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1A) Change in Russia

• Mr. LEACH. Mr. Speaker, it has been 12 years since the collapse of the Soviet Union and one of the most remarkable stories to

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  emerge from the wreckage of that failed system has been the steadily strengthening partnership between the United States and Russia. Two op-eds timed for President Vladimir Putin's recent visit to our country each highlight different facets of what is one of our most important international relationships. Ken Adelman explores the enormous successes of the Nunn-Lugar program, which has eliminated thousands of nuclear warheads and the systems that might have delivered them. Mark Medish, writing in the Financial Times, cites improvements in the Russian economy and the modernization and rise of free enterprise in Russia.

• In the aftermath of the unpredictably timed and unexpectedly rapid demise of communism, Soviet assets were devolved to too few in too conflicted a way. Instead of a free market, the Russian economy became characterized by oligarchic enterprises. But with each passing year the Russian economy has become increasingly subject to the strength of individual market decisions, especially consumer oriented ones. A middle class is growing and saving.

• Medish, in his article, optimistically emphasizes the positive. While it may not be the full picture, if sustained, the pace of entrepreneurial change in Russia bodes well for the future.

• I commend these articles to my colleagues.

   

  REAL ARMS CONTROL

  (By Kenneth Adelman)

  While hanging out at Camp David this coming weekend, Presidents Bush and Putin should toast an impressive--though largely unknown--joint win in their war against terrorism.

  Over the past decade, their armsbuilders became arms-destroyers, cooperatively dismantling thousands of Russian nuclear systems. These weapons of mass destruction might otherwise have landed in terrorist hands.

  When the Soviet Union collapsed a dozen years ago, we feared Russian hucksters would sell nuclear , chemical, and biological components to terrorists. After all, Russian arsenals were massive, while their state controls were piddly. Incentives to sell--to get big bucks quickly; and to buy--to get big bangs easily--loomed large.

  Logic proved that what the late Secretary of Defense Les Aspin once dubbed ``Russia's loose nukes'' would be a staggering problem. But experience shows that it hasn't been one.

  Parkinson's most perceptive law tells us that the success of any policy is measured by the catastrophes that do not occur. By that measure--or, really, any measure--the joint American-Russian effort to dismantle weapons has been a big win for international security, especially against international terrorists.

  With Mr. Putin standing at his side last November, Mr. Bush said, ``Our highest priority is to keep terrorists from acquiring weapons of mass destruction.'' He went on to explain that ``our nations must spare no effort at preventing all forms of proliferation.''

  Surely the leading light in this campaign has been the Nunn-Lugar program. For a bargain price of some $1.3 billion a year, America helps Russia disarm the meanest and most massive weapons in the world. According to the original co-sponsor, Senator Lugar, over the past dozen years, we've helped them destroy some: 800 ballistic missiles, over 800 launchers (followed by environmental restoration of the sites), over 100 bombers, more than 350 submarine launchers, 20 ballistic missile carrying submarines, and, most importantly, more than 5,500 nuclear warheads.

  That adds up to more than half of the old Soviet strategic nuclear arsenal. During the same period, much of the U.S. arsenal was eliminated as well, and newly independent former Soviet republics Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus were ``denuclearized.''

  In all my years of handling arms control issues--first, as an American ambassador at the United Nations, and then as director of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency under President Reagan--I never imagined such a success. Indeed, nothing we achieved over the Geneva negotiating table produced anything on that order.

  Mr. Lugar's colleague, former Senator Nunn, said earlier this summer in Moscow that ``the gravest danger in the world today is the threat from nuclear , biological, and chemical weapons'' and that ``the likeliest use of these weapons is in terrorist hands.''

  Always one to think big, Mr. Nunn proposed that ``preventing the spread and use of nuclear , biological, and chemical weapons should be the central organizing security principle for the 21st century.''

  It's hard to top his notion, especially since the prospect of the world's most vile terrorists getting their hands on the world's most vile weaponry makes every civilized person shutter.

  To make sure we keep these weapons out of the hands of terrorists, there is still plenty of work to be done by Russia and the U.S. as partners. In Russia, for example, several thousand nuclear warheads are still housed in hundreds of weapons storage sites; several hundred metric tons of bomb-building materials are spread around Russia's nuclear facilities network; and millions of pounds of nerve agents are stored in vulnerable facilities. A single artillery shell, small enough to fit inside a brief case, if stolen from one of these facilities, could be powerful enough to kill 100,000 people.

  Imagine that last year's scare had been true--when the U.S. intelligence community thought terrorists had gotten their mitts on a 10-kiloton nuclear bomb and smuggled it into New York City. It turned out, thank goodness, that such a report was false.

  But if something like that could be true, as indeed it could be, then shouldn't we do everything possible to make it un-true? And to make sure it never happens?

  Again, Mr. Nunn had the right take here: ``If a nuclear weapon goes off in Moscow, Paris, Tokyo, or some other city, what would we wish we had done to prevent it? We may not be able to make these terrorists less evil, but we must make them less powerful. We must keep them from acquiring weapons of mass destruction.''

  The success of the cooperative efforts between Russia and America should give Messrs. Bush and Putin some pride this weekend. It calls for a Camp David toast.

   

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  RUSSIA'S ECONOMIC STRENGTH BEGINS IN THE HOME

  (By Mark Medish)

  President Vladimir Putin comes to the U.S. this week bearing good news. The Russian economy continues to gain speed, and investment-grade status may be around the corner.

  As he drives through New York, Mr. Putin will see something striking: the logo of Russia's Lukoil has replaced the all-American Getty sign at local petrol stations. The symbolism is powerful. Russia and the U.S. can be meaningful investment partners. But the real question for the Russian economy is whether it can become more than the world's newest petrol pump.

  Russia's relationship with market capitalism has been dramatic. Russia emerged from the ashes of the 1998 financial collapse to log almost five years of steady growth in gross domestic product.

  An emerging Russian middle class has begun to assert itself with raw spending power. Retail turnover in 2003 may reach $150bn.

  Initially, the retail trend was strongest in food sales, but consumer durables are now increasing as a share of household spending. Domestic manufacturing has responded to this demand. Whether Russia can also grow into an export platform, as China has done, is an open question. Russia's skilled workforce, low labour costs, and central Eurasian location suggest that such an opportunity may exist.

  The trend, if sustained, could have profoundly positive implications for Russia's overall economic and political development. Promoting this trend is likely to be a theme of Mr. Putin's meetings, both with prospective U.S. investors and, at Camp David, with President George W. Bush and his team.

  The Russian consumer story has not gone entirely unnoticed by foreign investors. Ikea, the mass-market Swedish furniture retailer, opened several megastores in Moscow and St. Petersburg in 2000. Ikea's sales have been strong enough to justify plans for a further dozen stores across the country, evidence of middle-class patterns spreading beyond the two biggest cities. The German supermarket chain Metro is following suit. Russia's wireless sector is among the hottest in emerging markets.

  The rising middle class strengthens the business case for big western consumer-oriented companies to take a closer look at Russia. Russians want quality furniture, mobile phones, televisions, appliances, and cars. If this continues, a boom in commercial banking and other services should not be far behind.

  Having endured decades of supply-side privation under the Soviet command economy, average Russians are becoming dictators of market demand. This change is fuelled by several factors. Russian households are much wealthier than previously supposed; they seem to have a high marginal propensity to consume; and they have few debts.

  The strengths of Russia's new consumers are also tied to abiding weaknesses in the economy. First, the unexpectedly high disposable income reflects years of accumulated ``mattress money''--the uncounted grey economy. Some analysts estimate Russia's current GDP at nearly $450bn, 40 per cent higher than official figures.

  Second, the high propensity to consume partly reflects the lack of sound channels for savings and investment. Finally, the low debt level is due largely to the absence of wide-scale consumer credit facilities. Changing this will take time.

  Policy challenges remain, including management of the windfall from high oil prices, diversifying the productive economy, deepening the rule of law, and entering the World Trade Organisation. These tasks can be achieved if Mr. Putin and his government continue to recognise their central importance and act on it.

  A surging consumer sector will both reinforce and ease the process. Consumers are natural proponents of market reform and a business environment that promotes predictability, transparency, and wealth creation. An active middle class is the most potent force for change in market economies.

  Economics is also politics. Mr. Putin's political strategy may depend increasingly on satisfying middle-class constituencies. This would mean responding seriously to their interests, while balancing the demands of

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  super-rich oligarchs, the security apparatus, and pensioners. If he succeeds, Mr. Putin's legacy will be a genuinely modern Russia.
   

4A) The Costs of War

Mr. MEEK.  …We are also shocked by the lack of diplomacy expressed by the Bush administration as it jets around the globe telling countries how they should be in good grace with us versus other countries. The President went to the U.N., and I must add this, where in The New York Times it reveals that he went to the U.N. And one would assume that after all this major effort against terrorism in Iraq, after going after this person that possessed chemical weapons of mass destruction, which at the time in this very Chamber we were led to believe in the State of the Union address that these chemical weapons were going to be used, and we prayed along with the American people that our troops would be safe because chemical warfare was a major concern because of what the President, as he stood in the well where the Speaker is now and expressed this to us; and we also thought that there was some link between 9/11 and Iraq, and now all of that has evolved to be misleading statements.

   Well, the President went to the U.N. and we were thinking the President would go back after we told the U.N. to kind of step aside and allow us to take care of things and we went with the willing, which was very few willing, he went back and, really, no one reacted to the President because of our unwillingness to use diplomacy.

   I said here on the floor the last time I was here that cowboy politics is not going to get us where we need to be. It is not just politics, it is America's future.

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Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to join the gentleman this evening to continue our discussion to educate both the American people and to share with our colleagues. I indicated my respect for my colleague and the leadership he has shown on the Committee on Armed Services, and I have noted that my ranking member, ranking member of the House Committee on the Judiciary, whose vision led us in crafting what I thought was the right response to the original war resolution that dealt with the question of information and whether Congress had the challenge, the charge, and the responsibility to secure the information and then comply with the Constitution and have a constitutional vote up or down to determine whether or not we would actually declare war on Iraq.

   And the gentleman is right, he is very right that the representations that were made, that caused many of my colleagues to vote their conscience; and their conscience dictated to them on the information that in order to save American lives, they needed to rush to judgment and to cast that vote. I do not stand here to indict my colleagues on that vote. I voted no, and some of my colleagues voted yes. I do not indict them because they were voting on the basis of the representation made by this administration.

   So my good friend from Florida is right. He raises many viable issues. And might I just take a moment to frame where I think we are?

   Part of the decision that caused us to be in Iraq was based on misleading misinformation. In fact, to a certain extent, total untruths, tragically. There was representation about an imminent attack; representation about weapons of mass destruction. There were representations, as my colleague knows all too well, that there was this connection about nuclear capacity. We come to find out now that, at best, Iraq is a long way away from the actual

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production of weapons of mass destruction, biological weapons, and certainly nuclear weapons.

   So I think where we are today, on Tuesday, October 7, is again a rush to judgment.

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Ms. JACKSON-LEE …We should not vote on this until we have full evidence of what happened with the weapons of mass destruction, as the gentleman said. Where did that information come from? And we certainly should not vote until we have a report on the personnel who determined that we are under imminent attack and that we were going forward with this war and that there were weapons of mass destruction. There should be no vote until we have all the resources we need for the returning vets, the soldiers, because some will continue to be enlisted, and their families; that we have complete trauma and mental health services for all the bases where these troops are coming back to; and that we refine this giveaway money program and make sure that small women- and minority-owned businesses, and the gentleman had a very fine session during the Congressional Black Caucus, have the opportunity to be part of this rebuild.

   And then lastly let me say that I believe it should be the sense of Congress. And likewise I would like to work with my colleagues on this resolution that I have, that a special prosecutor be appointed because the gentleman is absolutely right. Ambassador Wilson was trying to getting the Congress and the American people the truth, and he was asked to go over by the CIA to Niger to determine the uranium purchase, and he came back and said, absolutely there is no such connection, which then should have caused this administration to pull back. They did not. So in essence they wanted to cover up.

   How do you cover up? You undermine the person who spoke. How do you do that? You get him at his Achilles' heel. All of our Achilles' heels are family members, but in doing so, might I say that I think research should be done; and I respect my colleague who is going to speak on the question of whether or not we have an issue of treason.

   So the facts need to be told. I do understand that, and I am willing to hear the facts. But we should not move forward without getting the facts on the weapons of mass destruction or on this response regarding covert officers of the CIA, the most serious organization as it relates to national security short of our military, who require the utmost respect but also protection, that we have now uncovered a covert agent.

   And as we see this unfold, we see that the person's work was more far-reaching than we thought. We understand that they are working for a CIA undercover, and this is public knowledge; so I am not giving classified information, printed in the public newspapers, business. So that has now been exposed, as well as anybody who was associated with that individual and that company has now been exposed.

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Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I am so happy to be with the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek) in this discussion. He and his predecessor in the Congress from Florida worked very closely with me and I am proud that he is on the Committee on Armed Services because that gives him a vantage point that perhaps we do not have; and he continues the tradition of a former colleague of ours, Ron Dellums of California, who rose to be chairman of that committee and distinguished himself with great regularity about relating military activities and costs and projections to what is the real national defense of this country.

   I am happy to be with, also, the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee), with whom I work on a very wide variety of issues. And it seems to me that our discussion tonight with our colleagues that preceded us revolve around the importance of delaying the vote that is hanging over our heads until more information is secured of whether we should have a special counsel to independently investigate where the leak endangering not only a CIA operative, but all the others that were working with her together.

   It is appropriate, especially upon the revelation of over $700,000 in consulting business having been engaged in between Karl Rove and John Ashcroft in earlier years. This is incredible. So between the delayed vote, the request for a special counsel, the several hundred thousand dollars, plus a request for a resignation makes this a very important evening. And I am glad that I am here to join my colleagues with it.

   In February of this year, former Ambassador Wilson traveled to Africa to investigate the claims that Iraq purchased uranium there.

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   In the next month, he returned and tells the CIA and State Department

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that the claims were unsubstantiated. This was in February 2002 and March 2002.

   In January 2003, the President claims that Iraq tried to buy uranium in Africa in a State of the Union Address delivered on this very floor.

   In July, former Ambassador Wilson wrote an op-ed aptly titled ``What I Didn't Find in Africa.''

   On July 14, the well-known veteran columnist Robert Novak mentions, among other things, that ``Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration officials told me Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate.''

   On July 22, Mr. Novak said in an interview, ``I didn't dig it out, it was given to me. They gave me the name,'' he was talking to Newsday then, ``and I used it.''

   Then later on in July, the Central Intelligence Agency files a crime report with the Department of Justice suggesting that the leak of former Ambassador Wilson's wife's name and covert status might entail criminal acts. We checked the statutes in the Committee on the Judiciary, and that was true. Not only leaking, but assisting or promoting leaks are also, in another section of title 18, criminal violations that carry a penalty of up to 10 years Federal imprisonment.

   Then the CIA submitted a questionnaire to determine whether an investigation is warranted. They did a crime report, and now an investigation, and they decided rather quickly to pursue a criminal investigation.

   Now, a source in the administration confirms that two senior administration officials contacted not just Mr. Novak, but six reporters about the identity and occupation of Wilson's wife, claiming that, clearly, it was meant purely and simply for revenge; that he was sharing the information because the disclosure was wrong and a huge miscalculation, because they were irrelevant and did nothing to diminish Wilson's credibility. This was the Washington Post, September 28.

   On the Crossfire program of CNN, Mr. Novak explained, ``Nobody in the Bush administration called me to leak this. I was in an interview with a senior administration official on the Wilson report when he told me the trip was inspired by his wife, a CIA employee working on weapons of mass destruction. Another senior official told me the same thing. They asked me not to use her name, but never indicated it would endanger her or anybody else. According to a confidential source at the CIA, Mrs. Wilson was an analyst, not a spy, not a covert operative, not in charge of undercover operatives. So what is the fuss about? Pure Bush-bashing?''

   Well, Mr. Wilson responds: ``Bob Novak called me before he went to print with the report, and he said a CIA source told him that my wife was an operative. He was trying to get a second source after the article appeared. I called him and said, `You told me it was a CIA source. You wrote senior administration officials. What was it, CIA or senior administration?' He said to me, `I misspoke the first time I spoke to you. That makes it senior administration sources.' '' Ms. Paula Zahn, now CNN.

   About his partisanship, Wilson responds, ``Novak also said that I was a Clinton appointee. In actual fact, my first political appointment was as Ambassador, and I was appointed by George H.W. Bush. So I am really apolitical in all of this.''

   Now, questions about Rove's involvement are raised by numerous news sources. Sources close to the former President say Rove was fired from the 1992 Bush presidential campaign after he planted a negative story with columnist Robert Novak. Countdown, MSNBC, September 29, 2003.

   Tory Clark, former spokesperson for the Pentagon, said ``People are constantly aware of classified information, and Secretary Rumsfeld makes it a point to regularly and frequently speak about the problems of leaking classified information.''

   What we have here exposed is a case study of what a writer of information this sensitive ought not to be doing. It is very clear to Ambassador Wilson, and everyone else around him, that everyone around him knew that Rove had either leaked or had condoned the leak. So it is my hope that Mr. Rove will approach this from the point of view that it is more likely to get much deeper than it is right now. It might save us from ending up with an independent prosecutor for the CIA leak. It would certainly be a way of trying to make amends for what is going to happen.

4B) Iraq Watch

Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, let me thank the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt) for his comments.

   Before I yield to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio), and we are delighted that he has joined the Iraq Watch this evening, but first, we have actually talked about two different special prosecutors here, or one special counsel, I should say, to review these allegations of a leak from the White House. The gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt) has brought up again the general opinion of the Iraq Watch that we need to have a bipartisan and independent study of our intelligence-gathering regarding Iraq and the use to which that intelligence was put.

   I agree with both of my colleagues on that, although I just want to say once again that while we do not want to be political, we want this to be bipartisan as it is important for our national security interests; this Member of Congress, I have made up my mind about whether or not we were misled by the intelligence presented by the administration. I was misled. I was given exaggerated information. I was given misleading information.

   The President and all of his top advisors in September and October of 2002 stated with complete certainty that Saddam Hussein had chemical weapons, had biological weapons of mass destruction, was reconstituting a nuclear weapons program, was going to give these weapons to al Qaeda. It turns out that not only have they not been able to find weapons, as all Americans know, but it has come out this past spring, 6 months after these statements were made, that the classified intelligence being given to the White House last fall at the time of these statements was filled with uncertainty.

   The intelligence agencies were telling the President and telling the President's people they were not sure what Hussein had. The defense intelligence agency report of September 2002 said there is no reliable information, and I am quoting, ``No reliable information on whether Iraq is producing or stockpiling chemical weapons, or whether Iraq has or will establish its chemical agent production facilities.'' No reliable information, according to the defense intelligence agency.

   Yet at the same time, the President is saying in the Rose Garden, September 26, 2002 that ``the Iraqi regime possesses biological and chemical weapons. The Iraqi regime is building the facilities necessary to make more biological and chemical weapons.'' That is the President's statement at the very time that his intelligence agencies were saying there is no reliable information. And again, before I turn to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio), who is waiting patiently, I was briefed with other Members of Congress on October 2, 2002, in the White House, one of many such White House briefings that many of us took advantage of. I was with perhaps 20 Members, a bipartisan group. The briefers were Condoleezza Rice and George Tenet, and they stated with complete certainty on October 2, 2002, that Hussein had these weapons, that he had biological weapons, chemical weapons, reconstituting nukes, the whole litany. And yet they both had access at that time to classified information, some of it coming from Mr. Tenet's own agency, the CIA, that was indicating great uncertainty about the status of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction program.

   Now, we see Condoleezza Rice appointed this past weekend by the President to head up an Iraq stabilization group at the White House, because the President is concerned that too much bureaucracy is getting in the way of our program. If there is any bureaucracy in the way of our program, it is the President's bureaucracy. Congress did not set up any bureaucracy to frustrate him. He is working through the

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Defense Department. Most of us think he ought to be working through the State Department and not the Defense Department. We can get into that in more detail in a few minutes. But the credibility of the administration is at stake. A huge credibility gap has grown up between the President's statements and what he was being advised, the classified information he was getting at the time he was saying with such certainty, which we now know was uncertain, and his top officials, including George Tenet and Condoleezza Rice, have the same credibility gap surrounding them. It is bad for the administration. It is bad for the Nation to have these problems.

   I thank the gentleman for getting me off on this rant. You have triggered some of my frustrations.

   Let me at this point turn to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio). I believe he has another aspect to discuss as to the situation in Iraq.

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 Mr. DeFAZIO. But we did find in a refrigerator of an Iraqi scientist purportedly one vial of botulin toxin, which, of course, you can find basically at any ag school or any research lab anywhere in the United States, but for only $300 million we did find that and that apparently presented, according to this administration, a real and present danger to the United States of America, that one vial of toxin, which, of course, is readily available. In fact, I think you can still buy them and have them shipped in the United States of America.

4C) Lack of Credibility in this Administration

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters) is recognized for 5 minutes.

   Ms. WATERS. Mr. Speaker, I am taking this opportunity to focus attention on the lack of credibility of this administration. This administration has been revealed for attempting to mislead the American public, and they certainly have mismanaged this so-called Iraqi freedom war. This administration's credibility is on the line, and let me recount some of the reasons why.

   Every American now knows that there are no weapons of mass destruction, that this administration claimed they knew about, had identified and could document in Iraq. They even claimed that they had the drones that do surveillance that were capable of carrying weapons of mass destruction. That has been debunked. That is not true. They also claimed and there were weeks of stories in the paper about the President's claim that Saddam Hussein had attempted to purchase yellow cake, or uranium, from Niger. That has been found not to be true.

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   They claimed and tried to mislead the American public in several ways. They have been caught trying to tie 9/11 to Saddam Hussein, and they have had to back off of it, and they have looked rather foolish in doing that.

   But, really, to underscore this lack of credibility, imagine that Karl Rove, sitting at the right hand of the President of the United States, had the audacity, the temerity to call the press and to out an undercover CIA agent and the wife of an ambassador. Not only did he break the law, he endangered the life of this woman. And this is a man who is calling the shots in the White House, again whispering into the ear of the President, guiding and leading him.

   They also claimed, as they bombed Iraq, that Iraq would be rebuilt with the oil resources. We know that they secured the oil fields when they landed. And they told us that they would be pumping the oil and that the revenues from that oil would pay for the rebuilding. Well, those are just a few of the instances of misleading information, distortions, information that has managed to confuse the American people and create a lot of distrust.

   But I am not going to concentrate all of my 5 minutes on that. That story has been written. And I do not care how they try to do their little mini shake-up and pretend that Rumsfeld is not the point person that he is, and drag out Condoleezza Rice, who is supposed to put a better spin on it than Rumsfeld. I do not care how they try to do that. The fact of the matter is, the American people are unhappy.

   We are unhappy when we look at the request for $87 billion that this President has asked the American public to ante up, this $87 billion at a time when the economy is not well. When we have lost over 3.5 million jobs, where people are trying to make ends meet, cannot pay their bills and have plants that are closing down every day, the President asks the American people to ante up $87 billion because he is proposing to spend $850 million on Iraqi health care, including $150 million for a new Children's Hospital.

   The number of uninsured Americans has grown to 43.6 million in 2002, up from 41 million in 2001. There are 8.5 million children without health insurance. And I can keep on going. They want to do some housing in Iraq. The President proposes to spend $470 million on housing and construction, including $100 million to build 3,528 new houses in Iraq. How many Members of Congress could use some new housing in their districts?

   In the United States, we are experiencing a housing shortage on an unprecedented scale. According to the Millennium Housing Commission, there is currently a 1.8 million unit gap between the number of extremely low-income households and the number of affordable rental units available for these households.

   But let us not stop there. Let us move on to education. The President's proposal includes distributing 5 million science and math books, 1.2 million school supply kits for students, and as many as 1,000 primary schools are being rehabbed. One Member on the other side of the aisle got on the floor and showed us the brand new book bags they bought for all of the children of Iraq. I had to remind him that children in my district do not even have books to put in a book bag.

   The President's signature program, No Child Left Behind, is underfunded by $8 billion. While we are witnessing this in this country, think about the lack of credibility that this administration has created with the way it has done these contracts.

   An August 28 Washington Post article noted that Halliburton, the company formerly headed by Vice President Cheney, has won contracts worth more than a couple billion dollars under Operation Iraqi Freedom and stands to make hundreds of millions of dollars more under a no-bid contract awarded by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

   Bechtel has earned at least $350 million.

   Mr. Speaker, I could go on and on and on. But every night Members will be coming to the floor talking about the lack of credibility, the mismanagement and the shock and awe campaign that was put on. Well, Mr. President, we are going to shock and awe you. Mr. President, you are going to be shocked when the people speak out and decide that they do not want this kind of representation.

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