has always been the case no matter who is in the White House.

   Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?

   Ms. LEE. I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.

   Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Chairman, it would be more than instructive. It would be classified information if the Vice President manipulated CIA analysts to disseminate false, raw unreliable information to justify a war in Iraq. I am hopeful no one is saying that and I am not aware that the administration has asserted executive privilege in an attempt to shield such information from the Congress. I am not aware of that at all. Maybe that has happened privately, but I am not aware that such an assertion can be private and that in fact such an assertion has been made.

   Mr. GOSS. Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?

   Ms. LEE. I yield to the gentleman from Florida.

   Mr. GOSS. That is an option that they have and that is why I cannot make a commitment. I cannot overcome that.

   Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?

   Ms. LEE. I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.

   Mr. KUCINICH. I would say in order for the test to be made to make the request first then imposes our responsibility as Members of Congress, and as a coequal branch of government, we are entitled to do that and the executive branch is entitled to assert executive privilege, if they so choose, and that would be illuminating, I think.

• [Begin Insert]

   

   Ms. WATERS. Mr. Chairman, I rise today to ask that the Bush administration provide the American people with a full account of the events leading up to the war with Iraq.

[Page: H5900]

   The amendment sponsored by Representative KUCINICH is a good starting point but there is still much that we do not know about the basis of our war with Iraq. Since August of last year, when the administration began beating the war drum, they have offered little concrete evidence backing up their claims that Iraq posed an ``imminent threat'' to the United States.

   The rhetoric employed by the administration was strong and unwavering:

   On September 12, 2002, the President told the UN: ``Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons ..... . Iraq has made several attempts to buy high-strength aluminum tubes used to enrich uranium for a nuclear weapon.''

   On October 7, 2002, the President said: ``It [Iraq] possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons.''

   The Vice President said earlier this year on ``Meet The Press'' that: ``we believe he [Saddam Hussein] has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons.''

   And the Secretary of Defense joined in saying: ``We know where they [weapons of mass destruction] are, they are in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad.''

   Yet, despite this certainty, 3 months after the fall of Baghdad, no chemical, biological or nuclear weapons have been found. Nor have the facilities to make these weapons been found. The administration has tried to capitalize on our fears born out of the September 11th terrorist attacks, suggesting there was a link between Saddam Hussein and leaders of al Qaeda.

   Even though this connection has been disproved consistently, the President still cites it as fact.

   And today, we learned that at least one member of the intelligence community felt pressured to shape his reports to fit the administration's position on weapons of mass destruction even though he had no evidence to support those claims.

   Congress must work to ensure that the information that comes out of the intelligence community is reliable and is not unduly influenced by anyone. This is not a partisan issue. This is about restoring the credibility of the United States both with our constituents and throughout the world.

   The President has said that he is confident that weapons of mass destruction will be found; the evidence is strong he says.

   I encourage him to shine the light of day on the evidence so that the world can understand why the United States went to war--unprovoked--and put the lives of thousands in danger.

• [End Insert]

   

   The CHAIRMAN pro tempore. The question is on the amendment offered by the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich).

   The question was taken; and the Chairman pro tempore announced that the noes appeared to have it.

   Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

   The CHAIRMAN pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 6 of rule XVIII, further proceedings on the amendment offered by the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich) will be postponed.

4D) Iraq and WMD Intelligence
Ms. HARMAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume and rise in support of H.R. 2417.

First, I want to thank the chairman of our committee for the way he runs the committee. His approach is constructive, collaborative and cooperative and shows a real willingness to work with every member of the committee. I have had the privilege of serving on the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence for 6 years. Chairman GOSS has gracefully and competently chaired the committee since 1997 and my predecessors as ranking member during my service include the late and great Julian Dixon and our able leader the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi). The membership of our committee is truly talented, diverse and hardworking, and deeply committed to fulfilling its oversight duties and responsibilities to the House. By the way, Mr. Chairman, so is our staff. Committee members and staff worked closely together to craft a bill that provides new and better capabilities to fight the war on terrorism as well as address a range of global challenges. As we have just heard from our chairman, it is a good bill and it received the unanimous vote of our committee.

An excellent summary of the public portions of our bill has been presented by the chairman, so I will not repeat it. The committee made thorough but sensible decisions to focus resources on the highest priority intelligence collections programs and placed limitations on certain new programs until they are defined in more detail. The bill also supports the strategic vision of the committee for strengthening the Intelligence Community. It provides additional support for all-source analysis and encourages virtual reorganization for better information sharing and collaboration across the agencies.

Mr. Chairman, whatever the details of this intelligence authorization bill, we all know that it was developed at a time of heightened concern about the nature and quality of the intelligence that led to the decision to go to war in Iraq. I know that there are questions on both sides of the aisle about this intelligence, questions which our committee is already asking. While an independent commission or other mechanism might be needed at some later date, the members of our committee have now initiated an investigation and I would like to spend a few minutes discussing our effort.

As our colleagues know, I voted to authorize the use of military force against Iraq because I believed the intelligence case was compelling. The Intelligence Community judged that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction and the danger, in the President's words, was grave and gathering. The aftermath of the war has revealed just how brutal Saddam Hussein's regime was. The discovery of mass graves in Iraq and the gut-wrenching grief of families victimized by the regime speak for themselves.

To date, however, coalition forces have only uncovered two suspected Iraqi mobile biological warfare agent production plants. Coalition forces have yet to uncover chemical or biological weapons or further evidence of Iraqi links to terrorism. Where are Iraq's chemical and biological weapons? Why can't our forces find them? For our committee, these questions have loomed over the preparation of this authorization bill. It has been anything but business as usual.

On May 22, Chairman GOSS and I sent a letter to the Director of Central Intelligence, George Tenet, expressing the committee's interest in learning in detail how the intelligence picture regarding Iraq's WMD and ties to terrorism was developed. The chairman and I have also met twice with the Director on this subject. In response to our request, the Intelligence Community has provided 19 volumes of information on Iraq's WMD programs and ties to terrorism. On June 12, the chairman and I announced the bipartisan and unanimous commitment of our committee to a serious, focused, comprehensive review of the quality and objectivity of prewar intelligence. We announced that we would hold hearings, closed and open--open means public--to question senior administration and intelligence officials about the prewar intelligence on Iraq's WMD and its links to terrorism.

[Time: 16:45]

I think it is very important that the committee hold public hearings, and I have the gentleman from Florida's (Chairman GOSS) personal commitment that we will. I hope our first hearing will occur in July. Our committee also decided to produce a written, unclassified report as promptly as possible, and in addition we agreed to give all House Members access to the materials provided by the intelligence community in response to the committee's request, under appropriate security conditions and House rules.

Last week our committee held two hearings in connection with our investigation, one examining the October, 2002, National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs and the other on the current search for Iraq's weapons. While we are still at an early stage in this investigation, I want to comment on what we have reviewed so far.

First, past possession of WMD. We know that Iraq had chemical and biological weapons in the past. In the 1980s the Iraqi military used chemical weapons against Iran and the Kurds. In the 1990s Iraq admitted to U.N. weapons inspectors that it had produced over 8,400 liters of anthrax and 3.9 tons of the chemical warfare agent VX. Drawing on both direct and circumstantial evidence collected over many years, the intelligence community also concluded that Iraq had people, planning documents, and equipment to support WMD production.

Number two, hiding WMD. The agents that comprise weapons of mass destruction are exceedingly easy to hide, a point neither the administration nor the intelligence community made adequately clear before the war in Iraq. Five hundred metric tons of bulk chemical agents would fill a backyard swimming pool. Biological agents can be hidden in small vials in private residences. But it is not so easy to hide delivery vehicles like unmanned aerial drones, missiles, or munitions. That none of these other harder-to-hide items has been found is cause for real concern.

Number three, overstating the case. When discussing Iraq's WMD, administration officials rarely included the caveats and qualifiers attached to the intelligence community's judgments. Secretary of State Powell, for example, told the U.N. Security Council that ``we know that Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction ..... '' On the eve of war, President Bush said, ``Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised.'' And on a March 30 Sunday news show, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld said that he knew where the WMD were located. Bogus information on Iraq's alleged nuclear connection to Niger was even included in the President's State of the Union Address. For many Americans, the administration's certainty gave the impression that there was even stronger intelligence about Iraq's possession of and intention to use WMD.

Number four, circumstantial evidence. The committee is now investigating whether the intelligence case on Iraq's WMD was based on circumstantial evidence rather than hard facts and whether the intelligence community made clear to the policy-makers and Congress that most of its analytic judgments were based on things like aerial photographs and Iraqi defector interviews, not hard facts. This is an issue that we have to explore.

And, finally, number five, weak ties to al Qaeda. Iraq did have ties to terrorist groups, but the investigation suggests that the intelligence linking al Qaeda to Iraq, a prominent theme in the administration's statements prior to the war, contradictary contrary to what was claimed by the administration. Much remains to be investigated in this area.

Mr. Chairman, the highest priority of our committee, and I think of our Nation, remains finding and dismantling Iraq's WMD. It is counterintuitive to think that Iraq destroyed its weapons and did not report this to the United Nations. It is conceivable that Saddam destroyed them on the eve of or even after the start of the war once he recognized the futility of using them and the political advantage of keeping the United States from finding them; but the more likely scenario is that he buried or dispersed his weapons of mass destruction and that some may now be in the hands of terrorist groups outside of Iraq or counterinsurgents in Iraq who continue to harm and kill U.S. and British troops.

But even if Iraq's chemical and biological weapons are found tomorrow, and I hope they are, these issues warrant scrutiny by the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. It is already clear that there were flaws in U.S. intelligence. Iraq's WMD was not located where the intelligence community thought it might be. Chemical weapons were not used in the war despite the intelligence community's judgment that their use was likely. I urge this administration not to contemplate military action, especially preemptive action, in Iran, North Korea or Syria until these issues are cleared up. Certainly this Member would not support such action until these matters are cleared up.

As the committee moves forward with its investigation, we need also be mindful of the burden the intelligence agencies are carrying, not only in Iraq but also in the war on terrorism in other areas of the world. Our Nation is best served by an effective intelligence community, not one hobbled by risk aversion and finger-pointing. The committee's review must be based on facts, which I and others intend to follow unflinchingly wherever they may lead.

Our Nation needs a robust intelligence budget, which this authorization bill supports. At the same time, the committee's immediate priority is to resolve the questions regarding Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and ties to terrorist groups. If the answers dictate changes in the future intelligence budgets or policy, I am committed to bringing those recommendations forward. Meanwhile, this authorization bill deserves our strong support.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

4E) Was America Misled on Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction?
Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Speaker, today the House will consider an amendment to H.R. 2417 which will direct the Inspector General of the Central Intelligence Agency to conduct an audit of all telephone records and electronic communications between the CIA and the Office of the Vice President that relate to so-called weapons of mass destruction obtained or developed by Iraq preceding Operation Iraqi Freedom. I have introduced this amendment to obtain the Vice President's records in response to a June 5 article in the Washington Post which reported that the Vice President made multiple visits to the CIA by which some analysts felt pressured to make their assessments on Iraq fit with Bush administration policy objectives.

This administration has repeatedly claimed they had evidence which proved that Iraq had vast stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction that posed an imminent threat to the United States. Americans remember that this administration cited their evidence of Iraq's weapons as reason to go to war.

It has been over 3 months since the start of the war. No such weapons have been found. Has there been a massive intelligence failure on the part of all our intelligence agencies? Or has this administration deliberately misled this Nation to war? Either way, there needs to be an investigation.

My amendment would uncover the role the Vice President may have played to achieve a political translation of CIA intelligence about alleged stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction in order to suit the Bush administration's campaign to push this country to war.

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