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1A) Strategic Partnership between the U.S. and the Marshall Islands

Ms. HARRIS. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the concurrent resolution (H. Con. Res. 364) to recognize more than 5 decades of strategic partnership between the United States and the people of the Marshall Islands in the pursuit of international peace and security, and for other purposes.

   The Clerk read as follows:

    H. Con. Res. 364

   Whereas on November 20, 2003, Congress, recognizing our Nation's historical responsibilities over the Former Trust Territory of the Marshall Islands and its successful transition from Trust Territory status to full independence in free association with the United States beginning in 1986, approved the Compact of Free Association Amendments Act, which was signed into law by President Bush on December 17, 2003, becoming Public Law Number 108-188;

   Whereas the Compact of Free Association, as amended by Public Law 108-188, embodies and extends the close political, economic, and social partnership, as well as the strategic mutual security alliance, between the Republic of the Marshall Islands and the United States under the terms of the bilateral association between our nations;

   Whereas this partnership for peace and alliance for the security of our nations and the world began in 1944, when the heroic armed forces of the United States and its allies, with the courageous assistance of the people of the Marshall Islands at the risk of their own safety, liberated the Marshall Islands from Japanese military occupation;

   Whereas the friendship and cooperation between the United States and the people of the Marshall Islands that began during World War II continued during the next 4 decades, during which the United States exercised powers of government in the Marshall Islands under a Trusteeship Agreement with the United Nations;

   Whereas during the Marshall Islands trusteeship era the aim of the United States was to promote international peace and security through its nuclear weapons testing program which was viewed as a critical element to the success of United States global leadership during the Cold War;

   Whereas the United States testing program conducted in the Marshall Islands and the strategy of nuclear deterrence sustained by the United States and its allies, was carried out in the hope that understanding its destructive power would be the strategy for which we could arm the world with reasons for peace among nations;

   Whereas from 1946 to 1958 the United States detonated 67 atmospheric nuclear weapons in the Marshall Islands, representing nearly 80 percent of all the atmospheric tests ever conducted by the United States, and enabling atmospheric tests in the continental United States to be terminated and relocated at the greatest possible distance from large cities and densely populated areas;

   Whereas on March 1, 1954, the hydrogen weapons test code-named Bravo yielded explosive power approximately 1,000 times greater than the weapon used in the 1945 wartime nuclear attack on Hiroshima, Japan;

   Whereas the Bravo test created a mushroom cloud 25 miles in diameter, and produced a crater 6,000 feet in diameter, vaporizing 6 islands at the Bikini Atoll;

   Whereas the Bravo test and the 12 year nuclear testing program has been the defining experience of the modern era for the people of the Marshall Islands, and these momentous events created a common bond between the people of the Marshall Islands and the United States military and civilian personnel who shared hardships and suffering with the people of the Marshall Islands during the testing program, as well as the United States citizens in areas affected by the mainland testing programs and weapons production industry;

   Whereas the people of the Marshall Islands, having learned first hand the dangers of nuclear weapons, freely chose in United Nations observed acts of self-determination in 1982 to enter into the Compact of Free Association in order to become a sovereign nation allied more closely with the United Sates than any other nation under any other alliance;

   Whereas from the time of choosing self-determination, the Marshall Islands worked closely with Congress and the executive branch to bring about a strong understanding of the unique relationship between their islands and the other United States insular areas;

   Whereas the United States nuclear testing program put the people of these remote islands on the front line in the Cold War struggle to preserve international peace, promote nuclear disarmament, support nuclear nonproliferation, and provide facilities critical to the development by the United States of a deployable missile defense system to reduce the risks of nuclear missile attacks; and

   Whereas as a member state in the United Nations, the world body that once had oversight of United States stewardship of the trusteeship for the people of the Marshall Islands and their island homelands, the Republic of the Marshall Islands has an unmatched record of working in conjunction with the leadership of the United States in the pursuit of international peace and security, the rights and well-being of the peoples of the world, and in the War on Terrorism: Now, therefore, be it

    Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), That Congress recognizes as an historic achievement of friendship more than 5 decades of strategic partnership between the United States and the people of the Marshall Islands in pursuit of international peace and security, and recognizes with solemn regard for the cost of preserving peace, the importance of the nuclear weapon test code-named Bravo at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands on March 1, 1954.

   The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Harris) and the gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos) each will control 20 minutes.

   The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Harris).

   GENERAL LEAVE

   Ms. HARRIS. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material

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on the concurrent resolution under consideration.

   The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentlewoman from Florida?

   There was no objection.

   Ms. HARRIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

   Mr. Speaker, I would like to commend the gentleman from California (Mr. Pombo), chairman of the Committee on Resources, for introducing this timely resolution which commemorates the more than five decades of friendship and strategic solidarity that the United States has shared with the people of the Marshall Islands.

   March 1 marked the 50th anniversary of the Bravo test, the largest of the 67 atmospheric nuclear tests that the United States conducted in the Marshall Islands. Those massive detonations, which represented significant sacrifices by the Marshallese people, were critical to the credibility and reliability of our nuclear deterrent during the Cold War. They are perhaps the most vivid, visual examples of a strategic partnership that stretches back to the Pacific campaign of the Second World War.

   Most recently, the United States reaffirmed and extended aspects of its unique relationship with the Republic of the Marshall Islands in the amended Compact of Free Association, which the Congress considered and approved last year. That agreement continues and deepens our strategic cooperation, both by reaffirming our mutual defense obligations and by significantly extending United States access to our missile defense testing facility at Kwajalein Atoll.

   As we commemorate the anniversary of the Bravo test, it is fitting to recall the mutual sacrifice that our peoples have shared during the last half century and to committing ourselves to maintaining our special friendship in the decades ahead.

   I urge passage of this resolution.

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

   Mr. LANTOS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

   Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this resolution, and I first would like to commend the authors of this resolution, the gentleman from California (Mr. Pombo) and the ranking member on the Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific, the gentleman from American Samoa (Mr. Faleomavaega). We are grateful for their leadership on matters related to the Pacific.

   This resolution recognizes the 50th anniversary of the Bravo nuclear weapon test which occurred in March 1954. It reaffirms the strong relationship between the United States and the people of the Marshall Islands. The timing of this resolution is particularly appropriate as Congress last year approved legislation renewing the Compact of Free Association. This compact is the guiding document for our relations with the Marshall Islands and with Micronesia.

   Mr. Speaker, the beginnings of our Nation's close relationship with the people of the Marshall Islands are etched in history. In 1944, we joined with the Marshallese people to liberate the people from Japanese military rule.

   At the end of the Second World War, the United States began a decades-long trustee relationship with the Marshall Islands, culminating in Marshallese independence in 1982.

[Time: 12:45]

   During the trusteeship period, the United States conducted 67 atmospheric nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands, the largest of which was Bravo, which occurred in March 1954, a half a century ago. This test yielded approximately 1,000 times greater explosive power than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Our nuclear testing program did enormous, long-term damage to the health of the Marshallese and the environment of the islands. Yet rather than turning away from the United States, the people of the Marshall Islands sought a close political, strategic, and social relationship with our Nation. As we speak, Mr. Speaker, Marshallese soldiers are serving with our troops in Iraq.

   The Compact of Free Association amendments recently enacted into law will further solidify U.S.-Marshallese ties by ensuring that the U.S. contributes to the economic and educational development of the Marshallese people for the next 2 decades and that we continue to operate the Kwajalein test facility on the islands.

   So as we remember the 50th anniversary of the Bravo test, we also celebrate 6 decades of friendship and amity between the American and Marshallese people. I urge all my colleagues to support H. Con. Res. 364.

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

   Ms. HARRIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Pombo).

   Mr. POMBO. I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me this time.

   Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of House Concurrent Resolution 364, which I introduced recently to formally recognize a political, social, and strategic relationship that is very unique to the history of the United States. The House Committee on Resources has witnessed this relationship over the years and has a unique understanding of the issues that affect the insular areas, having oversight over all of the former United Nations trust territories.

   Today we consider this legislation in light of both the strong history between the Republic of the Marshall Islands and the United States as well as the common ties that will keep our nations closely connected for decades to come. For over 50 years, the United States has enjoyed a mutually beneficial relationship with the citizens of Micronesia and the Marshall Islands. In 1984, President Ronald Reagan proposed a new status for the trust territories of the Pacific through negotiated Compacts of Free Association. After having status as a United Nations trust territory for many years, in 1986 these islands chose to become sovereign states. Starting in 1986 when Congress passed the Compact Act, we made the agreement to strive to continue to maintain both economic and political stability in this region, including working to advance economic self-reliance in these islands. Congress also strongly endorsed the continuation of this relationship when we passed H.J. Res. 63, the new Compact of Free Association, by a strong bipartisan vote last year with the help of the House Committee on International Relations and numerous other House committees.

   About 2 weeks ago, the citizens of the Marshall Islands, as well as many others, recognized a moment in time that was significant in American history and was a part of the daily lives of Marshallese citizens from 1946 to 1958. During this period, the United States was performing nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands that would prove primary to the success of our country during the Cold War. The contributions of the Marshall Islanders during these years further helped bring a positive and peaceful end to the Cold War that saw true democracies established across the globe.

   In particular, H. Con. Res. 364 points to the significance of the nuclear weapons test that was code-named Bravo and its role in the half-century relationship that still exists between our countries. On March 1, 1954, the United States tested this weapon at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands. It was the largest nuclear weapon ever detonated by our country. Its explosive power was nearly 1,000 times greater than the weapon used in 1945 in our attack on Hiroshima, Japan. This event and the success that came from our nuclear testing program will forever link the United States in history with the Marshall Islands. But the Marshallese continue to show their support for our country, as seen in 80 of their citizens serving in the U.S. Armed Forces. Our common pursuit of peace through working closely together through political, diplomatic, and strategic ties continues to this day.

   I was fortunate to have recently been able to travel to the Marshall Islands with Department of Interior Secretary Gale Norton, as well as other members of the House Committee on Resources. The openness and kindness with which we were received will not be forgotten, as we were able to talk to some of the survivors of these nuclear tests and comprehend better the level of understanding that remains between the Marshallese and our government to this day. In fact, two Bikini citizens are here with us today to see this legislation move to the House floor: the Mayor of Bikini, Mr. Eldon Note, and Senator Juda from Bikini as well.

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   This bond should not be understated. I hope that other Members of this body will also show their recognition of this alliance in supporting H. Con. Res. 364 today. We continue to work with the Marshallese in both a socioeconomic and national defense standpoint. Be it the new schools being built with Compact of Free Association moneys or the critical work being done at the Ronald Reagan ballistic missile defense test site, our mutual ties founded in democracy and freedom can, with this legislation, be properly acknowledged.

   I would like to thank the House Committee on International Relations for their help in bringing this legislation to the floor of the House in such an expeditious manner and look forward to the strong bipartisan support of this concurrent resolution by my colleagues.

   Mr. LANTOS. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 6 minutes to my good friend, the distinguished gentlewoman from Guam (Ms. Bordallo).

   Ms. BORDALLO. Mr. Speaker, over 7,000 miles due west from our Nation's Capitol at a location roughly 2,700 miles southwest from the Hawaiian Islands and 2,000 miles southwest from Guam lies a nation of more than 50,000 people. The Republic of the Marshall Islands comprises 30 atolls and 1,152 islands, an area that in total land mass represents roughly the equivalent in size of Washington, D.C. but straddles an area of about 770,000 square miles of the western Pacific Ocean.

   Today the people of the Marshall Islands, their culture, their history, their special relationship with the United States, which this resolution seeks to appropriately recognize, is largely unknown and overlooked by most Americans. Their special relationship with the United States is embodied in a Compact of Free Association and the unique partnership the compact establishes between our two nations.

   Last year, we as a Congress renewed this compact with the Marshalls for another 20 years, and we take this opportunity today to recognize the beginning of a new era in our strategic partnership. I am proud to have taken part in the compact's renewal and in the work on this legislation as a Member of this House. As our colleagues from Hawaii stated last year when the compact legislation was brought to this floor, this may be an issue of little note for many of the Members of the House. It would be easy, he said, to say that the compact represents an area of forgotten people, of the never noticed, perhaps lost in the vastness of the world's largest ocean, a people, a culture, an area that was undiscovered by the Western World until the Spaniards arrived in 1529 seeking a western route for trade. Over the centuries, their culture has flourished and the world has now taken notice.

   The United States' relationship with the Marshallese began 5 decades ago during World War II. Allied forces, led by the U.S. Navy and Marines, drove the Japanese Imperial forces from their islands. Following the war, U.S. naval bases were established on the atolls of Kwajalein and Majuro. In 1946, Bikini Atoll was the site for Operation Crossroads, the first postwar atomic weapons tests. Fifty years ago this month, the United States detonated the historic Bravo shot, a 15-megaton hydrogen bomb 1,000 times more powerful than the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima. For 12 years, the United States detonated more than 67 nuclear weapons in the Marshalls during the development of our Nation's strategic arsenal. The testing in the Marshalls left a legacy that we continue to address to this day. We recognize the important contributions of the Marshalls in our national security programs, and we know that the Free World owes a debt of gratitude to them for their role in the development of our national strategic deterrent. I am hopeful that we will soon address all these issues that the testing era brought for the benefit of our strategic partnership and special relationship.

   In January, I was fortunate to have participated in a congressional delegation led by the gentleman from California (Mr. Pombo). I was very grateful that he decided to visit the Marshalls as well as other Pacific islands. While in Majuro, we met with President Kessai Note and elected officials from other islands, as well as with the Nuclear Claims Tribunal. This visit was important given the recent renewal of the compact, the anniversary of the Bravo blast, and the security issues facing our world today.

   The people of the Marshall Islands have made tremendous sacrifices and contributions on behalf of the United States in the pursuit of peace and freedom around the world. Today, the Marshall Islands are among the United States' greatest friends and most reliable allies. I want to recognize and congratulate the Marshalls' Ambassador to the United States for his efforts in strengthening the relationship between our governments, the Honorable Banny de Brum. I also again want to thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Pombo), the gentleman from West Virginia (Mr. Rahall), and the Secretary of Interior, Mrs. Norton, for their leadership in recognizing the value of the strategic partnership with this resolution. Mr. Speaker, I urge its unanimous adoption by this House.

   Ms. HARRIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Flake).

   Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me this time. I appreciate the chairman of the Committee on Resources for bringing this forward. I had the good fortune to travel to the Marshall Islands a couple of months ago on the CODEL with the Secretary of the Interior and some of my colleagues. We were able to meet with President Note and the elected leaders of many of the surrounding atolls. It was our good fortune to go to Kwajalein, to be able to watch what we are doing there at the Ronald Reagan test site, to see how important our relationship is with the Marshall Islands.

   The U.S. nuclear testing program put the people of these remote islands in the front line of the Cold War. For many, many years testing went on. From 1946 to 1958, the U.S. detonated 67 atmospheric nuclear weapons in the Marshall Islands. Most Americans have no idea the contribution that the people of the Marshall Islands have made to our peace and our security. Hopefully, this resolution will go some distance in expressing our gratitude and our appreciation for that relationship. We have an obligation to the people of the atolls that were affected by these tests that we are still carrying through. I was pleased to support the Compact of Free Association, or the extension of it. This is a good start. It represents a good foundation for a continued strong relationship. We ought to appreciate strongly the Marshall Islands for their support for our position in the United Nations. No nation on this Earth, I think, supports us more, more frequently and is with us more than the Republic of the Marshall Islands. For that we should be grateful.

   Mr. Speaker, I urge support of this resolution, and I am glad to speak on this topic.

• [Begin Insert]

   Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H. Con. Res. 364, a resolution to recognize the decades of strategic partnership between the United States and the Republic of the Marshall Islands.

   In 1947, the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) became one of six entities in the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands established by the United Nations with the United States as the Trustee. This began a decades long relationship between the United States and RMI that has proven to be resilient and enduring.

   In particular, I'd like to highlight the United States nuclear testing program in RMI which began in 1946. Over the years, the United States detonated 67 nuclear weapons on the islands of Bikini and Enewetak. These tests comprise 80 percent of all atmospheric tests conducted by the United States and allowed a majority of all tests to be conducted as far from densely populated areas as possible. This testing includes the detonation of Bravo, the most powerful hydrogen bomb ever tested by the United States, on Bikini Atoll. Radiation from the test forced the evacuation of Marshallese and U.S. Military personnel on Rongelap, Rongerik, Utirik and Ailinginae.

   Over the years, the Marshallese have faced very serious consequences as a result of the nuclear testing. The health and property effects have proved to be extensive and in many cases, immeasurable. The United States has recognized this and set up a fund to compensate those affected by the testing. However, the consequences of this testing, especially the health of the Marshallese people, continue to be impacted.

   Mr. Speaker, I am sure that our countries will continue to work on this issue and find a resolution. I also have no doubt that the relationship between our governments will continue to be productive and mutually beneficial.

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Last year, this body worked on reauthorizing the Compacts of Free Association, an agreement between the United States and RMI, to continue our defense and economic alliance that has benefited both countries for 17 years. As a result of this work, the United States and RMI will continue this alliance for another 15 years.

   I urge my colleagues to join me in recognizing our relationship with RMI and commend their dedication to international peace and security.

   Mr. CASE. Mr. Speaker, I stand today in grateful support of this resolution, which I am proud to have cosponsored.

   This resolution is about three things. First, re-acknowledgement of that region of our world in which the present and future of our Nation and so many others lie: the Pacific and Asia. Second, recognition of a proud people and culture whose future lies now not only in their home islands, but in our own country. Third, responsibility for our actions which, like the consequences of those actions, will extend down through the generations.

   On re-acknowledgement, as a product of the Pacific, I confess to a Pacific-centric view of our world. But can anyone doubt that our own future is inextricably tied to that of the Pacific? And as we look to the Pacific, we cannot overlook its island nations, whose strategic value and loyalty to democratic principles are unquestioned.

   Foremost among these nations is the Republic of the Marshall Islands, with a proud history and culture dating back thousands of years. We celebrate in this resolution the mutually beneficial relationship we have enjoyed for more than half a century.

   We also celebrate its people, who at home are striving to build a modern and sustainable island nation. And the emigration of many to new lands and new opportunities, especially in our country, are strengthening communities beyond their homeland.

   My own state has especially benefited, with a Marshallese community of some 5000 strong poised for a major breakthrough into the mainstream of political, economic and social participation in Hawaii's affairs.

   And, of course, we cannot forget that the Marshallese and their counterpart Pacific nations today have their sons and daughters serving with our armed forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, and lying grievously wounded defending our joint freedoms in military hospitals.

   And lastly, this is a resolution of remembrance, of the dire consequences to a whole people and their aina, or land, of 66 nuclear tests, virtually all open air, from 1946 through 1958, including, 50 years ago, BRAVO, the world's first hydrogen bomb. Few of us, even today, can imagine the force and devastation released by just one such device, much less 66.

   I have my own recollection, as a boy of just six, sitting on my grandparents' porch on the Island of Kauai, on a dark night, watching the entire sky light up from a single explosion 2,300 miles away. But the Marshallese lived through it, and they are still living through it, and will live through it for generations to come.

   These stories are being told elsewhere, by Beverly Keever, in a February 25, 2004 article in the ``Honolulu Weekly,'' and by James Matayoshi, Mayor of Rongselap, in recent remarks on BRAVO day. I append these for the Record and commend them to your attention.

   But today, we simply remember what happened and recommit ourselves to remedy that which must be remedied.

   Mr. Speaker, there are lots of people to be thanked for this resolution. Chair Pombo and Ranking Member Rahall, for their commitment, Chair Hyde and Ranking Member Lantos for bringing this to the floor, and Chair Leach and Ranking Member Faleomavaega for their advocacy. But mostly, we thank the people of the Marshall Islands, for their friendship and support. We will not forget.

   Mr. Speaker, I submit the following articles for insertion into the RECORD in connection with H. Con. Res. 364.

• [End Insert]

   Suffering, Secrecy, Exile: Bravo 50 Years Later

(By Beverly Deepe Keever)

[From Honolulu Weekly, Feb. 25, 2004]

   Almira Ainri was 10 years old when she was catapulted into the atomic age.

   In June of 1946, as the U.S. Navy readied the first atomic bomb in peacetime--just the fourth in history--Ainri and about 100 other inhabitants of Rongelap Atoll, in the Marshall Islands, were sent south by ship to Lae Atoll, where it was thought they would be safe from the effects of the explosion 100 miles away, at Bikini Atoll.

   Eight years later, in 1954, Ainri and other Rongelapese weren't as lucky.

   Fifty years ago this week, on Bikini Atoll, the U.S. detonated the Bravo shot, a 15-megaton hydrogen bomb 1,000 times more powerful than the bomb it dropped on Hiroshima.

   The most powerful bomb in U.S. nuclear history, Bravo had a radioactive cloud that plumed over 7,000 square miles, an area about the size of New Jersey. A hundred or so miles downwind, near-lethal fallout powdered at least 236 inhabitants of the Rongelap and Utrik atolls, contaminating their ancestral homelands. The Bravo-dusted islanders entered history as unique examples of the effects of radioactive fallout on humans.

   Ainri, who now lives in Honolulu, is one of 118 survivors of the Bravo shot. For her and other islanders, the bomb's detonation set off a chain reaction of events over the last half century. They became unwitting subjects in secret U.S. research on the effects of nuclear fallout and ultimately were forced to leave their idyllic homeland, which remains uninhabitable to this day due to radioactivity.

   Archeological finds on Bikini Atoll suggest that the first Micronesians likely arrived in the Marshall Islands between 2,500 and 4,000 years ago. Germany annexed the islands in 1885. Japan captured them in 1914. Allied forces captured and occupied them in World War II; the war's end left them in U.S. hands. The U.S. began nuclear testing there the next year.

   The Marshall Islands were declared a Trust Territory by the United Nations in 1947, with the U.S. as the administrator, an arrangement that did not end until 1991. The following treatment of the irradiated islanders raises doubts about the behavior of the U.S. government:

   U.S. officials failed to evacuate Ainri and other islanders before the Bravo shot and then delayed their removal for more than 50 hours after the fallout.

   On March 7, 1954, six days after the Bravo shot, Project 4.1, ``Study of Response of Human Beings Exposed to Significant Beta and Gamma Radiation due to Fallout from High Yield Weapons,'' established a secret U.S. medical program to monitor and evaluate islanders exposed to radiation, turning them into experimental human subjects without their consent.

   Ainri and other islanders were allowed to return to their irradiated homeland in 1957. It was later deemed unsafe for human habitation.

   Marshall Islanders were injected with or fed radioactive tracers without their consent, contrary to medical recommendations made by U.S. medical officers six weeks after the Bravo shot that the islanders should receive no more exposure to radioactivity in their lifetimes.

   The research projects arising from Bravo were begun just seven years after war crimes tribunals convicted German medical officers for their horrific experiments with concentration camp inmates during World War II. Those tribunals led to the Nuremberg Code, an international standard for experiments involving human subjects, which stipulated that the voluntary consent of the subject ``is absolutely essential.'' The U.S. Atomic Energy Commission established similar standards, requiring the consent of human subjects and the expectation that an experiment would benefit the subject, but they had little distribution or effect in the U.S. bureaucracy.

   Did U.S. bureaucratic bungling and operational obstacles cause the mistreatment of the islanders or, as so many islanders and others say, did U.S. officials make the islanders guinea pigs to study the effects of radioactivity?

   LIKE NEEDLES OVER MY WHOLE BODY

   At about 6 a.m. on March 1, 1954, Almira Ainri was awakened by the brightness and noise of an inferno as hot as the core of the sun. Ainri was 18 then, married, and pregnant with her first child.

   The island shook, she recalled. The air was gray. Snowlike particles fell from the sky.

   A day later, U.S. soldiers with Geiger counters arrived and found people of Rongelap weak and vomiting. Fifty hours and more after Bravo's detonation, the 236 inhabitants on or near Rongelap and Utrik atolls were evacuated to the military clinic at Kwajalein Atoll. There, they were scrubbed every day with special soaps. The pressure of the water on Ainri's blistered skin felt ``like needles over my whole body,'' she said--``like I was burning.''

   After the blast, Ainri gave birth to a son, Robert. His thyroid glands were so damaged that he became dwarfed. The glands were later removed, consigning him to a lifelong regimen of medication. Ainri got pregnant again and gave birth, she said, to ``a bunch of grapes, that had to be pulled out of me.'' Twice more Ainri got pregnant, she said, and gave birth to children who appeared normal but died several days later. Another son, Alex, survived, but again with damaged thyroid glands. Ainri herself has thyroid problems; two new growths recently appeared there.

   The suffering of Ainri and her family is hardly unique. Within a decade of the Bravo shot, more than 90 percent of the children who were under 12 years old at the time of the explosion developed thyroid tumors. Today, Marshall Islanders have one of the world's highest rates of abnormalities of the thyroid, which often result in cases of retardation, cretinism and stunted development.

   For these and other conditions that the U.S. government presumes were caused by its nuclear weapons testing, the U.S. pays compensation. Those with leukemia or cancer of the esophagus, stomach, small intestine, pancreas or bone are awarded $125,000. Islanders with severe growth retardation due to thyroid damage get $100,000.

   By the end of 2002, a U.S. trust fund had paid about $79 million to 1,808 islanders, but because the trust fund could not cover all its obligations, 46 percent of affected islanders

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died before they were fully paid for their injuries.

   Rongelap Atoll comprises 61 islets with a combined land mass of about three square miles and a lagoon of 388 square miles. Because it is still too radioactive for humans, its former residents are scattered. In Honolulu, Ainri lives in a home where her pandanus floor mats mingle with a caller-I.D. phone and a television set.

   Under a 1996, $45-million agreement with the U.S., projects are underway to prepare for the return of Rongelapese to the five southernmost, least-contaminated islets of the atoll. A glisteningly white church has been refurbished, complete with striking lapis trim. An airstrip, desalinization plant, field station, power plant and docks have been constructed or installed. Phase 2 calls for the construction of 50 four-bedroom homes, a dispensary and a hospital, school building, residences for doctors and teachers, a library, a town hall and a municipal building. All that is missing is a date when the resettlement will occur.

   THE THREE SURPRISES

   Corporal Don Whitaker hardly could have imagined the worldwide surprise his letter home would create. Writing to his hometown newspaper, in Cincinnati, in March 1954, Whitaker told of seeing distraught Marshall Islanders arrive at a navy clinic on Kwajalein after the Bravo shot. It was one of three surprises that shocked the world, and members of President Eisenhower's administration.

   The first surprise was the magnitude of the Bravo bomb's blast. Its 15-megaton yield was more than twice what U.S. officials had expected. Set off from Bikini Atoll, it vaporized three of the atoll's 23 islets. The test was expected, however.

   Whitaker's letter was the next surprise. In it, he revealed the evacuation of islanders that U.S. officials had tried to keep secret. Published March 9, eight days after the blast, Whitaker's letter prompted the Atomic Energy Commission to issue a press release the next day, masking the magnitude of the Bravo shot and its radioactive effects with a bland announcement. But Bravo was hardly the ``routine atomic test'' the release described, and the phrase ``some radioactivity'' did not come close to describing the islanders' dosage, which was the equivalent of the amount received by Japanese citizens less than two miles from Ground Zero at Hiroshima, lawyer-historian Jonathan M. Weisgall writes.

   Twenty-eight years later, the U.S. Defense Nuclear Agency would call the Bravo shot ``the worst single incident of fallout exposures in all the U.S. atmospheric testing program.''

   The third surprise came just days after the AEC had assured the public that the irradiated islanders were fine. A Japanese tuna trawler, the No. 5 Fukuryu Maru (``Lucky Dragon''), was 112 miles east of Bikini Atoll at the time of the Bravo explosion, well outside the danger zone announced by U.S. officials. Yet Bravo's staggering detonation powdered the boat's 23 crew members with what is known in Japan as shi no hai--``ashes of death.'' When the Fukuryu Maru reached its home port of Yaizu, about 120 miles south of Tokyo, on March 14, the crew was suffering from a radiation sickness that stunned the world.

   The crewmen's sickness and the subsequent panic over radioactive tuna in the U.S. and Japanese fish markets led to an international furor. The Japanese government and people dubbed it ``a second Hiroshima'' and it nearly led to severing diplomatic relations. A U.S. government doctor dispatched to Japan blamed the Japanese press for exaggerating the condition of the fishermen, who, he predicted, would recover completely in about a month.

   Six months later, Aikichi Kuboyama, the 40-year-old radio operator of the Fukuryu Maru, died. He was ``probably the world's first hydrogen-bomb casualty,'' said The New York Times.

   It was this triple-play of surprises--Bravo's tremendous force, Whitaker's letter and the plight of the Fukuryu Maru--that chinked the U.S. government's usual policy of secrecy. Instead, the word fallout entered the world's lexicon. For the first time, people in Japan and Russia, London and Bonn, New York and Milwaukee, were aware of a danger that could not be smelled, seen, felt or heard.

   THE SUN RISING IN THE WEST

   The Bravo shot was the first U.S. hydrogen device that could be delivered by airplane. It was designed to catch up with the Soviets who, in August 1953, had exploded their first hydrogen bomb deliverable by aircraft.

   The Bravo shot was so dangerous that it could not be detonated in the continental United States. Nor could it be set off at Enewetak Atoll, where the U.S. conducted nuclear blast tests from 1948 to 1958, for fear it would wipe out the extensive U.S. equipment and installations there. So it was tested at Bikini Atoll.

   Even before the Bravo shot, experts knew that the radioactive dust of atmospheric nuclear weapons explosions was invisibly and unknowingly powdering the continental United States and touching others worldwide. The U.S. government's failure to move the Rongelap and Utrik Islanders in advance of the Bravo shot is painfully ironic because Almira Ainri and other Rongelapese had been moved before the first peacetime atomic test, in 1946--and Bravo was 1,000 times more powerful. Yet the islanders were not moved in 1954 because of ``the high cost and logistic problems ..... in supporting such an operation,'' according to U.S. medical officers.

   Six hours before Bravo, U.S. officials knew that the winds had shifted, putting Rongelap and Utrik Islanders in the path of fallout, but they proceeded with the detonation anyway. That knowledge, coupled with the lag of several days after the detonation before islanders were evacuated, led to speculation that the U.S. deliberately used the islanders as guinea pigs.

   A month after the Bravo shot, Atomic Energy Commission chair Lewis Strauss told reporters that allegations that the evacuation of the Marshall Islanders had been deliberately delayed were ``utterly false, irresponsible and gravely unjust to the men engaged in this patriotic service.'' He also said that he had just visited the islanders at the Kwajalein clinic and they ``appeared to me to be well and happy.''

   Bravo was detonated at 6 a.m. Within four hours, the 28 U.S. weathermen on Rongerik Atoll, in the Marshall Islands, saw a mist from the blast. Seven hours later, the needle of their radiation-measuring instrument went off the scale. They were evacuated the next day.

   Clouds of snowlike particles moved over Alinginae, Rongelap, Utrik and Ailuk atolls. The clouds deposited radioactive fallout on the people below and irradiated them with doses of ``cloud shine,'' radiation produced by the blast itself, which Rongelapese described as being like ``the sun rising in the west.''

   About two-thirds of the Rongelapese were nauseated for two days, according to a U.S. medical officer who examined them a week after Bravo. Roughly one in ten were vomiting and had diarrhea. Some had itching, burning skin that turned into black-pigmented areas and lesions, some of which became ulcerated and infected. Hair fell out. Blood counts fell.

   The Bravo-dusted islanders disappeared from the news for the next year, because of the AEC's clampdown on information. But if they were not making news, they were making medical history.

   GUINEA PIGS

   Within days of the Bravo shot, irradiated islanders were unwittingly swept into a top-secret effort to research the effects of radioactive fallout on humans. ``Never before in history had an isolated human population been subjected to high but sub-lethal amounts of radioactivity without the physical and psychological complexities associated with nuclear explosion,'' said scientist Neal O. Hines. Islanders would not learn the true nature of the experiment for 40 years, until 1994, when President Clinton ordered thousands of documents declassified in the wake of a national scandal involving human radiation experiments.

   Four months before the Bravo shot, a then-secret U.S. document listed research Project 4.1 among 48 tests to be conducted during and after the explosion. ``(D)ue to possible adverse publicity reaction, you will specifically instruct all personnel in this project to be particularly careful not to discuss the purposes of this project and its background or its findings with any except those who have a specific `need to know,' '' the document said.

   The purpose of Project 4.1 was to study the effects of fallout radiation on human beings.

   Three days after Bravo, Project 4.1 began to unfold in Washington, D.C., where top medical officials decided that the victims of its hazardous debris would be appropriate research subjects. A week after the blast, 25 officials of the AEC's medical program arrived at Kwajalein Atoll. Six weeks after the blast, Project 4.1 workers recommended a lifelong study of the affected islanders. After thyroid nodules began to appear on Rongelapese and Utrik islanders in 1963, they were studied every year.

   They began to complain that they were being treated like guinea pigs rather than sick humans needing treatment. A doctor who evaluated them annually came close to agreeing when he wrote, 38 years after Bravo, ``In retrospect, it was unfortunate that the AEC, because it was a research organization, did not include support of basic health care of populations under study.''

   RETURN TO RONGELAP

   In 1957, U.S. officials assured Rongelapese that their homeland was safe and returned them there. Upon their return, U.S. medical officers shifted the emphasis of their study to what researchers who studied the documents released in the 1990s described as ``the formation of an integrated long-term human environmental research program to document the bioaccumulation of fallout and the human effects of this exposure.'' In sum, U.S. officials knew they were placing the Rongelapese in a radioactive environment, even though the islanders had already sustained more than a lifetime's worth of radiation.

   A 1982 U.S. Department of Energy report indicated that some inhabited areas of Rongelap were as contaminated as the parts forbidden to humans. It was the first report prepared for the Rongelapese in their own language and it shocked them. ``All we needed to see was the center fold-out and our worst fears were confirmed!'' Marshall Islands Senator Jeton Anjain told the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources in 1991.

   Rongelap, their principal island of residence since their 1957 return, had been assigned a level ``3'' of contamination, meaning it was unsafe for human habitation.

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   In 1984, Rongelapese representatives asked the U.S. to evacuate them. The U.S. refused.

   The next year, the Rongelapese left anyway. ``It was by no means an easy decision, for our people knew that it might mean they and their children would never again know life on their ancestral homeland of the last 4,000 years,'' Anjain told the U.S. Senate committee.

   ``But the safety of our children and the unborn was more important.''

   After living on radioactive Rongelap for 28 years, 70 islanders were moved by Greenpeace to Majetto Island, 100 miles away. Confirming their fears, a 1988 study authorized by the U.S. government and subsequent official testimony recommended that part of Rongelap Atoll be considered ``forbidden'' territory and that the remaining part would be safe only if inhabitants ate imported food for the next 30 to 50 years.

   THE ONLY THING I COULD THINK OF WAS NAZI GERMANY

   Residents of Rongelap and Enewetak atolls were also used in human radiation experiments involving radioactive tracers of tritiated water and chromium-51 injections, Marshall Islands Foreign Minister Phillip Muller told the U.S. Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs in 1996.

   The U.S. Department of Energy withheld critical information about the adverse effects of U.S. weapons tests from the U.S. Congress and Marshallese officials, Muller said, and medical research without the consent of Marshallese subjects continued.

   Marshallese Senator Tony de Brum told the committee that U.S. doctors 50 years ago pulled healthy as well as unhealthy teeth of islanders without their consent, for use in cesium, strontium or plutonium studies. Even in the mid-1990s, islanders were unsure whether they were being cared for or studied by U.S. medical personnel, de Brum said.

   In 1999, Muller's allegations of human radiation experiments were confirmed by the Department of Energy, the successor agency of the Atomic Energy Commission. Declassified documents showed that U.S. officials included the irradiated islanders under the umbrella of its extensive biological program. Its worst known cases included x-raying the male organs of Oregon and Washington state prisoners, feeding radioactive fallout materials to university students, giving small doses of radioactive iron to pregnant women and feeding Quaker Oats laced with radioactive traces of iron and calcium to supposedly mentally retarded boys in a Massachusetts state home. Upon first learning about these kinds of experiments in 1993, Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary said, ``The only thing I could think of was Nazi Germany.''

   WHO WILL PAY?

   Under the U.N. Trusteeship, the U.S. government was to prepare the people of the Marshall Islands for self-government. In 1986, President Reagan signed the Compact of Free Association after its ratification by the Marshall Islands government and Congress. Its provisions expired in 2001. New provisions for the compact were agreed upon earlier this year, but they are silent on U.S. funding that has since become inadequate to cover the spiraling claims of those harmed by U.S. nuclear weapons testing, including Bravo's fallout.

   There may be a ray of hope for the Marshallese, however. The compacts say that nuclear testing damages to persons or property discovered after the original 1986 agreement can be covered in a new request to the U.S. Congress with documentation that circumstances have changed.

   One changed circumstance is that the U.S. government did not disclose to the Marshallese government the yield of 44 of the 66 U.S. nuclear weapons tests detonated in its republic until 1993. The next year, a comprehensive list of 1,054 U.S. nuclear weapons tests worldwide and their yields was made public by the Department of Energy. It shows that the yield of 82 tests in the U.S.-administered Bikini, Enewetak and Johnston Atolls and Pacific waters from 1946 to 1962 was at least 128,704 kilotons. That's the equivalent of 8,580 Hiroshima-sized bombs, or 1.47 such bombs per day for 16 years.

   A second changed circumstance is that the personal-injury and property claims arising from nuclear weapons testing have exceeded the capacity of the $150 million trust fund established to pay them.

   The people of Enewetak and Bikini have been awarded just over $1 billion for property damages, radiological cleanup, loss of use and hardship and suffering, but as of the end of 2002, less than one percent of that money could be paid. And class-action damage claims for the people of Rongelap and Utrik are still pending.

   About 5,000 claims seeking a combined $5.75 billion for radiation-related damages arising from U.S. weapons testing in the Pacific have been pressed. The U.S. has paid $759 million.

   In 2000, invoking the ``changed circumstances'' provision of the compact, the Marshallese government asked the U.S. Congress for more funds and services to meet health costs and property damages. (Its petition can be viewed online at www.rmiembassyus.org--click ``nuclear'' and then ``petition.'')

   In November 2001, the Marshallese government's petition was resubmitted to a new U.S. Congress and President Bush. As of early this month, the U.S. has yet to take any action.

--

   Remarks of Mayor James Matayoshi, Bravo Day, March 1, 2004

   Today I stand before you as mayor of Rongelap, but more importantly, I stand before you as a son of Rangelap--a true son of the ``survivors''. You are here because you have determined that today, as we commemorate the terrible and terrifying event of March 1, 1954, it is important that you come. We are grateful to you for being here.

   We are especially proud to welcome our friends from the World Councils of Churches, our friends from Japan, Europe, and America. We know of friends here from as far away as New Zealand and Puerto Rico. We thank you all. We welcome you all.

   Some of you are from the islands which have born this tragedy for 50 years and more....... Some of you represent organizations and communities of people who feel strong ties to those of us who survived Bravo. Some of you represent governments and important organizations from throughout our world. Many of you have come to show solidarity with us today when we take a solemn pause to memorialize events of the past....... Events which forever changed our lives, and by the fact that you are here, your lives as well.

   Throughout this day, and as you interact with each other during these commemorative services, you will undoubtedly hear various accounts of events surrounding Bravo. From this long list of stories and anecdotes, you will witness the horror of the bomb, hear the multitude of reasons why this or that happened, and draw your own conclusions as to what to believe. Of course, you will hear from the apologists who will try as they always do to explain away our suffering and sorrow as byproducts of the cold war. The ``accident'' theorists will tell you about sudden shifts of wind and stronger yields than expected. Others will write of us as allies just bearing their share of the burdens of the cold war.

   Local witnesses will tell you personal versions of what they saw and felt from the eyes and the understanding of human beings and not scientists or soldiers or politicians. They will tell you of how as children they ran and cried, then played in the milky dust that fell on them. They will tell you of confusion, of fear, of thinking that the world had ended.

   Leaders will tell you how they tried to do all they could do to deal with the matter. Representatives of governments will try to assure you that all that could be done to bring the matter to closure have been done. They will tell you that Washington no longer sees these islands on their radar screen and therefore our quest for fairness and justice is all in vain.

   I wonder if they will tell you about project 4.1: The Study of Humans Exposed to Radiation. We began learning more about this program when previously classified documents pertaining to the testing program were released to us in 1994 under the Clinton administration. Among the thousands of documents declassified we discovered this frightening program plan. Drawn in 1953 for the planned 1954 Castle Nuclear Test Series, Project 4.1 contemplated the study of exposed human beings months before Bravo.

   Throughout the years our people have had misgivings about the annual medical examinations they were subjected to by scientists from the United States. Our discovery of these descriptions of project 4.1 have reinforced our conviction that we were being studied, not treated by the scientists who examined us. If project 4.1 was conceived, planned and funded prior to March 1, 1954, where were the study subjects supposed to come from?

   We have pictures showing ``subjects'' of the 4.1 study as early as March 16, 1954. Could this project have been put in place in a matter of 2 weeks without requisite technical and logistical planning? American doctors have testified that they were treating our injuries and that the studies were an integral part of the treatment. Yet it was general knowledge from the beginning that they would not treat conditions which they considered unrelated to the tests and would refer such patients to the Trust Territory medical authorities.

   We have documents pertaining to studies where certain radioactive materials were given to subjects both ``exposed'' and ``unexposed.'' This resulted in previously unexposed subjects being exposed for the purpose of comparison and exposed persons getting even more radiation than they had been getting from the bomb. If project 4.1 was not a study why were there ``control groups''?

   Many documents pertaining to the tests have yet to be released. Others, like the photographs in the Office of the District Administrator here in Majuro were removed and set on fire by agents of the United States Government. Several other fires involving medical records of Marshallese exposed to radiation have been reported through the years.

   Sufficient information regarding weather conditions surrounding Bravo has been gathered to convince us that there was no unexpected change in weather that caused radioactive fallout to reach inhabited areas. The generals and scientists in charge of the testing chose to ignore weather studies and forecasts which predicted unsafe conditions for the testing.

   On earlier occasions, people were moved for safety reasons for prior tests with much smaller expected yield. For Bravo, there was no such precautionary relocation. People were left where they were, unaware that

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they were in harm's way, totally at the mercy of the most powerful nuclear device ever detonated by man.

   For all these years under American guidance, we have learned principles of democracy and human rights under which all men aspire to live. Yet, when we seek to be treated with honor and dignity, we are denied the means to assure that fairness and justice is guaranteed to all. The United States continues to be less than forthcoming in its handling of information and dissemination of facts pertaining to the testing program.

   Here we are, 50 years after Bravo, and the people forcibly removed from their homes for the atomic tests, with the exception of Utrik, have yet to return home. The question of exposure as it affects other atolls of the Marshalls has yet to be fully addressed. Many claims are still being prepared. Adjudicated claims have not been paid in full as agreed upon by the United States. Medical and monitoring programs, promised by those who exposed us, have been severely curtailed or abandoned. Making ``non-exposed'' Marshallese responsible for the medical needs of ``exposed'' Marshallese is not a just solution. America must own up to the problems it created.

   Bravo is not over. The people of Kwajalein, who sacrificed their home and society for America's nuclear ambitions, still live in squalid conditions on Ebeye, unable to live in peace and comfort in their own homeland. They have been subjected to many of the same treatments the islands of the tests suffered: displacement, loss of traditional skills, social disruption, and the contamination of their lands and seas.

   We became dependent on the U.S. because the U.S. claimed the power to govern us. We did not ask for it, but when it happened we came to understand the choices we had. After decades of living with the good and the bad under American rule, we decided that the greater good would be to cast our lot with the U.S. under the compact of free association.

   Today we are America's allies in the war on terrorism. We are America's allies in the development of the missile systems. We are allies in the U.N. and vote with you when all your other allies abandon the U.S. on issues of great importance. We do that of our own free will, without the exercise of extra ordinary U.S. powers under the compact.

   For all these reasons, I can say we appreciate and understand America. We understand what Fourth of July means to Americans. We understand what Ford Theater and December 7, 1941 mean to America. We understand what November 22, 1963 means to America. We understand what September 11 will always mean to America.

   What we are here today to ask is that America understand us as well as we understand it. For our people, for the Marshall Islands, March 1, 1954 is the defining moment in world history.

   That is the Fourth of July, the assasination of President Lincoln and Kennedy, Pearl Harbor and 9/11 all wrapped into one.

   That is the day the world stood still and also changed forever. That is the day we went from being an occupied nation to becoming a dependent nation. That is the day we went from being survivors of the World War to victims of the Cold War.

   March 1, 1954, is the day that defines a legacy that would not end when the testing ended. This on-going legacy is recognized under Section 177 of the Compact of Free Association. The ``full and final settlement'' under Section 177 is not limited to the number of dollars deposited in the nuclear claims trust fund. The full and final settlement includes the on-going political and legal process recognized under the Section 177 agreement as the path to reach truth and justice. That includes the Article IX changed circumstances process as a matter left to be resolved by the U.S. Congress. It also includes the adjudication of additional claims under law by the Nuclear Claims Tribunal.

   So what we ask today on this 50th anniversary is not just that we remember the past. We ask that the U.S. remember its commitments. We ask Americans to understand us as well as we understand them. We think they do. We think the U.S. is a great Nation that can do the right thing.

   It is too simple to say that the wrongs done to us were justified by the good that the U.S. has done for the Marshall Islands and the world. There must also be justice for our people.

   We believe it is significant that former U.S. Attorney General Dick Thornburgh independently concluded the Nuclear Claims Tribunal operated by the U.S. judicial standards. And we are pleased that Senator DOMENICI announced during hearings on the compact renewal that the U.S. Senate will hold hearings on the nuclear testing legacy.

   At a time when the U.S. is spending billions to study nuclear clean up at mainland weapons production sites, and hundreds of billions to make the world a safer place, the U.S. has a legal and moral obligation to finally resolve the legacy of nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands. A democratic ally on all fronts in the current war that asks for nothing except just compensation for judicially determined claims.

   That is all we ask. We respect and trust the United States to do what is right when it has the facts. Now is a moment in history when the facts can come out. The truth can be told. Our story needs to be told and the American people need to hear it.

   So today, I tell you my friends--Bravo lives on. The terrible disruption it wreaked upon the lives of the people of Rongelap and the Marshall Islands still haunts us. But we shall not let that dampen our hopes or our determination to seek justice wherever we shall find it. We have survived the greatest weapon of war man has ever devised. We will survive whatever is before us and we shall not rest until our quest for justice is found. That is our promise. That is our goal. With your help, and the help of free people everywhere, with the blessing of God, we shall prevail.

• [Begin Insert]

   Mr. RAHALL. Mr. Speaker, I rise in my capacity as the ranking Democrat of the Committee on Resources to support H. Con. Res. 364; recognizing more than five decades of strategic partnership between the Republic of the Marshall Islands and the United States.

   Historically, the Committee on Resources held oversight jurisdiction of the former Trust Territory of the Marshall Islands when the United States first took responsibility for the islands and her people shortly after World War II as part of a United Nations trusteeship agreement.

   Though we prevailed in war, our country was still healing from the pain and suffering associated with battle. Yet we were mindful that the security of our Nation, and that of the world, depended on our understanding of the destructive nature of our nuclear arsenal.

   It is within this context that the people of the Marshall Islands made a sacrifice that is unimaginable for us Americans. On islands where their ancestry could be traced back thousands of years; where their culture flourished, and where they lived in relative peace; the people having been convinced it was ``for the good of mankind'' voluntarily left their homes.

   On military ships we loaded their canoes and personal belongings and moved them hundreds of miles away to other islands, safe from nuclear fallout.

   Our nuclear testing program commenced and lasted for twelve years, between 1946 and 1958. Within that time, we detonated 67 nuclear devices. One of the 67, detonated on March 1, 1954, in the Bikini Atoll, was the largest ever explosion to occur. Code-named BRAVO, the hydrogen bomb was 1,000 times greater than the weapon used against Japan in 1945.

   Shifting winds in the Marshall Islands caused those that were placed out of harm's way to be exposed to nuclear fallout. We have continuing responsibilities for their care and rehabilitation. We continue to work with the Marshall Islands government to resolve issues of healthcare, environmental remediation, and eventual resettlement of atolls still contaminated by nuclear fallout.

   After the U.S. nuclear testing program, we continued to assist the trust territory in their political, economic, and social development, consistent with the United Nations trusteeship agreement.

   In the mid-1980's, in an act of self-determination, the Marshall Islands chose to become a sovereign nation in free association with the United States. This political partnership fulfilled the U.N. trusteeship agreement and built upon the relationship established during the trust territory period. It continues to this day.

   In November of last year, Congress continued our Nation's relationship with the Marshall Islands by approving amendments to our existing Compact relationship. The term of the amended Compacts is for the next 20 years. However, given our history, I imagine that our political partnership will outlive such timeline.

   We may never fully understand the personal hardships our nuclear testing program caused to the people of the Marshall Islands, and more specifically those directly affected communities from the atolls of Bikini, Enewetak, Rongelap, and Utrok.

   And we should always remember the sacrifices made by the good people of the Republic of the Marshall Islands to strengthen our Nation and make the world more secure.

   I thank Chairman POMBO for working with me to recognize the U.S. relationship with the Marshall Islands and to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the BRAVO test with this resolution. I also thank the Committee on International Relations for expediting this resolution so that it could be considered by the House.

   I urge all my colleagues to support H. Con. Res. 364.

   Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of House Concurrent Resolution 364 which recognizes more than 5 decades of strategic partnership between the United States and the people of the Marshall Islands in the pursuit of international peace and security.

   During World War II, the Marshall Islands were a strategic battleground. In 1944 and as a result of the heroic efforts of U.S. Armed Forces as well as the courageous assistance of the people of the Marshall Islands, the islands were successfully liberated from Japan's oppressive regime and a new cooperative partnership between the United States and the Marshalls was forged.

   By 1947, the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) became one of six entities in the

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Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands (TTPI) established by the United Nations and administered by the United States. This alliance obligated the United States to foster the development of self-governance and promote economic, social, and educational advancement of the people of the RMI.

   However, on March 1, 1954, at 6:45 a.m., at the Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands, the United States detonated the Bravo shot, a 15 megaton hydrogen bomb 1,000 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Acknowledged as the greatest nuclear explosion ever detonated, the Bravo test vaporized 6 islands and created a mushroom cloud 25 miles in diameter.

   While U.S. servicemen on Rongerik Atoll were evacuated within hours of the blast, Marshallese residents of Utirik and Rongelap were left behind for at least a day, resulting in their exposure to significant radiation. At the time of their removal, the people of these atolls were already suffering burns and loss of hair.

   Also returned prematurely to their atolls, the people of Rongelap and Utirik received additional exposure causing many to believe that they were used to study the effects of radiation on human beings. Recently declassified information contains strong

   indications that human experimentation using the people of the exposed atolls was indeed part of the nuclear testing program in the Marshall Islands.

   These tests exposed the people of the Marshalls to severe health problems and genetic anomalies for generations to come. Yet the United States has not made good on its promise to compensate citizens of the Marshall Islands for loss or damage to property and person resulting from the nuclear testing program which the Government of the United States conducted in the Marshall Islands between June 30, 1946 and August 18, 1958.

   From 1946 to 1958, the United States detonated 67 nuclear weapons in the Marshall Islands, representing nearly 80 percent of all atmospheric tests ever conducted by the United States. If one were to calculate the net yield of these tests, it would be equivalent to the detonation of 1.7 Hiroshima bombs every day for 12 years.

   Conducted in peacetime, the effects of the U.S. nuclear testing program in the Marshall Islands continues to be devastating and funds provided by the United States under the Compact of Free Association are grossly inadequate to provide for health care, environmental monitoring, personal injury claims, or land and property damage. I believe the survivors of U.S. atomic tests conducted in the Marshall Islands deserve just compensation and I am pleased that at a minimum H. Con. Res. 364 recognizes the historic contribution the people of the Marshall Islands have made in the cold-war struggle to preserve international peace and promote nuclear disarmament.

   Today, the RMI provides use of its islands for the United States to develop a deployable missile defense system to reduce the risks of nuclear missile attacks and this is just another example of the RMI's unmatched record of working in conjunction with the leadership of the United States in pursuit of international peace and security. I commend the people of the Marshalls for their commitment to the rights and well-being of the peoples of the world and I recognize with solemn regard the sacrifices they have made so that you and I and future generations may live in peace.

   I commend Chairman RICHARD POMBO of the House Resources Committee for introducing this legislation of which I am an original cosponsor. I thank my good friend for his leadership and for recently leading a congressional delegation to the Pacific Territories where we met with island leaders, including those from the Marshall Islands. Chairman POMBO invited Secretary Gale Norton to accompany us on this visit and I commend both the Secretary and the chairman for traveling to the Pacific Territories to see firsthand the difficulties we are facing in the region.

   As the ranking member of the House International Relations Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific, I also want to thank Chairman JIM LEACH of the Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific for sponsoring this legislation and for working with Chairman POMBO and me to move this legislation to the International Relations Committee for mark-up. I also thank Chairman HENRY HYDE and Ranking Member TOM LANTOS of the International Relations Committee for their support.

   Finally, on behalf of the people of American Samoa, I again recognize with solemn regard the sacrifices our Pacific Island cousins have made in pursuit of international peace and I am hopeful that one day the U.S. Congress will declare March 1 as a national day of remembrance for the survivors of U.S. nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands.

• [End Insert]

   Mr. LANTOS. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

   Ms. HARRIS. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

   The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Bass). The question is on the motion offered by the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Harris) that the House suspend the rules and agree to the concurrent resolution, H. Con. Res. 364.

   The question was taken.

   The SPEAKER pro tempore. In the opinion of the Chair, two-thirds of those present have voted in the affirmative.

   Mr. LANTOS. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

   The yeas and nays were ordered.

   The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX and the Chair's prior announcement, further proceedings on this motion will be postponed.

END

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4A) Liberation of the Iraqi People and Valiant Service of the U.S. Forces and Coalition Forces - On the Rule

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 561 and ask for its immediate consideration.

   The Clerk read the resolution, as follows:

   H. Res. 561

    Resolved, That upon the adoption of this resolution it shall be in order to consider in the House the resolution (H. Res. 557) relating to the liberation of the Iraqi people and the valiant service of the United States Armed Forces and Coalition forces. The resolution shall be considered as read for amendment. The previous question shall be considered as ordered on the resolution and preamble to final adoption without intervening motion except: (1) four hours of debate equally divided and controlled by the chairman and ranking minority member of the Committee on International Relations or their designee; and (2) one motion to recommit which may not contain instructions.

    SEC. 2. During consideration of House Resolution 557 pursuant to this resolution, notwithstanding the operation of the previous question, the Chair may postpone further consideration of the resolution to a time designated by the Speaker.

   The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Bass). The gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier) is recognized for 1 hour.

   Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, for purposes of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to my friend, the gentleman from Fort Lauderdale (Mr. Hastings) pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purposes of debate only.

   Mr. Speaker, 1 year ago, our brave servicemen and -women began a military operation that brought freedom for tens of millions, toppled one of the most despicable regimes in the history of the world, and strengthened the national security for the American people.

   Operation Iraqi Freedom was, and continues to be, a military success of the highest order. Within 4 weeks from the start of operations on March 19 of last year, the U.S. military had won unqualified victory. Saddam Hussein and his Baathist regime could no longer terrorize the Iraqi people who were finally free to act, do and say as they pleased for the first time in decades.

   Mr. Speaker, there is no question that Saddam Hussein endangered world security. He posed a threat to his people, his region and the international community. Trusting the intentions of a man who started two wars, gassed his own people, and supported international terrorism would have been grossly irresponsible.

   As weapons inspector David Kay has said, we know Saddam Hussein wanted weapons of mass destruction, we know he was attempting to resuscitate his illicit programs, and we know with certainty who he viewed his greatest enemy to be.

   In a world where Iran can buy its way to a nuclear program with assistance from Pakistan's top nuclear scientist, combined with Saddam's access to illicit oil revenue, the fact that weapons of mass destruction have not yet been found in Iraq is hardly proof that Saddam Hussein did not want to severely hurt our country. Moreover, American national security has been solidified by the military action that was undertaken last year.

   Mr. Speaker, does anyone really believe that Iran would be cooperating with international nuclear inspectors today if we had not launched this military operation? Does anyone really believe that North Korea would be engaged in six-party talks over the future of their nuclear program if the United States had not deposed Saddam Hussein? Does anyone really believe that Muammar Qaddafi, as recalcitrant in his defiance to the international community as ever a dictator has been, would have willingly come to the United States and Britain and declared that he wanted to end his illicit weapons programs had the American military not marched into Baghdad?

   Mr. Speaker, Operation Iraqi Freedom sent an unmistakable signal to the rest of the world's tyrannical leaders: Either play by the rules or face the consequences.

   Now, the events of September 11 taught us that we cannot allow threats to arrive on our shores before we combat them. If other Nations wish to keep their head in the sand about the dangers of proliferation and terrorism, that is their prerogative, but we cannot and could not afford to take that chance.

   To those who complain of the cost of war and its aftermath, I simply will note that estimates of the cost of containing Saddam and his successors, as some have argued we should have done, are upwards of six times the dollar amount we have spent on war and reconstruction thus far, and significantly higher in terms of human lives lost.

   Because of the heroic action of our military, the Iraqi threat has been mitigated efficiently and a new dawn has begun for the people of Iraq.

   Earlier this month, Iraqi leaders signed the transitional administrative law into effect. It establishes an Iraqi law, a bill of fundamental human rights and paves the way for Iraqi democracy.

   Perhaps more important than the signing of the law itself, was the agreement of Suni, Shiite, and Kurdish leaders to sign the document. While differences amongst them remain, and the road ahead will be difficult, it is clear they are acting with the best interests of the new Iraq and its people firmly in mind.

   I should say our colleague, the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Pryce) is going to, in her remarks today, tell a

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very moving story about the fact that these very, very disparate groups have been able to come together sharing this pursued goal.

   The Iraqi people themselves are clearly enjoying their newfound freedoms under the transitional government. Poll results released just yesterday demonstrate that not only do a significant majority of Iraqis feel they are much better off than they were under Saddam Hussein's reign, but the extremely high level of participation in the poll demonstrates their desire to exercise their right to speak their minds, something that was unthinkable under the tyranny of Saddam Hussein.

[Time: 10:30]

   Such progress has only been possible because of the tireless commitment of our Armed Forces and those of the 34 nations assisting us to provide security on the ground in Iraq.

   It is dangerous territory; and the forces of evil, whether they be Ba'athist remnants or infiltrated al-Qaeda sympathizers, are a constant threat. In the past year, we have lost over 550 of our best and brightest Americans, with another 3,190 wounded. That number, as it is in any conflict, is too high. Without question, we owe the soldiers we have lost, the soldiers who remain, and their families, an enormous debt of gratitude. Mr. Speaker, that is exactly what this resolution marking this first anniversary is designed to do. If there is any solace, it is knowing that because of their actions, America and the world are safer places today with Saddam Hussein's regime dismantled.

   Because of our military, the people of Iraq have a bright future, where Sunni, Shiite, and Kurd alike can dream of being treated equally, of electing their representatives, of owning a prosperous business, and being free to say, worship, and read what they want.

   Mr. Speaker, it would be all too easy for the United States to leave Iraq now and let the Iraqi people fend for themselves. Avoiding conflict is the path of least resistance and is always politically expedient. But unlike previous conflict, terrorism cannot be contained. It has no boundaries. It has no rules. One day it strikes Baghdad, the next Madrid. The only recipe for success in this war is our resolve to defeat threats where we see them and promote democracy where we can.

   Mr. Speaker, true success in the war on terror is taking place right now on the ground in Baghdad and Kabul. By supporting, securing, and strengthening the democratic governments of Iraq and Afghanistan, we are promoting greater equality within those countries as well as providing forums for those who feel disaffected to air they grievances without picking up arms. As open and transparent governments spread throughout the world, the precursor ingredients for terrorism, anger, and fanaticism will dissipate. That will be the continuing legacy of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

   Mr. Speaker, I strongly support this rule and the underlying resolution, which not only affirms the actions that the United States undertook a year ago, but provides every Member of this body the opportunity to reaffirm their own personal commitment to winning the war against terrorism, our commitment to democracy in Iraq, and, most important, to our troops in the field.

   Mr. Speaker, it is my hope that this resolution will enjoy strong bipartisan support. That is our goal. I also hope, Mr. Speaker, that as soon as we pass this resolution that we will immediately have it translated in Arabic so that Saddam Hussein can read it in his cell and be reminded constantly of what we and the victims are regularly reminded of. Thanks to our military, Mr. Speaker, Saddam Hussein does have time to read that.

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

   Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

   Mr. Speaker, I say to the distinguished chairman of the Committee on Rules, my very good friend, that I thank him for yielding me this time, and had it been intended that this would be a bipartisan resolution, then Members in the minority would have been included in drafting this resolution.

   Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton), the distinguished ranking member of the Committee on Armed Services.

   Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, I truly wish that I could support this rule. National security is a bipartisan, or actually a nonpartisan, issue. And when we commend the troops, all of us, all of us have a stake. Every congressional district has a stake in commending the troops.

   As a matter of fact, small town and rural America have furnished 46 percent and 43 percent of the deaths in Afghanistan and in Iraq. So all of us, whether we are from small towns or large cities, have a stake in a resolution commending the troops, and we should have been consulted about it. I am sorry for that.

   Now, more than that, while we commend the troops, I would also have, had I been consulted, recommended that we do our best to protect our troops by including more body armor and extra up-armored Humvees, of which we still do not have enough in Iraq. As a matter of fact, Mr. Speaker, I received from the United States Army a letter indicating that there are unfunded requirements for the extra up-armored Humvees and the body armor, which is so necessary.

   I would also have recommended that we have complete, timely, and high-quality health care to treat the wounds and injuries for those who have served, and to recognize those who pay the sacrifice, whether it be in wounds, injuries, or, sadly, deaths.

   I would also have recognized the contributions of and the sacrifices of the families of our servicemen and -women, particularly in the Guard and Reserve. I would have recognized the efforts to improve our intelligence gaps that our troops need and so that they be better protected in the future. And I would have recognized and recommended the sufficient up-front funding for our military operations so we can ensure the safety and well-being of our troops.

   Mr. Speaker, I would also have included the fact that there should have been better planning for the postwar period. I sent two letters to the President, one on September 4, 2002, and another 2 days before the attack on Iraq, both of which I include in the RECORD.

   Mr. Speaker, I think that all of us should have been at least brought to the table and all of us had an opportunity to write this resolution. I am so proud of our troops, whether they be from Missouri or Maine or wherever they are from. This is the best military our country has ever seen. And I think every Member of Congress, both sides of the aisle, should have had the opportunity to say thank you, we are proud of you, and God bless you.

   Mr. Speaker, here follows the letters to which I referred earlier in my comments:

   HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

   COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES,

   Washington, DC, September 4, 2002.
The PRESIDENT,
The White House,
Washington, DC.

   DEAR MR. PRESIDENT: Thank you for inviting me to the briefing this morning. I share your concern about the continuing threat posed by Saddam Hussein and his efforts to produce weapons of mass destruction (WMD). I would like to offer my assistance as the administration considers how to deal with this threat.

   Before Congress can authorize any military action that might be part of the administration's plan, we must have answers to more questions than were able to be raised at today's meeting. Our constitutional duty requires us to ensure that all implications of such action are considered in advance. The case has not yet been fully made as to what the threat is, why military force is an appropriate way of addressing the threat, and why action must occur now. In short, Congress and the American people must be clear on your strategic vision before we can authorize a specific course of action. I believe, like Clausewitz, that in strategy there is an ``imperative ..... not to take the first step without considering the last.''

   Your strategy for dealing with Iraq must address the fundamental questions of the threat, the method of acting, and the timing. Furthermore, any strategy to eliminate Iraqi WMD must also address several component issues, each of which raises critical questions.

   1. How to manage Iraq's transition to a stable post-Saddam regime

   As I mentioned to you this morning, this is a crucial question for administration strategy to answer in advance of any military action. I have no doubt that our military would decisively defeat Iraq's forces and remove Saddam. But like the proverbial dog chasing the car down the road, we must consider what we would do after we caught it.

   As Sun-Tzu said in the classic strategic treatise, The Art of War, ``To win victory is

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easy; to preserve its fruits, difficult.'' Military planners and political leaders alike new this in World War II. Planning for the occupation of Germany and Japan--two economically viable, technologically sophisticated nations--took place well in advance of the end of the war. The extreme difficulty of occupying Iraq with its history of autocratic rule, its balkanized ethnic tensions, and its isolated economic system argues both for careful consideration of the benefits and risks of undertaking military action and for detailed advanced occupation planning if such military action is approved.

   Specifically, your strategy must consider the form of a replacement regime and take seriously the possibility that this regime might be rejected by the Iraqi people, leading to civil unrest and even anarchy. The effort must be to craft a stable regime that will be geopolitically preferable to Saddam and will incorporate the disparate interests of all groups within Iraq--Shi'a, Sunni, and Kurd. We must also plan now for what to do with members of the Baath party that continue to support Saddam and with the scientists and engineers who have expertise born of the Iraqi WMD program.

   All these efforts require careful planning and long-term commitment of manpower and resources. The American people must be clear about the amount of money and the number of soldiers that will have to be devoted to this effort for many years to come.

   2. How to ensure the action in Iraq does not undermine international support for the broader war on terrorism

   In planning for military operations in Iraq, we cannot ignore the lack of international support to date. Pre-emptive action against Iraq is currently vocally opposed by many of our allies and friends throughout the world and particularly in the Middle East.

   When we are seen as acting against the concerns of large numbers of our friends, it calls into question the ``humble'' approach to international relations you espoused during the presidential campaign. More than that, it has several potentially damaging long-term consequences. First, it risks losing the large number of partners needed to prosecute the global war on terrorism. To ferret terrorists groups out of their many hiding places, we must have broad allied support. Second, it risks seriously damaging U.S. moral legitimacy, potentially providing states like India and Pakistan with a preemptive option that could drive long-standing conflicts beyond containable bounds.

   Finally and perhaps most dangerously, actions without broad Arab support may inflame the sources of terrorism, causing unrest and anger throughout the Muslim world. This dynamic will be worse if Iraq attacks Israel--perhaps with weapons of mass destruction--and draws them into the conflict. Iran, which has the potential to seize a reformist path, may well move away from the United States in the face of attacks that could next be taken against them. Together, these dynamics will make achieving peace in the Middle East more difficult and may well provide the rationale for more terrorist attacks against Americans.

   These concerns do not make military action in Iraq untenable. They do, however, highlight the depth and importance of the issues to be addressed before we strike. We need to ensure that in taking out Saddam, we don't win the battle and lose the war.

   3. How to ensure that the United States can execute this operation successfully as well as its other military missions

   As you are well aware, Mr. President, the consideration of military action against Iraq comes at a time when U.S. forces are actively engaged throughout the world in a range of missions. Given the operational pressures these forces currently face, we must ask what the risks and trade-offs will be of defeating Iraq, particularly if Iraqi forces mass in Baghdad for urban operations. How many casualties must the American people be prepared to take in a worst-case scenario? What will the impact of sustained operations be on so-called high-demand, low-density assets? What military operations might we have to forego because of continued demands in Iraq? Will we still be prepared for the range of other threats that might emerge throughout the world? With little allied support and contributions, will we still be able to maintain military spending on transformational technologies and on sound quality of life for our forces if we are bearing a huge wartime cost alone? What will be the impact on the domestic economy of these resources drains and of the long-term costs of reconstructing Iraq? These questions must be answered before any military action commences so that the American people understand the risks and the sacrifices involved.

   I ask these questions only to highlight the complexity of the undertaking and the need for Congress, the American people, and our friends around the world to understand exactly what is at stake and why we must act now. Only such a comprehensive strategic approach will ensure that we commit U.S. troops consciously and with full knowledge of the range of challenges we face--both in the initial campaign and in the long aftermath to follow. Even a strategy that has military action as its centerpiece will require great diplomatic efforts to ensure its success. I look forward to hearing the administration's answers and to working with you to find the best course of action.

   Sincerely,

   Ike Skelton,
Ranking Democrat.

--

   HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

   COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES,

   Washington, DC, March 18, 2003.
The PRESIDENT,
The White House,
Washington, DC.

   DEAR MR. PRESIDENT: This is a critical week for our nation and for the world. As you prepare to make the most difficult decision of sending our troops into combat, the thoughts and prayers of all Americans are with you. My colleagues here in Congress have many different views on the wisdom of action in Iraq and the severity of its consequences. But we are united in our support for all the men and women who serve this nation.

   There is no doubt that our forces will be victorious in any conflict, but there is great potential for a ragged ending to a war as we deal with the aftermath. I appreciate the efforts that members of your administration have made to keep me informed about plans for the administration and reconstruction of Iraq following military conflict. Your team has thought about many of the things that will need to be done.

   Secretary Rumsfeld frequently talks about the list he keeps of things that could go wrong in an Iraq war. I have kept my own list--of things that could go wrong after the war is over. This list below is indicative of this broader list. My hope is that this will be helpful to members of your administration as you continue to plan for all possibilities. These are not complete scenarios but rather a series of possible problems that could occur in some combination.

   INTERNAL DIVISIONS AND EXTERNAL INFLUENCES IN IRAQ

   Without access to Iraq through Turkey, U.S. troops are not present in northern Iraq in large numbers. Turkey enters northern Iraq to establish a buffer zone and fighting breaks out between the Turks and Kurds. A significant U.S. military force is needed to separate the groups, complicating the governmental transition and international support.

   An uprising in Kirkuk leaves the Kurds in control of areas of the city and surrounding area. This triggers a large Turkish invasion to protect the Turkmen minority and to prevent Kurdish control of oil resources. Again this would require U.S. military resources with all the attending effects.

   In the event that Turkey crosses into Iraq, Iran may do the same, ostensibly to stem the refugee flows from southern Iraq and to protect Shi'a interests. Shi'a populations in the south rebel and undertake attacks against Sunnis. U.S. troops must step in to protect the Sunnis and restore peace. These tensions resurface during attempts to build a federal and representative government.

   Urban fighting in the south brings Shi'a into conflict with Sunnis. The resulting devastation causes a refugee crisis as Shi'a make for the Iranian border. The results of Saddam's policy of forced Arabization of areas like Kirkuk yield dangerous consequences. Groups like the Kurds flow back into these areas seeking to reclaim their former homes and land, sparking conflict with Iraqi Arabs.

   Attempts to fashion a federal government in Baghdad prove difficult. Iran is able to establish proxies for its influence among the Shi'a representatives. Once in Iraq, infighting breaks out among members of the former Iraqi opposition in exile. The United States is unable to transition the administration of Iraq effectively and has to remain in place, with significant military backing.

   The war involves lengthy urban combat, particularly in Baghdad. Most infrastructure is destroyed resulting in massive humanitarian problems. The emphasis on humanitarian aid distracts from efforts to establish a new government. Once established the government faces massive political pressure from the sustained humanitarian crisis.

   WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION

   Saddam uses biological and chemical weapons against advancing U.S. troops, but also inflicts substantial civilian casualties. Efforts to stabilize cities and to establish a government are complicated by the need to deal with the large number of dead and to decontaminate affected areas.

   Saddam uses biological and chemical weapons directly against civilian populations or against another Arab country and seeks to affix blame for civilian suffering to the United States. Over the period of occupation, this resentment complicates U.S. efforts to maintain support for reconstruction efforts.

   U.S. troops are unable to quickly find all of Saddam's capabilities, requiring a long, labor-intensive search and anxiety as to when the task is complete.

   Regional leaders, for money or to gain influence, retain caches of WMD and transfer some to terrorist groups.

   Saddam attacks Israel with missiles containing weapons of mass destruction. Israel retaliates. Arab countries, notably Saudi Arabia and Jordan, come under intense political pressure to withdraw their support from the U.S. war effort. U.S. forces are forced to reposition operational centers into Iraq and Kuwait, complicating reconstruction and transition efforts.

   OIL RESOURCES

   Saddam sabotages a significant number of wells before his defeat. Current estimates indicate he may already have wired up to 1,500 of these wells. The damage takes years to contain at great economic and environmental cost and removes a major source of reconstruction funding.

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   Internal groups, such as the Kurds, seize oil-rich land before American troops reach the area, causing internal clashes over these resources. Militant Shi'as seize other wells in the South.

   INTERNATIONAL SUPPORT

   The United States takes immediate control of Iraq's administration and of reconstruction. The United Nations can't agree on how involved to get given the divisions among the Security Council about the need for conflict. The lack of UN involvement in the administration makes the European Union and others less likely to give. This situation delays reconstruction and puts more of the cost on the United States and a smaller number of partners.

   U.S. reconstruction efforts that give U.S. corporations a great role at the expense of multilateral organizations and other participation--as was detailed in yesterday's Wall Street Journal--spur resentment and again limit the willingness of others to participate.

   AMERICAN COMMITMENT

   Stabilization and reconstruction prove more difficult than expected. U.S. troop requirements approach 200,000--the figure General Shinseki has mentioned--for a sustained period. This puts pressure on troop rotations, reservists, their families, and employers and requires a dramatic increase in end-strength.

   Required funding reaches the figure suggested by a recent Council on Foreign Relations assessment--$20 billion annually for several years. During a period of economic difficulty, the American public calls for greater burdensharing.

   It is my hope that none of these eventualities comes to pass. But as you and all military leaders know, good planning requires considering the range of possibilities. It also requires advance preparation of the American people. You have regularly outlined the reasons for why the United States must disarm Iraq. I urge you to do the same in explaining why we must stay with Iraq for the long haul, even with the economic and military burdens this will entail.

   As always, I am willing to help in any way I can to make this case to my colleagues and the American people.

   Sincerely,

   Ike Skelton,
Ranking Democrat.

   Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute. I want to engage my colleague from Missouri in a colloquy.

   There is no Member of this House who is more highly regarded in the area of national security than our friend, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton). I am privileged to be a native of the Show Me State, and he has done us all very proud.

   I know at the end of the day he will want to support this resolution, Mr. Speaker, because this resolution does exactly, exactly what my friend just stated in his closing remarks: recognizing our troops.

   Now, we had no intention of offending anyone in drafting the resolution. In fact, we thought it was so noncontroversial that it would be an appropriate thing to move it forward.

   Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

   Mr. DREIER. I yield to the gentleman from Missouri.

   Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, I would have thought it a mere courtesy of saying, Would the gentleman from Missouri like to read this over and add or make recommendations? I would love to have been there in order to support the gentleman from California.

   Mr. DREIER. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Speaker, let me just say that I completely understand that he would like to have had input; and that is one of the reasons we, in fact, did provide an opportunity, which is unusual, in consideration of this rule, for a motion to recommit for Members of the minority, if in fact that was the case.

   Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Atlanta, Georgia (Mr. Linder), my very good friend and the chairman of the Subcommittee on Technology and the House of the Committee on Rules.

   Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman of the Committee on Rules for yielding me this time, and I rise in support of this rule and urge my colleagues to join me in approving this resolution.

   H. Res. 561 will allow the House to work its will on the underlying resolution. It is an appropriate procedure, given the nature of H. Res. 557, which is a simple resolution. H. Res. 557 was introduced to recognize the Iraqi people's suffering under Saddam Hussein, the significant advancements being made in Iraq since last March, and the courage of U.S. and Coalition Forces as they strive to bring order and stability to the country.

   The media is accurate in its reports of the difficulties that still face U.S. and Coalition Forces in Iraq. But there are also positive events taking place every day that deserve recognition and are largely ignored by the media. Probably the greatest accomplishment is that the Iraqis are returning to their lives and are enjoying freedoms that never could have existed under Saddam Hussein. Under his regime, the Iraqi lived in terror on a daily basis. Now, the people of Iraq have an opportunity to shape their history as they choose. The Iraqi people recently took their first step in shaping their future with the recent signing of the Iraqi interim constitution into law.

   Other notable advancements in Iraq over the last year include the rise in oil production to roughly pre-March 2003 levels, the circulation of the new Iraqi currency, and the repair of critical infrastructure and roads. Additionally, the electricity supply has become more stable, and many Iraqi hospitals are up and running.

   The number of Iraqis that have joined the Iraqi police force, border patrols, and army has also increased, allowing Iraqi citizens to participate in protection of their very own infrastructure.

   Iraq is still a dangerous place, not only for Iraqi citizens but also for U.S. and Coalition Forces. I commend the U.S. and Coalition Forces for their dedication, sacrifice, and service in Iraq; and I salute them for helping to make our world a safer place.

   The task of rebuilding Iraq will be no easy feat, and it will certainly take time. However, I am encouraged by the positive events of the last year, and I believe it is in the U.S.'s interest and the world's to persevere and create a stable and democratic Iraq.

   Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support the rule so that we may proceed to debate the underlying legislation.

   Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 4 1/2 minutes.

   Mr. Speaker, I oppose this closed rule because it works against the values and principles for which American citizens are risking their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan on this very day.

   We are fighting for democracy abroad, but we will not allow democracy on the floor of the House of Representatives of the United States. The fact of the matter is, if this had not been a political document, every Member of this House would follow the line, ``Commends the members of the United States Armed Forces and Coalition Forces for liberating Iraq and expresses its gratitude for their valiant service.'' But that is not all that is in this resolution.

   This is not about stopping consideration of the underlying resolution. It is a pleasure to take the time to pay tribute to the men and women who distinguish themselves daily in selfless service to this Nation. I do this, as do all Members on both sides of the aisle, at every available occasion. But there are other important matters that are not addressed in this resolution. And the fact that we were not included in its drafting allows them to be pronounced during the course of opposing this rule as well as in general debate.

   We have not, for example, recognized the efforts of our National Guardsmen and Reserves, who have left friends and families and civilian jobs to serve in Iraq. But this completely closed rule does not give all Members of the House of Representatives the opportunity to commemorate the outstanding service of all those who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

   Once this institution was considered one of the world's greatest deliberative bodies, and its Members were statespersons rather than professional self-promoters. Once Members of Congress were brimming with ideas befitting a proud democracy. But no more, Mr. Speaker. To all of my colleagues who showed up last night at the Committee on Rules with amendments that they thought could strengthen this resolution, I apologize to you for the majority's disdain for your contributions.

   Actually, I had an amendment to this resolution that urged the President to provide Congress a straightforward and honest assessment of our past and future commitments in Iraq, as well as recognizing the selfless acts of the men and women in our service, who we all love and adore and applaud for their courage on a daily basis.

[Time: 10:45]

   These are some of the many questions for which we are all seeking answers from the administration. Even

[Page: H1126]

more, there are questions to which Congress has a constitutional responsibility and obligation to raise and demand answers.

   Mr. Speaker, I asked myself last night as the Committee on Rules Republicans passed yet another closed rule, and 11 have been closed, 1 has been open this year, which stifles debate and shuts off meaningful contributions from all of the Members of this Chamber, I asked myself, What is the problem? The problem is that the majority has introduced this resolution for political reasons. C-SPAN will broadcast today's speeches and Fox News will run stories professing the patriotism of those on the other side of the aisle. Thus, the Republican majority hopes to disguise the neglect and misdirection they have shown in governing by not making this a bipartisan effort.

   The Republicans have not established a record which helps all Americans, and are relying on photos ops and waving the American flag to get themselves reelected. It would be much more patriotic to address the perennially underfunded veterans affairs health care system. By the Bush administration's own estimate, their policies will exclude approximately 500,000 veterans from the VA health care system by 2005. This is shameful. President Bush also proposed an increase in pay fees and copayments in an effort to shift the burden onto the backs of veterans and drive an additional 1 million veterans from the system. It is shameful.

   Our troops should be taken care of when we send them into battle, and be given the respect they have earned when we bring them home. America's veterans fight and fought for our freedoms, they should not have to fight for their benefits.

   As the Republicans continue to protect the wealthy and act like show horses in front of the cameras, Democrats are working for the men and women in uniform and our veterans today as well as in the future. We will continue to applaud them.

   Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

   It is true that the United States of America has had a bipartisan foreign policy. This resolution is not about foreign policy. This resolution is not about foreign policy, this is a resolution that is simply designed to congratulate our troops. I do not understand why there is any controversy on it. As I said earlier and as I said in the Committee on Rules last night, we are sorry if anyone was offended over the fact that Members of the minority were not offered a chance to have input. I said to a number of my colleagues, that is one of the reasons that we have in fact made in order a motion to recommit that will allow the minority at the end of the bill an opportunity to cast a vote on that.

   Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Pryce) who has done a phenomenal job of focusing on the rights of women. She chairs our Republican Conference and the Subcommittee on Legislative and Budget Process Reform for the Committee on Rules.

   Ms. PRYCE of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I stand before Members to strongly urge my colleagues to support this resolution for freedom and democracy in Iraq.

   Life under Hussein's ruthless regime was unlike anything we have ever experienced. His cronies, in order to get information out of men, would rape their wives and their sisters and mothers. Women in Iraq frequently lost their husbands to ``the law,'' never knowing what happened to them, where they went or why they were arrested. These same women, forbidden to go to work to support their families, were left to starvation.

   The Iraqi women under Saddam Hussein's regime were someone's mothers, wives, and sisters, and they suffered tremendously. I led a women's delegation to Iraq and heard these atrocities firsthand from the women who now are free. They no longer dread the strong arm of Saddam Hussein's injustice. Coalition forces are now protecting the newly acquired rights of all Iraqis. I learned of the story of these two women who were protesting.

   Mr. Speaker, 2 years ago they would have been executed for protesting. They were protesting to get the rights of women included in the Iraqi constitution. One of these women was waving her husband's death certificate saying, we have not waited all these years to be denied freedoms. A reporter, an Islamic reporter, went up to ask, Are you Sunni or Shiite? These women said, We may be one of each, but it is none of your business, we are Iraqis now.

   That is what this is all about. This is what freedom stands for. This is what it means to two women, one who lost her husband and had no way of knowing what happened to him. This is what we are celebrating today. This is what has been accomplished by our Armed Forces, by the will of this administration.

   Saddam Hussein, the ruthless murderer, is now in jail. He will be tried by his own people in his own country, and he will get his just rewards, and these two women, despite the fear and dread and horror of their past, will live in freedom. We should be very happy today.

   Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern) who has fought aggressively for open rules on the Committee on Rules.

   Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the undemocratic, completely closed rule, and in opposition to House Resolution 557.

   Mr. Speaker, like all of my colleagues, I have tremendous respect for the men and women of our Armed Forces who are bearing the burden of this military action in Iraq. My support and my commitment to them and their families are unwavering. I will work to ensure that they remain the best trained, the best led, and the best equipped military force in the world. I am grateful and humbled by their courage, endurance and sacrifice, and I honor them not just today but every day, and I only wish this House was considering today a truly bipartisan resolution that properly honored our troops.

   Unfortunately, once again this House is claiming to honor our troops without devoting the necessary resources for their safety or for their support. House Resolution 557 will do nothing to ensure that every one of our military personnel, including our National Guard and reservists serving on the front lines in Iraq will be fully equipped with the latest body armor. Instead, many families of our troops are buying and shipping that protection overseas to their loved ones, out of their own pockets with no hope for reimbursement. This is unacceptable, and we should fix it.

   This resolution will do nothing to close the pay gap for our reservists and National Guard members who have been called away from their civilian jobs to serve in Iraq. Their families are struggling, going into debt as a result of their patriotic service. Yet the leadership of this House, unlike the other body, resists funding commonsense solutions to the problems caused by these overlong activations. This is unacceptable, and we should fix it.

   This resolution contributes nothing towards fully funding our military construction needs so that all our military personnel have decent housing and facilities in which to live, train, and work. This is unacceptable, and we should fix it.

   Mr. Speaker, I support our troops. I want to help the suffering people of Iraq live and prosper in a safe and secure nation. I want them to have the opportunity to choose their own government, one where every Iraqi may worship as he or she chooses, and every man, woman and child can live out t