Congressional Record Weekly UpdateJanuary 26-30, 2004Return to the Congressional Report Weekly. 1A) Pakistan’s Nuclear Program – Floor Statement The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) is recognized for 5 minutes. Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to urge my colleagues and the Bush administration to once again take a look at Pakistan through a critical and analytical lens. Pakistan is one of our strongest allies in the war against terror, yet I am deeply disturbed by our supposed ally's involvement in supplying nuclear technology to North Korea, Iran, and Libya. There is ample evidence of these ties, and I find it very convenient that President Musharraf takes a position of denial and that he blames everyone besides the Pakistani Government. Mr. Speaker, we must understand that Musharraf's response to these serious international violations of transferring nuclear weapons to rogue nations is simply inadequate. By blaming the scientists involved, and by detaching the Pakistani Government's role in preventing further transfer of nuclear equipment, Musharraf is insulating himself, when in fact he should be proposing steps to ensure the world that Pakistan will no longer be participating in such criminal activities. As an ally in the war against terror, we deserve such assurances, commitment and action from Pakistan that their programs to assist in nuclear proliferation have been terminated. Unfortunately, Musharraf is in denial about his country's participation in aiding such countries as North Korea, Iran, and Libya; but the denial must come to a close immediately. The same situation was true regarding Pakistani fundamentalist infiltration into Kashmir. While cold-blooded murders of innocent Kashmiri citizens were taking place on a daily basis, President Musharraf for years denied that he was providing anything but moral support to the infiltrators. [Page: H248] GPO's PDF While the murders have continued, Musharraf has recognized that infiltration is a problem that requires his intervention, and he has pledged to end terrorism in Kashmir. Although Kashmiri citizens continue to endure terrorism and infiltration at the Line of Control, the situation seems to have improved to a certain degree since the cease-fire between India and Pakistan and the countries' plan on holding talks within the next several weeks. Mr. Speaker, my point is that the issue of Pakistan transferring nuclear equipment requires as much focus and intervention on President Musharraf's part. In contrast to the situation in Pakistan, I wanted to take a moment to highlight India's nuclear program. In reflection of what I saw earlier this month during my visit to India, I applaud the government for maintaining an open nuclear science program. The three most important ways in which India's program is a model to be emulated by Pakistan are the following: first, India's program is defensive in nature; second, it is civilian controlled; and, third, technology is shared in accordance with international nuclear transfer laws. As a result of India's nuclear policies, India has a strong defense relationship with the United States and a strong science partnership with the United States. In fact, a recent agreement between the United States and India would call for increased exchange of scientists, particularly in the area of nuclear technology. Moreover, as part of a new space and nuclear cooperation agreement between the United States and India, the two countries will work as partners to bring stability to South Asia and the world, including efforts to end proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Mr. Speaker, I include for the RECORD a statement that was made jointly by the President of India and by the President of the United States in that regard. Next Steps in Strategic Partnership With India In November 2001, Prime Minister Vajpayee and I committed our countries to a strategic partnership. Since then, our two countries have strengthened bilateral cooperation significantly in several areas. Today we announce the next steps in implementing our shared vision. The United States and India agree to expand cooperation in three specific areas: civilian nuclear activities, civilian space programs, and high-technology trade. In addition, we agree to expand our dialogue on missile defense. Cooperation in these areas will deepen the ties of commerce and friendship between our two nations, and will increase stability in Asia and beyond. The proposed cooperation will progress through a series of reciprocal steps that will build on each other. It will include expanded engagement on nuclear regulatory and safety issues and missile defense, ways to enhance cooperation in peaceful uses of space technology, and steps to create the appropriate environment for successful high technology commerce. In order to combat the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, relevant laws, regulations and procedures will be strengthened, and measures to increase bilateral and international cooperation in this area will be employed. These cooperative efforts will be undertaken in accordance with our respective national laws and international obligations. The expanded cooperation launched today is an important milestone in transforming the relationship between the United States and India. That relationship is based increasingly on common values and common interests. We are working together to promote global peace and prosperity. We are partners in the war on terrorism and we are partners in controlling the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the means to deliver them. The vision of U.S.-India strategic partnership that Prime Minister Vajpayee and I share is now becoming a reality. Mr. Speaker, let me say in conclusion, in order for there to be peace and stability in the South Asia region, it is necessary for President Musharraf to move Pakistan forward by taking responsibility for its reprehensible actions, such as transferring nuclear technology and infiltrating Kashmir. Until President Musharraf's leadership is applied and he is not only willing to accept responsibility but turn his words into actions, our safety continues to be in jeopardy.
1B) H.R. 2673 Omnibus Appropriations - Excerpts from Conference Report DIVISION C--DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2004 TITLE I--FEDERAL FUNDS FEDERAL PAYMENT FOR HOSPITAL BIOTERRORISM PREPAREDNESS IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA The conference agreement includes $7,500,000 for a Federal payment to the District of Columbia Department of Health for hospital bioterrorism preparedness in the District of Columbia, instead of $10,000,000 as proposed by the Senate. The House bill contained no similar provision. Of this amount, $3,750,000 is for the expansion of quarantine facilities and the establishment of a decontamination facility at Children's National Medical Center and $3,750,000 is for construction of containment facilities at the Washington Hospital Center. **************************************** DIVISION D--FOREIGN OPERATIONS, EXPORT FINANCING, AND RELATED PROGRAMS, 2004 TITLE II--BILATERAL ECONOMIC ASSISTANCE ASSISTANCE FOR EASTERN EUROPE AND THE BALTIC STATES The conference agreement appropriates $445,000,000 as proposed by the Senate, instead of $452,000,000 as proposed by the House. Funds in this account are allocated in the following table and, as
stipulated in bill language any change to these allocations is subject to the
regular reprogramming procedures of the Committees on Appropriations: [Budget authority in thousands of dollars]
Albania $28,000
Bosnia-Herzegovina 45,000
Bulgaria 28,000
Croatia 25,000
Kosovo 79,000
Macedonia 39,000
Romania 28,000
Serbia 100,000
Montenegro 35,000
Total AEEB 445,000 The conference agreement contains language that provides that $2,000,000 should be made available to enhance safety at nuclear power plants. It is intended that this nuclear safety program will include the provision of full scope simulators. ******************** ASSISTANCE FOR THE INDEPENDENT STATES OF THE FORMER SOVIET UNION The conference agreement appropriates $587,000,000, instead of $576,000,000 as proposed by the House and $596,000,000 as proposed by the Senate. The managers reiterate language in the Statement of the Managers from prior years with regard to other limitations on assistance, ``that assistance to combat infectious diseases, ..... support for regional and municipal governments, and partnerships between United States hospitals, universities, judicial training institutions and environmental organizations and counterparts in Russia should not be affected by this section.'' ******** The conference agreement provides not less than $19,000,000 should be made available for nuclear reactor safety initiatives in Ukraine. The managers expect that of this amount, $14,000,000 shall be provided for simulator-related projects. The conference agreement also includes language similar to that proposed by the Senate providing not less than $1,500,000 for coal mine safety programs. ******** The managers endorse House report language regarding proposals to establish and develop in Armenia a central diagnostic laboratory for the Caucasus region to address health and food safety. ******** The managers appreciate the threats to Georgia and the region from terrorists in the Pankisi Gorge, and encourage the State Department to continue to fund those programs and activities that further the national security interests of both the United States and Georgia. ******************** NONPROLIFERATION, ANTI-TERRORISM, DEMINING AND RELATED PROGRAMS The conference agreement appropriates $353,500,000 for Nonproliferation, Anti-terrorism, Demining and Related Programs, instead of $385,200,000 as proposed by the Senate and $335,200,000 as proposed by the House. Funds in this account are allocated in the following table and, as
stipulated in bill language any change to these allocations is subject to the
regular reprogramming procedures of the Committees on Appropriations: [Budget authority in thousands of dollars]
Nonproliferation and Disarmament Fund $30,000
Export Control and Border Security assistance 36,000
Science Centers 50,500
International Atomic Energy Agency--Voluntary Contribution 53,000
CTBT/International Monitoring System 19,000
Anti-terrorism Assistance 97,000
Terrorist Interdiction Program 5,000
Humanitarian Demining 50,000
International Trust Fund for Demining 10,000
Small Arms/Light Weapons Destruction 3,000
NADR Total 353,500 The conference agreement contains language similar to that included in the Senate amendment that authorizes not to exceed $250,000 for the support of public-private partnerships for mine action by grant, cooperative agreement, or contract. The managers direct that the State Department provide a financial plan for the use of these funds to the Committees on Appropriations prior to the use of this authority. The House bill did not address this matter. The managers endorse the Senate report language regarding demining and the House and Senate report language regarding the Anti-terrorism Assistance program. With respect to Anti-terrorism Assistance, the managers note that an additional $10,400,000 was provided for this program in the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act for Defense and the Reconstruction of Iraq and Afghanistan (P.L. 108-106). The conferees strongly support the anti-terrorism program and the conference level of $97,000,000 represents an increase of 48 percent above the level provided in fiscal year 2003. The managers recognize the central role of financing in the operation of terrorist organizations such as Al Qaeda and commend the Administration for initial actions taken in the wake of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 to block the flow of money to these organizations. Given the wide range of formal and informal financial mechanisms to secure funding and to move it around the globe, the managers acknowledge the need for an increasingly forceful approach to this problem. The managers note the importance of an interagency effort by the Terrorist Financial Working Group to curb the funding to terrorist organizations such as Al Qaeda. The effort by the Departments of State, Treasury, and Justice, working with other agencies, is a key element in the fight against international terrorism. The managers direct the Department of State, in consultation with the Department of the Treasury, to provide a report on the spending of funds provided for counter-terrorist financing in fiscal years 2001, 2002, and 2003, and a list of planned spending in 2004. In addition, the report shall contain a list of countries the Administration considers to be the major source and/or transit points for terror financing, a list of the interagency priority countries with which federal agencies are currently working and the activities taking place in those countries, and a list of other countries the interagency working group has identified as needing such assistance in the future and the types of activities that will be required in those countries. The report shall be provided no later than 120 days after enactment of this Act and the list of countries may be classified if the Secretary of State determines that this is necessary. ******************** PROVISIONS NOT ADOPTED BY THE MANAGERS The conference report does not include section 581 of the House bill regarding ``Efforts by North Korea Relating to the Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons''. The Senate amendment did not address this matter. ******** The conference agreement does not include section 606 of the Senate amendment regarding ``Prohibition on Financing Nuclear Goods.'' The House did not address this matter. Although no longer carried in the Act, the managers do not expect any funds in this Act from being used to finance the export of nuclear equipment, fuel or technology. If funds are used for such purposes, the managers expect these funds to be subject to the regular notification procedures of the Committees on Appropriations. ******** The conference agreement does not include Senate section 692 regarding ``Prohibition on Funding to Countries That Trade in Certain Weapons with North Korea''. The House bill did not address this matter. ******** While the conference agreement does not include Senate section 699E expressing the sense of Congress on certain issues relating to Iran, the managers support this language and remain gravely concerned with the Government of Iran's authoritarian and repressive rule, its development of nuclear weapons and their delivery systems, and support for terrorists and other undesirable elements that may undermine reconstruction efforts in Iraq. The House did not address this matter. **************************************** DIVISION E--DEPARTMENTS OF LABOR, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, AND EDUCATION, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2004 TITLE II--DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES Public Health Improvement The conference agreement includes $143,082,000 for public health improvement instead of $144,530,000 as proposed by the House and $106,789,000 as proposed by the Senate. In addition, $28,600,000 is available to carry out information systems standards development and architecture and applications-based research used at local public health levels to be derived from section 241 evaluation set-aside funds, as proposed by the Senate. The House bill included no similar provision. The conference agreement includes $15,000,000 within Public Health Improvement to expand public health research that is determined by the Director as having high scientific and programmatic priority. Funds requested within public health improvement for development and implementation of a nationwide environmental health-tracking network have been provided for within the CDC's environmental health activities program. The conference agreement includes $500,000 to continue the Comprehensive Assessment of Rural Health in Iowa (CARHI), in conjunction with the Iowa Department of Public Health. ******** Within the amounts available to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC): $940,000,000 is for State and Local Preparedness, $158,116,000 is for Upgrading CDC Capacity; and $18,040,000 is for the fourth year of a collaborative research program on anthrax vaccine. ******** The conferees encourage CDC to conduct a demonstration project with World Medical Leaders to disseminate news, information, and alerts to physicians who are on the front lines in the effort to recognize biological, chemical, and radiological events. ******** The conferees recognize the importance of training in biopreparedness and response for emergency physicians and encourage HRSA to support the development of a national bioterrorism response course for practicing emergency physicians. The conferees further encourage HRSA to work with the relevant professional associations through which emergency physicians receive their continuing education credits. ******** The conferees recognize the need for development of a comprehensive national strategy to address the Nation's medical response capabilities given the growing threat of biological, chemical, radiation or explosive weapons attacks in the United States. The conferees are aware that the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) is pursuing a comprehensive, integrated strategy for dealing with threats throughout the region. The conferees urge the Department to study the preparedness efforts of institutions such as UPMC, the effectiveness of these programs, and the feasibility of replicating this type of initiative nationwide. The conferees are aware that a new technology, known as nanometal enhanced fluorescence (NanoMEF), offers promise for providing a rapid, ultra sensitive, method for the detection of bio-organisms, such as anthrax and smallpox. The conferees encourage the Director to review this promising technology and consider supporting its development from within the funds provided.
1C) H.R. 2673 Omnibus Appropriations - Excerpts from Language as Passed and Signed into Law DIVISION B--COMMERCE, JUSTICE, AND STATE, THE JUDICIARY, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS, 2004 TITLE IV--DEPARTMENT OF STATE AND RELATED AGENCY DIPLOMATIC AND CONSULAR PROGRAMS For necessary expenses of the Department of State and the Foreign Service not otherwise provided for, including employment, without regard to civil service and classification laws, of persons on a temporary basis (not to exceed $700,000 of this appropriation), as authorized by section 801 of the United States Information and Educational Exchange Act of 1948; representation to certain international organizations in which the United States participates pursuant to treaties ratified pursuant to the advice and consent of the Senate or specific Acts of Congress; arms control, nonproliferation and disarmament activities as authorized; acquisition by exchange or purchase of passenger motor vehicles as authorized by law; and for expenses of general administration, $3,420,000,000: Provided, That not to exceed 69 permanent positions and $7,311,000 shall be expended for the Bureau of Legislative Affairs: Provided further, That, of the amount made available under this heading, not to exceed $4,000,000 may be transferred to, and merged with, funds in the `Emergencies in the Diplomatic and Consular Service' appropriations account, to be available only for emergency evacuations and terrorism rewards: Provided further, That, of the amount made available under this heading, $301,563,000 shall be available only for public diplomacy international information programs: Provided further, That of the amount made available under this heading, $3,000,000 shall be available only for the establishment and operations of an Office on Right-Sizing the United States Government Overseas Presence: Provided further, That funds available under this heading may be available for a United States Government interagency task force to examine, coordinate and oversee United States participation in the United Nations headquarters renovation project: Provided further, That no funds may be obligated or expended for processing licenses for the export of satellites of United States origin (including commercial satellites and satellite components) to the People's Republic of China unless, at least 15 days in advance, the Committees on Appropriations of the House of Representatives and the Senate are notified of such proposed action.
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DIVISION C--DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2004 TITLE I--FEDERAL FUNDS Federal Payment for Hospital Bioterrorism Preparedness in the District of Columbia For a Federal payment to the District of Columbia Department of Health to support hospital bioterrorism preparedness in the District of Columbia, $7,500,000, of which $3,750,000 shall be for the Children's National Medical Center in the District of Columbia for the expansion of quarantine facilities and the establishment of a decontamination facility, and $3,750,000 shall be for the Washington Hospital Center for construction of containment facilities.
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DIVISION D--FOREIGN OPERATIONS, EXPORT FINANCING, AND RELATED PROGRAMS, 2004 TITLE I--EXPORT AND INVESTMENT ASSISTANCE Export-Import Bank of the United States The Export-Import Bank of the United States is authorized to make such expenditures within the limits of funds and borrowing authority available to such corporation, and in accordance with law, and to make such contracts and commitments without regard to fiscal year limitations, as provided by section 104 of the Government Corporation Control Act, as may be necessary in carrying out the program for the current fiscal year for such corporation: Provided, That none of the funds available during the current fiscal year may be used to make expenditures, contracts, or commitments for the export of nuclear equipment, fuel, or technology to any country, other than a nuclear-weapon state as defined in Article IX of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons eligible to receive economic or military assistance under this Act, that has detonated a nuclear explosive after the date of the enactment of this Act: Provided further, That notwithstanding section 1(c) of Public Law 103-428, as amended, sections 1(a) and (b) of Public Law 103-428 shall remain in effect through October 1, 2004. ******************** TITLE II--BILATERAL ECONOMIC ASSISTANCE ASSISTANCE FOR EASTERN EUROPE AND THE BALTIC STATES (a) For necessary expenses to carry out the provisions of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 and the Support for East European Democracy (SEED) Act of 1989, $445,000,000, to remain available until September 30, 2005, which shall be available, notwithstanding any other provision of law, for assistance and for related programs for Eastern Europe and the Baltic States: Provided, That of the funds appropriated under this heading that are made available for assistance for Bulgaria, $2,000,000 should be made available to enhance safety at nuclear power plants: Provided further, That of the funds appropriated under this heading, and under the headings `Assistance for the Independent States of the Former Soviet Union', `Foreign Military Financing Program', and `Economic Support Fund', not less than $53,500,000 shall be made available for programs for the prevention, treatment, and control of, and research on, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria: Provided further, That of the funds appropriated under this heading that are made available for Montenegro, not less than $12,000,000 shall be made available for economic development and environmental programs in the coastal region: Provided further, That of the funds appropriated under this heading, up to $1,000,000 should be made available for a program to promote greater understanding and interaction among youth in Albania, Kosovo, Montenegro and Macedonia: Provided further, That funds appropriated under this heading shall be made available for programs and countries in the amounts contained in the table accompanying the joint explanatory statement of the managers accompanying this Act: Provided further, That any proposed increases or decreases to the amounts contained in such table shall be subject to the regular notification procedures of the Committees on Appropriations and section 634A of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 and notifications shall be transmitted at least 15 days in advance of the obligation of funds. ********** ASSISTANCE FOR THE INDEPENDENT STATES OF THE FORMER SOVIET UNION (a) For necessary expenses to carry out the provisions of chapters 11 and 12 of part I of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 and the FREEDOM Support Act, for assistance for the Independent States of the former Soviet Union and for related programs, $587,000,000, to remain available until September 30, 2005: Provided, That the provisions of such chapters shall apply to funds appropriated by this paragraph: Provided further, That of the funds made available for the Southern Caucasus region, notwithstanding any other provision of law, funds may be used for confidence-building measures and other activities in furtherance of the peaceful resolution of the regional conflicts, especially those in the vicinity of Abkhazia and Nagorno-Karabagh: Provided further, That of the funds appropriated under this heading, $1,500,000 should be available only to meet the health and other assistance needs of victims of trafficking in persons: Provided further, That of the funds appropriated under this heading, $17,500,000 shall be made available solely for assistance for the Russian Far East, of which not less than $3,000,000 shall be made available for programs and activities authorized under section 307 of the FREEDOM Support Act (Public Law 102-511): Provided further, That $4,000,000 shall be made available to promote freedom of the media and an independent media in Russia: Provided further, That of the funds appropriated under this heading, up to $500,000 should be made available to support democracy building programs in Russia through the Sakharov Archives: Provided further, That, notwithstanding any other provision of law, funds appropriated under this heading in this Act or prior Acts making appropriations for foreign operations, export financing, and related programs, that are made available pursuant to the provisions of section 807 of Public Law 102-511 shall be subject to a 6 percent ceiling on administrative expenses. (b) Of the funds appropriated under this heading that are made available for assistance for Ukraine, not less than $19,000,000 should be made available for nuclear reactor safety initiatives, and not less than $1,500,000 shall be made available for coal mine safety programs. (c) Of the funds appropriated under this heading, not less than $94,000,000 shall be made available for assistance for Russia. (d) Of the funds appropriated under this heading, not less than $75,000,000 shall be made available for assistance for Armenia. (e) Of the funds appropriated under this heading, not less than $57,000,000 should be made available, in addition to funds otherwise available for such purposes, for assistance for child survival, environmental and reproductive health, and to combat HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and other infectious diseases, and for related activities. (f)(1) Of the funds appropriated under this heading that are allocated for assistance for the Government of the Russian Federation, 60 percent shall be withheld from obligation until the President determines and certifies in writing to the Committees on Appropriations that the Government of the Russian Federation-- (A) has terminated implementation of arrangements to provide Iran with technical expertise, training, technology, or equipment necessary to develop a nuclear reactor, related nuclear research facilities or programs, or ballistic missile capability; and ********** NONPROLIFERATION, ANTI-TERRORISM, DEMINING AND RELATED PROGRAMS For necessary expenses for nonproliferation, anti-terrorism, demining and related programs and activities, $353,500,000, to carry out the provisions of chapter 8 of part II of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 for anti-terrorism assistance, chapter 9 of part II of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, section 504 of the FREEDOM Support Act, section 23 of the Arms Export Control Act or the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 for demining activities, the clearance of unexploded ordnance, the destruction of small arms, and related activities, notwithstanding any other provision of law, including activities implemented through nongovernmental and international organizations, and section 301 of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 for a voluntary contribution to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and for a United States contribution to the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Preparatory Commission: Provided, That of this amount not to exceed $30,000,000, to remain available until expended, may be made available for the Nonproliferation and Disarmament Fund, notwithstanding any other provision of law, to promote bilateral and multilateral activities relating to nonproliferation and disarmament: Provided further, That such funds may also be used for such countries other than the Independent States of the former Soviet Union and international organizations when it is in the national security interest of the United States to do so: Provided further, That funds appropriated under this heading may be made available for the International Atomic Energy Agency only if the Secretary of State determines (and so reports to the Congress) that Israel is not being denied its right to participate in the activities of that Agency: Provided further, That funds available during fiscal year 2004 for a contribution to the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Preparatory Commission and that are not necessary to make the United States contribution to the Commission in the amount assessed for fiscal year 2004 shall be made available for a voluntary contribution to the International Atomic Energy Agency and shall remain available until September 30, 2005: Provided further, That of the funds made available for demining and related activities, not to exceed $690,000, in addition to funds otherwise available for such purposes, may be used for administrative expenses related to the operation and management of the demining program: Provided further, That the Secretary of State is authorized to provide, from funds appropriated under this heading in this and subsequent Acts making appropriations for foreign operations, export financing and related programs, not to exceed $250,000 for public-private partnerships for mine action by grant, cooperative agreement, or contract: Provided further, That funds appropriated under this heading shall be made available for programs and countries in the amounts contained in the table accompanying the joint explanatory statement of the managers accompanying this Act: Provided further, That any proposed increases or decreases to the amounts contained in such table shall be subject to the regular notification procedures of the Committees on Appropriations and section 634A of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 and notifications shall be transmitted at least 15 days in advance of the obligation of funds. ******************** TITLE V--GENERAL PROVISIONS LIMITATION ON AVAILABILITY OF FUNDS FOR INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS AND PROGRAMS SEC. 516. Subject to the regular notification procedures of the Committees on Appropriations, funds appropriated under this Act or any previously enacted Act making appropriations for foreign operations, export financing, and related programs, which are returned or not made available for organizations and programs because of the implementation of section 307(a) of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, shall remain available for obligation until September 30, 2005. ********** INDEPENDENT STATES OF THE FORMER SOVIET UNION SEC. 517. (a) None of the funds appropriated under the heading `Assistance for the Independent States of the Former Soviet Union' shall be made available for assistance for a government of an Independent State of the former Soviet Union-- (1) unless that government is making progress in implementing comprehensive economic reforms based on market principles, private ownership, respect for commercial contracts, and equitable treatment of foreign private investment; and (2) if that government applies or transfers United States assistance to any entity for the purpose of expropriating or seizing ownership or control of assets, investments, or ventures. Assistance may be furnished without regard to this subsection if the President determines that to do so is in the national interest. (b) None of the funds appropriated under the heading `Assistance for the Independent States of the Former Soviet Union' shall be made available for assistance for a government of an Independent State of the former Soviet Union if that government directs any action in violation of the territorial integrity or national sovereignty of any other Independent State of the former Soviet Union, such as those violations included in the Helsinki Final Act: Provided, That such funds may be made available without regard to the restriction in this subsection if the President determines that to do so is in the national security interest of the United States. (c) None of the funds appropriated under the heading `Assistance for the Independent States of the Former Soviet Union' shall be made available for any state to enhance its military capability: Provided, That this restriction does not apply to demilitarization, demining or nonproliferation programs. ********** PROHIBITION ON ASSISTANCE TO FOREIGN GOVERNMENTS THAT EXPORT LETHAL MILITARY EQUIPMENT TO COUNTRIES SUPPORTING INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM SEC. 543. (a) None of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available by this Act may be available to any foreign government which provides lethal military equipment to a country the government of which the Secretary of State has determined is a terrorist government for purposes of section 6(j) of the Export Administration Act. The prohibition under this section with respect to a foreign government shall terminate 12 months after that government ceases to provide such military equipment. This section applies with respect to lethal military equipment provided under a contract entered into after October 1, 1997. (b) Assistance restricted by subsection (a) or any other similar provision of law, may be furnished if the President determines that furnishing such assistance is important to the national interests of the United States. (c) Whenever the waiver authority of subsection (b) is exercised, the President shall submit to the appropriate congressional committees a report with respect to the furnishing of such assistance. Any such report shall include a detailed explanation of the assistance to be provided, including the estimated dollar amount of such assistance, and an explanation of how the assistance furthers United States national interests.
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DIVISION E--DEPARTMENTS OF LABOR, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, AND EDUCATION, AND RELATED AGENCIES, 2004 TITLE II -- DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES PUBLIC HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES EMERGENCY FUND For expenses necessary to support activities related to countering potential biological, disease and chemical threats to civilian populations, $1,726,846,000: Provided, That this amount is distributed as follows: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, $1,116,156,000; Office of the Secretary, $64,820,000; and Health Resources and Services Administration, $545,870,000: Provided further, That at the discretion of the Secretary of Health and Human Services, these amounts may be transferred between categories subject to normal reprogramming procedures: Provided further, That employees of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or the Public Health Service, both civilian and Commissioned Officers, detailed to States, municipalities, or other organizations under authority of section 214 of the Public Health Service Act for purposes related to homeland security, shall be treated as non-Federal employees for reporting purposes only and shall not be included within any personnel ceiling applicable to the Agency, Service, or the Department of Health and Human Services during the period of detail or assignment.
DIVISION H--MISCELLANEOUS APPROPRIATIONS AND OFFSETS Chemical Biological Suit.--The conferees are concerned with a recent GAO finding that the production of the JSLIST chemical biological suit worn by U.S. soldiers is dependent upon a foreign-based, single supply source for its most critical components. The Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical and Biological Defense plan to field test and qualify an off-the-shelf, alternate fabric/membrane to incorporate into a next generation suit will take three years to complete given current funding levels. The conferees direct the Department of Defense to provide necessary funds from those available immediately to begin field testing and qualification of an alternate, off-the-shelf fabric/membrane for the JSLIST suit.
CHEM/ BIO AND WMD TERRORISM ************************************ 3A) Certification of the Australia Group – Message from the President The SPEAKER pro tempore laid before the House the following message from the President of the United States; which was read and, together with the accompanying papers, without objection, referred to the Committee on International Relations:
Consistent with the resolution of advice and consent to ratification of the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling, and Use of Chemical Weapons and on Their Destruction, adopted by the Senate of the United States on April 24, 1997, I hereby certify pursuant to Condition 7(C)(i), Effectiveness of the Australia Group, that: Australia Group members continue to maintain equally effective or more comprehensive controls over the export of: toxic chemicals and their precursors; dual-use processing equipment; human, animal, and plant pathogens and toxins with potential biological weapons applications; and dual-use biological equipment, as that afforded by the Australia Group as of April 25, 1997; and The Australia Group remains a viable mechanism for limiting the spread of chemical and biological weapons-related materials and technology, and the effectiveness of the Australia Group has not been undermined by changes in membership, lack of compliance with common export controls and nonproliferation measures, in force as of April 25, 1997. The factors underlying this certification are described in the enclosed statement of justification. George W. Bush. The White House, January 28, 2004.
IRAQ AND WMD ******************** 4A) Hussein’s Weapons of Mass Destruction – Floor Statement Mr. DASCHLE. Madam President, I wanted to say a couple of words today with regard to an article that appeared on the front page of the New York Times entitled ``Ex-Inspector Says C.I.A. Missed Iraqi Arms Chaos.'' I ask unanimous consent that the article be printed in the RECORD. There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows: [From the New York Times, Jan. 25, 2004] Ex-Inspector Says C.I.A. Missed Iraqi Arms Chaos (By James Risen) WASHINGTON, Jan. 25.--Americans intelligence agencies failed to detect that Iraq's unconventional weapons programs were in a state of disarray in recent years under the increasingly erratic leadership of Saddam Hussein, the C.I.A.'s former chief weapons inspector said in an interview late Saturday. The inspector, David A. Kay, who led the government's efforts to find evidence of Iraq's illicit weapons programs until he resigned on Friday, said the C.I.A. and other intelligence agencies did not realize that Iraqi scientists had presented ambitious but fanciful weapons programs to Mr. Hussein and had then used the money for other purposes. Dr. Kay also reported that Iraq attempted to revive its efforts to develop nuclear weapons in 2000 and 2001, but never got as far toward making a bomb as Iran and Libya did. He said Baghdad was actively working to produce a biological weapon using the poison ricin until the American invasion last March. But in general, Dr. Kay said, the C.I.A. and other agencies failed to recognize that Iraq had all but abandoned its efforts to produce large quantities of chemical or biological weapons after the first Persian Gulf war, in 1991. From interviews with Iraqi scientists and other sources, he said, his team learned that sometime around 1997 and 1998, Iraq plunged into what he called a ``vortex of corruption,'' when government activities began to spin out of control because an increasingly isolated and fantasy-riven Saddam Hussein had insisted on personally authorizing major projects without input from others. After the onset of this ``dark ages,'' Dr. Kay said, Iraqi scientists realized they could go directly to Mr. Hussein and present fanciful plans for weapons programs, and receive approval and large amounts of money. Whatever was left of an effective weapons capability, he said, was largely subsumed into corrupt money-raising schemes by scientists skilled in the arts of lying and surviving in a fevered police state. ``The whole thing shifted from directed programs to a corrupted process,'' Dr. Kay said. ``The regime was no longer in control; it was like a death spiral. Saddam was self-directing projects that were not vetted by anyone else. The scientists were able to fake programs.'' In interviews after he was captured. Tariq Aziz, the former deputy prime minister, told Dr. Kay that Mr. Hussein had become increasingly divorced from reality during the last two years of his rule. Mr. Hussein would send Mr. Aziz manuscripts of novels he was writing, even as the American-led coalition was gearing up for war, Dr. Kay said. Dr. Kay said the fundamental errors in prewar intelligence assessments were so grave that he would recommend that the Central Intelligence Agency and other organizations overhaul their intelligence collection and analytical efforts. Dr. Kay said analysts had come to him, ``almost in tears, saying they felt so badly that we weren't finding what they had thought we were going to find--I have had analysts apologizing for reaching the conclusions that they did.'' In response to Dr. Kay's comments, an intelligence official said Sunday that while some prewar assessments may have been wrong, ``it is premature to say that the intelligence community's judgments were completely wrong or largely wrong--there are still a lot of answers we need.'' The official added, however, that the C.I.A. had already begun an internal review to determine whether its analytical processes were sound. Dr. Kay said that based on his team's interviews with Iraqi scientists, reviews of Iraqi documents and examinations of facilities and other materials, the administration was also almost certainly wrong in its prewar belief that Iraq had any significant stockpiles of illicit weapons. ``I'm personally convinced that there were not large stockpiles of newly produced weapons of mass destruction,'' Dr. Kay said. ``We don't find the people, the documents or the physical plants that you would expect to find if the production was going on. ``I think they gradually reduced stockpiles throughout the 1990's. Somewhere in the mid-1990's, the large chemical overhang of existing stockpiles was eliminated.'' While it is possible Iraq kept developing ``test amounts'' of chemical weapons and was working on improved methods of production, he said, the evidence is strong that ``they did not produce large amounts of chemical weapons throughout the 1990's.'' Regarding biological weapons, he said there was evidence that the Iraqis continued research and development ``right up until the end'' to improve their ability to produce ricin. ``They were mostly researching better methods for weaponization,'' Dr. Kay said. ``They were maintaining an infrastructure, but they didn't have large-scale production under way.'' He added that Iraq did make an effort to restart its nuclear weapons program in 2000 and 2001, but that the evidence suggested that the program was rudimentary at best and would have taken years to rebuild, after being largely abandoned in the 1990's. ``There was a restart of the nuclear program,'' he said. ``But the surprising thing is that if you compare it to what we now know about Iran and Libya, the Iraqi program was never as advanced,'' Dr. Kay said. Dr. Kay said Iraq had also maintained an active ballistic missile program that was receiving significant foreign assistance until the start of the American invasion. He said it appeared that money was put back into the nuclear weapons program to restart the effort in part because the Iraqi realized they needed some kind of payload for their new rockets. While he urged that the hunt should continue in Iraq, he said continue in Iraq, he said he believed ``85 percent of the significant things'' have already been uncovered, and cautioned that severe looting in Iraq after Mr. Hussein was toppled in April had led to the loss of many crucial documents and other materials. That means it will be virtually impossible to ever get a complete picture of what Iraq was up to before the war, he added. ``There is going to be an irreducible level of ambiguity because of all the looting,'' Dr. Kay said. Dr. Kay said he believed that Iraq was a danger to the world, but not the same threat that the Bush administration detailed. ``We know that terrorists were passing through Iraq,'' he said. ``And now we know that there was little control over Iraq's weapons capabilities. I think it shows that Iraq was a very dangerous place. The country had the technology, the ability to produce, and there were terrorist groups passing through the country--and no central control.'' But Dr. Kay said the C.I.A. missed the significance of the chaos in the leadership and had no idea how badly that chaos had corrupted Iraq's weapons capabilities or the threat it raised of loose scientific knowledge being handed over to terrorists. ``The system became so corrupt, and we missed that,'' he said. C.I.A. MISSED SIGNS OF CHAOS He said it now appeared that Iraq had abandoned the production of illicit weapons and largely eliminated its stockpiles in the 1990's in large part because of Baghdad's concerns about the United Nations weapons inspection process. He said Iraqi scientists and documents show that Baghdad was far more concerned about United Nations inspections than Washington had ever realized. ``The Iraqis say that they believed that Unscom was more effective, and they didn't want to get caught,'' Dr. Kay said, using an acronym for the inspection program, the United Nations Special Commission. The Iraquis also feared the disclosures that would come from the 1995 defection of Hussein Kamel, Mr. Hussein's son-in-law, who had helped run the weapons programs. Dr. Kay said one Iraqi document that had been found showed the extent to which the Iraqis believed that Mr. Kamel's defection would hamper any efforts to continue weapons programs. In addition, Dr. Kay said, it is now clear that an American bombing campaign against Iraq in 1998 destroyed much of the remaining infrastructure in chemical weapons programs. Dr. Kay said his team had uncovered no evidence that Niger had tried to sell uranium to Iraq for its nuclear weapons program. In his State of the Union address in 2003, President Bush reported that British intelligence had determined that Iraq was trying to import uranium from an African nation, and Niger's name was later put forward. ``We found nothing on Niger,'' Dr. Kay said. He added that there was evidence that someone did approach the Iraqis claiming to be able to sell uranium and diamonds from another African country, but apparently nothing came of the approach. The original reports on Niger have been found to be based on forged documents, and the Bush administration has since backed away from its initial assertions. Dr. Kay added that there was now a consensus within the United States intelligence community that mobile trailers found in Iraq and initially thought to be laboratories for biological weapons were actually designed to produce hydrogen for weather balloons, or perhaps to produce rocket fuel. While using the trailers for such purposes seems bizarre, Dr. Kay said, ``Iraq was doing a lot of nonsensical things'' under Mr. Hussein. [Page: S225] GPO's PDF The intelligence reports that Iraq was poised to use chemical weapons against invading troops were false, apparently based on faulty reports and Iraqi disinformation, Dr. Kay said. When American troops found that Iraqi troops had stored defensive chemical-weapons suits and antidotes, Washington assumed the Iraq military was poised to use chemicals against American forces. But interviews with Iraqi military officers and others have shown that the Iraqis kept the gear because they feared Israel would join an American-led invasion and use chemical weapons against them. ROLE OF REPUBLICAN GUARDS Dr. Kay said interviews with senior officers of the Special Republican Guards, Mr. Hussein's most elite units, had suggested that prewar intelligence reports were wrong in warning that these units had chemical weapons and would use them against American forces as they closed in on Baghdad. The former Iraqi officers reported that no Special Republican Guard units had chemical or biological weapons, he said. But all of the officers believed that some other Special Republican Guard unit had chemical weapons. ``They all said they didn't have it, but they thought other units had it,'' Dr. Kay said. He said it appeared they were the victims of a disinformation campaign orchestrated by Mr. Hussein. Dr. Kay said there was also no conclusive evidence that Iraq had moved any unconventional weapons to Syria, as some Bush administration officials have suggested. He said there had been persistent reports from Iraqis saying they or someone they knew had see cargo being moved across the border, but there is no proof that such movements involved weapons materials. Dr. Kay said the basic problem with the way the C.I.A. tried to gauge Iraq's weapons programs is now painfully clear: for five years, the agency lacked its own spies in Iraq who could provide credible information. During the 1990's, Dr. Kay said, the agency became spoiled by on-the-ground intelligence that it obtained from United Nations weapons inspectors. But the quality of the information plunged after the teams were withdrawn in 1998. ``Unscom was like crack cocaine for the C.I.A.,'' Dr. Kay said. ``They could see something from a satellite or other technical intelligence, and then direct the inspectors to go look at it.'' The agency became far too dependent on spy satellites, intercepted communications and intelligence developed by foreign spies and by defectors and exiles, Dr. Kay said. While he said the agency analysts who were monitoring Iraq's weapons programs did the best they could with what they had, he argued that the agency failed to make it clear to American policy makers that their assessments were increasingly based on very limited information. ``I think that the system should have a way for an analyst to say, `I don't have enough information to make a judgment,' '' Dr. Kay said. ``There is really not a way to do that under the current system.'' He added that while the analysts included caveats on their reports, those passages ``tended to drop off as the reports would go up the food chain'' inside the government. As a result, virtually everyone in the United States intelligence community during both the Clinton and the current Bush administrations thought Iraq still had the illicit weapons, he said. And the government became a victim of its own certainty. ``Alarm bells should have gone off when everyone believes the same thing,'' Dr. Kay said. ``No one stood up and said, `Let's examine the footings for these conclusions.' I think you ought to have a place for contrarian views in the system.'' FINDS NO PRESSURE FROM BUSH Dr. Kay said he was convinced that the analysts were not pressed by the Bush administration to make certain their prewar intelligence reports conformed to a White House agenda on Iraq. Last year, some C.I.A. analysts said they had felt pressed to find links between Iraq and Al Qaeda to suit the administration. While Dr. Kay said he has no knowledge about that issue, he did believe that pressure was placed on analysts regarding the weapons programs. ``All the analysts I have talked to said they never felt pressured on W.M.D,'' he said. ``Everyone believed that they had W.M.D.'' Dr. Kay also said he never felt pressed by the Bush administration to shape his own reports on the status of Iraq's weapons. He said that in a White House meeting with Mr. Bush last August, the president urged him to uncover what really happened. ``The only comment I ever had from the president was to find the truth,'' Dr. Kay said. ``I never got any pressure to find a certain outcome.'' Dr. Kay, a former United Nations inspector who was brought in last summer to run the Iraq Survey Group by George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence, said he resigned his post largely because he disagreed with the decision in November by the administration and the Pentagon to shift intelligence resources from the hunt for banned weapons to counterinsurgency efforts inside Iraq. Dr. Kay is being succeeded by Charles A. Duelfer, another former United Nations inspector, who has also expressed skepticism about whether the United States will find any chemical or biological weapons. Dr. Kay said the decision to shift resources away from the weapons hunt came at a time of ``near panic'' among American officials in Baghdad because of rising casualties caused by bombings and ambushes of American troops. He added that the decision ran counter to written assurances he had been given when he took the job, and that the shift in resources had severely hampered the weapons hunt. He said that there is only a limited amount of time left to conduct a thorough search before a new Iraqi government takes over in the summer, and that there are already signs of resistance to the work by Iraqi government officials. Mr. DASCHLE. The article begins with a paragraph that reads: American intelligence agencies failed to detect that Iraq's unconventional weapons programs were in a state of disarray in recent years under the increasingly erratic leadership of Saddam Hussein, the C.I.A.'s former chief weapons inspector said in an interview late Saturday. Mr. Kay, the head of our government's effort to determine precisely which weapons Saddam possessed prior to the start of the war, offered the view on whether Saddam actually had weapons of mass destruction. His quote: I don't think they exist. The fact that we found so far the weapons do not exist--we've got to deal with that difference and understand why. I also think it is important for us to understand why. On Saturday, Secretary of State Colin Powell held out the possibility that prewar Iraq did not possess any weapons of mass destruction. That is quite an admission, given the Secretary's presentation to the United Nations, given his assertions publicly and privately to us and many others as the case for war in Iraq was made last spring. These views are consistent with a report issued earlier this month by the nonpartisan Carnegie Endowment. The report by the Carnegie Endowment concluded that the assertion that the fundamental justification for the war with Iraq, namely that Iraq possessed stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, was not real. Carnegie also concluded: Administration officials systematically misrepresented the threat from Iraq's nuclear , chemical, and biological weapons programs and ballistic missile programs. Given the conclusion by the Carnegie Endowment, we can only get to the bottom of this issue by thoroughly examining the performance of both the intelligence community and senior administration officials. This has been quite a remarkable turnaround from the debate we had 4 or 5 months ago. During that debate, many of us proposed an independent commission to look at these issues. At that point, there was a debate about whether or not we had all the facts and whether or not the Intelligence Committee in the Senate was prepared to ascertain what the facts were. But consider now the revelations that have occurred just in the last few days, much less the last several months. You have the Secretary of State reversing his public position with regard to weapons of mass destruction. You have the chief weapons investigator working for this Government publicly declaring that weapons do not exist and questioning whether they did exist at any time in recent years. You have the Carnegie Endowment, one of the most respected nonpartisan organizations that also reviewed the matter, coming to to a similar conclusion. The question comes now: What do we do about it? We can ignore it. We can hope it will just go away. Or we can investigate it, research it, try to learn from it to ensure that mistakes of this consequence won't happen again in the future. Unfortunately, it appears neither the administration nor the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee share this view. According to Dr. Kay, he is stepping down in large part because the administration has reduced his team of analysts, translators, and interrogators working on the search for Saddam's weapons of mass destruction. I cannot overstate the significance of these claims. They contributed directly to the decision to go to war last spring. As many of us have said on several occasions, this obviously wasn't the only motivation, but it was clearly a major part of this decision for many of us. Since we made that fateful decision, over 500 Americans have been killed, over 2,000 have been wounded, and over [Page: S226] GPO's PDF 100,000 are still deployed in harm's way. In addition, published reports indicate the lack of evidence has badly damaged America's credibility around the world. So given all of this, I cannot understand why we would not want to get to the bottom of this issue as quickly as possible. We should be dedicating more resources to getting these answers not less. I am troubled too by the position of the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. This committee has the obligation and the authority to examine both the intelligence community and the administration's role in the intelligence failures leading up to the war with Iraq. Yet throughout all of the last session of Congress, the chairman steadfastly refused to permit the committee to meet its responsibilities. We are at the start of a new session of Congress now, with the advantage of a lot more information than we had weeks or months ago. In the wake of the statements by Secretary Powell and Dr. Kay, and the conclusions of the nonpartisan Carnegie Endowment, I urge the chairman of the Intelligence Committee to reconsider his position and that of the majority. We will work within the Intelligence Committee to urge the chairman to live up to those obligations. If he continues to fail to do so, we will again bring legislation to the Senate floor to establish a nonpartisan, independent commission to look at how intelligence was used by the intelligence community and this administration. Our troops in Iraq and the American people deserve a full and comprehensive review of all aspects of their Government's actions prior to the start of the Iraqi war. I hope all members of the Intelligence Committee, and indeed the entire Senate, will work with us to give them just that. Madam President, we will continue to come to the floor to review these matters and to express in the most determined way that it is the responsibility of this Senate to live up to its obligations--the Intelligence Committee, the other committees of jurisdiction, and the broad membership--especially when we become aware of revelations and conclusions drawn by experts in the field. We simply cannot afford to ignore what happened, why it happened, and how we can prevent it from happening again. I yield the floor.
4B) Search for the Truth – Floor Statement The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Neugebauer). Under a previous order of the House, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Hoeffel) is recognized for 5 minutes. Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, last week during the State of the Union address President Bush spoke to us about the Iraqi War and described how the Kay report, the Dr. David Kay report, indicated dozens of instances of what the President called weapons of mass destruction-related program activities. Now, I am not sure what a weapons of mass destruction-related program activity is, but I do know what it is not. It is not a weapon of mass destruction, because we have not found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. And, in fact, David Kay himself has said so. He has resigned his position as the United States Chief Weapons Inspector in Iraq, working for the CIA. He has stated that in his opinion, Iraq does not have stockpiles of chemical weapons of mass destruction or biological weapons of mass destruction, that Iraq does not have nuclear weapons, and any nuclear program was rudimentary in nature, according to Dr. Kay. He feels that these stockpiles do not exist now and did not exist before we went to war with Iraq in March of 2003. Now, this is a startling conclusion from our Chief Weapons Inspector because it is so different from what the Bush administration told us in the fall of 2002 in the run-up to the congressional vote of whether or not to give congressional authority to the President to use military authority to deal with what was described as the imminent threat to peace, to regional peace and world peace and to the United States, the imminent threat of the use of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Mr. Speaker, I voted to give the President that authority based upon the representations of the administration because I wanted to disarm Saddam Hussein of those weapons of mass destruction. Now, we have finally captured Saddam Hussein, and I am glad that we have; I am glad he is out of power. I believe both Iraq and America are better off now that he is in custody. But, Mr. Speaker, we have not found those weapons of mass destruction; and we now have a report from Dr. Kay that those weapons of mass destruction did not exist and they do not exist today. Hussein had weapons of mass destruction in the 1980s. We know that because he used them in murderous ways against his own citizens, the Kurds in northern Iraq, and he used them to murder tens of thousands of Iranian citizens. But the issue is not what he had in the 1980s. The issue is whether he had such stockpiles in 2002 and 2003. We were told with complete certainty by the President, by the Vice President, I was told with 20 other Members of the House in a briefing in the White House on October 2, 2002, by Condoleezza Rice and George Tenet that there was complete certainty that Iraq possessed these weapons of mass destruction. And based upon those representations, I voted with many of my colleagues to give the President that war authority. Now, it is now clear that there were half-truths and deceptions from the administration as well as mistakes from the Intelligence Community. And I stand here tonight to call for an independent investigation, an independent review, of both the work product of the Intelligence Community of the United States and the work of the administration policymakers that stated with such clarity that we faced an imminent threat from Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. Clearly the American people were misled. Clearly the Congress was misled. I was misled by the Bush administration and by the United States intelligence agencies. The President and the Vice President continue to want the American people [Page: H119] GPO's PDF to believe that there was this threat and is this threat of weapons of mass destruction. The President talked about WMD-related program activities last week without clarifying what they were. The Vice President continues to insist that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. These statements are contrary to the report of the Weapons Inspector, Dr. Kay. I call for an independent investigation and review so that we can get to the bottom and find out the truth.
4C) Focusing Congress’ Attention on the Basis for War in Iraq – Floor Statement The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Hinchey) is recognized for 5 minutes. Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Speaker, as we begin this second session of the 108th Congress, there is a great deal of very important work that remains for us to accomplish. Primarily, among those things that need to be done is simply this: this Congress needs to focus its attention on the basis for the war in Iraq, why we are there; why that war was carried out; and what were the basic reasons behind it. We were told initially by the administration that there was a connection between Iraq and the attack on our country of September 11, 2001, and that there was a relationship between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. That has proven to be completely false. Subsequently, this Congress was told repeatedly, even in classified briefings right here on the floor of the House of Representatives, carried out by the Secretary of Defense and others, that the reason we were going to war in Iraq was because of the fact that Iraq possessed chemical and biological weapons, so-called weapons of mass destruction. And as the President put it, Iraq constituted a deep and ongoing threat to the United States; and as Vice President Cheney put it, Iraq constitutes an imminent threat to the United States because of these so-called weapons of mass destruction, chemical and biological weapons, which were alleged to be in Iraq in large numbers. We have now come to learn quite clearly that that was wrong, that there were no weapons of mass destruction, no chemical or biological weapons in any significant amount held in Iraq by Saddam Hussein or by anyone else. Many of us knew that. Many of us knew that 15 months ago when this Congress voted on a resolution authorizing the administration to carry out a war in Iraq. We knew it, we said so, and we voted against that resolution. Nevertheless, many others were taken in by what was coming out of the White House and elsewhere within the administration. And they voted for the war in Iraq, many of them, based on the belief that they were being told [Page: H117] GPO's PDF the truth about the possession of weapons of mass destruction by the regime of Saddam Hussein. Again, now we know very clearly that that was not the case and that the administration knew it was not the case. Most recently we have the report from the outgoing head of the American weapons inspection team in Iraq, David Kay. David Kay has now completed his report as he retires from that position, and he has said to us very, very clearly in that report that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, no chemical or biological weapons; that the biological and chemical weapons that were there, many of them were destroyed in the first Gulf War in 1991 and the rest were discovered and destroyed by the ongoing United Nations weapons inspection program. We also have information from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, which has done a very comprehensive study of the issue of so-called weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace has set forth in a very detailed report that there were no weapons of mass destruction held by the Saddam Hussein regime not since the end of the first Gulf War, and shortly thereafter they were destroyed as a result of weapons inspection program, the U.N. weapons inspection program. Again, another clear indication that the premise that was laid forth by the administration to this Congress in order to get a resolution passed authorizing the carrying out of that war was false. It was fabricated. And this Congress was misled. That leaves us with the very serious problem of finding out why that was done and who was responsible for doing it. That is important because of the situation we currently find ourselves in in Iraq, including the situation we find ourselves in with regard to the war on terrorism. Our attention has been diverted away from al Qaeda and away from the war on terrorism. And we find ourselves in Iraq in a war that has already cost more than 500 American lives. The lives of more than 500 American servicemen and -women have been lost. Another more than 2,500 American servicemen and -women have been seriously wounded, all on the basis of pretense. Therefore, we must conduct a complete and thorough investigation as to
what happened, and that investigation must commence immediately.
4D) New Information on Iraq’s Possession of WMD – Floor Statement Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I express my appreciation to the Senator from North Dakota for the case that he has made, which has been very disturbing to us as two Senators, because the information we have received over the last several days causes us not only to scratch our heads but to shake our heads--that the intelligence we received in the secure rooms of this Capitol complex was either so faulty that we are in a considerable degree of vulnerability, that we are not getting accurate information upon which to defend this country, or that the information that was presented to us was faulty not because of the sources of that information and the analysis but there was some suggestion of coloring that information to reach a certain conclusion. I think this is far beyond Republicans and Democrats. This is about defense of the homeland. This is about America. Just because this has come up in January of an election year, with Dr. Kay coming forth and telling us today in the Armed Services Committee that he concluded this last November, then it is sure time for us to get some answers for the protection of this country and its people. I want to take this occasion to inform the Senate of specific information that I was given, which turns out not to be true. I was one of 77 Senators who voted for the resolution in October of 2002 to authorize the expenditure of funds for the President to engage in an attack on Iraq. I voted for it. I want to tell you some specific information that I received that had a great deal of bearing on my conclusion to vote for that resolution. There were other factors, but this information was very convincing to me that there was an imminent peril to the interests of the United States. I, along with nearly every Senator in this Chamber, in that secure room of this Capitol complex, was not only told there were weapons of mass destruction --specifically chemical and biological--but I was looked at straight in the face and told that Saddam Hussein had the means of delivering those biological and chemical weapons of mass destruction by unmanned drones, called UAVs, unmanned aerial vehicles. Further, I was looked at straight in the face and told that UAVs could be launched from ships off the Atlantic coast to attack eastern seaboard cities of the United States. Is it any wonder that I concluded there was an imminent peril to the United States? The first public disclosure of that information occurred perhaps a couple of weeks later, when the information was told to us. It was prior to the vote on the resolution and it was in a highly classified setting in a secure room. But the first public disclosure of that information was when the President addressed the Nation on TV. He said that Saddam Hussein possessed UAVs. Later, the Secretary of State, Colin Powell, in his presentation to the United Nations, in a very dramatic and effective presentation, expanded that and suggested the possibility that UAVs could be launched against the homeland, having been transported out of Iraq. The information was made public, but it was made public after we had already voted on the resolution, and at the time there was nothing to contradict that. We now know, after the fact and on the basis of Dr. Kay's testimony today in the Senate Armed Services Committee, that the information was false; and not only that there were not weapons of mass destruction --chemical and biological--but there was no fleet of UAVs, unmanned aerial vehicles, nor was there any capability of putting UAVs on ships and transporting them to the Atlantic coast and launching them at U.S. cities on the eastern seaboard. I am upset that the degree of specificity I was given a year and a half ago, prior to my vote, was not only inaccurate; it was patently false. I want some further explanations. Now, what I have found after the fact--and I presented this to Dr. Kay this morning in the Senate Armed Services Committee--is there was a vigorous dispute within the intelligence community as to what the CIA had concluded was accurate about those UAVs and about their ability to be used elsewhere outside of Iraq. Not only was it in vigorous dispute, there was an outright denial that the information was accurate. That was all within the intelligence community. But I didn't find that out before my vote. I wasn't told that. I wasn't told that there was a vigorous debate going on as to whether or not that was accurate information. I was given that information as if it were fact, and any reasonable person then would logically conclude that the interests of the United States and its people were in immediate jeopardy and peril. That has turned out not to be true. We need some answers, and I saw the ranking member of the Armed Services Committee ask the chairman for a further investigation into this matter. I heard the chairman say: I will take it under consideration. I hope that is a positive sign and not a negative sign. We need to get to the bottom of this for the protection of our country. It is too bad this is coming up in the year 2004, which happens to coincide with the Presidential election, because people are going to immediately say this is partisan politics. The fact is, this is the politics of the protection of our country, and we need some answers. I don't want to be voting on war resolutions in the future based on information that is patently false when everybody is telling me, looking me eyeball to eyeball, that it is true. I am hoping, as the Senator from North Dakota has suggested, that we have a convening of the appropriate intelligence officials in the secure room and that members of the intelligence community, as well as members of the administration, will come and explain, in addition to what Dr. Kay has explained on the public record--which is revealing enough in itself--what, in fact, happened and how we are going to correct the process and the analysis of information so that we never have this kind of miscalculation and misinformation again. Either the intelligence community's self-examination, its analysis was hugely faulty, or there were the hints at taking information and coloring it, called stacking the news and coming out with a conclusion that was wanted. I think we have to find out what happened. It is not a question of whether or not Saddam Hussein ought to be gone. Thank goodness he is gone. That probably had a very salutary effect on the United States in that part of the world, that the United States will back up its intentions with force. But when the United States makes decisions about a preemptive war, a war now that has claimed the lives of over 500 American men and women, then we have to have a much higher standard of accuracy of the information upon which we make the judgments to send America's finest on to the battlefield. I can tell you about all the soldiers from Florida who are now laid to rest. There are plenty of reasons I am raising these questions, but if for no other reason than to raise the questions for the mamas and the daddies and the spouses and the children of those soldiers. That is plenty justification enough. But the justification is much greater, and that is the justification of making sure we can protect ourselves in the future. In a war against terrorists, our defense is only going to be as good as the information we receive to stop the terrorists. We had a colossal failure of intelligence on September 11, 2 years ago. We can't afford that kind of failure again. Yet we have just found out that when we were given the reasons for going to war, that was faulty intelligence. America can't afford too many more of these, for the protection of ourselves and our loved ones. [Page: S312] GPO's PDF This is something of considerable concern to me personally. I know it is of considerable concern to the rest of the Senate. I hope the majority leader of this Senate, Senator Frist, is going to listen to those of us in this Chamber who say that this request has nothing to do with politics. Let's get to the bottom of what is the truth and how we make sure that information in the future is true. Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll. The assistant journal clerk proceeded to call the roll. Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. 4E) America’s Intelligence-Gathering Apparatus – Floor Statement AMERICA'S INTELLIGENCE-GATHERING APPARATUS Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, this morning and part of this afternoon Mr. David Kay who was the top U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq until he resigned last week testified before the Armed Services Committee. Mr. Kay has been interviewed extensively on media programs, including the ``Today'' show, and interviewed by Reuters, and others, so I have read a substantial amount of what he has said. And I listened today to his testimony, at least in part, before the Senate Armed Services Committee. The debate that has gone on, and I suspect the debate that will ensue from his testimony today, will perhaps be a debate about whether the right decision was made when this country decided to embark on this mission in Iraq with United States troops, which has resulted in the elimination and removal of Saddam Hussein as President of that country. In many ways, I think that is not the most relevant debate to have at this moment. I think the debate to have at this moment is on what the implications of what Mr. Kay has said to us are for the safety and the security of this country, and what its implications are for the ability of this country to understand where dangers exist around the rest of the world, and where our national security is at stake. Let me see if I can paraphrase some of what Mr. Kay has said. He told the Armed Services Committee that the failure to turn up weapons of mass destruction in Iraq has exposed weaknesses in America's intelligence-gathering apparatus. Is there a time in which our intelligence-gathering apparatus has been more important to this country than this particular time? In the shadow of 9/11/2001, with the prospect of terrorists wanting again to commit an act of terror in this country, we are required to accept the judgment of our intelligence community: the best intelligence we have available to us that this is a threat or that is a threat. Now Mr. Kay says that what we believed about Iraq's weapons was almost all wrong. And I certainly include myself here. And he says the intelligence community has failed, quote, unquote, the President. Well, look, if the intelligence community has failed--and it seems clearly to have failed in a significant way--then it has failed not only the President of the United States, it has failed this Senate, and it has failed the people of the United States. I, and all of my colleagues, have sat in the Intelligence Committee room here in the Senate. That very special room, which is designed for top secret briefings, is a room in which all of us have had top secret briefing after top secret briefing from CIA, from Condoleezza Rice, the National Security Adviser, and from others. In that room, eyeball to eyeball with our intelligence community, we have been told certain things that they believe to be true with respect to a threat--the threat from Iraq, the threat of weapons of mass destruction, and others. If, in fact, there is a failure--and it appears to me that there is a failure; the top weapons inspector says there is a failure--if that failure exists--and it does--then it is a failure not just for the President of the United States, it is a failure for this country and for this Senate. All of us, then, had been told, face to face by our intelligence community, what they expected to be the case in Iraq, and it turns out not to be the case. Now, do people have a right to be wrong? Yes, they do. But we spend billions and billions and billions of dollars on intelligence, and if this country--in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of 9/11, and confronting the prospect of future terrorist attacks--does not have an intelligence community that gives us great confidence, then we are in trouble. I would think the President, and certainly this Congress, should demand to know what happened. We ought to seek answers. There has to be accountability. Where does the buck stop? If, in fact, we have had a failure of our intelligence community--again, not my words, the words of Mr. David Kay, the top weapons inspector; words he uttered today before the Armed Services Committee, words he uttered in interview after interview--if there is, in fact, a failure, then we ought to demand immediately to understand: What was the failure? How did it occur? Whose responsibility was it? And, most importantly, how do we fix it on an urgent basis? Let me read some of the quotes. I will not read the quotes from today's hearing because I do not have them all, although I was able to listen to much of the hearing. But this is from Mr. Kay's appearance on the ``Today'' show, which I [Page: S310] GPO's PDF watched with great interest. He was asked on the ``Today'' show about the presentation before the United Nations of Secretary of State Colin Powell. As you know, we received top secret briefings, and then we received briefings in other venues from the Vice President, from Condoleezza Rice, and others in the administration. Following those briefings, the Secretary of State made a lengthy presentation to the United Nations, and he set out chapter and verse, including pictures and charts, of the threat that existed. I want to read to you the question that was asked: Almost a year ago Secretary of State Colin Powell addressed the United Nations. Here's what he had to say. Then they showed a tape of Secretary Powell at the U.N. saying, ``[Our] conservative estimate [is] that Iraq today has a stockpile of between 100 and 500 tons of chemical weapons agents.'' The interviewer then asked Mr. Kay: ``Is that conservative or is it just plain wrong?'' Mr. Kay responds: No, I think that was the estimate based on information and intelligence before the war. It turns out to be wrong, just wrong. Next question: So what was the problem with the intelligence? Why were we so wrong? Mr. Kay said: Well, don't forget, Iraq is not the only place we have been wrong recently. We have been wrong about Iran . We have been wrong about Libya's program. We clearly need a renovation of our ability to collect intelligence. The question was asked: Here is what you said to Tom Brokaw: ``Clearly the intelligence we went to war on was inaccurate, wrong. We need to understand why that was. If anyone was abused by the intelligence, it was the President of the United States rather than the other way around.'' My point is simple: If anyone was abused in this country by bad intelligence, by inaccurate intelligence, it is not just the President, it is Members of the Senate who sat eyeball to eyeball with our intelligence officers and with those who run our intelligence community who told us what they believed to be the case, which turns out now not to be accurate. The American people were failed. The Senate was failed. To use another word Mr. Kay used, the President was failed. So why is it the case that we don't see someone standing on the tallest stump saying: There is something wrong here. We need to get to the bottom of it, and now. This country's security depends on it. Today somewhere someone is assessing intelligence picked up over telephone lines or computer transmittals or any number of ways to evaluate what is happening with terrorist cells. Where might they be planning to attack us. What might the attack be when they attempt to enter this country once again and kill Americans. Well, that same intelligence community that has been so wrong, according to Mr. Kay--and I think now according to most Members of the Senate who would assess that--are they the ones still analyzing this? My question is where is the accountability? I think the President and the Congress ought to join together in a common bond and common interest to demand how this happened. There isn't any question that we ought to have a completely independent commission evaluating and studying and investigating this right now. There ought to be an independent investigation right now. I hope finally the Congress will do that. Second, I believe next week, Mr. Tenet, Condoleezza Rice ought to be invited to the intelligence room and all 100 Senators ought to hear their response to this proposition that the intelligence community has failed us. This isn't a politician speaking. This is a top weapons inspector who just came from Iraq. This is Mr. Kay. I remember when Mr. Kay was appointed with great fanfare. This is a straight shooter, a tough guy, no nonsense. He went to Iraq. He came back, and he finally quit. He said there weren't weapons of mass destruction. The intelligence was bad. The intelligence community failed this President. He forgot to say, failed this Congress and failed the American people. I am telling you, whether it is tomorrow or next week or next month, this country's security and safety rest on good intelligence. If we have questions about an intelligence community that Mr. Kay says has failed us and if we don't, with great urgency, rush to find out what happened with an independent evaluation, shame on us. This isn't about politics. It is about the safety of America. It is about being effective in the fight against terrorism. It is about having an intelligence community that works, that gets it right, and that doesn't fail this President or this Congress or this country. I hope Senator Frist and Democratic leader DASCHLE will ask Mr. Tenet to come to room 407 and address all 100 Senators and answer all of the questions of the Senators that stem from this testimony of the top weapons inspector who has said our intelligence community failed us. We ought to do that, and we ought to do it now. Days, weeks, or months should not go by without us having answers to this question. It is easy to be critical. It is much more difficult to be constructive. It is not being critical for Mr. Kay, the top weapons inspector appointed by President George W. Bush, to come to this Congress and tell the truth. When he tells the truth, we have a responsibility to follow that truth wherever it leads. There are some here who don't want to do that. They are worried about politics. It doesn't matter who is President. We have an intelligence community on which we spend a great deal of money. In fact, the amount is classified information. The American people should trust me when I say we spend a substantial amount of money on intelligence. The security and safety of this country and the American people rests on our ability to make sure that money is spent wisely in an intelligence community that gets it right and provides good information to this country. We cannot any longer decide this is business as usual, one more hearing, one more set of questions that remains unanswered. Saddam Hussein is gone, and the world is better for it. Saddam Hussein was a bad guy. We opened up football-field-sized graves in Iraq with tens of thousands of skeletons of people murdered by this regime. That is a fact. Saddam Hussein crawled into a rat hole. That says a lot about him. He is now in jail, soon to be on trial, perhaps soon to meet with the ultimate penalty. This is not about Saddam Hussein. This discussion is about whether this country is able to protect itself from a terrorist attack a month from now or a year from now. Do we have an intelligence community that gets it right? Mr. Kay seems to say no. That community has failed us. He says they have not just failed in Iraq, they have gotten it wrong in Libya and Iran . We need a renovation of our ability to collect intelligence. Incidentally, Mr. Kay, former top weapons inspector of this President, said this morning he favors an independent commission to take a look at and investigate the failure of the intelligence community. I hope we will move with great haste to embrace that recommendation. It is not just his recommendation. Senator Daschle and others have made that same recommendation in the Senate. We need to move with great urgency. This is about the safety and security of our country. My colleague from Florida is on the floor and wishes to speak to an issue. Time is short. We have an urgent requirement to pursue this issue. I call on Senator Frist next week to give all of us here in the Senate the opportunity to hear and question Mr. Tenet, head of the CIA, as well as Condoleezza Rice, National Security Adviser. We should have that opportunity because they, in top secret briefings, gave us information. They represented the intelligence, the community of intelligence and the assessment of the intelligence community prior to going to war in Iraq. That assessment is what Mr. Kay refers to when he says there was a failure. The assessment that apparently was accepted--perhaps embraced, certainly embraced--by the Secretary of State when he went to New York and made his presentation to the United Nations was a failure of intelligence. I think the Secretary of State would want these answers. The President certainly needs these answers. He should demand it this afternoon. The Senate deserves these answers next week at the very latest. [Page: S311] GPO's PDF I call on Senator Frist to convene a meeting next week of the 100 Senators in our Intelligence Committee room so we can question and hear from the head of the CIA and the head of the National Security Council, Mr. Tenet and Ms. Rice. Mr. Tenet and Ms. Rice ought to present themselves, and we should begin this process of finding out what happened. Why did it happen. Who is accountable, and where does the buck stop. I yield the floor.
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