Congressional Record Weekly UpdateFebruary 9-13, 2004Return to the Congressional Report Weekly. CHEM/ BIO AND WMD TERRORISM ************************************ 3B) Secure Existing Aviation Loopholde (SEAL) Act SPEECH OF HON. EDWARD J. MARKEY OF MASSACHUSETTS IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2004
[Page: E179] GPO's PDF
3C) International Weapons of Mass Destruction Informant Act (S. 2069) 108th CONGRESS 2d Session S. 2069 To expand the S visa classification to include aliens who are in possession of critical reliable information with respect to weapons of mass destruction, to establish a Weapons of Mass Destruction Informant Center, and for other purposes. IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES February 12, 2004Mr. BROWNBACK (for himself and Mr. BAYH) introduced the following bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on the Judiciary A BILL To expand the S visa classification to include aliens who are in possession of critical reliable information with respect to weapons of mass destruction, to establish a Weapons of Mass Destruction Informant Center, and for other purposes. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.This Act may be cited as the `International Weapons of Mass Destruction Informant Act'. SEC. 2. S VISA.(a) EXPANSION OF S VISA CLASSIFICATION- Section 101(a)(15)(S) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1101(a)(15)(S)) is amended-- (1) in clause (i)-- (A) by striking `Attorney General' each place that term appears and inserting `Secretary of Homeland Security'; and (B) by striking `or' at the end; and (2) in clause (ii)-- (A) by striking `Attorney General' and inserting `Secretary of Homeland Security'; and (B) by striking `1956,' and all that follows through `the alien;' and inserting the following: `1956; or `(iii) who the Secretary of Homeland Security and the Secretary of State, in consultation with the Director of Central Intelligence, jointly determine-- `(I) is in possession of critical reliable information concerning the activities of governments or organizations, or their agents, representatives, or officials, with respect to weapons of mass destruction and related delivery systems, if such governments or organizations are at risk of developing, selling, or transferring such weapons or related delivery systems; and `(II) is willing to supply or has supplied, fully and in good faith, information described in subclause (I) to appropriate persons within the United States Government; and, if the Secretary of Homeland Security (or with respect to clause (ii), the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Homeland Security jointly) considers it to be appropriate, the spouse, married and unmarried sons and daughters, and parents of an alien described in clause (i), (ii), or (iii) if accompanying, or following to join, the alien;'. (b) NUMERICAL LIMITATION- Section 214(k)(1) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1184(k)(1)) is amended by striking `The number of aliens' and all that follows through the period and inserting the following: `The number of aliens who may be provided a visa as nonimmigrants under section 101(a)(15)(S) in any fiscal year may not exceed 3,500.'. SEC. 3. WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION INFORMANT CENTER.(a) ESTABLISHMENT- There is established within the Directorate for Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection of the Department of Homeland Security a Weapons of Mass Destruction Informant Center. (b) COORDINATOR- The Assistant Secretary with responsibility for the Directorate for Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection shall appoint a coordinator to execute the responsibilities, as described in subsection (c), of the Weapons of Mass Destruction Informant Center. (c) RESPONSIBILITIES- The Weapons of Mass Destruction Informant Center established under subsection (a) shall-- (1) receive all raw information provided from aliens who are provided a visa under section 101(a)(15)(S)(iii) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C 1101(a)(15)(S)(iii)), as added by section 101 of this Act; (2) report all information that is provided by such aliens and is related to the development, sale, or transfer of weapons of mass destruction and related delivery systems, materials, and technologies to senior officials at the Department of Homeland Security, the Central Intelligence Agency, and other relevant components of the intelligence and law enforcement communities, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation; (3) ensure that all aliens who have provided critical, reliable information concerning the activities of any government or organization, or their agents, representatives, or officials, with respect to weapons of mass destruction and related delivery systems, materials, and technologies, if such governments or organizations are at risk of using or exporting such weapons or related delivery systems, are given the highest consideration for visas described in such section 101(a)(15)(S)(iii); (4) educate consular officers at the Department of State, and immigration inspectors and examiners at the Department of Homeland Security, regarding the visa classification described in such section 101(a)(15)(S)(iii); (5) facilitate, receive, and evaluate visa requests for nonimmigrants described in such section 101(a)(15)(S)(iii) in consultation with appropriate personnel both within and outside of the Department of Homeland Security; (6) if a visa described in such section 101(a)(15)(S)(iii) is approved, act in coordination with the Director of the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services and other appropriate government agencies to facilitate the issuance of such visas, including additional visas as are considered to be appropriate for the spouse, married or unmarried sons and daughters, and parents of the alien whose request was granted; (7) facilitate the cooperation of aliens who receive such visas with the United States Government in ways that further the purposes of the visa; (8) ensure that aliens who receive such visas comply with the terms of the visa; and (9) ensure that such visas are not utilized as a method of gaining entry into the United States for any purpose other than those outlined in this Act.
IRAQ / IRAN AND WMD **************************** 4A) Intelligence Community Assessments Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I rise to comment on the controversy surrounding the intelligence community's assessments of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs and capabilities in the months leading up to the military action in Iraq. It has been suggested that the intelligence community failed policymakers by presenting a picture of Iraq's WMD capacities that appears to have been far more advanced than the reality on the ground. It has been suggested that, as we have all heard, certain pieces of information were presented as certainties when, in reality, the accuracy of the information was very much in dispute among experts within the intelligence community. I made a concerted effort to go to every briefing that was offered, and I think I largely succeeded, or maybe had entirely succeeded. I went to briefings for all Members, and I also went, of course, to the special briefings that were held for members of the Foreign Relations Committee. I am not a member of the Intelligence Committee and perhaps that committee had access to information dramatically different from what was put before the rest of us. What I recall is that the CIA representatives who briefed us were careful and their statements were qualified. As CIA Director George Tenet recently indicated, it was made clear disagreements existed about how to interpret some pieces of information. What I remember about the CIA is that they played it straight. I wish I could say the same about the political rhetoric that some in the administration used to characterize the content of those briefings. Of course, I am certainly not saying the CIA is perfect or that the U.S. intelligence community is perfect. No one who reviewed the joint Intelligence Committee's report on 9/11 would make such a claim. And I am not asserting that all of the CIA's information and analysis presented in the lead-up to the Iraq war was correct. But what I am saying is, in the many briefings I attended I simply saw no evidence--no evidence--to support the accusations that the CIA was trying to spin the facts or that they were trying to lead us in one direction or another. My sense was that they were professionals, and I remember being very grateful for their thorough and candid presentations. In fact, in those briefings, they didn't give us easy answers, and that made our decisions tougher. But the people expect us to make tough decisions. Time and again, I came away from the briefing room concerned about the unanswered questions related to Iraq's chemical and biological weapons capacities. But I also came away each time with the conclusion that we had no evidence of any imminent threat. Indeed, Director Tenet acknowledged that the CIA never characterized Iraq's WMD programs as an imminent threat when Mr. Tenet made his remarks last week. When the President of the United States called Iraq ``a threat of unique urgency,'' that sure sounded a lot like imminent to many ears. When senior officials, speaking about Iraq, told us they did not want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud, that sure sounded like an imminent threat of nuclear attack to most Americans. Yet just last week, CIA Director Tenet reminded the country the agency made two judgments that are too often overlooked today. They said: [Page: S765] Saddam did not have a nuclear weapon and probably would have been unable to make one until 2007 to 2009. Of course, that is a serious issue certainly but not an imminent threat. The fact that the briefings we received did not present a picture of an imminent threat certainly did not mean there was no cause for concern or that the right course of action would have been to do nothing. Those who claim the only choices before us were rushing to war or being utterly complacent are quite simply misleading the American people. I had long supported regime change in Iraq, and I am pleased that Saddam Hussein's regime has fallen. But the facts did not suggest that we had to invade Iraq in March of 2003. That means we could have had more time to build a solid international coalition, to combat some of the most damaging misperceptions of American motives and intentions, and more time to put in place a plan of action that would address our security interests without leaving American troops and American taxpayers holding the bag at the end of the day, bogged down in a risky occupation and mortgaging our children's future to pay for it. Director Tenet said last week: To understand a difficult topic like Iraq takes patience and care. He is right. The same is true of understanding this debate and this controversy. That is why it is so important to discuss these issues carefully and responsibly. It is important because the stakes are so very high and because the public, especially our men and women in uniform and their families, who take tremendous risks and make tremendous sacrifices to serve this country, has every right to know what happened, what the facts were, what we got right and what we got wrong. One of the difficulties for those of us who attend classified briefings, of course, is that we have an obligation to protect the content of those briefings. So we are limited in what we can say publicly. We are left to generalize and we run the risk of characterizing the same briefings in very different ways, leading us to debates about one person's interpretation versus another's. For this reason, an independent commission is desperately needed. I am glad the President has agreed to establish a commission to examine our prewar intelligence. But I am concerned about the specifics of the commission's mandate. It is charged with examining the intelligence community's capacity to collect, process, analyze, produce, and disseminate information concerning the capabilities, intentions, and activities of foreign powers relating to the design, development, manufacture and acquisition, possession, proliferation, transfer, testing, potential or threatened use or use of WMD, related means of delivery, and other related threats of the 21st century. All of this, of course, is useful. In the wake of the horror of September 11, 2001, we must make every effort to ensure that America's intelligence services are as reliable and effective and accountable as they possibly can be. As I have indicated, I believe a large part of our problem in the runup to the war in Iraq was a problem of how intelligence was used, how it was invoked, sometimes out of context, and how in some cases it was used in powerful and often frightening rhetoric aimed at painting a much more conclusive picture than the actual intelligence revealed. Intelligence, as all data, can be manipulated. I am concerned about the appearance of a concerted effort to interpret information to justify a seemingly predetermined course of action and to too easily disregard information that could not be used for this purpose. I think such an approach serves no one. I think it actually diminishes American power. I think it risks making this country far less secure. So we must investigate matters such as the activities of the Office of Special Plans at the Pentagon, which seems to have been charged with sifting through information to assemble only those pieces that bolstered the case for going to war. We must also address the way that intelligence was alluded to in public settings, in ways that painted a much more decisive picture than actually existed. Obviously, not all Americans could be in the briefing room, but all Americans hear the public debate. Those of us who receive and act on classified briefings have a vitally important responsibility to ensure that we never abuse their trust. I believe we need to make sure that in our efforts to review intelligence-gathering capacities and analysis capacities we do not fail to take a hard look at how policymakers employ intelligence in public remarks. Our words and our characterizations matter. The context that it is or is not provided matters. Even now some would insist that Iraq was a threat to America because even if Saddam Hussein did not have WMD, he had the capacity to make a weapon. But chemical or biological weapons could be produced in dual-use facilities in almost every country that has any significant domestic, pharmaceutical, or chemical manufacturing capacity. This is a serious issue to be sure, but it does not make the case for the threat of unique urgency a good case. It does not make for a threat of unique urgency directed at the American people. Finally, I propose that we need to take a look at how people responded and prepared for things we were warned about in briefings about Iraq, some of which then became public knowledge. Given what we all heard in the briefing room about the possibility that Iraq continued to possess biological and chemical weapons stockpiles and given the administration's clear belief that such stockpiles existed, why was there no better policy planning and execution when it came to rounding up these things? Former chief weapons inspector David Kay has suggested that we may just all have to live with, as he called it, an unresolved ambiguity about what happened, that he traces to the failure on April 9 to establish immediate physical security in Iraq. The looting that ensued has introduced a host of alarming unknowns into our consideration of what might have happened to the materiel that may or may not have existed in the first place and, quite frankly, any assertion that the United States would not have anticipated this looting has no credibility whatsoever. From think tanks to military planners to nongovernmental organizations, there were multiple, consistent, and high-level warnings about the risks of chaos and looting in the wake of the regime's fall. There were plenty of questions about this issue which were never satisfactorily answered in the lead-up to war. In fact, I spent over 6 months, primarily in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, repeatedly asking whatever administration witness I could the same important questions. For example, I remember asking Secretary Powell in 2002: Are you aware of any significant planning for securing weapons of mass destruction sites in Iraq in the event of a military invasion if the Government would be toppled and some degree of chaos were to rein for some period? Is there not a very real risk that WMD and the means to make them will be taken out of the country or sold off to exactly the kind of nonstate actors that the United States is worried about? Do we know enough about where WMD sites are to be confident in our ability to secure them, I asked the Secretary of State? Secretary Powell could provide no details. He simply assured me that our military planners were making this issue their highest priority. Those military planners never provided any details, either. In the end, we are left with video footage of the unchecked looting of the country, with unanswered questions, with David Kay's unresolved ambiguity. So we have a case of inadequate follow-up on a vitally important issue presented to us by the intelligence community and that, too, is something we need to review and address in the interest of national security. We have a lot of work to do. Some of that certainly does involve reforms of the intelligence community. I believe our biggest problems did not come in the briefing room. In the interest of our national security, in the interest of protecting the public's trust in Government, in the interest of this country's global prestige and power to persuade, we have to avoid scapegoating tactics. We have to face some hard truths about the process and the rhetoric that led this country into Iraq in March 2003. I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri. [Page: S766] Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I came to the Chamber to speak about the highway bill, and obviously we hope to be talking about that later on today, but having taken the responsibility of serving on the Intelligence Committee, I thought I might add a few comments to the discussions begun by my colleague from Wisconsin. Let's be clear; the Senate Intelligence Committee on a bipartisan basis has launched a massive effort to determine whether our intelligence was accurate, where it had holes in it, where are our assessments and our estimates. In intelligence, they are all estimates. The only time there is absolute confirmation that something has happened is when the World Trade Center comes down or when the Pentagon is hit. Then one knows that terrorists have planned something and have executed it. We were dealing with an intelligence system that provided estimates throughout the 1990s and no action was taken. The intelligence service provided estimates about the danger of Osama bin Laden. We considered all kinds of actions, and then September 11 happens. Now, the September 11 commission goes in to try to determine why we did not act on the intelligence we had. The big charge there is that something should have been done about Osama bin Laden. Well, there are now published reports on the intelligence, and I would refer my colleagues to Richard Miniter's book ``Losing bin Laden.'' There were many instances where it was clear that Osama bin Laden was planning to attack the United States. In several instances, it appeared that in the 1990s we might have had an opportunity to deal with Osama bin Laden in one way or another and we chose not to do it. So right after September 11 we are looking backwards and saying, Why did we not act? Now my colleagues, primarily on the other side of the aisle, are saying, Why did we act in Iraq? Let's be perfectly clear. When people start talking about imminent threat, seeming to imply that the President said there was an imminent threat, I distinctly remember the State of the Union message in which the President said: We cannot wait until there is an imminent threat. In essence, he was saying we cannot wait until we see the second airplane heading for the second tower of the World Trade Center. Why were we suspicious of Saddam Hussein? The same reason President Clinton, Secretary Albright, Secretary Cohen, Security Council Chief Sandy Berger had? They said Saddam Hussein was a real and great threat. He was in flagrant violation of all the U.N. resolutions which followed on the cease-fire in the first gulf war. He kicked the inspectors out in 1998. We know he was the only despot alive, the only tyrant ruling a country, who used weapons of mass destruction, and he kicked the inspectors out without ever saying what he had done with them. Sure, there will be things we can find out about what we should have done differently in intelligence. There has already been public discussion about the lack of human intelligence resources. We may find that. We may find other things when we complete our work in the Intelligence Committee and submit a report to be fully declassified and discussed. We need to make our intelligence system better. I think we have gone a long way. The PATRIOT Act broke down the walls between the CIA and the FBI, which legislatively prohibited them sharing information. That was a mistake. We have changed that. Some of my colleagues say we ought to look at the use, look at what people said about that. You don't need to have a commission to do that. You have a Lexis-Nexis search to find out what people said. Are some people making charges? Yes, everybody has a right to make their comments about whether they believed the intelligence. A lot of that intelligence has been laid out in the public. I was astounded at the degree to which Secretary Powell's discussion before the United Nations in February of 2003 went into so much of the intelligence we had at the time. That was out on the table. That was the best intelligence Secretary Powell had. Published reports indicate he went through that intelligence himself and asked questions and only used those things about which he was personally satisfied the intelligence estimates were accurate. So, yes, use--we did use it. We did act. Saddam Hussein is no longer ruling a country, murdering hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people. We pulled him out of a spider hole. He said he was a great ruler of the Iraqi people. He wanted to negotiate. Well, he is in jail. You know something, Muammar Qadhafi in Libya took a look at what happened to Saddam Hussein and said: ``Oh, I don't think I want to wind up like Saddam Hussein did.'' That is what he told Italian President Berlesconi. ``I don't want to see happen to me what happened to Saddam Hussein.'' So he is coming clean based on the information we had gathered about his weaponry, his participation with Dr. Kahn of Pakistan. We knew he had weapons and was working on a weapons program and he came clean. I think that makes a great deal of sense. There has been a tremendous change in the Middle East. There has been a change because Saddam Hussein no longer rules. It is a tragedy when we lose American lives. It is a tragedy when Iraqi lives are lost. But the Iraqis are slowly but steadily taking back control of their country. Let's talk about what David Kay found. David Kay said when all the facts are known, it will appear, I believe, that Saddam Hussein was a far greater danger than our intelligence even knew. Our intelligence was not adequate before the first gulf war. We didn't know how far along he was at that time with his nuclear program. We did not know, apparently, according to Dr. Kay, how far along he was with his long-range missile program. It was a country, Dr. Kay said, which was attracting terrorists like ants to honey, to come to a country busily engaged in pursuing means of getting at the infidels. That means anybody who doesn't agree with them. It is clear Ansar al-Islam had a ricin factory manufacturing that potent chemical, attempting to weaponize it, in northeast Iraq. It was under the direction of al Zarqawi. Ansar al-Islam is part of the brotherhood with al-Qaida. By the way, you probably read in the New York Times about what we learned about the memo, from al Zarqawi. He was totally frustrated because he thinks the infidel, i.e., the coalition, our coalition, seems to be winning. We are making progress. We are turning Iraq back to the Iraqis and we have not cut and run. Their effort to conduct jihad is getting more and more difficult as we get more and more Iraqis engaged as police, as soldiers. Danger still exists, but the danger that Saddam Hussein or the terrorist groups operating out of Iraq will be able to do so with impunity and continue to pursue their weapons of mass destruction programs is much less now that Saddam Hussein is in captivity. You can talk about what the President said, what the President did, but I believe what we are seeing in the Middle East, what we have heard publicly from Dr. Kay, indicates we have taken a major step toward lessening the likelihood of terrorist attacks on the United States and toward stabilizing the Middle East so it will no longer be a hotbed and a haven for terrorists. I thank the Chair. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wisconsin. Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Missouri for his remarks. Perhaps they were intended as response to my remarks or perhaps they were general remarks, but my remarks have to do with the fact there is a perception in this country that somehow the briefings the CIA gave us with regard to Iraq were distorted or inappropriate or oversold the case for the war. My purpose here was to indicate that is not the way I saw it. I was in those briefings. As I have indicated, I felt the CIA was very measured and careful in its presentation. The Senator from Missouri can talk as much as he wants about whether Iraq worked or not, and what the consequences are. But there are real consequences when Members of both parties decide to tell the public the misinformation or the problems were the fault of the CIA. I think that is dangerous for the CIA. I think it is dangerous for our country. [Page: S767] I think it is dangerous for how we are perceived in the world. Some of the members of the other party--including the administration, frankly--and some of the members of my own party are pointing their fingers at what we heard in the briefings. I want everyone to know that I went to the briefings. I did not hear a compelling case for the war to be conducted at that time. Regardless of what has happened since, I would be happy to debate at any point whether it was the right thing to do and whether how we did it was the right thing to do. Regardless of all that, the point is, as one Senator who went to those briefings and did not hear the case made, I give the CIA credit for being measured and careful. And we should thank Mr. Tenet for his leadership. I yield the floor.
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, it is becoming increasingly obvious to people across the country that this House of Representatives is failing in its responsibility with regard to its oversight of the executive branch. I am referring here, of course, specifically to the assertions that have been made by various people in the administration, Secretary of Defense, the Vice President, others, even the President himself, with regard to the necessity to go to war in Iraq. This Congress was told and the American people were told that we needed to go to war in Iraq because of the association that existed between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda and also because the regime of Saddam Hussein possessed so-called weapons of mass destruction. Time and time again people in the administration raised the specter of the mushroom cloud to create the impression that the government of Iraq was in the process of creating nuclear weapons that could be used either directly or indirectly against the United States and therefore that the government of Saddam Hussein constituted a direct and immediate threat to the people of our country. Here, for example, are some of the words of President Bush himself. On September 12 of 2002 he said: ``The history, the logic, and the facts lead to one conclusion. Saddam Hussein's regime is a grave and gathering danger. To assume this regime's good faith is to bet the lives of millions and the peace of the world in a reckless gamble, and this is a risk we must not take.'' We know that he was wrong, and we have every reason to suspect that he knew he was wrong when he said that. But what has happened, more than 500 American lives have been lost, more than 530 to be exact. Tens of thousands of Americans have been wounded and taken out of Iraq as a result of those wounds. Hundreds of thousands of others have been killed and wounded all on the basis of what now increasingly seems clear to be fraudulent information presented to this Congress and to the American people. [Page: H414] GPO's PDF This House of Representatives has a responsibility. It has a responsibility to ensure that the executive branch is acting within the confines of the Constitution. It has a responsibility to make sure that the laws of this country are being obeyed, and it has a responsibility to make sure that the administration is not acting in ways that put American citizens in danger unnecessarily. It is increasingly clear that the war in Iraq was not a war of necessity but rather it was a war of choice, and that choice was made by high-ranking people in the Bush administration. So what is our obligation? Our obligation is clear. This Congress should at this moment be preparing to conduct a comprehensive and complete investigation into the allegations made by members of the administration. Supposedly those allegations were based upon intelligence that was supplied to the administration from the Central Intelligence Agency and other intelligence agencies within the Federal Government. But evidence that we have now suggests that the intelligence supplied to the administration was manipulated by people within the administration, perhaps even falsified, in order to justify our war in Iraq. If that is the case, and it increasingly seems obvious that it is, this Congress has a responsibility to engage in an investigation to get at the truth. To what extent have our intelligence agencies been compromised by this administration? To what extent are our intelligence agencies now less reliable than they were before? And if they have been compromised, as it seems they have, and if they are less reliable, as it seems they are, as a result of the administration's activities, then this Congress has a responsibility to engage in that investigation. The President just recently has said that he is going to establish a commission to look at some of the intelligence; but we know already, based upon the language coming out of the administration, some of the names of the people who have been suggested as members of that commission, and the limited direction and responsibility of the commission, we know that that commission is not going to conduct the kind of investigation that needs to be conducted if the American people can have some sense of security in the sanity and proper conduct of their intelligence agencies and the way that that information is used by the administration. This Congress needs to begin that investigation, and it needs to begin it immediately.
4C) Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction Mr. RADANOVICH. Mr. Speaker, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction poses the most serious of dangers to the peace of the world. Chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons in the hands of terrorists could bring catastrophic harm to America and to our friends around the world. We must oppose that threat by any means necessary. The men and women of our intelligence community have already found a very revealing component of Iraq's biological weapons program. Two mobile production facilities equipped to produce biological weapons. Iraqis allege that these trucks are pharmaceutical labs. But what possible reason could there be for two such mobile labs in the middle of the desert? And why, if these vehicles were merely pharmaceutical trucks, did the Iraqi soldiers wash them out with bleach while the war was going on? President Bush's decisive action and leadership is keeping our country and allies safe from terrorist groups that are unrestrained in their choice of weapon and undeterred by conventional means. Our perseverance and our belief in the success of liberty assures our security, and we will not relent until this war is won.
4D)
We Did the Right Thing The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the order of the House of January 20, 2004, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) is recognized during morning hour debates for such time as he may consume. Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, there is one point to make in the debate about the war on Iraq and it is this: we did the right thing. After September 11, President Bush declared war on the terrorists and all the regimes who support them. Saddam Hussein's dictatorship was the very definition of a terrorist regime. He started two wars, invaded two neighbors, and tried to assassinate an American President. He was obsessed with obtaining nuclear weapons and was bent on using them to blackmail the civilized world. He was a merciless tyrant with no respect for human life who butchered his own people and threatened the stability of a fragile region in the Middle East. He worked with terrorists and financed their operations. He was going to kill more Americans and help others to do so. In short, Mr. Speaker, Saddam Hussein was Iraq's weapons of mass destruction; and he had to be removed. Yet, now in this political season, partisan opportunists suggest that the war was somehow illegitimate because we have not found massive World War II-style warehouses full of missiles. But 9-11 taught us that our enemies need not have conventional weapons to threaten us. If Saddam Hussein had just a briefcase full of one chemical or so much as a vile of another given his past, his hatred of the United States and his ties to international terrorism, he posed a grave and gathering threat to our national security, period. Critics who now undermine the legitimacy of Operation Iraqi Freedom with their slanderous attacks against the President and the international intelligence community undermined our security at the same time. Revisionists these days seem to believe it was someone other than Saddam Hussein who deceived the international community during the buildup of this war. But by doing so, Mr. Speaker, they embolden our enemies. Every world leader, especially those of us with the honor to serve in this body, should stand up and speak with one voice on the war on terror and how it will be fought and how we should win it in Iraq and elsewhere. Undermining our mission in Iraq to score political points dishonors the victory we won there and the legacy of the men and women who gave their lives in its winning. We did the right thing, Mr. Speaker; and we would do it again.
4F) David Kay’s Senate Testimony Mr. KYL. Mr. President, there has been a great deal of focus on the recent Senate testimony of David Kay, the former head of the Iraq Survey Group. Unfortunately, most media reports have highlighted only those statements by Dr. Kay that might be used to criticize the administration. They have largely ignored Dr. Kay's assertions that Iraq was more dangerous than we even realized prior to the war, that Saddam Hussein clearly intended to continue developing weapons of mass destruction, and other statements which contradict the false notion that the administration ``hyped'' intelligence on Iraq. I thought it would be beneficial for the American people to have a chance to read Dr. Kay's entire testimony, including his edifying exchanges with members of the Senate Armed Services Committee. I therefore ask unanimous consent that his entire testimony be printed in the RECORD. There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows: Hearing, Senate Armed Services Committee, JANUARY 28, 2004 (Joined in progress due to committee hearing room audio system). WARNER: ..... a further report--and I stress a further report--from Dr. David Kay on his efforts and the efforts of the team which he was privileged to work with, known as ISG. He served as the special adviser to the director of Central Intelligence in determining the status of weapons of mass destruction and related programs in Iraq. After assuming this position last July, Dr. Kay made his initial interim official report to this committee on October 3rd. As members of the committee are aware, Dr. Kay has stepped down from this position and has been succeeded by Mr. Charles A. Duelfer, a former colleague and member of the U.N. Special Commission with Dr. Kay, who has been appointed by Director Tenet to continue this important mission. I met with Mr. Duelfer the day before yesterday and we just momentarily met with him in the Intel Committee room. Dr. Kay volunteered--and I emphasize that--volunteered to resume his public service, worked diligently for six months in Iraq under difficult and often dangerous conditions, and just concluded his work last week and reported to the director of Central Intelligence. I thank you and I thank your wife for public service. Working with General Dayton and the Iraq Survey Group, ISG, your mission was to search for all facts--repeat, all facts--relevant to the many issues about Iraq weapons of mass destruction and related programs. You initiated what was and continues--I emphasize continues--to be a very difficult, complex mission that, in you own words, is yet to be completed. As you cautioned us when you took up this post in July, patience is required to ensure we complete a thorough assessment of this important issue. In this hearing today we hope to receive your assessment of what has been accomplished to date--I repeat, to date--and what in your professional judgment remains to be done by the ISG. It is far too early to reach any final judgments or conclusions. In recent days, I mentioned, I met with both General Dayton, I've met extensively with your over the recess period, and Mr. Duelfer, and received the assurance of Dayton and Duelfer that they will be prepared to present to the Congress a second official interim report of the ISG group in the time frame of late March. WARNER: It is crucial that the important work of the ISG group go on. Thus far the findings have been significant. Dr. Kay has stated that, although we have not found evidence of large stockpiles of WMD, or forward-deployed weapons, the ISG group have made the following evidence as a part of their record that will be forthcoming: first, evidence of Saddam Hussein's intent to pursue WMD programs on a large scale; actual ongoing chemical and biological research programs; an active program to use the deadly chemical ricin as a weapon, a program that was interrupted only by the start of the war in March; and evidence of missile programs; and evidence that in all probability they were going to build those weapons to incorporate in the warheads, what we know not for sure, but certainly the possibility of weapons of mass destruction; evidence that Saddam Hussein was attempting to reconstitute his fledgling nuclear program as late as 2001; and, most important, evidence that clearly indicates Saddam Hussein was conducting a wide range of activities in clear contravention of the United Nations resolutions. As you recently stated, Dr. Kay--and I quote you--``It was reasonable to conclude that Iraq posed an imminent threat. What we learned during the inspection made Iraq a more dangerous place potentially than, in fact, we thought it was even before the war,'' end quote. WARNER: Further, you said on NBC's ``Today Show'' on Tuesday that it was, quote, ``absolutely prudent for the U.S. to go to war.'' Dr. Kay, I concur in those conclusions. I believe a real and growing threat has been eliminated and a coalition of nations acted prudently in the cause of freedom. I'd be interested if you concur in my conclusions. [Page: S1011] GPO's PDF While some have asserted that the president and his senior advisers may have exaggerated or manipulated prewar intelligence on Iraq's WMD programs, Dr. Kay reached the following conclusion, which I think is different. As you stated recently, quote, ``We have to remember that this view of Iraq (prewar assessment of WMD capabilities) was held during the Clinton administration and did not change in the Bush administration. It is not a political got-you issue. Often estimates are different than reality. The important thing is when they differ to understand why,'' end quote. That's precisely why I called this meeting, Dr. Kay, to continue the work of this committee in developing a body of fact from which reasonable people, at the conclusion of that collection of facts, can reach their own objective thoughts and conclusions. It's been a difficult process but the ISG work is not completed. Now, you have stated that you believe there did not exist large stockpiles of biological and chemical weapons. But I hope that you will, in your testimony, indicate that since work is not completed, since Iraq is as big as California and Baghdad approximates the sprawling territory of Los Angeles, that we could find caches and reserves of weapons of mass destruction, chemical or biological or even further evidence about their nuclear program. WARNER: We also would hope that you'd address the question of whether or not Saddam Hussein had some kind of, quote, ``breakout capability'' for quickly producing chemical or biological weapons, and was this not a basis for constituting a conclusion that there was an imminent threat from Saddam Hussein and his military? Why were the Iraq WMD records systemically looted or destroyed? And why do scientists in custody today continue not to be forthcoming if there was nothing to hide or nothing substantial existed? The work of the Iraq Survey Group has shown that Saddam Hussein had WMD intentions, had WMD programs that did survive, and did outwit for 12 years the United National Security Council and the resolutions--indeed, the inspections, in large measure. If ultimately, the findings of the Iraq Survey Group do differ from the prewar assessments of our intelligence community, differ from assessments of the United Nations, differ from assessments of intelligence services of many other nations, indeed that is cause for concern. But we are not there yet in terms of the totality of fact on which to draw such serious conclusions. Today and tomorrow, our policy-makers must be able to rely on the intelligence they are provided. The safety and security of the men and women of the armed forces are dependent on intelligence and, indeed, the security of our Nation. So collectively, all of us--the Congress, the executive branch and other nations--we must vigorously continue to pursue the collection of the facts, as the ISC is doing, and upon that completion, then draw our conclusions and take such corrective measures as may be necessary. WARNER: As we speak, over 1,400 individuals--military and civilian--are on the ground in Iraq seeking the facts about Iraq's WMD programs. I have confidence in the commitment and the ability of General Dayton, Mr. Duelfer, your successor, and representatives from our coalition partners to complete this mission. They have some of the best and brightest of our military and our intelligence community to complete this task. And Congress has provided the necessary means, a very substantial appropriation of recent. We remain committed to providing the resources that are necessary for the completion of the ISG work. Dr. Kay, I thank you for your public service once again.
4G) Was America at War in the 1990s? Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I am joined tonight by my colleague from Georgia. What we would like to talk about tonight is the issue of whether America is at war. Were we at war in the 1990s? What was the reaction of the administration in the 1990s? What do we see in the year 2000 and beyond? And what have we found about the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? First, were we a country at war during the 1990s? We have all the examples of the attacks on the United States. In 1993, the World Trade Center was bombed. In 1996, our military barracks were bombed in Saudi Arabia. Our embassies were attacked in Africa. The USS Cole was attacked in 2000. In 1995, two unidentified gunmen killed two U.S. diplomats and wounded a third in Karachi. A Palestinian sniper opened fire on tourists atop the Empire State Building. In 2000, a bomb exploded across the street from the U.S. embassy in Manila. It is not only the high-profile attacks that we should be concerned about, but what we saw during the 1990s was a pattern of attacks against the U.S., against our embassies, against our economic interests, against our military personnel, and against American civilians. If we take a look at the quotes and the things that folks said about the 1990s and what was going on specifically, and maybe focused more on Iraq than anywhere else, you kind of get a feeling as to whether in the 1990s people in the administration understood the threat that terrorist groups and that Saddam Hussein posed to the United States. The question that some ask today, or the facts that they state today is that, well, you know, this all came up after 2001, that the data was fabricated. What did Bill Clinton say during his administration? February 17, 1998: ``Iraqi agents have undermined and undercut U.N. inspectors. They've harassed the inspectors, lied to them, disabled monitoring cameras, literally spirited evidence out of the back doors. And they will be all the more lethal if we allow them to build arsenals of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and the missiles to deliver them. We simply cannot allow that to happen.'' Again continuing, President Clinton in 1998: ``There should be no doubt Saddam's ability to produce and deliver weapons of mass destruction poses a grave threat to the peace of that region and the security of the world. There is no more clear example of this threat than Saddam Hussein's Iraq. His regime threatens the safety of his people, the stability of his region and the security of all the rest of us. In the next century, the community of nations may see more and more the very kind of threat Iraq poses now, a rogue state with weapons of mass destruction ready to use them or provide them to terrorists who travel the world. If we fail to respond today, Saddam will be emboldened tomorrow by the knowledge that they can act with impunity. I have no doubt he would use them again if permitted to develop them.'' A clear case that on February 17, 1998, President Clinton was not only aware of the threats that Saddam Hussein and Iraq posed but that the threat extended to people like Saddam and to different terrorist organizations. I do not know if my colleague from Georgia has any other quotes from President Clinton or not. I yield to the gentleman. Mr. GINGREY. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Yes, certainly I do. Here is one, and I quote, from President Clinton: ``Iraq repeatedly made false declarations about the weapons that it had left in its possession after the Gulf War. When UNSCOM would then uncover evidence that gave a lie to those declarations, Iraq would simply amend the reports.'' Another quote, again from President Clinton: ``And someday, some way, I guarantee you he'll use the arsenal, and I think every one of you who has really worked on this for any length of time believes that, too.'' Mr. HOEKSTRA. Reclaiming my time, in comments by President Bill Clinton at the meeting of the National Security Council, comments on the bombing of strategic interests in Iraq: ``I am convinced the decision I made to order this military action, though difficult, was absolutely the right thing to do. It is in our interest and in the interest of people around the world. Saddam has used weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles before. I have no doubt he would use them again if permitted to develop them.'' I yield to my colleague from Georgia. [Page: H489] Mr. GINGREY. Here are another couple of quotes. Again, President Clinton: ``We want to seriously reduce his capacity to threaten his neighbors.'' President Clinton again: ``We have learned through harsh experience that the only answer to aggression and illegal behavior is firmness, determination and, when necessary, action.'' Mr. HOEKSTRA. There is no doubt that in the 1990s the Clinton administration, or at least the President, voiced the concerns about terrorist organizations, Iraq and specifically Saddam Hussein; but it was not only the President. The Vice President, May 23, 2000, during a conference breakfast with the American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee: ``Despite our swift victory and our efforts since, there is no doubt in my mind that Saddam Hussein still seeks to amass weapons of mass destruction. You know as well as I do that as long as Saddam Hussein stays in power, there can be no comprehensive peace for the people of Israel or the people of the Middle East. We have made it clear that it is our policy to see Saddam Hussein gone.'' Al Gore, May 23, 2000: ``We have made it clear that it is our policy to see Saddam Hussein gone.'' Mr. GINGREY. Just listen to former, actually Senator Gore at the time and former Vice President Gore in a speech, a major policy speech made on September 29, 1992 by then Senator Al Gore, and I quote: ``He, Saddam, had already launched poison gas attacks repeatedly and Bush''--referring to Bush I--``looked the other way.'' Mr. HOEKSTRA. If the gentleman will yield, this is the Vice President, or at that point in time the Senator? Mr. GINGREY. The Senator running for Vice President. Mr. HOEKSTRA. Referring to Bush I, and, what, accusing him of inaction? Mr. GINGREY. Absolutely. I will finish that quote: ``He, Saddam, had already conducted extensive terrorism activities and Bush looked the other way. He was already deeply involved in the effort to acquire nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction and he, President Bush, looked the other way. ``Well, in my view the Bush administration was acting in a manner directly opposite to what you would expect with all of the evidence that it had available at the time. Saddam Hussein's nature and intentions were perfectly visible.'' Again, a major policy speech made by then Senator and Vice Presidential candidate Al Gore, September 29, 1992. Mr. HOEKSTRA. We go on through the administration. Remarks by Madeleine Albright, the Secretary of State: ``In this struggle our adversaries are likely to avoid traditional battlefield situations because there American dominance is well established. We must be concerned instead by weapons of mass destruction and by the cowardly instruments of sabotage and hidden bombs. These unconventional threats endanger not only our Armed Forces but all Americans and America's friends everywhere.'' Madeleine Albright in the Clinton administration got much of this right in perceiving the threat, as was so brutally proved on September 11. Mr. GINGREY. If the gentleman will yield, continuing on, then Secretary of State Madeleine Albright as quoted in the Chicago Tribune, November 16, 1997: ``Hussein's weapons will not discriminate if and when they are used, and therefore it is important for the region to understand that he is a threat.''
[Time: 18:00] Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, we are going to talk a little bit more about some of these quotes, and then we will talk about exactly what the Clinton administration did in the 1990s as they laid out the threat from terrorist organizations, as they laid out the threat from Saddam and Iraq. Madeleine Albright, subject: Tonight's air strikes against strategic targets in Iraq. ``This is a moment of grave determination. We have decided to use force because other means simply have not worked. Saddam's capacity to develop and brandish such armaments poses a threat to international security and peace that cannot be ignored. Month after month we have given Iraq chance after chance to move from confrontation to cooperation. We have explored and exhausted every diplomatic action. We will see whether force can persuade Iraq's misguided leaders to reverse course and to accept at long last the need to abide by the rule of law and the will of the world.'' It took 3 years before inspectors on a limited basis were ever allowed back. I yield to my colleague from Georgia. Mr. GINGREY. Mr. Speaker, I think it would be informative to people who are paying attention, and I think all Americans are paying attention and they are listening to a lot of political rhetoric during this Presidential election year and the criticism that they are hearing not only from the leaders of our military, from the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, but especially to the Secretary of Defense, the honorable Donald Rumsfeld. Listen to what former Secretary of Defense William Cohen had to say: ``Noted again Tuesday that in the past Iraq imported enough material to produce up to 200 tons of the deadly chemical agent VX, `theoretically enough to kill every man, woman, and child' on earth. Finding and eliminating all such chemical and biological warfare stocks must be an international priority.'' L.A. Times, November 26, 1997, Secretary of Defense William Cohen under the Clinton administration. Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, he goes on in another talk with an interview with Katie Couric on December 18. ``One of reasons we are taking this action,'' and this is the Secretary of Defense, ``is we don't want to see it taken with chemical or biological agents, but we do know,'' not we estimate, we think, ``but we do know that Iraq has been in process of building that kind of capability. But we're looking at the intelligence very closely. We anticipate there will be terrorist attacks in a variety of areas of the globe, and we are taking whatever precautions we can against it.'' Remember those words, because we will get back to it in a few minutes. ``We are taking whatever precautions we can against it.'' And what is against it? The variety of terrorist attacks in all areas of the globe. I yield to my colleague. Mr. GINGREY. Mr. Speaker, this next quote from former President Bill Clinton, I think, really speaks to it as much as any that we have given tonight, and here is the quote: ``In the next century, the community of nations may see more and more the very kind of threat Iraq poses now, a rogue state with weapons of mass destruction, ready to use them or provide them to terrorists, drug traffickers, or organized criminals who travel the world among us unnoticed. If we fail to respond today, Saddam, and all those who would follow in his footsteps, will be emboldened tomorrow by the knowledge that they can act with impunity, even in the face of a clear message from the United Nations Security Council and clear evidence of a weapons of mass destruction program.'' And what was done then, Mr. Speaker? It was just drawing lines in the sand and then another line in the sand and another line in the sand and a dare and a double dare and a double-dog dare, and nothing was happening to deal with this until, of course, we had to strike the strike on 9/11 that resulted in over 3,000 lives lost. Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, here we go on and we go back to President Clinton on February 17, 1998, talking about the kind of environment that we see in Iraq and the kind of folks that we are trying to work on and taking a look at denial and deception. But how did Iraq work? This is President Clinton's description in 1998: ``Iraq repeatedly made false declarations about the weapons that it had left in its possession after the Gulf War. When UNSCOM,'' that is, the UN inspectors, ``would then uncover evidence that gave lie to those declarations, Iraq would simply amend the reports. ``Iraqi agents have undermined and undercut UNSCOM. They've harassed the inspectors, lied to them, disabled monitoring cameras, literally spirited evidence out of the back doors of suspect facilities as inspectors walked through the front door. And our people were there observing it and had the pictures to prove it. ``If he refuses or continues to evade his obligations through more tactics of [Page: H490] delay and deception, he and he alone will be to blame for the consequences.'' September 9: ``We've pushed and pushed some more to help UNSCOM,'' this is Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, ``break through the smokescreen of lies and diction put out by the Iraqi regime ..... '' `` ..... UNSCOM was able for the first time to conduct inspections of sensitive sites where it found new evidence that Iraq had lied about the size of its chemical weapons stock.'' These are really interesting quotes, considering the debate. We have gone into this war situation with a number of allies, but the President has been critiqued because there were not enough partners in the process. Here is what President Clinton said in a debate with Robert Dole on October 6, 1996: ``Sometimes the U.S. has to act alone, or at least has to act first. Sometimes we cannot let other countries have a veto on our foreign policy.'' Madeleine Albright's quote in 1998: ``I am going to explain our position. And while we always prefer to act multilaterally, we are prepared to go unilaterally.'' President Clinton, Time Magazine, 1998: ``Would the Iraqi people be better off if there was a change in leadership? I certainly think they would be.'' Remember, by the year 2000, the official policy of the United States was regime change in Iraq. 1998, President Clinton: ``If we fail to respond today, Hussein, and all those who would follow in his footsteps,'' and I think the President was referencing terrorist organizations that would attack America and other freedom-loving people around the world, ``and all those who would follow in his footsteps, will be emboldened tomorrow by the knowledge that they can act with impunity.'' This is President Clinton. And ``what if he fails to comply and we fail to act? ..... Some day, some way, I guarantee you, he'll use the arsenal.'' President Clinton, August 31, 1998. What we are seeing throughout the 1990s, whether it is President Clinton, whether it is the Vice President, whether it is the Secretary of State, or whether it is the Secretary of Defense, there is a clear pattern that the Clinton administration, rightfully so, identified terrorist threats, Saddam Hussein, and Iraq as a threat to the people of Iraq, as a threat to Israel, as a threat to the stability of the Middle East, and as a threat to the United States and the rest of the world. I yield to the gentleman from Georgia. Mr. GINGREY. Mr. Speaker, continuing on the line of reason the gentleman from Michigan is presenting, again Secretary of State Madeleine Albright in 1998, in fact, November 23, and this was in Time Magazine: ``Up to now we've had diplomacy backed by force. Now we need to shift to force backed by diplomacy.'' And listen to what she says less than a month later: ``Month after month we have given Iraq chance after chance to move from confrontation to cooperation, and we have explored and exhausted every diplomatic action. We will see now whether force can persuade Iraq's misguided leaders to reverse course and to accept at long last the need to abide by the rule of law and the will of the world.'' These were remarks made by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright on the night of the air strikes, the very limited air strikes, against strategic targets in Iraq, her comments made December 16, 1998. What happened over the next 2 years? Nothing. These limited air strikes did nothing, and Saddam continued with his weapons of mass destruction, his terrorism on his own people, his refusal to let the weapons inspectors come back into the country and make sure he was complying with the U.N. resolutions. Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, there are those who say that this administration was the first to try to create a link between al Qaeda and Iraq. That is absolutely wrong. In 1998, again with the attack on the plant in Sudan: ``U.S. officials who declined to be identified told reporters that there were contacts as the Sudanese company was being developed between Al Shifa officials and Iraqis working on their country's VX program. `Iraq is the only country we are aware of that had planned to use WMD,' the officials said. The officials also said there is evidence linking Osama bin Laden. Defense Secretary Cohen has publicly stated that bin Laden had some financial interest in contributing to this particular facility in Khartoum.'' Where is that? How do we know if Secretary of Defense William Cohen said that? ``We know that he, bin Laden, had contributed to this particular facility,'' Secretary of Defense William Cohen, New York Times, August 29, 1998. Another quote: ``And indeed we have information that Iraq has assisted in the chemical weapons activity in Sudan.'' That is an op-ed by Samuel Berger, the national security advisor, the Washington Times, October 16, 1998. He goes on in that activity: ``And, indeed, we have information that Iraq has assisted in the chemical weapons activity in Sudan ..... We had information linking bin Laden to the Sudanese regime and the Al Shifa plant.'' National security advisor, Samuel Berger, op-ed, October 16 in the Washington Times. It is interesting. This link between Saddam Hussein, Iraq, terrorist organizations, and the threat that they combine to depose the United States and the rest of the world is not new. It has been outlined through the 1990s. I yield to my colleague. Mr. GINGREY. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman from Michigan will allow me, I would just like to shift a little bit now and talk about the testimony and put it in the right, proper context that we are hearing from David Kay. Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, let us not go there yet, all right? Because every year there is something that is put out. It is called the Report on Global Terrorism. And if my colleague will take a look, he has got the 1999 review of Iraq. I have got the 1998.
[Time: 18:15] Here is what it says in 1998. The global terrorism overview of state-sponsored terrorism. Iraq continues to provide safe haven to a variety of Palestinian rejectionist groups, including the Abu Nidal Organization, the Arab Liberation Front, and the former head of the now defunct 15 May Organization, Abu Ibrahim, who masterminded several bombings of U.S. aircraft. In December, press reports indicated that Abu Nidal had relocated to Iraq and may be receiving medical treatment. Abu Nidal's move to Baghdad would increase the prospect that Saddam may call on the ANO to conduct anti-U.S. attacks. Iraq also provides bases, weapons and protection to the MEK, a terrorist group that opposes the current Iranian regime. Back in 1998, through much of the 1990s, it was clear, at least in the global terrorism overview of state-sponsored terrorism, Iraq has consistently been identified as a state sponsor of terrorism on a global basis. What did the report say in 1999? I yield to my colleague from Georgia. Mr. GINGREY. Well, Iraq continued to plan and sponsor international terrorism in 1999. Although Baghdad focused primarily on the anti-regime opposition, both at home and abroad, it continued to provide safe haven and to support various terrorist groups. Many press reports stated that according to a defecting Iraqi intelligence agent, the Iraqi Intelligence Service had planned to bomb the offices of Radio Free Europe in Prague. Radio Free Europe offices include Radio Liberty, which began broadcasting news and information to Iraq in October of 1998. The plot was foiled when it became public in early 1999. The Iraq opposition publicly stated its fears that the Baghdad regime was planning to assassinate those opposed to Saddam Hussein. A spokesman for the Iraqi National Accord in November said that the movement security organs had obtained information about a plan to assassinate its secretary general, Dr. Allawi, and a member of the movement's political bureau, as well as other Iraqi leaders. Iraq continued to provide safe haven to a variety of Palestinian rejectionist groups, including the Abu Nidal Organization; the Arab Liberation Front, ALF; and the former head of the now defunct 15 May Organization, Abu Ibrahim, who masterminded several bombings of United States aircraft. Iraq provided bases, weapons and protection to the MEK, an Iranian terrorist group that opposes the current [Page: H491] Iranian regime. In 1999, MEK cadre based in Iraq assassinated or attempted to assassinate several high-ranking Iranian government officials, including Brigadier General Ali Sayyad Shirazi, deputy chief of Iran's Joint Staff, who was actually killed in an assassination attack. Mr. HOEKSTRA. If I now take a look at the report on global terrorism in 2001, what does it say? In addition, the regime continued to provide training and political encouragement to numerous terrorist groups, although its main focus was on dissident Iraqi activity overseas. But Iraq provided bases to several terrorist groups, including the Mujahedin-e-Khalq, the MEK, the Kurdistan Worker's Party, the Palestine Liberation Front, the Abu Nidal Organization. In 2001, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the PFLP, raised its profile in the West Bank and Gaza Strip by carrying out successful terrorist attacks against Israeli targets. In recognition of the PFLP's growing role, an Iraqi vice president met with the former PFLP secretary, General Habbash, in Baghdad. In January 2001, there was continued Iraqi support for the intifadah. Also in mid-September, a senior delegation from the PFLP met with an Iraqi deputy prime minister. Baghdad also continued to host other Palestinian rejectionist groups, including the Arab Liberation Front and the 15 May Organization. There is no doubt that Iraq continued its connection with terrorist organizations. What happened in 2002? I yield to my colleague from Georgia. Mr. GINGREY. Well, Iraq planned and sponsored international terrorism in 2002, that is what they did. Throughout the year, the Iraqi Intelligence Service, IIS, laid the groundwork for possible attacks against both civilian and military targets in the United States and other Western countries. The IIS reportedly instructed its agents in early 2001 that their main mission was to obtain information about United States and Israeli targets. The IIS also threatened dissidents in the Near East and Europe and stole records and computer files detailing anti-regime activity. In December of 2002, the press claimed Iraq intelligence killed Walid Ibrahim Abbas al-Muhah al-Mayahi, a Shi'ite Iraqi refugee who was living in Lebanon and a member of the Iraqi National Congress. Iraq was a safe haven, a transit point and an operational base for groups and individuals who direct violence against the United States, Israel and other countries. Baghdad overtly assisted two categories of Iraqi-based terrorist organizations, Iranian dissidents devoted to toppling the Iranian Government and a variety of Palestinian groups opposed to peace with Israel. The groups include the Iranian Mujahedeen-e-Khalq and the Abu Nidal Organization, although Iraq reportedly killed its leader. The Palestinian Liberation Front, PLF, and the Arab Liberation Front, ALF. In the past year, the PLF increased its operational activities against Israel and sent its members to Iraq for training for future terrorist attacks. Baghdad provided material assistance to other Palestinian terrorist groups that are in the forefront of this intifadah. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine General Command, Hamas, and the Palestine Islamic Jihad are the three most important groups to which Baghdad has extended outreach and support efforts. Saddam paid the families of Palestinian suicide bombers to encourage Palestinian terrorism, channeling $25,000 since March through the ALF alone to families of suicide bombers, both in Gaza and on the West Bank. Public testimonials by Palestinian civilians and officials and cancelled checks captured by Israel in the West Bank verify the transfer of a considerable amount of Iraqi money. The presence of several hundred al Qaeda operatives fighting with the small Kurdish Islamist group Ansar al Islam in the northeastern corner of Iraqi Kurdistan where the IIS operates is well documented. Iraq has an agent in the most senior levels of Ansar al Islam as well. In addition, small numbers of highly placed al Qaeda militants were present in Baghdad and areas of Iraq that Saddam controls. It is inconceivable that these groups were in Iraq without the knowledge and acquiescence of Saddam's regime. In the past year, al Qaeda operatives in Northern Iraq concocted suspect chemicals under the direction of senior al Qaeda associate Abu Mussab Zarqawi; and they tried to smuggle them into Russia, Western Europe, and the United States for terrorist organizations and operations. Iraq is a party to five of the 12 international conventions and protocols relating to terrorism. That is what Iraq has been doing in the year 2002. Mr. HOEKSTRA. I think the record is relatively clear. In many ways, the Clinton administration in the 1990s got the message. After the World Trade Center bombing, after the U.S. barracks bombings, after our embassy bombings, after the USS Cole and as American civilians were attacked around the world, the rhetoric was very, very good. The rhetoric that came out of the Clinton administration said we are at war. We are prepared to punish and hold those accountable who have attacked us. We are willing to go in and preemptively attack and be on the offense against those who may attack us in the future; and we may even go it alone, because we will not allow another country to hold veto over American national security. They defined the war. They said we are at risk at home and abroad. Civilian, military individuals would be at risk; our allies would be at risk. Madeleine Albright identified that it would be an unconventional war. Parts of it would be conventional; parts of it would be unconventional. Some battles would be in the open; some would be in secret. We would use both conventional weapons and weapons of mass destruction. It is a violent and a dangerous world. Truck bombs, improvised explosive devices, small labs for chemical and biological weapons, weapons that could be delivered by plane, ships, missiles, or backpacks. You go back to the one quote I think you had from, I am not sure if it was the President or Al Gore, but I got the quotes here again. From William Cohen: ``We anticipate there will be terrorist attacks in a variety of areas of the globe and we are taking whatever precautions we can against it.'' Al Gore in 2000: ``We have made it clear that it is our policy to see Saddam Hussein gone.'' I am not sure what quote my colleague has over there, but we ought to take a look at what the Clinton administration did in the 1990s. Mr. GINGREY. I think what the gentleman so clearly pointed out is the previous administration made the case against Saddam Hussein. They made the case based on the intelligence that they were receiving at that time. What they did is they talked the talk, and we have spent some time here this evening giving you some quotes, various members, including the President, the Vice President, the Secretary of State. Mr. HOEKSTRA. It is a consistent message through all levels of their policy chain. Mr. GINGREY. Absolutely. The point I was going to make is they were willing, the previous administration, to talk the talk; but what they were not willing to do was to walk the walk. This administration has walked the walk; and because of that, this world is a safer place with the capture of Saddam Hussein. Mr. HOEKSTRA. There is an interesting article I would like to reference that talks a little bit about what the previous administration did during the 1990s. The article is ``Show Stoppers,'' and it is out of the Weekly Standard, January 26, 2004. It is written by Richard Shultz, who is director of International Security Studies at the Fletcher school, Tufts University, and director of research at the Consortium for the Study of Intelligence in Washington, D.C. He brings up an interesting point. America has the best trained military in the world, regular Army; but then we also have some very special folks, Special Operations folks. Remember, the policy as he lays out here was that we were prepared to preemptively and offensively attack those individuals who we thought might be a threat to the United States. We knew [Page: H492] who they were. The Clinton administration identified al Qaeda; they identified bin Laden as being threats. We heard that in our quotes tonight. But what Richard Shultz goes on to point out, he says not once during the 1990s, even though we on occasion might have known where bin Laden was, we knew where his terrorist camps were, not once did we take and use our Special Operations forces to neutralize the capability of these folks who we were relatively confident and who the Clinton administration were selling the American people on that these were a threat to the American public and to our military and to our allies around the world. We never used our Delta Force, we never used our Seals, we never used our Rangers to kill or capture bin Laden or attack al Qaeda training bases. Mr. GINGREY. If the gentleman will yield further, one of the most preposterous facts is that during of the previous administration in the late 1990s, Osama bin Laden was offered up to our country, and we refused to accept him saying that he was not that much of a threat. We did not need him. Mr. HOEKSTRA. Taking back my time, Mr. Shultz goes on to talk about the Clinton administration's desire for preemptive and offensive actions. But they never took the step. Terrorism is a crime, they said. They said we will prosecute it afterwards. We will not use our forces for minimizing the capability of these people to wage war against us. It does not meet the Pentagon's definition of war. We are risk-averse. That sent a very clear message to terrorist organizations and rogue regimes like Iran, Iraq, Syria and a number of other countries that said the United States is not going to do anything.
[Time: 18:30] They may respond, but even if we attack their battle ships, even if we attack their embassies or their barracks, they will not respond or they will respond in a very minimal way, and they will allow us to keep moving forward and to prepare other attacks. I yield to the gentleman from Georgia. Mr. GINGREY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. No question, when we keep drawing lines in the sand and making threats and dares and double dares, as was done by the previous administration, attack after attack after attack, the other side is rightly going to assume that you are just so much bluster, that you are no threat. So they continue in their terroristic ways, and that really is essentially what has happened. Thank God that this President, our 43rd President, George W. Bush, had the courage to finally say, enough is enough. Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, a couple of other things. We never used our Special Operations forces. But with all of this discussion about what capabilities do we have in intelligence, it is helpful to have a discussion as to what the Clinton administration did during the 1990s with intelligence. From 1992 to 1999, the intelligence agency, we decreased the number of agents we had in the field by 27 percent, we decreased the number of stations or locations that we had around the world by 30 percent, and we decreased the number of assets. What is an asset? An asset is a spy. We reduced the number of assets we had by 40 percent. We gutted our human intelligence capability. We have phenomenal satellites and different things that can do wonderful things in trying to help us figure out what is going on, but unless we have the human intelligence to determine intent and planning or to go inside of a building and see what is going on inside of a building and to hear and be part of the discussions, we cannot figure out exactly what is going on; and even if we have those people in certain places, it is still difficult to pull together the entire practice. But the reason we were kind of blind in Iraq in 2000 is that Bill Clinton's administration, President Clinton's administration, gutted our human intelligence. I yield to the gentleman. Mr. GINGREY. Well, no question. And of course it reminds me, thinking back, of I think it was the Clinton administration had decided that they wanted to have a nicer, a nicer, kinder, gentler intelligence agency; and anybody that was ever known to have jaywalked or spit on the sidewalk, they were not eligible to be an intelligence officer because they did not project that image. I am going to tell my colleagues right now, it is clear that when the going gets tough, the tough get going; and we need tough people. And as the gentleman from Michigan was saying, we cut down on the number of personnel involved in intelligence operations and the kind of people that we need to deal with these people on an international basis. This is dangerous work, and we need tough, dangerous people to fight fire with fire. We did not have that in the previous administration. Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, what my colleague is talking about is that in 1995 and 1996 the Clinton administration implemented what was called the Deutsch Doctrine. John Deutsch was the director of the CIA. And, after some things happened in 1995, the Deutsch Doctrine becomes the official policy of the CIA. What does the Deutsch Doctrine say? It does what my colleague said, although maybe not quite as strict as what my colleague said; but it said, we are not going to recruit as human assets those individuals who have human rights records or who have criminal records; we are not going to recruit those kinds of people to spy for the United States. As a matter of fact, we are not only going to not recruit those people in the future, we are going to go and do what is called the ``Deutsch scrub.'' We are going to go back and take a look at those people who are working for us today. They have made that choice, they have left the dark side, they are spying for the United States, they are giving us the information that we need to be safe, but the Clinton administration says, thanks, but no thanks. You have a dark record in your background, you are out of here, leaving these people in no man's land and saying, well, let me see. I was a bad guy, I came over to the good side, and now you are cutting me loose. It was a chilling effect for the work of the CIA and the people that were doing the work in the CIA. It was a chilling effect, obviously, for those spies who were spying for us and now were cut off; and the basic message was, you are not good people to do business with. They think, one day you are going to use us, and the next day we are out in the cold. We get to 2000. And I wonder how many people in Saddam's cabinet room, when we watch him sitting at the table, I wonder how many of them had clean human rights records. I mean, remember, they hung thousands of people in their jails. There is evidence they might have used chemical or biological testing on some of their prisoners. They killed over 300,000 of their own people. They gassed the Kurds, they gassed the Iranians. Sitting in that room, I do not think there were a lot of Eagle Scouts. I yield to my colleague. Mr. GINGREY. Mr. Speaker, there is no question that I am sure there were no Eagle Scouts. When we are dealing with an international terrorist, a brutal, rogue dictator like Saddam Hussein and the terrorists associated with him, the only thing they understand is an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. And it is like our military leaders have said many times in testifying before Congress, before committees, before the Committee on Armed Services, if the die-hards insist, they are going to die hard, and we have given it to them. I commend the President for that, and I think this world is a safer place because of it. It is not over, and we do not need to be thinking about an exit strategy until it is over. Our men and women deserve better than that. Many of them have paid the ultimate sacrifice, and they deserve a victory, and we shall have a victory. Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, candidate Governor Bush in 1999, he echoed the understanding of the threat that President Clinton, Vice President Gore, and others laid out. He called to mind an earlier time when free people were confronted with what he called rapid change and momentous choices. In was the 1930s, Nazi Germany is rearming, the British are reluctant to respond. Winston Churchill outlines to the people, the United Kingdom, what they are facing. Winston Churchill: ``The era of procrastination, of half measures, of soothing and baffling expedience, of delays is coming to a [Page: H493] close. In its place, we are entering a period of consequences.'' For the United States, that day of consequences, the day where we suffered the consequences of half measures, of soothing and baffling expedience, of delays through the 1990s, we suffered that day of consequence on 9-11, 2001. We want to move on a little bit and talk a little bit about what Dr. Kay has found relative to what the National Intelligence Estimate indicated we might find, and this is the backdrop of what President Clinton outlined during the 1990s and the Clinton administration outlined during the 1990s about the dangers of Saddam Hussein and Iraq. It is in the backdrop of what happened on 9-11, 2001; and the National Intelligence Estimate indicated that since inspections ended in 1998, Iraq has maintained its chemical and biological weapons effort. What has Dr. Kay found? This is from a statement by Dr. Kay on the ``Interim Progress Report.'' He talks about discovering dozens of WMD-related program activities. Concealment efforts. So it is very, very public that Dr. Kay has recognized and found that the National Intelligence Estimate said Iraq has maintained its chemical and biological weapons effort programs. I did not say weapons; I said programs. It is exactly what Dr. Kay found when he got to Iraq. Mr. GINGREY. Mr. Speaker, in regard to that, I just wanted to point out, and I started to mention this a little bit earlier, that Dr. Kay was a consultant to the Iraqi Survey Group. The Iraqi Survey Group is 1,300 individuals in Iraq continuing, as we speak tonight, continuing to look for weapons of mass destruction. The Iraqi Survey Group is not led by consultant Dr. David Kay; the Iraqi Survey Group is commanded by Lieutenant General Keith Dayton. Dr. Kay worked for General Dayton as a consultant, and General Dayton told a group of us when we were in Iraq over the Christmas season that Dr. Kay had been out of Iraq for over a month, and I do not think that Dr. Kay has been back in Iraq since that time. So it is very possible that he does not actually know what the Iraqi Survey Group is doing and what they are finding right now. I will tell my colleagues one thing that they are finding. We talk about weapons of mass destruction. If we want to very narrowly define that as chemical weapons or nerve gas or biological anthrax, that is one definition of weapons of mass destruction. But I am going to tell my colleagues, the ultimate weapon of mass destruction was found in Iraq; and he was in a little hole just south of Tikrit, and we got rid of him. And in the process of looking for these other weapons of mass destruction, what have we found? Hundreds, literally hundreds of mass graves with thousands, hundreds of thousands of people, his own people that Saddam had gassed, and also untold numbers of caches of weapons of conventional destruction. My colleagues tell me one of these road-side devices is not a weapon of mass destruction or a shoulder-mounted SA-7 rocket from Russia or a grenade launcher? Absolutely. We are finding and destroying as we continue to seek, and I truly believe that we will find those chemical and biological weapons. Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, the National Intelligence Estimate said, if left unchecked, Iraq probably will have a nuclear weapon during this decade. Here is what Dr. Kay had to say, George Stephanopoulos, October 5, 2003: ``I think if they had, if someone had given them the enriched material or the plutonium, I think that it would have taken them a year or less to fabricate a weapon from that material. They had the capability, they had the knowledge, once given the proper material to very quickly develop a nuclear weapon.'' I yield to my colleague from Georgia. Mr. GINGREY. Mr. Speaker, this is a comment, speaking of Dr. Kay's report, here is what Dr. Kay says, among many things that Dr. Kay is saying. There is something to link them, Saddam, to weapons of mass destruction, and that is the equipment. The equipment was on the prohibited list that had to be declared. The fact that they did not declare the equipment, not only did they not declare it, it was imported equipment. A lot of it we dated was imported from after 1998 in spite of U.N. sanctions. He went on to say, another quote from Dr. Kay: ``We tend to, when we analyze a failure, look at our own failures and forget there is another side to the equation.'' Again, this is Dr. Kay: ``I am convinced the Iraqis tried to deceive us and, in part, they tried to deceive us and others into believing that they really did have those weapons.'' Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, here we have NIE key judgments: In view of most agencies, Baghdad is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program. Here is the interview, or here is his testimony in front of the Senate Committee on Armed Services last week or a week and a half ago. The NIE concluded that Iraq could build its first nuclear weapons when it acquires efficient weapons-grade material. Do you think that is accurate? Kay: Yes. You have to realize that this was a country that had designed and gone through a decade-long nuclear program. They knew the secrets. Mr. Speaker, much of the assessment that was done, the National Intelligence Estimate, was pretty accurate. Obviously, the expectation of finding stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, I thought we would find them quicker. We have not found them. Dr. Kay believes that there is a high probability that they do not exist and we may not find them, but recognizes that he has talked about and he has seen the Iraqis' ability to gut, and they looted their information files and burned the records, destroyed the records.
[Time: 18:45] They were great at denial and deception. They loved to bury things. Not only did Saddam Hussein go in a spider hole, but they took Mig-29s, pulled them out in the countryside, dug a hole, had the cockpit open and filled them with sand and dirt and buried them. There were things that were moved to Syria. I think Dr. Kay with the interviews and things he has done has a very good assessment, but he will acknowledge that the search is not complete. That particular part he says is 85 percent complete, but there will always be a level of uncertainty because of how well the Iraqis did denial and deception. Mr. GINGREY. He went on to say, and again this is part of the Dr. Kay's report, ``The surprising thing we have found in the biological program is a vast network of laboratories. It is now over two dozen labs that were not declared to the U.N. even though they had equipment and were clearly conducting activities that were declarable. Now, quite frankly, we are not sure fully what they were doing right now. They had biological and chemical production equipment in them. Most of them are relatively small by historic Iraqi standards. They are mostly in houses and residential areas. Some are in business establishments. One was in a hospital. These are facilities that at the minimum carried out research and development and kept the scientific skill level.'' When you think about the fact that it took us months and months to find Saddam in the country, a country the size of California, buried in a six-by-three-foot hole south of Tikrit, and probably would not have found him without accurate, absolutely, the most accurate human intelligence, I do not think it is surprising that we are having difficulty finding these weapons of mass destruction. There are any number of things that he could have done with them, from shipping them out of the country, to destroying them, to burying them, to putting them in very small vials. It does not take a footlocker to store some of these weapons of mass destruction. They are easily hidden. So we need to keep looking, absolutely. The Iraqi Survey Group under General Dayton will continue that search. Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for joining me in this Special Order this evening. I think we firmly established that the record clearly outlines that, for the last decade and more, Iraq has been identified as a terrorist regime, dangerous to its neighbors, its own people and the rest of the world. As a matter of fact, I think in one of the quotes that the gentleman went [Page: H494] through, then-Senator Al Gore attacked the previous Bush administration for not doing enough to rein in Saddam Hussein and Iraq. And this was a President who took them to war once and that was not enough. This was an administration that talked about attacking unilaterally. The Clinton administration laid the foundation for the dangers of the Iraqi regime under Saddam Hussein. They did not respond. September 11 happened. It is a whole new world. The threat was outlined. The intelligence was there. The President responded. And the Iraqi people, as the gentleman and I have found out as we have gone over there, the Iraqi people are better off and are thankful that Saddam has been removed from power and that they can move and move forward in building a free and democratic Iraq.
|