Approving the renewal of import restrictions contained in the Burmese Freedom and Democracy Act of 2003.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, a little more than 2 years ago, thugs working for the military strongmen of Burma attacked Aung San Suu Kyi and members of the opposition party that she leads, the National League for Democracy. The Government put Suu Kyi into what they call ``protective custody.'' She remains under house arrest to this day.

In response to this heinous attack, America banned imports from Burma. We in Congress believed something had to be done. In 2002, those imports were valued at $350 million, mostly in garments.

In the autumn of 2003, Burmese Prime Minister Nyunt, who had opposed the attack on the opposition party, called for a seven-point road map to Democracy.

But the road map led to nowhere. And a rigged national convention broke down when opposition representatives rightly decided to boycott it.

The strongmen of Burma then removed Prime Minister Nyunt from his post. They placed him under house arrest, for supposed corruption. And they replaced him with a hard-line general, whom many believe to have planned the attack.

Where does this leave Burma? In short, the ruling generals have consolidated their grip on power. And government security forces continue to inflict innumerable human rights violations on the Burmese people.

This is a tragic situation. The long-suffering people of Burma deserve to be rid of the criminals who purport to represent them.

But what is the best way to do that?

When the Senate first considered banning Burmese imports, Senator Grassley and I worked hard to ensure two key conditions.

First, we made sure that Congress would retain its constitutionally vested power to impose and evaluate trade sanctions. We should never write the President a blank check.

Second, we made sure that the law would direct the administration to work with other nations, to make these sanctions work. Unilateral sanctions seldom work. Unilateral sanctions typically harm innocent citizens far more than the odious rulers against whom they are aimed.

Sadly, events on the ground in Burma suggest that these unilateral sanctions have proved no exception to the rule. The sanctions have harmed innocent citizens. And the odious rulers remain in place.

The U.S. ban on Burmese imports caused a number of Burmese garment factories to close. Tens of thousands of garment workers, overwhelmingly women, lost their jobs. And more Burmese women, with nowhere else to go, turned to prostitution.

Today, the Burmese garment industry has to some extent rebounded, sustained by new orders from Canada, Europe and Latin America.

U.S. sanctions against Burma might have been more effective if other countries would join us in isolating the Burmese regime. But that has not happened.

To the contrary, China has embraced the Burmese government. China has invested in Burma's energy sector. And China has extended generous aid packages to Burma, including a $356 million aid package that more than makes up for Burma's loss of America's import market.

Thailand and India share a long border with Burma. But Thailand and India have their own ideas about how to deal with Burma's military rulers. And those ideas do not include joining U.S. sanctions.

And ASEAN member countries continue to welcome Burma to their economic summits.

This is not a record of success.

Nevertheless, I will vote to renew the sanctions on Burma for another year. But I do so with an eye toward next year, when the sanctions automatically expire.

I know that most of my colleagues will vote reflexively to renew these import sanctions. Boycotting Burmese imports allows us to express our collective disapproval of the awful regime running Burma. But I hope that my colleagues will take a moment to consider whether a boycott is the best thing for the Burmese people.

Next year, if my colleagues seek to extend the Burmese import sanctions, Congress will have to enact new legislation to do so. At that time, I hope that we can have a more extensive debate on how best we can help the cause of freedom, and how best we can help the Burmese people.

Mr. President, I note the presence of the Senator from California on the floor, a leader on this issue.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, how much time remains in control of the Democratic Senators on this resolution?

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that 10 minutes of that time be reserved for Senator Kennedy and that I may use such of the remaining Democratic time as I consume for a statement as in morning business.

Mr. President, 600 years ago this month, a great fleet of more than 300 ships lifted anchor at Nanjing, China, on the first of 7 voyages of trade and discovery. The Chinese fleet counted the largest wooden ships ever built, some with nine masts, massive keels of teak, and decks 400 feet long--you can imagine, longer than a football field.

The Ming Emperor gave his nearly 7-foot tall admiral orders to sail on July 11, 1405, nearly a century before Christopher Columbus and Vasco da Gama left Europe. And all of those European explorers' ships could have fit on a single deck of one of the Chinese treasure ships. The 36-foot rudder of one of the ships stood almost as tall as Columbus' flagship, the Nina, was long.

The Ming fleet carried a crew of nearly 28,000, with a medical officer for every 150 souls on board. The fleets carried more than a million tons of silk, porcelain, copper coins, and spices to trade for the riches of the world, on to what the Chinese called the Western Ocean--what we call the Indian Ocean. They reached Sumatra, Ceylon, and India. They went to the Arabian peninsula and Africa's Swahili coast. They made a side trip to Mecca.

At each port, ships with colorful prows delivered platoons of Chinese merchants, ready to do business. In Siam--now Thailand--they acquired sandalwood, peacocks, and cardamom. In Indonesia, they acquired tin. In Oman, they traded porcelain for frankincense, myrrh, and aloe. The Sultan of Aden gave them zebras, lions, and ostriches. In east Africa, they acquired a giraffe.

In 1451, one of the fleet's interpreters would write a memorial of the voyages, exclaiming:

How could there be such diversity in the world?

In Sri Lanka, the admiral engraved a granite slab in Chinese, Tamil, and Persian, seeking blessing from Buddha, Siva, and Allah alike.

In the south Chinese harbor of Changle, the admiral inscribed on a pillar:

[We] have recorded the years and months of the voyages . .

. in order to leave [the memory] forever.

He listed his destinations, ``altogether more than 30 countries large and small.''

He wrote of his efforts:

. . . to manifest the transforming power of virtue and to

treat distant people with kindness.

He wrote:

We have traversed more than 100,000 li--

That is 40,000 miles--

of immense water spaces and have beheld in the oceans huge

waves like mountains rising sky-high, and we have set eyes on

. . . regions far away hidden in a blue transparency of light

vapors. . . .

Today, approximately 600 years later, Chinese officials will proudly recall the voyages of the Ming fleet. They will observe that Ming China amassed one of the most powerful naval forces ever assembled, and they will pointedly note that China used the fleet not for conquest but for business and exploration, trade and diplomacy.

Three weeks ago, on June 24, 2005, a fleet of Chinese-made cars began rolling onto a ship in Guangzhou, China, bound for Europe. The fleet counted cars made at a gleaming new Honda factory on the outskirts of the sprawling city of 12 million souls near Hong Kong.

As reporter Keith Bradsher of the New York Times described:

At the new Honda factory . . . white robots poke and crane

their long, vulture-like heads into gray, half-completed car

bodies to perform 2,100 of the 3,000 welds needed to assemble

each car. Workers in white uniforms and gray caps complete

the rest of the welds, working as quickly as workers in

American factories--but earning roughly $1.50 an hour in

wages and benefits, compared to the $55 an hour for General

Motors and Ford factories in the United States.

In America, General Motors and Ford struggle to pay high health care costs for autoworkers with an average age of nearly 50. In China, most of Honda's autoworkers are in their twenties. They do not go to the doctor much, and when they do, Chinese doctors charge less than $5 for an office visit and a few stitches.

China's manufacturing companies are rapidly building wealth, and they have begun to trade that wealth for the riches of the world, across the Pacific Ocean.

At airports throughout the world, airplanes with colorful tail wings deliver platoons of Chinese merchants, ready to do business. In May, the Chinese company Lenovo acquired the personal computer division of IBM. In June, a Chinese company bid $2.25 billion for the Iowa-based appliance company Maytag. Also in June, China National Offshore Oil Corporation bid $18.5 billion for Los Angeles-based Unocal, whose ``76'' marketing symbol is one of the most recognized and enduring corporate symbols in America. And all this buying pales next to the acquisition by China's central bank of $230 billion of American Government debt.

China is pursuing trade agreements with India, Australia, New Zealand, and Thailand. China is reaching out to the 10 countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, known as ASEAN.

The Chinese are visiting the rest of Asia in greater numbers than before. They bring with them money and optimism about the ``new China.'' The new China has gleaming skyscrapers, modern, productive industries, and a rapidly developing infrastructure.

China has launched a major charm offensive across Asia to promote itself as a desirable place to visit, to invest, and to live. Through ventures such as China Radio International, worldwide television broadcasts, and Chinese language and cultural centers across Asia, China advertises itself as an attractive destination. Increasingly, Asians are forgoing trips to Los Angeles, traveling to Beijing instead. For many young Asians, the gleaming lights of Shanghai illuminate the new Manhattan.

Already 90 million people in China's coastal cities have access to the Internet, and the Chinese own more cell phones than any other people in the world. There are more cell phones in China than there are people in the United States.

China has the world's largest population, the fastest growing economy, the second largest foreign currency reserves, and the third largest trade. China creates one-fifth of world trade growth.

In 2004, America exported 2\1/2\ times more to China than it did in 1999, 5 years earlier. My State of Montana exported 11\1/2\ times more. But America's merchandise trade deficit with China has more than doubled in the same time. China accounted for a quarter of America's $652 billion trade deficit last year.

As Tom Friedman writes in his book, ``The World is Flat,'' which I recommend for everyone:

[W]hat is really scary is that China is not attracting so

much global investment by simply racing everyone to the

bottom. . . . China's long-term strategy is to outrace

America and the EU countries to the top, and the Chinese are

off to a good start.

China is amassing one of the most powerful economies ever assembled. So America must ask: Will the result be as benign as the voyages of the Ming treasure fleet 600 years ago?

Asia accounts for one-third of the world economy. It is the world's most economically dynamic region. And America needs to pay attention. This administration has launched 20 free-trade agreements, but only one has been in Asia--with Thailand.

Instead of embracing ASEAN, this administration has largely ignored it. The Government has ceded the initiative in Southeast Asia to China. That is how ASEAN views the recent decisions of Secretary of State Rice to skip an important ASEAN gathering later this month. U.S. Secretaries of State have traditionally attended that conference. And this administration has failed to use the Asia Pacific Economic

Cooperation, otherwise known as APEC, as a platform for trade integration. Rather, this administration has turned the organization into little more than a venue to discuss security options.

Since 2000, this administration has negotiated bilateral and regional trade agreements at a furious pace, but most of the agreements the Government has been negotiating offer little real value to America's commercial interests. Why? Because the Government is choosing trading partners more for foreign policy reasons than it is for commercial reasons.

The U.S. Trade representative has finite resources. To be effective, to deliver the greatest benefits to Americans, our Government must direct their efforts where they are most likely to have the greatest effects.

In 1962, Congress created the Special Trade Representative--the predecessor of the U.S. Trade Representative--to remove trade policy from the State Department precisely so that commercial interests rather than foreign policy interests would drive American trade policy. I don't think that has happened. I believe trade shots are called by the White House.

We must focus trade policy efforts where they promise the greatest return for our ranchers, businesses, and our workers. First and foremost, we need to devote more effort to the ongoing Doha round of WTO negotiations. From all appearances, the negotiations are dragging. The pace of progress will have to improve considerably to meet the goal of an agreement by the end of 2006, and that will require a substantial commitment of U.S. leadership and resources.

We need to look more to Asia for bilateral agreements as well. For example, South Korea is our seventh largest trading partner, with a two-way trade totaling $70 billion. Korea has promised real reforms in its agricultural markets. It has liberalized investment restrictions and lowered merchandise tariffs. I have met with Korean trade officials on several occasions, and they are serious about reforms.

Regional trade agreements in Asia, perhaps under the auspices of APEC, also hold promise. APEC's 21-member economies account for a third of the world's population and about three-fifths of world production. American exporters will get a major boost from a regional free-trade agreement on this scale.

We also need to seek out further sectoral agreements such as the WTO's hugely successful Information Technology Agreement negotiated largely by America, Japan, and Singapore.

We should launch an initiative in the advanced medical equipment sector. Asia has a rapidly aging population, particularly in Japan, Korea, and China. This demographic shift translates into growing demand for advanced medical equipment. America already exports half a billion dollars a year in medical devices to China and Hong Kong, and these exports are expanding 12 percent a year.

We need to do a better job of enforcing our existing trade agreements.

In China, piracy--the theft of American copyrights and patents--is at epidemic levels. In the past 2 years, companies from General Motors to Sony to Cisco have complained that Chinese have stolen their intellectual property. More than 90 percent of software in China is stolen. American innovators are losing billions of dollars a year.

Combating piracy would help the American economy far more than further agreements with countries whose entire economies are but a fraction the size of our losses to piracy alone. I need only mention CAFTA. CAFTA is a blip compared to other commercial interests we should be pursuing.

China also maintains a troubling currency peg. But retaliatory tariffs are not the answer. Tariffs would violate our WTO commitments. Tariffs would inflame already difficult trade relations with China, invite Chinese retaliation in other areas, and make Chinese imports nearly a third more expensive. Tariffs would hurt American consumers who would pay more for many of the goods that they buy. And tariffs would hurt U.S. companies who rely on Chinese inputs to develop their own products.

Having said that, China's currency peg is a problem. It distorts world markets and hurts both America and China itself. China needs to revise its currency policy.

While issues with China dominate the headlines, there are other enforcement priorities, including in our own hemisphere. In Brazil for example, the government recently forced an American pharmaceutical company to reduce its price for one of its medicines. It did so by threatening to break its promise to protect the American company's patent, and to let a state-owned company make generic copies of the medicine, an outrage.

This is blackmail, pure and simple. And it is illegal. This sort of coercion has no place in our trade relations. It hurts our companies and our workers. And it dampens the incentive to create new and innovative pharmaceuticals.

Our problems with Brazil go beyond just pharmaceuticals. Until recently, Brazil banned the sale of genetically engineered seeds for use in agriculture. These are the kind of high-tech seeds American companies like Monsanto and Pioneer Hi-Bred develop and sell all over the world--but not in Brazil. How odd then, that roughly 30 percent of Brazil's soybeans are grown with genetically engineered seeds. The figure is nearly 90 percent in Brazil's southernmost state of Rio Grande do Sul.

How can this be? Theft. These seeds were smuggled in from neighboring countries where they are allowed, and planted illegally. They were not purchased. They were stolen.

And just like piracy in China, piracy in Brazil costs American industries dearly. Last year, American companies lost $930 million in Brazil because of piracy of audiovisual goods. Some estimate that three-quarters of these audiocassettes sold in Brazil are pirated.

Of course we cannot launch a full-fledged WTO dispute to address each and every foreign trade barrier. And the U.S. Trade Representative often rightly attempts to resolve many of these issues through negotiation and other means.

But there can be little doubt that trade enforcement has received a lower priority of late. In the 6 years from 1995 through 2000, the United States filed 67 WTO dispute settlement cases. In the 5 years since, we have filed only 12. That is about an 80 percent decrease.

Too often, our tools to address trade barriers are lying unused, on the shelf. That burdens Americans with economic losses. But what is more, when Americans see that others are cheating, their enthusiasm for trade cools. And we all suffer as a result.

Americans also cool to trade when they see nothing being done to help those who lose from trade. Lowering tariffs and barriers increases competition and benefits many more than it hurts, but it inevitably hurts some.

For more than 40 years, the Government has been helping to retrain workers affected by trade to give them the skills that they need to find new jobs. These programs were expanded in 2002 under the Trade Adjustment Assistance Reform Act, a bipartisan effort and one of my proudest achievements as chairman of the Finance Committee at that time. The reforms expanded eligibility to new categories of workers, created a new health coverage tax credit, and helped older workers with a new wage insurance benefit. Last year, these programs helped nearly 150,000 workers.

TAA is an integral part of a successful trade policy. A few weeks ago, I discussed this very issue with Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan during a Finance Committee hearing. Chairman Greenspan stated, as he has before, that our trade policy should ``assist those who are on the wrong side of the adjustment'' caused by trade.

Lately, the Government has not supported TAA. This year, the administration's budget zeroed out funding for the TAA for Firms Program, which pretty much everyone agrees has been useful and cost effective. Last month, the Senate Finance Committee passed an amendment offered by my colleague from Oregon, Senator Wyden, to extend TAA benefits to workers in the service industry. The administration stripped the language out of the CAFTA implementing bill that it submitted to the Congress.

Liberalizing trade requires a grand bargain with workers. Workers agree to be exposed to increased international competition It is helpful. But society agrees to erect a strong social safety net to help workers adjust.

When workers' old skills become obsolete, society helps them learn new skills to compete. If we undercut this bargain, we do so at the peril of further trade liberalization and our international competitiveness.

We must press forward with trade liberalization. For, 600 years later, international trade remains as vital to the world economy today as it was to Ming China.

Trade allows Americans to specialize in what we do best. That allows us to improve our international competitiveness and maximize our standard of living.

What Americans do best today is manufacture capital-intensive goods: airplanes, automobiles, and construction equipment.

Americans invent whole new fields, like biotech and nanotechnology, that lead to new products to make our lives better. University of Michigan scientists recently used nanotechnology to deliver a powerful drug inside cancerous tumor cells, increasing the drug's cancer-killing activity and reducing its toxic side effects.

Americans pioneer new services to make our lives better, like Internet banking. We export our services all over the world. Hollywood movies and American television programs are translated into countless languages and watched around the world. American universities educate students from virtually every country on Earth. American insurance companies insure assets in jungles, deserts, and savannas.

And American ranchers and farmers feed and clothe people around the globe.

Freer trade helps us find and open new markets for what Americans do best. New markets provide new opportunities for American workers and their companies. New markets mean greater demand for what Americans produce. And new markets mean more jobs and more investment opportunities to meet the demand.

As we meet the demand of foreign consumers through trade, American products become global products. American brands become global brands. Coke is Coke, the world over.

I might digress and say 40 years ago I hitchhiked around the world with a knapsack on my back in northern Ghana. I went to a little hut. I got off from the back of a truck. I was riding with the cattle in the back of the truck. My driver stopped to pray. He pointed his little prayer mat toward Mecca. In that little hut there was a little refrigerator, no electricity, and there was Coca-Cola. It was a world brand back then. Just think of all the world brands we could have today. On today's voyages, one can find the familiar yellow arches of McDonald's in Cyprus, Slovenia, and Oman.

The American standard becomes the global standard and the international sign of excellence. Excellence means that half of the world's 20 largest companies are American companies--companies like Citigroup, IBM, and General Electric.

Importing products from our trading partners challenges domestic companies to compete. Competition keeps American companies nimble. American companies are constantly coming up with new products and better ways to make them.

Just look at the number of U.S. patents filed by Americans versus the rest of the world. Americans filed nearly 90,000 patents in 2003. That is 50,000 more than the next most innovative country, Japan. In innovation, we are still number one.

The biggest payoff from international trade goes to the American consumer. As more and more companies trade and produce what they are best at producing, prices in supermarkets and department stores plummet. Cheaper products mean that we can afford more of what we need, and our standard of living improves.

The now-ubiquitous cell phone provides a great example. Ten years ago, it was an unaffordable luxury for most Americans. Using one in public aroused curiosity, but trade forced prices to drop. Now many Americans see cell phones as a necessity.

Leaders have not always appreciated the benefits of trade. After the stock market crash in 1929, America enacted the Tariff Act of 1930. That act imposed the now-infamous Smoot-Hawley tariffs that deepened the Great Depression.

During the Presidential campaign of 1932, President Hoover warned that repealing the Smoot-Hawley tariffs would devastate the U.S. economy, why? Because Americans could not compete successfully with workers in poorer countries with lower wages and lower costs of production. It was Franklin Roosevelt who argued that worldwide reduction of trade barriers would benefit both America and its trading partners.

Roosevelt's victory, along with his signing of the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act, ushered in the modern era of American trade policy.

During World War II, Secretary of State Cordell Hull argued that economic protectionism had fed the animosities that led to the war. He advocated freer trade in the postwar era as a bulwark for peace and prosperity.

This vision led to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, otherwise known as GATT, negotiated during the Truman administration. This forerunner to today's World Trade Organization brought down the disastrously high Smoot-Hawley tariffs and freed $10 billion of trade from duties.

Democrats can be proud of our role in expanding free trade. Democratic administrations completed and implemented the last three rounds of GATT negotiations. In 1967, the Johnson administration completed the Kennedy Round. In 1979, the Carter administration completed the Tokyo Round. In 1994, the Clinton administration completed the Uruguay Round.

The Clinton administration completed the North American Free Trade Agreement, negotiated the historic bilateral trade agreement with Vietnam, and granted permanent normal trade relations to China, ultimately paving the way for China's membership in the WTO.

The success of trade liberalization has been spectacular, touching the lives and well-being of all Americans. Freer trade has lowered our tariffs from about 40 percent in 1946 to about 4 percent today, and made our trading partners do the same. Freer trade has increased our national income by nearly $1 trillion a year. Freer trade has increased the average American household's income by nearly $10,000 a year. Freer trade with China alone saves American households $600 each year.

Today, 12 million Americans, 1 of every 10 workers, depend on exports for their jobs. International trade now accounts for a quarter of our gross domestic product, up from just 10 percent in the 1950s.

Trade opens our lives to new opportunities and choices. Trade gives us new foods to eat, new movies to watch, and new products to buy.

Strengthening trade ties also contributes to peaceful relations with our trading partners. Our quality of life improves as the world grows ever smaller, shrinking with the better communications and transportation links that develop with increased commerce.

Back in China, Guangzhou Airport has a terminal designed by an American company, boarding gates supplied by a Danish company, and an air traffic control tower engineered by a company from Singapore.

America's Dell Computers is giving the Chinese competitor Lenovo a run for its money in China. Dell now has become China's third-largest seller of PCs, and Dell now produces 3 million PCs in China, as many as Lenovo.

America should welcome China's greater integration into the world market. It may mean that we will have to work a little harder, study a little bit harder, and think a little bit quicker to keep ahead. But those are talents at which Americans excel.

In the middle of the 15th century, China made an abrupt change in foreign policy. Remember just earlier all those ships around the world? China turned inward and abandoned outward-looking trade. Imperial edicts banned overseas travel. To reduce commerce with foreign nations, the new Chinese dynasty burned a swath of land 30 miles deep for 700 miles of its southern coast. Any merchant caught engaging in foreign trade was tried as a pirate and executed.

With the Emperor's death in 1435, the government put a stop to the voyages of the Treasure fleet. Chinese court officials destroyed the plans for the Treasure ships, the accounts of their

voyages, and almost every map and document of the previous period. Sadly, China's golden Ming age came to an end, China's economy fell backward, and the treasure ships became shrouded in the mists of history.

We cannot yet know whether the voyages of today's fleets of Chinese ships will lead to another golden age for China like that of the Ming Dynasty. But we also cannot expect that China will somehow once again abruptly reverse course and turn inward. That will not happen.

Try as regimes after the Ming dynasty did, they could not erase the history of the Ming treasure fleets, whose voyages will leave a memory forever.

Let us respond to today's Chinese fleets with the best spirit of the Ming admiral, and the best spirit of America.

Let us work to advance freer trade, so that for America and for China, we can, in the words of the Ming admiral, ``manifest the transforming power of virtue.''

Let us work to advance freer trade, to make a better world both for ourselves, and for ``regions far away hidden in a blue transparency of light vapors.''

And let us work to advance freer trade, because both in terms of new innovations and new trading partners, America's greatest voyages of discovery still lie ahead of her.

Mr. President, under the previous order, do we have up to 10 minutes reserved for the Senator from Massachusetts, Senator Kennedy?

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 331, I call up the bill (H.R. 2475) to authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2006 for intelligence and intelligence-related activities of the United States Government,

the Community Management Account, and the Central Intelligence Agency Retirement and Disability System, and for other purposes and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 5 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 2475, the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2006. This is a very good bill, a bill we can be very

proud of, and a bill that every Member of the House can and should support.

Before I talk about some of the details in the bill, I would like to recognize the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Harman). We have worked hard on the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence to keep this committee focused on the job that needs to be done and to do so on a bipartisan basis, and I thank the gentlewoman for working with us in that process and being able to maintain that spirit as we bring this bill to the floor on a bipartisan basis. I also thank her staff and our staff for helping us through this process in bringing this bill here today.

Mr. Speaker, 3 years ago when he was chairman of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Porter Goss, now director of the Central Intelligence Agency, asked me to take a strategic look at the technical capabilities within the United States intelligence community. He wanted me to see how the technical intelligence collection systems all work together, evaluate their individual contributions to national security, and see if there were redundancies to understand the affordability of the many systems and, most importantly, understand the impacts on the rest of the intelligence community.

What Mr. Goss really asked us to do was to go back, and we have expanded that in the committee over the past 8 or 9 months, to take a look at the strategic framework that we face in the world today and how we should respond to the threats. So we spent a considerable amount of time looking at the threats that America faces: What is the threat environment that is out there today; what do we expect it to be in 3, 5 and 7 years, so we can shape the proper intelligence community to give our policymakers and our military the right information to make good decisions and keep our soldiers safe?

We have then taken that to take a look at the feedback we have gotten from the 9/11 Commission, the feedback we have gotten from the WMD Commission as to the particular strengths within the intelligence community and also some of the particular weaknesses.

So as we put this bill together, we really focused on making sure that we had a good balance between our human capabilities, the investment we were making in our human capabilities for the long term, and the investment we were making in our technical capabilities. This bill does that by investing more in our human capabilities.

On the technical capabilities, it takes a very, very hard look at the different programs that we have in place there. It makes sure that what we do is put in place programs that will complement each other, give us the information that we need, and hopefully put us on a framework and on a pathway to balancing human capabilities with our technical capabilities.

Also in that area, this bill moves forward and holds some of our contractors accountable for their performance. This is an area where tactically we may disagree on some of the points on how to make that happen, but we are very much in sync on a bipartisan basis that we need a strategic plan and we need to have our contractors perform. It will also lay the framework for a discussion we will have throughout this year about how to make sure that in a time where we have limited budgets and limited programs underway, that we maintain the industrial base here in the United States.

So there are a lot of things that we do in this bill to make sure that we have got the balance and are moving in the right direction on our technical capabilities.

Another key element of this bill is we have heard consistently from our field personnel and others within the intelligence community, especially those involved in the counterterrorism effort, that we cannot fund counterterrorism on an ad hoc basis. So what we did in this bill is we have authorized the majority of the dollars that we believe will be needed to build our intelligence capability and to fund the war on terrorism.

We think it is important to send to the intelligence community a clear signal of how much money they are going to have so they can do the appropriate planning and the ramping up of resources in the waging of this global war on terrorism.

As I said at the beginning of my statement, we have done this on a bipartisan basis. We have taken a strategic look at what the intelligence community, where it needs to be and where it needs to go. We are going to continue working in that effort. I think as Members see through the debate, we have made a lot of progress and there is more work to do.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Renzi), a member of the committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from New Mexico (Mrs. Wilson), the chairwoman of the Subcommittee on Technical and Tactical Intelligence.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Thornberry), the chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight who has been working very effectively with the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Cramer) to do the work that an oversight subcommittee is expected to do.

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. McHugh), a new member of the committee, a very valuable member, and also a member of the House Committee on Armed Services.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter), the chairman of the House Committee on Armed Services, and our partner in making sure that we have a solid and strong intelligence community as well as the best fighting forces, the best military in the world.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes.

Madam Speaker, as we take a look at the technical programs and we take a look at the structure of the intelligence community, at the end of the day it is about the people in the intelligence community. As we have conducted our oversight responsibilities in developing this bill, we have had the opportunity to meet and work with many of the intelligence professionals throughout the community and around the world. I believe I can speak for the rest of my colleagues when I say that we hold in the highest regard the work accomplished by these dedicated U.S. intelligence community personnel.

At great sacrifice, often under extreme and intense conditions, and at great personal risk, the men and women of the intelligence community continue to perform their missions with great energy, professionalism, and devotion to the national security mission. I commend these patriots for their heroism, their integrity, and their perseverance. These honorable people form the first line of defense for our Nation. Our freedoms and the very security of our country rely on their successes. Those successes are things we cannot and do not often have the opportunity to talk about.

Unfortunately, and quite wrongly, it is the rare but overlooked publicized failures that they are credited with. I stand here today and say thank you to these tremendous people. They deserve our support, and that is what we are doing with this legislation today.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes.

Madam Speaker, I would like to get to some of the specifics of the legislation. I want to make an observation about the overall position we have

taken. It is my belief, and we have seen it today, that we may be harshly criticized by some for being too bold or aggressive with some of our actions. Indeed, we have already been told that we were not incremental enough. I want to take head-on those who take such positions.

There is no question that what is being proposed today is bold and sweeping in some areas. Without getting into the classified specifics, based on our strategic review, we are cutting back dramatically in some cases, on some technical programs that have had poor performance or could be modified for better utility for the Nation's intelligence efforts.

We are terminating some programs that we do not believe fit in the overall architecture for the intelligence community. We have analyzed these programs extensively, asked the tough questions, and focused on the resulting intelligence output. To paraphrase from a Hollywood movie line, these programs have been weighed, they have been measured, and they have been found wanting.

We are then taking the resulting savings and applying that to historically underfunded areas in the human intelligence and human capital areas. Specifically, we are focusing needed emphasis on adding human intelligence specialists, improving the training of analysts, improving the training of case officers, and making more robust the infrastructure necessary to gain their expertise, and then better employ that expertise.

We have quite simply in the past paid too much lip service to those basic needs, while continuing to fund expensive technical programs that, although important, do not make up for the lack of analysts, lack of worldwide coverage, lack of training, and lack of basic infrastructure. In sum, we are doing the heavy lifting that should have been done long ago. We are acting boldly and positively on the task our former chairman gave us.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to my colleague, the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays).

Madam Speaker, we have no additional speakers at this time either, so I believe I have the right to close. The gentlewoman will close on her side, and we will have no additional speakers. I will close on our side.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, today before closing general debate, I would like to briefly offer congratulations and recognition to Mr. Charles G. Allen, as many of us know him, Charlie, as he completes his tour of duty as the assistant director of the Central Intelligence Agency for collection.

He has served the intelligence community with great distinction, and I will later seek consent in the House to submit a more lengthy tribute into the Record.

But just briefly, he is a native of North Carolina. Mr. Allen has served the Central Intelligence Agency and the Nation with distinction since 1958, holding a variety of positions of increasing responsibility, both in analytical and managerial capacity. He served overseas in an intelligence liaison capacity from 1974 to 1977, and from 1977 to 1980 he held management positions of increasing responsibility and importance in the Directorate of Intelligence.

I think that all of the Members in the House, and all of the Members and the staff on the committee who have gotten to know Mr. Allen over the last number of years, number one, we are glad that he is still working on special assignment with Mr. Goss; but we really want to extend our congratulations to him for almost slightly over 45 years of service to this country within the intelligence community, a real national asset in the intelligence business.

Madam Speaker, I include for the Record a statement on Assistant Director Allen.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to offer congratulations and recognition to Mr. Charles E. Allen as he completes his tour of duty as the Assistant Director of Central Intelligence for Collection. Since its creation by the Congress 7 years ago, he has served in this position with distinction.

Mr. Allen was appointed as the first Assistant Director of Central Intelligence for Collection. As such, he was responsible for Intelligence Community collection management, and specifications for our next generation of collection systems. During these past 7 years he has come to personify the position, personalize the management of this nation's scarce intelligence collection assets, confound his early critics, and overall achieve positive results beyond even the expectations of his supporters, who are legion. His service has been a great asset, and Congress has regularly drawn upon his experience and judgment.

A native of North Carolina, Mr. Allen has served the Central Intelligence Agency and the Nation with distinction since 1958, holding a variety of positions of increasing responsibility both in analytic and managerial capacities. He served overseas in an intelligence liaison capacity from 1974 to 1977, and from 1977 to 1980 he held management positions of increasing responsibility and importance in the Directorate of Intelligence.

Mr. Allen served as program manager of a major classified project, from 1980 to 1982 in the Office of the Director of Central Intelligence, and was subsequently detailed to the Office of the Secretary of Defense where he held a senior position in strategic mobilization planning.

In 1985 the Director of Central Intelligence requested Mr. Allen's return from the Secretary of Defense's office to serve as the National Intelligence Officer for Counterterrorism, and later as Chief of Intelligence in the CIA's newly established Counterterrorist Center. Many of Mr. Allen's successes have and shall continue to remain secret, but two that have become more publicly known illustrate his contributions; he played a key role in apprehending the hijackers who killed an American citizen on the cruise ship Achille Lauro, and he correctly brought to the DCI's attention certain matters which served to stimulate the Iran-Contra investigation.

Mr. Allen served as the National Intelligence Officer for Warning from 1988 to 1994 and chaired the Intelligence Community's Warning Committee. From these positions he issued timely warnings of events of momentous importance, confounding most intelligence officers who did not share his prescience.

Mr. Allen was awarded the National Intelligence Medal for Achievement in 1983 by DCI Casey and the President's Award for Distinguished Federal Civilian Service in 1986 by President Reagan. In 1991, he was presented the CIA Commendation Medal for provision of warning intelligence in Desert Shield/Desert Storm.

He and his wife, Kay, reside in Herndon, Virginia, where they raised four children.

Madam Speaker, Mr. Allen has already enjoyed a long and luminous career in intelligence, and as he steps down from his current position I hope all my colleagues will recognize the extraordinary contributions Mr. Charles E. Allen has made to our National Security as a lifelong professional intelligence officer. I hope my colleagues will honor him as a great American and pioneer in the management of intelligence collection inter alia.

Finally, Madam Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me in expressing our confidence in his continued ability and willingness to serve the Nation as she shall call upon him.

I yield to the gentlewoman from California.

Madam Speaker, in closing, again I would like to thank my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, the staff on both sides of the aisle who have worked to put together a very, very good bill, my colleagues on my side of the aisle.

We have put together, I think, a very, very strong bill. I think it deserves broad bipartisan support. It sets us in the right direction. As my colleague has indicated, there is more work to do. We do need to take a look at the technical programs. These are critical to the long- term success of our intelligence community, to make sure that public policymakers have the information that we need to make the right decisions.

I appreciate the gentlewoman from California's (Ms. Harman) support as we have gone through this process and recognizing that there are issues and concerns about the performance of some of these programs and so that we have the agreement on that.

Where we are disagreeing and having some discussions right now is what is the most effective way to respond to those problems and issues. We want accountability. We want performance. We want to spend the taxpayer dollars wisely. And I am sure that as we continue to go through this process, work with our colleagues on the other side of this building, and work with the administration, we will come to a conclusion, hopefully, that we can all agree to.

I applaud the committee and our work in taking some of these steps

that I think we all recognize needed to be taken and that we are committed to addressing those problems.

With that, Madam Speaker, I would encourage my colleagues to support this bill.

Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I rise to claim the time in opposition to the amendment, but I do not object to the amendment.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, I will not oppose this amendment. I believe the author will have a perfecting amendment.

I yield to the gentlewoman from New York.

Reclaiming my time, I thank my colleague, the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney) for that change.

I think the reason we are accepting the amendment is in the spirit that it was offered by my colleague from New York and, I believe, my colleague from Connecticut. We on the committee, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Harman) and myself have laid down as one of the parameters and one of the things that we expect from the oversight subcommittee is to vigorously and aggressively track the implementation of the intelligence reform bill.

I agree in the time that the gentlewoman and I have been in Congress together until we pass Federal prison industries reform, this will be one of the most significant pieces of legislation that we will have worked on together.

There are some talking points on the technicality as to what ``fully operational'' means, and those types of things; and whether it is fully operational now and whether it could have been fully operational before June 17, because that is when the law came into effect, we fully understand and appreciate the concern that the gentlewoman has in bringing this amendment forward, that we on the committee and that Congress and the American people be fully informed as to the progress we are making in implementing the intelligence reform bill.

We are committed to doing that. We are committed to staying informed on

the committee, riding herd over the director of National Intelligence to make sure that this bill is implemented to the full intent of Congress when we passed it.

So it is in light of the spirit of that approach that we accept this amendment.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

I thank my colleagues for working through this amendment and making the necessary changes. As I indicated earlier, we are willing to accept this amendment.

Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the motion to recommit.

Mr. Speaker, I am a little confused, as I listened to those on the other side as to whether we have or have not done oversight. The author of the amendment says there has been no oversight. My ranking member applauds the work that the committee has done in its role of doing oversight on a bipartisan basis.

Mr. Speaker, we are at a time of war that was not begun by the making of the United States. We are at war against an international terrorist movement that has engaged our country in a clash of values driven by those who fundamentally oppose American democracy and freedom.

The 9/11 Commission emphasized the importance of engaging the terrorists in the ``struggle of ideas,'' noting that many views in the Muslim world of the United States are ``at best uninformed about the United States and, at worst, informed by cartoonish stereotypes among intellectuals who caricature U.S. values and policies. Local newspapers and the few influential satellite broadcasters, like al Jazeera, often reinforce the jihadist theme that portrays the United States as anti- Muslim.''

Mr. Speaker, comments that significantly exaggerate and overstate the situation in Guantanamo Bay do nothing but reinforce the false perceptions of America that have encouraged our enemies.

There is aggressive oversight under way by the executive branch and by Congress into our detention procedures. It is only because of this aggressive oversight and the freedoms provided by American democracy that we are having this discussion in the first place. The system is working properly, and we should continue to let it work; and for those who do not know about the work that is going on, perhaps they could ask.

So when senior Members of Congress, including a member of the minority leadership in the Senate, exaggerate and distort these issues, including by comparing American soldiers to Nazis, those comments do nothing but reinforce the false prejudices abroad that have led us to war.

As an example, I note that the al Jazeera network gave prominent coverage to the remarks of a Member of the Senate comparing the actions of U.S. soldiers to Nazis, Soviet gulags, and a mad regime like Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.

A columnist in the Chicago Sun Times said of those remarks: ``He should at least be made a little uncomfortable over what he's done.'' What did he do? ``In a time of war, make an inflammatory libel against his country's military that has no value whatsoever except to America's enemies.''

We are better than those who oppose us. Our oversight has exposed our weaknesses. Now is the time to move on.

To quote from President Roosevelt's ``Man in the Arena'' speech: ``It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.''

I want this Congress to be seen as a doer of deeds. If we fail, we fail while daringly great. To do anything less would be unworthy of the House of Representatives.

Self-loathing of America on the floor of this House accomplishes nothing but fueling the fires abroad that seek to destroy America's democracy and our way of life. I encourage my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this motion to recommit.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 5 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 2475, the strongest intelligence authorization bill to emerge from the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in recent memory. Without the funding authorized in this bill, the brave men and women of the intelligence community would not be able to do their jobs which are so vital to the defense of our country. I and many other members of the committee have visited these intelligence professionals in some of the most austere places of the world, and they deserve our gratitude and support.

I appreciate the comments of the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Hoekstra) and thank him and all of the members and staff of our hardworking committee for their bipartisanship and patriotism. As one of our members, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Ruppersberger) often says, we put America first.

Our members have made a difference. In April 2004, all nine Democrats on the Intelligence Committee introduced legislation that became the basis for the 9/11 Commission's Report and the intelligence reform legislation passed by Congress last fall. That reform dramatically reshaped our intelligence community, unifying 15 agencies under the leadership of a director of National Intelligence.

This year's intelligence authorization bill authorizes funds for that new office. The DNI must succeed in his job and he deserves our support. He is responsible for ensuring that intelligence is timely, accurate and actionable. To do this, he needs authority to build and execute budgets and move personnel. So I am pleased that we removed a provision in this bill that would have severely eroded the DNI's authority to move personnel around the intelligence community.

Mr. Speaker, in the fight against terrorists, intelligence is the tip of the spear. Some see this fight as a traditional war, requiring wartime emergency budgets and wartime authorities for the President. That may have been the right approach immediately after 9/11. We fought a war in Afghanistan and achieved an impressive victory.

But the terrorist threat has changed. Today we no longer face a centralized top-down terrorist organization operating out of one country. We face a network of loosely affiliated terrorist groups which operate as franchises around the world, and that is why I believe we are living in an era of terror.

This legislation does some good things to help us achieve victory in an era of terror.

First, it ends our reliance on emergency supplemental budgets for counterterrorism. The budget the President sent to Congress this year funded less than 40 percent of the intelligence community counterterrorism requirements, leaving the rest for emergency supplementals. This bill changes that on a bipartisan basis, and we fund 100 percent of CT requirements.

Second, this legislation incorporates a resolution introduced by all nine Democrats, urging the new DNI to establish a multi-tiered security clearance system to allow patriotic Americans with relatives in foreign countries to obtain security clearances and serve our Nation. It is high time we do this. This will help with field officers who can speak the languages and blend in with terrorist groups, penetrate proliferation networks, and recruit spies against the toughest targets.

Victory in an era of terror will not be achieved by military might alone, Mr. Speaker. Victory will require America to win the argument for the hearts and minds of the next generation in the Arab and Muslim world. I fear that we are presently losing that argument.

The ongoing revelations about abuses at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere undermine our ability to maintain the moral high ground and be seen as a beacon of democracy and human

rights. I am encouraged that our committee's new oversight subcommittee is investigating abuses that have occurred in our interrogation and detention programs within the intelligence community. This is a serious bipartisan investigation. But I also support a broader public bipartisan inquiry into detention policies across the government so that our efforts to fight the terrorists do not become a moral black eye for America that undermines our security.

One area where this legislation can be improved, Mr. Speaker, is in its approach to technical systems. The details of these systems are classified and cannot be discussed openly. But I am concerned that we have made sudden, drastic cuts to certain programs that may lead to a gap in our intelligence capabilities and erode the industrial base needed to develop critical capabilities in the future. I am pleased that the chairman is committed to addressing this problem with me as the bill moves to conference.

Overall, Mr. Speaker, this is strong legislation that puts us on the right track to achieve victory in an era of terror. There is more, much more, we must do and we will. The brave men and women of the intelligence community deserve nothing less.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Boswell) who is ranking member of the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Human Intelligence, Analysis and Counterintelligence, a mouthful that we call HACI.

(Mr. BOSWELL asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, the new news on our committee is that we have stood up an oversight subcommittee. Much discussion has been made about this already today.

It is my pleasure to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Cramer) who is ranking member of the intelligence oversight subcommittee.

Madam Speaker, my home State of California produces many of the platforms and systems that give us the technical edge in intelligence, and I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Eshoo), my California friend, ranking member of the Technical and Tactical Intelligence Subcommittee of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

Madam Speaker, I now yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt), ranking member on the Intelligence Policy Subcommittee.

Madam Speaker, I served for 6 years on the Committee on Armed Services and came to admire greatly our next speaker.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton), ranking member.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds to say to the last speaker that I applaud his comments about the need for this new legislation to succeed. It is critical, in my view, to move from a 1947 business model, which is the one we were operating under, to this one.

I also would point out to our colleagues, as the last speaker knows, that battlefield intelligence is not included in the DNI construct that we built.

Madam Speaker, it is now my pleasure to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Ruppersberger), a recent addition to our committee, who is a very active member of our new Subcommittee on Oversight.

Madam Speaker, I associate myself totally with the comments that our chairman just made.

Madam Speaker, it is now my pleasure to yield 2\1/4\ minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Tierney), our rookie on our side.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute to comment on the remarks the chairman just made.

Madam Speaker, it is not a zero-sum game, it is not a trade-off between what we call HUMINT, that is, human intelligence, which is primarily the use of spies to tell us the plans and intention of the bad guys, and technology. It is a positive-sum game, or we hope it is a positive-sum game, that balances correctly our investments in HUMINT and our investments in technology.

I said earlier that my home State of California makes many of the technical platforms that we use effectively to gather intelligence. I agree with our chairman that we should take a clear-eyed look at what works and what does not work and what capabilities we need to defeat present and future threats. But some of us, I would say a majority on the minority side, believe that the weighing, measuring, and finding wanting that has gone on in this bill needs further review, that the balance can be better struck.

I look forward to working with the chairman on a better balance as this bill comes to conference, keeping in mind that we want a positive- sum outcome.

Madam Speaker, it is now my pleasure to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Crowley), a very serious Member of this body, not on our committee.

Madam Speaker, I thank the last speaker for his generous words and ask how much time remains on each side.

Madam Speaker, we at the moment have no other speakers on the floor. And I reserve the right to close for our side.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of our time.

Madam Speaker, the last 4 years have witnessed two of the worst intelligence failures in our Nation's history. Congress passed intelligence reform and created the DNI position to give the brave women and men of the intelligence community the tools they need to collect and analyze accurate and timely intelligence.

We cannot have any more catastrophic failures where we fail to connect the dots or believe too fervently in the claims of bogus sources. This legislation, the authorization bill we are considering today, is the first funding bill under our new intelligence organization.

It is a strong bill that deserves our support. As we said earlier, for the first time we fully funded counterterrorism in the base budget so we can plan CT operations against our enemies. For the first time we have urged the DNI to create multitier security clearances so we can field a diverse group of intelligence officers who speak the languages and understand the cultures of our adversaries.

I am proud to say these were two ideas offered by the committee Democrats that gained bipartisan support in our committee. As I have said, there are ways this bill can be improved further. And I look forward to working on

this as we move to conference. But this is a bipartisan product that deserves bipartisan support.

And before I close, I do want to thank again the hard-working members on both sides of the committee who put so much effort into it day after day, and moreover the hard-working staff on a bipartisan basis.

And let me just identify those on the minority side who are sitting on the floor with me today: David Buckley, staff director; Chuck Gault, deputy staff director; Jeremy Bash, general counsel; Mike DeLaney; Larry Hanauer; John Keefe; Pam Moore; Wyndee Parker, special counsel; and Christine York. They make us look good, and I urge passage of this legislation before us.

Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

(Mr. HOEKSTRA asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks, and include extraneous material.)

Madam Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

I thank the chairman for yielding to me. Charlie Allen is as close as you can come to a legend in the intelligence community. Before the intelligence reform bill passed last year, he was one of the few senior intelligence officers who could get 15 disparate agencies to function as a community. He did that mainly through sheer force of personality.

Our Nation collects intelligence through a variety of means, from spies on the ground to satellites overhead, and everything in between. In his capacity as the assistant director for collection, Charlie got the collectors to understand that they were most effective when they worked together as a team against the hardest targets.

He got them to understand that integrated collection strategies yielded the best outcomes. Under Charlie's leadership, the collectors in the intelligence community have scored some truly impressive victories, and it is unfortunate that these cannot be recounted in public.

I will just tell you that Charlie's service to the Nation was made clear to me the day he told the committee that he had been with the CIA for nearly 50 years. That is an astounding record, and it is certainly appropriate as we close debate on what I think is one of the best authorization bills ever, that we recognize Charlie's service to our Nation.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me time. I want to commend her and the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays) for the enormous work they did outside the intelligence committee. As we were considering the intelligence reform legislation last year, the faces that I saw on a constant basis were theirs and the families. And I often have said that the families were the wind beneath our wings. I would add a couple of Members of Congress to that, too, and I thank them for all they did.

I am very pleased that the majority is accepting the amendment. It is a good idea for us to make absolutely clear that the NCTC, the National Counter Terrorism Center, is a vital piece of the reform we enacted last year and that it needs to be fully operational ASAP.

To explain further, one of the big mistakes we made leading up to 9/ 11 is everyone now knows our failure to connect the dots. Obviously, having a fusion center designed for this purpose is a very good way to make sure we do not fail to connect the dots the next time.

So it took, I would say, the introduction of this amendment to cause the President to nominate a very able fellow, Vice Admiral Redd, to be the director of the NCTC. He did that 2 days after this amendment was presented in the Committee on Rules. And perhaps now that we are accepting it as part of today's debate, the NCTC will become fully operational even before that prison reform bill is enacted.

In conclusion, Madam Speaker, I strongly support this. I support the team that has brought this to us. And I would note to this body, that bill last year that we worked so hard on gets its real sea legs today as the House takes this necessary step in funding its critical parts and in making clear that we will not accept any efforts to roll back the jurisdiction of the DNI, who is going to be the commander of the tip of the spear in this era of terror.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me and commend him for sponsoring this notion of an independent commission to look at detainee abuses.

Mr. Speaker, though I am a strong supporter of this legislation, I think it would be even better if it included language to establish this commission, and so I support the motion to recommit the bill for the purpose of adding the gentleman from California's (Mr. Waxman) amendment.

Military historians often talk about the ``fog of war.'' I believe our intelligence professionals operate in a fog of law, a confusing patchwork of treaties, laws, memos and policies.

Article I, section 8 of the Constitution says that it is Congress' responsibility to establish rules concerning captures on land and water. I hope that we will seize this responsibility.

But as Congress studies the policy options going forward, it is vital that we have the facts. Only a bipartisan, independent commission can get to the bottom of what happened among administration policymakers within the military chain of command and out in the field.

The steady stream of revelations about Guantanamo and other facilities around the world erode our moral credibility, just as we are trying to win the hearts and minds of the Arab and Muslim world.

It is vital to our national security, Mr. Speaker, that we fix this problem so that our detention and interrogation policies get us actionable intelligence without creating a whole new generation of terrorist recruits. Pretending that there is no problem is not a strategy for success.

So in conclusion, Mr. Speaker, our committee, on a bipartisan basis, is looking into these issues through our Subcommittee on Oversight. I commend our progress; but in addition, I think the public will have more confidence in what we are doing if we also have an outside, independent commission.

In that spirit, I support the Waxman motion to recommit.

Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 52) approving the renewal of import restrictions contained in the Burmese Freedom and Democracy Act of 2003.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, I rise in support of the resolution offered by the gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos), my friend. In 2003, Congress passed the Burmese Freedom and Democracy Act, which among a number of things imposed an import ban on all products from Burma. Today, the House considers extending this import ban for an additional year.

Madam Speaker, the situation in Burma remains deeply troubling. The actions by the military in Burma continue to demonstrate its inability to promote an equitable way of life for millions of Burmese.

Despite the deplorable conditions in Burma today, the United States remains committed to political and social change in Burma. In fact, the United States is one of the few leaders willing to shine the light on the lack of human rights in Burma. Within the international community, the United States has cosponsored resolutions within the United Nations Commission on Human Rights condemning the human rights situation in Burma. It is tremendously important that we continue to pressure the Burmese Government to become a transparent society, free from human rights abuses that have plagued this Asian nation for so many years.

Pressure must remain in place. Extending trade sanctions puts pressure on the Burmese junta to change its ways. For the pressure to be truly effective, the sanctions must be multilateral and include Burma's main trading partners. Therefore, I encourage the administration to continue to pursue a multilateral response to the atrocities in Burma. This is a critical component for ending the military stranglehold on this society.

I urge all my colleagues to support the resolution that is before us today.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith) who himself has gained a great reputation in this Congress as being a champion of human freedoms.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Pitts).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Poe).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I include for the Record an article that appeared in the International Herald Tribune this past Sunday, written by Seth Mydans. The article is on Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi who we have heard so much about during this debate, really a true heroine in our time.

[From the International Herald Tribune, June 19, 2005]

Test of Wills: the Burmese Captive Who Will Not Budge

(By Seth Mydans)

Bangkok.--Seventeen years ago, as the people of Myanmar

filled the streets in mass protests against their military

dictatorship, a striking, self-possessed woman rose to

address a rally at the great golden Shwedagon Pagoda. At the

time, nobody realized the price she would pay for her

outspokenness.

The woman, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, was visiting from her home

in England to tend to her sick mother when pro-democracy

protests swelled throughout the country in August 1988

despite a brutal response by the military that took thousands

of lives.

In the months that followed she emerged, through a

combination of charisma and pedigree, to lead what has so far

been a futile opposition to the country's military leaders.

On Sunday, Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi will mark her 60th

birthday under house arrest, where she has spent most of the

intervening years, in an increasingly dilapidated house, more

cut off than ever from contacts outside her weed-filled

compound.

Her birthday has become an occasion for new international

protests against a military junta that holds the country in

its grip, jailing its opponents while ruining the country's

economy and waging war against its ethnic minorities.

From one of the region's most refined and richly endowed

nations, Myanmar has become its most desperate and reviled.

As the daughter of the country's founding hero, U Aung San,

she held a nearly mystical appeal for people desperate to

regain their freedoms and self-respect. With her dignity,

self-sacrifice and perseverance, she has created a legend of

her own.

She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 and has

joined the company of Nelson Mandela and the Dalai Lama of

Tibet as international icons of a struggle for freedom. But

in a contest between brute force and principle,

between repression and the clearly expressed will of the

people of Myanmar, it is the men with the guns who have

managed so far to prevail, and the country's moral symbol

who is their prisoner.

Calls for the release of Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi have come

from around the world in recent days, including statements

from Washington and from Secretary General Kofi Annan of the

United Nations.

In Norway, the chairman of the Nobel Committee, Ole D.

Mjoes, issued a rare statement about a past laureate, saying;

``We ask that she be set free immediately. We look forward to

the day that democracy again rules her country.''

But the generals have released her twice already, most

recently in May 2002, only to be shaken and shamed at her

continuing, overwhelming popularity: huge crowds that

gathered wherever she appeared.

One year after her last release, her convoy was attacked by

an organized mob in what some analysts believe was an attempt

to kill her, and she was returned to house arrest after a

period of harsh treatment in prison.

``She has become the only leader that the Burmese people

have acknowledged since the death of her father in 1947,''

said Josef Silverstein, an expert on Myanmar at Rutgers

University. ``I would add that she has in every way possible

emulated what her father stood for, which was for the right

of the people to govern themselves and to have a free and

democratic country.''

Shortly after her address at the Shwedagon Pagoda, she

explicitly assumed her father's mantle, saying she would

dedicate her life to the people of her country as he had

done.

She made that clear in 1999 when she chose not to visit her

husband, Michael Aris, in England, when he was dying of

cancer, because she feared that the government would bar her

from re-entering Myanmar. The Myanmar authorities had refused

to allow him to visit her.

The United States, the European Union and other nations

have responded to repression in Myanmar with economic

penalties that have done little to affect its leadership.

Myanmar's giant neighbors, China and India, with several

other Asian nations, offer it an economic lifeline.

But opposition from the West is putting pressure on the

junta now as it prepares to take over the rotating leadership

of the regional 10-member political and economic grouping,

the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, next year.

The United States and some other nations have hinted

strongly in recent weeks that they will boycott an annual

meeting to which they are invited if it is held in Myanmar.

Its regional neighbors, facing potential embarrassment, are

beginning to press the junta to skip its turn as regional

leader if it does not release Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi and

improve its record on human rights.

At the same time, there has been an eruption of internal

turmoil among the ruling generals, though like most things in

Myanmar its details and its causes are unclear.

In October, Prime Minister Khin Nyunt, who was the head of

military intelligence and one of the country's most powerful

leaders, was fired and placed under house arrest. His trial

on expected corruption charges has either begun or is about

to begin, according to conflicting reports.

Over the years, as repression has continued in Myanmar,

some of Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi's allies abroad have complained

about what they call her stubbornness and intransigence. But

it is the military leaders who have several times switched

track, ignoring her and vilifying her, opening and closing

dialogues, freeing and rearresting her.

She has also been criticized for demanding that the

government recognize the results of a parliamentary election

in 1990 that was won overwhelmingly by her party, the

National League for Democracy.

The remarkably open parliamentary election was a

characteristic misjudgment by the junta, which had apparently

expected to win. When Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi's party won more

than 80 percent of the seats, the generals refused to

recognize the results and clung to power.

Many who won seats were arrested. Bit by bit over the years

the junta has whittled away at their party. Today its leaders

are aging--Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi is the youngest--and its

youth wing has atrophied

More and more, the democratic opposition to military rule

in Myanmar is personified by one isolated and determined

woman. ``Her stubbornness is her strength,'' Mr. Silverstein

said. ``This woman will not bend and will not break.''

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. President, I thank the Chair and the distinguished ranking member of the Finance Committee. I caught the tail end of his remarks, and what I heard I agree with.

I rise today with my colleague from Kentucky, Senator McConnell, in support of the resolution renewing import sanctions against Burma. The House overwhelmingly passed this resolution in a 423-to-2 vote. I believe it is time for the Senate to follow suit.

Almost a month ago, Nobel Peace Prize winner and leader of Burma's democracy movement Aung San Suu Kyi celebrated her 60th birthday under house arrest. She has spent the better part of the past 15 years imprisoned under house arrest.

The brutal military regime, the State Peace and Development Council, has gone to extraordinary lengths to prevent Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy from assuming their rightful place as leaders of the Burmese state.

It is worth repeating that the NLD decisively won their parliamentary elections in 1990, results that were soon nullified by the military junta.

Two years ago, Congress passed the original sanctions legislation, the Burmese Freedom and Democracy Act, following a brutal attack by progovernment thugs on a motorcade carrying Suu Kyi and several of her NLD colleagues. That bill imposed a complete ban on all imports from Burma for 1 year and allowed those sanctions to be renewed 1 year at a time for up to 3 years.

Last year, in response to the failure of the SPDC to make ``substantial and measurable progress'' toward a true national dialog on national reconciliation and recognition of the results of the 1990 elections, Congress passed and President Bush signed into law a renewal of the import sanctions for another year.

One year later, it is clear the military junta has taken no steps toward restoring democracy, releasing Suu Kyi and all political prisoners, and respecting human rights and the rule of law and, therefore, we believe we have no choice but to renew the sanctions again for another year.

Some may argue that since we are no closer to a free and democratic Burma since Congress passed the Burmese Freedom and Democracy Act 2 years ago, we should let the import ban expire and attempt to ``engage'' Rangoon.

I disagree. I urge my colleagues to stay the course for this additional year. I ask them to remember that the Burmese Freedom and Democracy Act of 2003--a 1-year ban on Burmese imports--allowed those sanctions to be renewed twice for 1 year at a time if Burma failed to make ``substantial and measurable'' progress toward restoring democracy.

We have almost completed 2 years of the import ban and, if we pass this joint resolution, we will renew the sanctions for a third year.

If Congress does not renew the import ban when the military junta has so clearly failed to meet the conditions set out in the original legislation for having the sanctions lifted, we will reward the SPDC for its inaction and for their continued suppression of the entire Burmese people and we will send a clear message to Aung San Suu Kyi and the National League for Democracy that the United States does not stand with them.

Brutal regimes around the world would know that if you simply wait for the United States to give in, they will do so. The damage to our reputation as leader for freedom and human rights will be devastated and will take years to repair. We simply cannot afford to make that mistake.

Let me be clear, I don't support sanctions as a panacea for every foreign policy dispute we have with another country.

Each case needs to be judged on its own merits and needs to have substantive debate. Congress needs the opportunity to revisit sanctions on other countries in a timely fashion. Indeed, next year, when the import ban contained in our original bill of 2003 expires, we will have the opportunity to judge any progress made by Rangoon over the next year towards restoring democracy and possibly debate new sanctions legislation, or let the legislation expire.

We know in some cases sanctions can be effective. I think South Africa is the one case where that has proved to be the case. While Burma's military regime has totally failed to respect democracy, human rights, and the rule of law, world opinion is coming together to put additional pressure on Rangoon.

In fact, members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, called ASEAN, from Malaysia to Singapore and Indonesia, have expressed concerns about Burma assuming chairmanship of the organization next year and have pushed Burma to make progress on democratic reform.

I, frankly, believe ASEAN's prestige and effectiveness would be substantially undermined and reduced if Burma assumed a leadership position in ASEAN. More fundamentally, it would signal that ASEAN has been totally ineffective in moving this military junta toward elections in Burma, or any reconciliation, for that matter, with the duly elected government led by Aung San Suu Kyi.

The way Senator Bill Cohen and I began this many years ago was to give a period of 6 months for ASEAN to exert its influence on Burma, and then we gave the Secretary of State--who was then Madeleine Albright--the ability to trigger these sanctions. In fact, ASEAN was unable to achieve any change in Burmese military behavior. So Secretary Albright, at the time, triggered the sanctions.

In a recent op-ed in The Nation, Datuk Zaid Ibrahim, president of the ASEAN Caucus on Burma, called on the members of ASEAN to defer Burma's chairmanship for 1 year and condition its assuming the chairmanship at a later date on progress toward democracy and national reconciliation.

This is important. I hope the ASEAN nations defer the chairmanship. I hope they insist on progress. I hope they say the time has come to release Aung San Suu Kyi and to effect a democratic reconciliation to this impasse.

Mr. Ibrahim added:

A mere facade of political reform will not lead to

stability and progress in Burma and will not alleviate the

impact throughout the region. ASEAN stands ready to assist

Burma, but ASEAN's good will must be met with the Burmese

government's political will.

I strongly agree. I hope this will be ASEAN's posture. I hope it will be strong, formidable and, to the extent it can, unrelenting.

Of course, I would like to see ASEAN take additional measures to put pressure on Burma, particularly since the spread of narcotics, HIV/ AIDS, and refugees across the region can all be traced back to Rangoon.

Denied the most basic of human rights by the repressive regime-- including education and health care--the Burmese people endure forced labor, rape, and conscription. Those who dare speak out against the SPDC and its abuses are harassed, imprisoned, or killed. Few realize there are between 600,000 and 1 million internally displaced persons in Burma today, with up to 1,300 political prisoners.

The people of Burma also face a severe epidemic of HIV infection. Measures of the HIV burden are always difficult to assess, but estimates suggest that Burma is believed to have one of the largest HIV rates in Asia, with up to 1 percent of its population infected. That amounts to a half million people. After initial and outgoing outbreaks among injecting drug users, HIV rates have rapidly risen among heterosexual men, blood donors, and are now rapidly rising among women and infants.

I believe the United States can gain additional international support for change in Burma by continuing to take a leadership role on sanctions against this military regime. Now is not the time to turn our backs on the very brave Aung San Suu Kyi and the people of Burma who voted for democracy in 1990. Let's finish what we started with the Burmese Freedom and Democracy Act of 2003. I urge my colleagues to

support a free and democratic Burma and support the joint resolution renewing import sanctions for another year.

I thank the Chair. I yield the floor.