Providing for consideration of the resolution (H. Res. 734) expressing the sense of the House of Representatives regarding the withholding of information relating to corruption in Iraq.

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

Madam Speaker, I want to begin by thanking my very good friend, a new member of the Rules Committee, the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Welch) for his statement that was very thoughtful. But it actually in many ways buttressed the argument that I was making in the Rules Committee yesterday, that Chairman Waxman countered, that this resolution is little more than an attempt to try and appease this sector of the House of Representatives that wants this immediate withdrawal from Iraq, represented by more than a couple of my colleagues who are here right now.

I rise, Madam Speaker, in strong opposition to both this rule and the underlying resolution. Once again the Democratic leadership has shut down the normal, open legislative process in order to bring their substantively flawed legislation to the floor, and once again they must resort to a complete distortion of facts in order to advance their agenda.

They have the formula down pretty well, Madam Speaker. First, you pick an issue that no one could possibly oppose. In this case they have bravely come forward and taken a stance against corruption. Well, it is very impressive. Obviously we are all opposed to corruption.

Next, they slap together a resolution that ostensibly advances this position, but, in reality, twists the facts such that the issue is actually abandoned for purely political potshots; then shut down regular order so that no dissenting voice can be heard.

Finally, when all due process and substantive deliberation has been thwarted, attack those who expose their sloppy work by calling them ``pro-corruption,'' or ``anti-poor children,'' or whatever dark and sinister trope we are exploiting this week.

This is a well-worn approach that has been, unfortunately, standard operating procedure in this 110th Congress. What makes it so troubling this time is that it came from a committee whose

chairman and ranking member have generally worked in a bipartisan way, despite the Democratic leadership's very heavy-handed approach on so many issues.

The ranking member, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Davis), has been very eager to work constructively with, Madam Speaker, our California colleague (Mr. Waxman) who chairs the committee. They have worked together on a number of issues. And it was the same way when our friend from Fairfax, Virginia (Mr. Davis) was the chairman of the then Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, now the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, when Mr. Davis was the chairman and Mr. Waxman was the ranking member.

Mr. Davis has not shied away from taking a very, very honest and fair approach to oversight and speaking very frankly about the problems that are exposed. He has always concerned himself only with the facts, not the party affiliation of those who have come under scrutiny.

So why is it, Madam Speaker, why is it that the majority did not so much as share the text of this resolution with the minority before introducing it? Why did it not go through the regular committee process to vet the language? What exactly do they fear by allowing just a little bit of sunshine in their work?

Madam Speaker, when the Republicans on the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform finally got to have just a little peek at this resolution, what they found were half-truths, distortions and blatant omissions.

Our friend from Virginia (Mr. Davis) offered a substitute that would modify the resolution by adding the critical information that the majority had omitted and correcting what was mischaracterized. The majority shamelessly but predictably shut out the amendment, in an apparent attempt to suppress any effort to expose the glaring flaws to their resolution.

Madam Speaker, all we have asked is to have a debate based on facts rather than on phony narratives and biased misinformation. I have no doubt that their side will continue this charade of a debate and pretend that this resolution is simply about exposing corruption and those who try to cover it up.

Madam Speaker, they can have their charade, but this side is going to actually talk about facts today, something that we are proud to regularly do, and, unfortunately, doesn't emerge too often from the other side of the aisle.

We will start with the issue of corruption in the Iraqi Government. It is a huge problem. It is a huge problem, corruption in the Iraqi Government, Madam Speaker. We all recognize that. The Iraqis recognize that. Today in The Washington Post a representative from the State Department made it very clear that the issue of corruption within the Iraqi Government is a serious one. The entire world recognizes the fact that there is corruption within the Iraqi Government.

Through a number of U.S. departments and agencies, including the State Department, we are funding a wide range of programs to find, root out and prevent corruption; to build the capacity of the Iraqi Government to fight corruption within its own ranks, which is what our goal is, making sure we fight corruption. We want to strengthen the democratic institutions that must be strong, transparent and enduring, so that the rule of law can prevail, and those who break the law will, in fact, be brought to justice.

That is what our goal is, Madam Speaker, and that is something that I believe we could address in a bipartisan way if Mr. Waxman and Mr. Davis had, in fact, had the chance to come together. Mr. Davis very much wanted to, but apparently he was rebuffed.

This is the primary goal of our policy, ensuring that we take on and root out and eliminate corruption within the Iraqi Government. And our efforts would be highlighted in this resolution, if its authors had not systematically struck the positive comments made by the very experts quoted in their text.

For example, they quote Judge Radhi Hamza al-Radhi as saying, and I quote, Madam Speaker, ``Corruption in Iraq today is rampant and has infected virtually every agency and ministry.'' That is what is in the resolution, Madam Speaker. They unfortunately in this resolution cut out the rest of the quote.

Judge Radhi went on to tell the committee, and I quote, Madam Speaker, ``The Iraqi people would hope that you continue your support to them, otherwise they will be suppressed by the neighboring countries.'' He went on to say, ``I believe if you help the Iraqi people to be managed and governed by an honest government, I believe that the problem will be over.'' Now that's the full quote from Judge Radhi Hamza al-Radhi.

To this key point, the very people that came before the committee to testify on Iraq's corruption problem also highlighted our attempts to combat it; and they begged us, they begged us, Madam Speaker, not to abandon them. A number of other key quotes were cut short in the resolution resulting in a skewed view of testimony.

They suppressed testimony from the Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction citing that the Iraq Government fully recognizes its corruption problem. They cut out the Comptroller General's testimony that this is an internal Iraqi problem which does not involve U.S. funds, and that the Iraqis face enormous challenges following decades of a dictatorship where, and I quote, ``corruption was woven into the very fabric of governing.''

It is all there in black and white in the alternative that Mr. Davis presented to us up in the Rules Committee.

Of course, that full litany of the facts will never come to a vote in this House because of a decision that the majority leadership has made. They would rather cherry-pick quotes and give a distorted account of the facts.

Madam Speaker, the resolution's second major premise, which also suffers from being disassociated with the facts, is that the State Department has tried to cover up Iraqi corruption and has withheld pertinent information from Congress. Again, the majority can continue their pseudo-debate if they would like; but, Madam Speaker, on this side of the aisle, we are just going to stick to the facts. And the fact is that a portion of an unfinished, unvetted document was inadvertently leaked. When the report was ultimately finalized, portions were deemed classified in the interest of protecting sources whose lives would be threatened for their anticorruption efforts and to protect private conversations stemming from diplomatic efforts.

We can accuse the State Department of sloppiness because of the leak; we can play Monday morning quarterback and say that they shouldn't have bothered to classify information no matter how sensitive after it was inadvertently leaked. But to accuse them of trying to cover up information is a blatant mischaracterization of the facts.

Furthermore, Chairman Waxman has declined to release the transcripts of interviews with State and Justice Departments officials on the very issues raised in this resolution. State has also offered classified briefings to answer any and all questions that can't be addressed in an open setting. Now, Madam Speaker, according to the State Department, Chairman Waxman has declined that offer. It would appear that the authors of this resolution may not actually be interested in gathering this information.

In fact, it is ironic that a resolution accusing government officials of withholding information would cherry-pick quotes from testimony and suppress an amendment that tells the whole story. And it is ironic that its authors make these accusations while refusing to release the transcripts of its own proceedings and deny the opportunity for a full classified briefing. If they were truly interested in combating corruption or the full disclosure of information, they would have gone through regular order that developed legislation within the context of a full debate that includes the facts in the situation.

I would ask them to take the issue of corruption more seriously, Madam Speaker. This is an issue that has plagued our own government. We have wrestled for years over ethics reform, and we still haven't got it right. We are trying right now to bring to the floor earmark reform. We have a discharge petition in the well and we have encouraged our colleagues to sign that to deal with what clearly has been a bipartisan issue. It is an issue that has been wrought with corruption in the

past. We are trying very hard to address that. Unfortunately, the majority leadership refuses to allow us to bring to the floor earmark reform that would simply bring us to the standard that we passed in the last Congress.

Now, Madam Speaker, as we look around the world at democracies old and new, we see that no one has been able to completely root out the problem of corruption. I have the great privilege to work with my colleague, David Price, and 18 other of our Members as part of the House Democracy Assistance Commission. Our commission works directly with legislatures in developing democracies all around the world, and corruption tops the list of challenges every single time.

In every one of the 12 member countries that we have within the House Democracy Assistance Commission, this problem of corruption comes to the forefront. Endemic corruption threatens the very survival of real democracy, and that is why we are tackling the problem across the globe; and, Madam Speaker, Iraq is no exception.

Unfortunately, rather than furthering our efforts, the Democratic majority would rather sit in the cheap seats taking shots at the Iraqi Government awash in righteous indignation over trumped-up charges of a coverup. I would call on them instead to offer a meaningful bill that addresses the very serious issue of corruption and take it up under regular order. I would call on them, Madam Speaker, to allow their work to stand before the rigors of scrutiny and deliberation.

Madam Speaker, I am quite confident that we could all come together to work on a universally supported issue of combating corruption. As I said, we have these great models of Henry Waxman and Tom Davis who traditionally in a bipartisan way have worked together. I believe we could do that again. But, unfortunately, Mr. Davis was completely rebuffed when this resolution was introduced, as our colleague from Pasco, Washington (Mr. Hastings) said, in the Rules Committee last night, was introduced last Friday with no markup whatsoever, and then we brought it up last night in the Rules Committee.

Let's work to have a constructive, meaningful debate on this issue based on facts that actually attempt to do something grander than the political posturing that we are seeing with this resolution.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and I look forward to yielding to my friend from Worcester if he would like to engage in a colloquy with me on this issue.

Now, my friend has basically stood here basically buttressing the entire argument I made in my opening statement. Who is it that's a proponent of corruption? My friend has argued, Madam Speaker, that if you are opposed to corruption, you have no choice but to support this resolution.

Here's the thing that concerns me greatly, and I'd be happy to yield to my friend if he would like to challenge me on this at all. Here's the thing that troubles me greatly, Madam Speaker.

As we stand here at this moment, we regularly have Members of the other side of the aisle accusing this administration of not coming forward with all the facts. And what is it that this resolution does? This resolution actually ignores the facts, and I will go through again the quotes from Judge Radhi Hamza al-Radhi who, in fact, said time and time again that the issue of our support for the effort of rooting out corruption in Iraq is one that must continue, and unfortunately, all we're doing is pointing a finger of blame here.

I would say to my friend that, as we look at this issue, why not seize the opportunity that the State Department has offered to make sure that you can have a full classified briefing and then make the determination as to whether or not something should or should not be classified? That's the way it should be handled, rather than this broad brush, sweeping approach saying that if you, Madam Speaker, are somehow opposed to corruption you have no choice but to support this resolution.

Of course we support the effort to ensure that we don't have corruption, but to see this ploy trying to paint people in a corner with just a little bit of the facts is, I think, a great disservice to our quest to root out corruption. And I believe very strongly, Madam Speaker, that it is essential for us, on behalf of the American people and on behalf of the model that we are trying to provide that corruption is bad, to make sure that this resolution provides all of the facts as we move forward.

I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.

Reclaiming my time, and I'd like my friend to continue because I'll yield to him in a moment, but for him to claim over the last 4 years that this administration has been indifferent to the problem of corruption is an outrage because the problem of corruption is something that has existed for years.

This administration and this Congress have been dedicated to rooting out corruption in Iraq. We've worked in a bipartisan way on it, and it's very tragic and I think a disservice to those who want to address the issue of corruption that we somehow are told that we only accept this resolution, that does not engage in providing all of the facts, that we somehow are tolerant of or supportive of a policy of corruption.

I'm happy to further yield.

He's making the exact same argument here. He's making the exact same argument that nothing has been done.

Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

Madam Speaker, I would inquire of the Chair, did I correctly reclaim my time? Did I make a mistake here, I would inquire of the Chair.

Madam Speaker, what I would like to do is to share with our colleagues some of the things that have been done over the past 4 years.

My friend mentions the fact that this administration has turned their back on the issue of corruption in Iraq. Let me just state, there has been technical training to build capacity, judicial reform. The National Endowment for Democracy has provided grants. There are international programs involved. The Iraq Reconstruction Rehabilitation Fund has increased the capacity of the Commission on Public Integrity by training, mentoring and providing equipment for the Commission on Public Integrity investigators, and aiding in corruption prevention programs, implementing financial management systems that remove some of the opaqueness that enables misuse of public funds to occur.

The U.S. prosecutors who advise and mentor the CCCI judges in all manner of serious cases, including anticorruption cases, have received support over the past 4 years, Madam Speaker. Judicial reforms have taken place, funded with $9 million through the Department of Justice in Iraq in fiscal 2006 on anticorruption activities, and this goes on and on.

I will include in the Record the items that have been done over the past 4 years by this administration to combat the issue of corruption in Iraq, including, as I said, grants from the National Endowment for Democracy, dealing with human rights issues, and a wide range of other entities and a litany of some of the items that have been done.

So it is a gross mischaracterization, Madam Speaker, to argue that the administration has turned their back on the issue of corruption in Iraq.

Anti-Corruption Programs in Iraq Provided by the U.S. State Department

State/Embassy Baghdad support for anti-corruption efforts

Technical training: build capacity.

Judicial reform.

NED Grantees.

International Programs.

Technical training: build capacity

IRRF (Iraq Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Fund) has

increased the capacity of the Commission on Public Integrity,

CPI, by training, mentoring, and providing equipment for CPI

investigators and aiding in corruption prevention programs

(implementing financial management systems that remove

some of the opaqueness that enables misuse of public funds to

occur).

INL funds DOJ Resident Legal Advisors--U.S. prosecutors who

advise and mentor CCCI judges in all manner of serious cases,

including anti-corruption cases.

Judicial reforms

IRRF funded $9 million through DOJ in Iraq in FY06 on anti-

corruption activities.

Six advisors work with the Embassy's Office of

Accountability and Transparency, OAT, to provide support to

the CPI and other Iraqi anti-corruption entities.

NED Grantees working on anti-corruption and transparency

Iraqi Human Rights Watch Society is working to build and

train a core group of activists on combating corruption.

Badlisy Cultural Center is working to raise awareness among

youth about anti-corruption and transparency in Sulaimaniya

province and to encourage cooperation between Iraqi NGOs in

the North and their counterparts in the South.

To expand its democracy training program in Al-Muthan,

Dhiqar, and Alqadisiya, the Rafidain Civic Education

Institute will train six trainers to conduct 36 workshops

targeting students and NGO activists to provide them with the

skills to raise awareness of the need to combat corruption.

International Programs

On September 26, 2007, the State Department signed a

$1,621,700 grant agreement with the Organization for Economic

Cooperation and Development, OECD. The OECD has already

started working with the Government of Iraq (GOI) to develop

and implement a framework more conducive to investment and

economic development.

What has the Embassy done recently?

Anti-corruption efforts are a part of everything we do in

Iraq: a multiagency, multi-country approach, at the local,

provincial, and national levels. From 2004 to 2006, we

focused on building and heavily investing in anticorruption

strategies and institutions. In 2007, we created OAT (the

Office of Accountability and Transparency) to help coordinate

those activities and identify gaps. We increased staff

dedicated to anti-corruption activities (recruited qualified

people and expanded our focus to include the BSA and IGs). We

formed the Iraqi inter-agency anti-corruption team, a multi-

agency, multi-country team.

PRTS: provincial success on budget/acquisition

accountability processing.

Well over 50 USG employees work on some aspect of anti-

corruption activities in Iraq.

Embassy response to corruption controversy

The Embassy continues to work with the Iraqi Government to

combat public corruption and improve transparency and

accountability.

Support and training contracts are on hold pending clarity

of succession at CPI.

The 11 Iraqi CPI investigators who went to the U.S. for

training along with Radhi in mid-August have returned to Iraq

and, according to Embassy reports, are eager and ready to

investigate corruption, at great personal risk.

While corruption in Iraq is a serious problem and we are

helping Iraqis combat it, this issue does not affect U.S.

programs. There is a distinction between GOI activities and

USG efforts in Iraq, and the USG has strict checks in place

to help combat corruption.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

It is very, very unfortunate that we are here trying to tackle the issue of corruption in Iraq and we are failing to look at the facts. The distinguished former chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, our friend from Fairfax, Virginia (Mr. Davis) has worked long and hard in a bipartisan way on the constitutionally mandated responsibility of legislative oversight of the executive branch. It's an issue which he takes very seriously.

He represents northern Virginia. He represents a lot of people who work in the executive branch, a lot of people who work in the legislative branch as well. He's an expert on these issues and he's been proud to work in past Congresses and in this Congress in a bipartisan way.

He's done that with my good friend and California colleague with whom we share representing the Los Angeles area (Mr. Waxman), the distinguished Chair of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. And traditionally, we've seen these two, while they've obviously had a different perspective on issues, we've seen their arguments propounded very, very thoughtfully on a regular basis, but they have been able to join on a wide range of issues.

And here we have Mr. Davis, who did have his staff last Wednesday get a copy of this resolution, but Madam Speaker, as you recall we had the funeral of our colleague Mrs. Davis, and we were not in on Thursday and on Friday we were not in session. And the members of the staff on the minority side were told on Wednesday that they were not to share this information, to wait until it was introduced on Friday.

Madam Speaker, it was introduced on Friday. We had not been in session for 2 days then, Thursday or Friday, and then all of a sudden this is brought up in the Rules Committee, no markup held whatsoever, no attempt to even get the briefing from the State Department. We've been told by the State Department that the chairman of the committee turned down the offer to have this briefing.

And so what can we conclude, Madam Speaker, other than the fact that there is gross politicization of this issue? Who is opposed to tackling the issue of corruption? I mean, it's motherhood and apple pie, and yet we somehow, because we want to get all the facts on the table, because we want to have an opportunity for a free-flowing debate, because we want the very respected ranking minority member to have a chance to have his substitute voted on in this House, we are somehow being told we are pro-corruption, we want to be part of a coverup. It is absolutely outrageous, Madam Speaker. It's a disservice to Democrats and Republicans of this institution to have this kind of treatment.

Madam Speaker, I have some closing remarks that I'd like to make, but we've just been joined by our very thoughtful colleague from Bridgeport, Connecticut, who is a hardworking member of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

Madam Speaker, may I inquire of the Chair how much time we have remaining on each side?

And the gentleman from Vermont has no further speakers; is that correct, Madam Speaker?

Madam Speaker, at this time, I'm happy to yield 5 minutes to my friend from Bridgeport (Mr. Shays).

Madam Speaker, may I inquire of the Chair how much time is remaining.

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

I am happy to see the distinguished Chair of the Committee on Rules has joined us here on the floor, and I have to say, Madam Speaker, that I am going to encourage our colleagues to defeat the previous question on this rule. Why? Because this resolution is all about tackling the issue of corruption.

One of the things that we tragically learned is there has been corruption not only in Iraq, and we all, including the State Department, recognize there has been serious corruption in Iraq. But there has been corruption right in this body as well. It has been widely heralded; it is bipartisan. We have had problems on both sides of the aisle.

We want to take on this issue of corruption. And there was a promise made last fall that we would in fact see a great new day when it came to the issue of earmark reform. I was very proud, Madam Speaker, that last October we were able to pass legislation that provided full transparency, disclosure, and accountability on all earmarks, appropriations, authorization, and tax bills.

Now, we were told that that measure that passed last year, Madam Speaker, was in fact a sham. And, Madam Speaker, I have to tell you that we have passed earmark reform in this Congress, but unfortunately it doesn't go nearly as far as the bill that we passed in the 109th did on the issue of transparency, accountability, and disclosure. Why? The disclosure we have today only deals with the issue of appropriations. It does not, as we did in the last Congress, have full transparency, disclosure, and accountability on authorization and tax bills. Meaning, Madam Speaker, that the structure that we have now, unfortunately, creates the potential for corruption right here in this body.

That is why, since we have in this resolution an attempt to take on the issue of corruption in Iraq, the vote on the previous question that we are going to be offering to defeat the previous question to make in order the resolution, that we have as a discharge petition that our Republican leader (Mr. Boehner) has offered in the well of the House. We hope colleagues will sign because that hasn't come forward. But what we are trying to do with the defeat of the previous question is to make in order that measure so that we can take on the issue of corruption in this institution.

So, Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the previous question so that we are able to make in order that measure.

I ask unanimous consent to include in the Record just prior to the vote on the previous question the text of the amendment and extraneous material.

With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I am always very, very thrilled to have a chance to hear from the distinguished Chair of our Rules Committee, and I would like to reclaim the balance of my time if I might.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to respond to the very distinguished Chair of the Committee on Rules and say that the issue of corruption is one which we have taken on both in Iraq and in this Congress with great enthusiasm. And I would say to my friend that if she believes that somehow this nonbinding resolution, which does absolutely nothing, is going to somehow allow us to tackle the issue of corruption in Iraq with greater enthusiasm, that is preposterous, absolutely preposterous, Madam Speaker.

What we need to do is we need to have a fair, free-flowing debate that allows us to bring all of the facts forward. And that is what we have been attempting to do here; and, unfortunately, it just is not happening. Why? Because as my friend from Connecticut, a very thoughtful Member (Mr. Shays) has said, we are observing political posturing here, and I think it is a very sad day.

Let's take on the issue of corruption in this institution by defeating the previous question so we can bring forward real meaningful earmark reform, something that the new majority promised but not only has failed to deliver on but failed completely in getting us to even the standard we had in the last Congress. So vote ``no'' on the previous question and ``no'' on the rule.

With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Madam Speaker, in this 30 seconds what I am going to say is we witnessed something that is virtually unprecedented here. The manager of the rule made it clear that he was the

last speaker and there was no one else. Now, I recognized the first time that I was enthused about hearing from the distinguished Chair of the Committee on Rules. And I exhausted the time allotted to us for our debate on the minority's side, and this is what we have gotten, a repetition of the same thing.

The issue of corruption, Madam Speaker, is something that we all want to take on; we want to take on with all of the facts before us. Our colleagues need to get the classified briefing and this information. I am going to continue to urge a ``no'' vote on the previous question and the rule.

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

I rise today to speak on H. Res. 734, a resolution about corruption in Iraq.

Corruption, the theft of public resources for private gain, saps the life out of everything it touches. The fact that official corruption has long undermined government effectiveness and public confidence in Iraq and throughout the Middle East should come as no news to anyone. But no one believes rampant corruption is inevitable or tolerable in Iraq. Republicans don't support corruption, Democrats don't support corruption, so the pace and reach of our efforts to help the Iraqis prevent, deter, investigate and punish corruption in their struggling democracy should be one thing, perhaps the only thing, about our policy in Iraq that we can agree on.

But we were never given the chance to agree. The language of this resolution has never been considered by any committee. Why not? Just last week, four House Committee chairmen wrote to the Secretary of State asking for her cooperation in ``finding solutions'' to corruption in Iraq. So those committees apparently have an interest in the issues raised by the resolution. But none of them ever considered this language. Why not? Because this resolution is just the latest find in the frantic search for proxy antiwar votes that the leadership has staged to feed an increasingly restive left wing of their party. Unable to prevail directly, they ignore regular order and nibble around the edges with symbols, surrogates, and sense of Congress resolutions.

In this political environment, it almost doesn't matter how we vote since the resolution means so little and accomplishes even less. But, fairly or not, as has been voiced by several Members on the other side, a ``no'' vote would be portrayed as ``pro-corruption.'' That's unfortunate, and it didn't have to be that way.

Both the committee majority and the State Department have gone out of their way to politicize the discussion of corruption in Iraq. This resolution cherry-picks statements from our hearing testimony and tries to pick a fight with the Secretary of State over access to certain information. I offered a substitute to try to bring some balance and perspective to this resolution, but it was rejected by the majority in the Rules Committee. I will talk more about that substitute later.

For its part, the State Department's process for answering our inquiries about anticorruption assistance to Iraq has been sluggish and poorly thought out. When requested documents failed to show up, we didn't demand a committee vote on subpoenas the chairman decided to send to the Department. It's a separation of powers issue. The committee has a right to timely and meaningful access to information about executive branch programs and operations. The Department then classified information already, irretrievably, in the public domain. As a result of that decision, they felt compelled to limit open discussion on what everybody already knows about corruption in Iraq.

Had the State Department witness at our hearing said to the committee what Ambassador Satterfield said in today's Washington Post, broadly speaking about the Iraqi Government's political will to fight corruption, we might not have needed to consider this resolution at all.

Nevertheless, this is obviously not a resolution I'd bring to the floor to assert our constitutional rights. Both the process and the product tend to trivialize a serious and pernicious problem by reducing it to the terms of a spat over what State Department employees can say in an open forum and classification of a few sentences and two reports. It's a transparent attempt to draw the Secretary of State into a highly visible, but completely avoidable, conflict with the Oversight Committee.

What is the House being asked to ``resolve'' in this resolution? That we should know ``the extent of corruption in Iraq''? That it was wrong to ``retroactively classify'' two draft State Department reports that had never been reviewed for sensitive information before? That it's an abuse of the classification process to ``withhold'' broad, unverified assessments of a foreign government by low-level State Department employees? And that a ``directive'' limiting discussion of potentially sensitive matters to a closed setting should be rescinded? Let me take them one by one.

The phrase ``the extent of corruption in Iraq'' is used several times. In truth, it's code for the unspoken conclusion that if we only knew the real level of corruption, we would all conclude Iraq could never stand on its own. But contrary to what this resolution implies, it's no secret there is widespread corruption in Iraq. We concede that. It's sadly well documented, from the scandalous Oil-for-Food Program in the 1990s to present-day diversion of oil revenues. Corruption is a critical concern to the United States Government, to the Iraqi Government, and to the Iraqi people.

No amount of handwringing or feigned indignation can avoid the hard truth that the United States did not bring corruption to Iraq, and it won't stop when we leave. And no spreadsheet or corruption clock will ever give us the real-time cost of bribes and the real-time cost of graft there.

Focusing on the extent of corruption rather than the extent of anticorruption efforts betrays a desire to publicize corruption, not help fix it.

On the classification question, in all honesty, I have my doubts whether the State Department's reports should have been classified. A sloppy process in Baghdad leaked them; they're on the Internet right now. It's probably counterproductive to put that genie back in the bottle. The Department simply should have said, ``The reports got out. Our mistake. But they represent only the collected anecdotes and flavor added by the authors and were not official policy statements of the United States.'' That could have avoided the whole fight over classification, but they didn't do it.

On the question of ``withholding'' information, there is a difference, and in my judgment an important difference, between hiding information and simply exercising appropriate caution and good management in deciding who makes official statements about U.S. relations with another sovereign state and where those statements are made.

More determined to be aggrieved than informed, the committee refused repeated efforts and offers to question witnesses in a setting that could permit us to discuss sensitive and classified information.

If anything constructive comes out of passage of this resolution, I hope it's to refocus and reenergize State Department anticorruption efforts in Iraq. They need it. That might not be the goal of all those that are voting for this resolution, but it's my goal in voting for it, and it's the only positive outcome that I can see.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would be happy to yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Indiana, the former chairman of the committee (Mr. Burton).

Mr. Speaker, let me just say that I appreciate what the chairman of the committee has done in holding the hearings and the investigations. I think this is something the American people should know. There is no question about that. But there are particular concerns that go to the particular content of the resolution. The chairman and I have discussed this.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Issa).

I would like to inquire as to how much time I have.

Just to put it in perspective, the report was, I think, something like 60 pages. It was called back for five sentences.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter), the former chairman of the Armed Services Committee, now the ranking member.

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Let me say that who speaks for the State Department at certain times and how nuanced the statement is going to be is very important in diplomatic jargon in terms of what its meaning is. I think

that was one of the difficulties they had at that time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 6 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, let me just add that official diplomatic statements, even under oath in congressional testimony, critical of foreign governments, have consequences. Criticizing foreign governments through official statements of our government, when you are trying to get them to comply with other things, have consequences. Criticizing specific ministries, which were some of the questions asked, have consequences within a fragile political framework of the Iraqi current coalitions, and, for one reason or another, the State Department felt that, at least in an open forum, they felt constrained to make appropriate statements.

However, I think it is clear from the amount of testimony and the volume of testimony and the substance of the testimony that we have heard that there has been corruption in Iraq for a long time. It continues, it will probably continue after we leave, and it is something that this Congress and the American people need to know about, and we can address it here on the House floor.

This resolution was introduced dealing with corruption in Iraq and the State Department's attempts to cover up the extent of the corruption, or, I should say, the alleged attempts. This quotes various witnesses that have appeared before our committee over the last several years to discuss the affairs of Iraq.

Along with the chairman, I participated in those hearings, too, and I listened to what the witnesses had to say, and I share his concern about the extent of corruption in Iraq, and I hope every Member does. But I am concerned about the way that the statements are being portrayed, the statements by the panels of expert witnesses who appeared before our committee, because in this resolution, it only paints half the picture.

I offered to work with the chairman to come up with a resolution that in my judgment paints a more complete picture of the extent of corruption in Iraq, but the offer wasn't accepted. I then, in good faith, filed an amendment with the Rules Committee that accepted basically the resolution that was presented by the chairman but added some additional whereas and resolved clauses that I thought provided a more accurate, bipartisan perspective on the extent of corruption in Iraq.

For example, the chairman's resolution quotes Stuart Bowen, the Special Inspector General for Iraqi Reconstruction, as stating before the committee on October 4 that the ``rising tide of corruption in Iraq stymies the construction and maintenance of Iraq's infrastructure, deprives people of goods and services, reduces confidence in public institutions, and potentially aides insurgent groups reportedly funded by graft derived from oil smuggling or embezzlement.''

I concur with the chairman's concerns about this particular statement by Mr. Bowen and included the same statement in the amendments that we proposed. But I also added an additional quote made by Mr. Bowen at the hearing that says, ``Iraq has a history of corruption'' and ``the United States did not bring corruption to Iraq, and it will not be gone whenever we leave.''

He said that, but apparently that proposed addition didn't fit the theme of what the majority is trying to do this week.

Additionally, the chairman's resolution quotes David Walker, the well-respected Comptroller General of the United States, as stating before our committee that ``widespread corruption undermines efforts to develop the government's capacity by robbing it of needed resources, some of which are used to fund the insurgency.''

I concur with the chairman's concerns about that statement made by Mr. Walker, something we want the world to know, Congress should be aware of. I included the same statement in the amendments that I proposed. But I also added an additional quote by General Walker at the hearing that says, ``none of us should underestimate the challenges of establishing strong and transparent government institutions in the wake of a dictatorship where corruption was woven into the very fabric of governing. And none of us should underestimate the challenge of rooting out corruption in a combat zone, even one where violence is diminishing as we have seen over the past 6 months.''

Apparently this proposed addition also failed to fit the majority's tidy little box for discussion this week.

Another example, the resolution highlights the fact that the State Department instructed officials not to answer certain questions. My amendment included the same language as the chairman's but added an additional whereas to acknowledge the fact that the State Department counsel, concerned about the specific assessments regarding the government's capacities

of Iraq Ministries and Ministers made in an open setting, and that these statements could affect the United States' bilateral relationship with the Government of Iraq and could put in danger the lives of Americans, of our allies, repeatedly offered to make United States Government officials and employees available to respond to questions regarding potentially sensitive or classified information, including foreign government information, in an appropriate secure setting where we wouldn't be endangering lives.

But that truthful statement went too far as well to include in this resolution.

The resolution also states that the State Department retroactively classified two reports on corruption in Iraq prepared by the Office of Accountability and Transparency in the United States Embassy in Iraq. I included the same whereas clause, but simply added an additional whereas, to explain that the original leaked report was an internal, unpublished, unedited and unapproved draft report on corruption in Iraq that, as described by one U.S. Embassy Baghdad employee has been embellished with anecdotes for flavor. The report had not been properly reviewed and vetted for classification purposes before.

The majority was not interested in including that explanation for why the State Department chose to classify the report.

Finally, my amendment would have included all but one of the chairman's resolved clauses and then added a handful of additional clauses to paint a more accurate picture of the extent and cause of corruption in Iraq.

For example, I proposed to add a resolved clause that stated it is not an abuse of the classification process to protect from unauthorized disclosure information contained in draft internal, unedited, unpublished and unapproved reports that reasonably may be expected to cause harm to the national defense or foreign relations of the United States.

Like all the previously discussed additions I proposed, apparently this assessment went too far, which leads me to the unfortunate conclusion that the resolution we are considering today is not a substantive resolution intended to achieve a bipartisan consensus on the important issue of corruption in Iraq, which we all agree on. It is intended to politicize and is a political measure, put forth by the majority, with no intention of trying to reach constructive steps to improve U.S. anticorruption efforts.

Is that enough for Members to oppose this press release masquerading as serious legislation? That is for each Member to decide. As for me, I am going to support the resolution, with those reservations.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I reserve my time to close.

Mr. Speaker, let me start by saying, Look, I think the State Department when this draft was leaked made a mistake in trying to reclassify this and put the genie back in the bottle. They should have just said this is unofficial, this has some problems, and gone ahead. I think that would have made it a lot easier for everybody.

Secondly, let's get real. For the State Department to make official pronunciations about another government and particular ministries can have its diplomatic challenges, and I respect the right of the administration in some of these instances to refrain from saying what the majority would like them to say.

Having said that, I think the State Department, when they go tell The Washington Post things that they wouldn't tell this committee, gives me some problems and puts me on the side of voting for this resolution rather than defending the State Department.

I want to thank the chairman for his oversight hearings on corruption in Iraq. I think it is entirely appropriate. I think he is certainly within his bounds in the right to get the information from the Department of State, and I hope in the future they will be more cooperative in terms of turning over information to the committee instead of just turning it over to the newspapers with their own slant. That is not the way this works. We have a separation of powers. We are a separate branch of government, the legislative branch, and we want to be part of these discussions.

Now, this resolution could have been about a strong bipartisan consensus calling attention to the corruption in Iraq and urging the State Department to step up its efforts to ferret out official corruption, but it is not.

The resolution is just the latest, as I said before, it is the latest find in a search for proxy anti-war votes that the leadership on the other side has staged to feed an increasingly restive left wing of their party.

Unable to prevail directly, they ignore regular order; they nibble around the edges with symbolic surrogates and sense of Congress resolutions.

Having said that, I am going to vote for this resolution. It is not the resolution I would have put forward. We would like to have had more input. I hope as we move down the road on a number of war issues, we can work across the aisle to try to bring some consensus and real change regarding what is going on in Iraq, instead of putting up a document such as this, drafted by one party. But I urge support for the resolution. I thank the chairman for his oversight hearings.

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

Madam Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 741 and ask for its immediate consideration.

For the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier). All time yielded during consideration of the rule is for debate only. I yield myself such time as I may consume.

General Leave

Madam Speaker, I also ask unanimous consent that all Members be given 5 legislative days to revise and extend remarks on House Resolution 741.

Madam Speaker, House Resolution 741 provides for the consideration of House Resolution 734, expressing the sense of the House of Representatives regarding the withholding of information relating to rampant corruption in Iraq, corruption that is being used with taxpayer money from our country. The rule provides for 1 hour of general debate controlled by the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

Resolution 734 expresses the explicit sense of the House that the State Department, our State Department, has abused its classification authority by withholding from Congress and the American people information about the extent of corruption in the Maliki government. The resolution further condemns the State Department for retroactively classifying documents that had been widely distributed previously as unclassified and by directing State Department employees not to answer questions in an open forum.

Madam Speaker, we are in the fifth year of this war. We have lost over 3,700 of our best young men and women. By the time this war is over, many experts anticipate that the cost to the taxpayers will exceed $1 trillion. General Ricardo Sanchez, a retired commander, last week described the situation in Iraq as an absolute nightmare with no end in sight.

This war started on the basis of bogus information: the threat of weapons of mass destruction that did not exist. Hard questions that should have been asked weren't asked. The war continued for years, until November of 2006, with a Congress that was a rubber stamp for whatever it was that the executive agencies wanted. Those days are over.

The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has been pursuing relentlessly article I powers of this Congress to accept its responsibility on behalf of the citizens of this country to ask questions and get answers; yet the State Department is refusing to allow relevant information to be disseminated to the members of that committee.

Madam Speaker, let me go through the history. On October 4, 2007, the Oversight and Government Reform Committee held a hearing regarding the extent of corruption within the Iraqi Government. David Walker, the Comptroller General of the United States, and Stuart Bowen, the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, testified that entrenched corruption in the Iraqi Government is actually fueling the insurgency, undermining the chances of political reconciliation, which, incidentally, was the whole point of the surge strategy of General Petraeus, and that this corruption is, in fact, endangering our troops.

The former Commissioner of the Iraqi Commission on Public Integrity, Judge Radhi Hamza al-Radhi, testified that his own investigation documented at least $18 billion in money stolen by corrupt officials. He stated that Prime Minister Maliki personally intervened to prevent the investigation from continuing.

Each witness that day provided evidence suggesting that corruption within the Iraqi Government was tantamount to a second insurgency. Specifically, David Walker testified that widespread corruption undermines efforts to develop the government's capacity by robbing it of needed resources, some of which are used to fund the insurgency itself. Similarly, Mr. Bowen testified that corruption in Iraq stymies the construction and maintenance of Iraq's infrastructure, deprives people of goods and services, reduces confidence in public institutions, and publicly aids insurgent groups reportedly funded by graft from oil smuggling or embezzlement.

Judge al-Radhi testified that corruption in Iraq today is rampant across the government, costing tens of billions of dollars, and has infected virtually every agency and ministry, including some of the most powerful in Iraq. He further stated that the Ministry of Oil is effectively financing terrorism.

Madam Speaker, after hearing this testimony, which can only be described as shocking, the Oversight Committee heard from Ambassador Lawrence Butler, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State. Members of the committee asked the obvious questions, very simple, very straightforward: A, whether the Government of Iraq currently has the political will or the capability to root out corruption within its government; B, whether the Maliki government is working hard to improve the corruption situation so that he can unite his country; C, whether Prime Minister Maliki obstructed any anticorruption investigations in Iraq to protect his political allies. Simple questions; no answers.

Ambassador Butler refused to answer any of these questions at the hearing because on September 25, 2007, 7 business days before this hearing, the State Department instructed officials not to answer questions in open setting that called for, basically, answers. In the jargon of the State Department, you couldn't answer a question that called for ``broad statements or assessments which judge or characterize the quality of Iraqi governance or the ability or determination of the Iraqi Government to deal with corruption, including allegations that investigations were thwarted or stifled for political reasons.''

It is astonishing; $1 trillion, over 3,700 lives, a war that has no end in sight, that was based on misinformation. Now, with billions of dollars gone missing, no one is disputing this is as a result of corruption, not just bad decisions. The State Department is directing the people who have answers to deny answers to Congress and to the American people.

Madam Speaker, the thrust of this resolution is very simple. It is whether Congress has the right and the will to demand that it get answers on behalf of the American people about this most catastrophic foreign policy blunder.

In addition to preventing officials from answering questions about the corruption in Iraq, the State Department retroactively classified two reports written by the Office of Accountability and Transparency, one of the two primary entities established by the State Department to lead U.S. anticorruption efforts. So we turned the Office of Transparency into the ``Office of Obscurity.''

These reports were initially marked ``sensitive but unclassified,'' and they suddenly, by fiat of the State Department, became ``confidential.'' The State Department also retroactively classified portions of a report that was released and distributed at that October 4 hearing by Comptroller Walker. It addressed the commitment of the Iraqi Government to enforce anticorruption laws.

As a member of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, I and my colleagues witnessed firsthand the State Department's absolute, adamant, willful, and really intransigent refusal to testify about Iraqi corruption. That is why the committee believes so strongly in the support of this resolution.

The resolution states in very simple and plain language what every American, I think, believes they are entitled to. One, it is essential that Congress and the people of the United States know the extent of corruption in Iraq. Two, it was wrong, not right, but wrong, to reclassify documents that are embarrassing but do not meet the criteria for classification. Three, it is an abuse of the classification process to withhold from the American people broad assessments of the extent of corruption within the Iraqi Government. Four, the directive issued by the State Department on September 25, 2007, prohibiting its officials from discussing the state of Iraqi corruption should be, indeed must be, rescinded.

Madam Speaker, corruption within the Iraqi Government is unacceptable. It undermines the efforts of this country; it undermines the efforts of the honest people in Iraq to build a civil society. We have no recourse but to demand from the State Department that they tell us the facts and not withhold them because they are embarrassing and don't serve what has been a self-serving and misguided policy since its inception.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, before I yield to my friend from Massachusetts, I would like to just comment on a few of the observations and statements made by my friend from California.

First of all, I agree with him that Chairman Waxman and Ranking Member Davis have worked cooperatively and extremely well. And, in fact, there was an effort to maintain that tradition here when Chairman Waxman last Wednesday delivered a copy of the text of this resolution to the minority with specific heads-up that this resolution was going to be introduced on Friday and with the request that comments or edits be provided in a timely way so that the introduction could occur on that day.

The edits were not presented until Monday, just before the Rules Committee meeting. So the good news here is that that cooperative approach continued. Mr. Waxman, in his usual gentlemanly and collegial way, made apparent what his intentions were, provided the language and opportunity for response, and it was not forthcoming. So that's the story.

The gentleman from California will have an opportunity to respond on his own time, so I won't yield at this time.

Secondly, the premise that on a matter of enormous public importance where it is our lives, it is our money that is imperiled, that is being wasted, that Members of Congress could sacrifice their capacity to be a representative of the people that we represent by accepting a classified briefing on something that is profoundly public in nature is flat out rejected by the committee and by most Members of this Congress.

When we are asked to go get a private briefing up in the Intelligence SCIF with a requirement that we sign an oath that we can't reveal anything that we learned, it means that the State Department has succeeded in its goal of keeping secret information that should be made public. So that is not simply an option that makes any sense if we are going to move ahead.

Madam Speaker, at this time I yield 6 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern).

Madam Speaker, I would inquire of the gentleman from California if he has any remaining speakers. I'm the last speaker on this side. So I reserve my time until the gentleman has closed for his side and yielded back his time.

That's correct.

Madam Speaker, our Chair has arrived and has requested 30 seconds. Notwithstanding my previous statement that I was the last speaker, I am inquiring if my friend from California has any objection.

The distinguished Chair has requested an additional 30 seconds, and I would yield 30 seconds to my colleague.

I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from California.

Madam Speaker, I thank the distinguished Chair for joining us. I thank my friend from California for cooperating in this debate and giving his usual vigorous presentation of his side's point of view. I want to address a couple of things that came up.

One, my friend from California said basically that this is a resolution attempting to appease the Out of Iraq Caucus. And he used the word ``appease.''

It is not about that. But I will confess that I am a person who is strongly opposed to this war, believe it was the wrong decision, it was based on false information, and it is the single most terrible foreign policy blunder that our country has embarked upon. But this resolution has nothing to do with that profound question.

What this is about is not who favors corruption. Nobody favors corruption. But it is about who tolerates secrecy. If we tolerate secrecy while we criticize corruption, don't we, in fact, condone the corruption to which we avert our eyes?

How will we talk about the facts? How can we talk about the facts which my distinguished colleague from California says he wants to talk about when the State Department denies us the facts?

If we are going to root out corruption in Iraq, don't we have to destroy the wall of self-serving State Department secrecy here in our own government?

It has been said on the other side that corruption is everywhere. Human nature. No argument there. But if corruption exists elsewhere and it is their money and their future, that is one thing. If corruption exists in Iraq with our hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars and our soldiers and their lives, then it is our problem. And we not only have a right, we have a responsibility, Madam Speaker, to do every single thing we can to get to the bottom of it and to stop it.

It was also said that in Iraq it is just another government with some corruption. We owe it not just to our own citizens, our own soldiers; we owe it to our allies and our friends in Iraq to do everything we can to help those good people who are there standing up to fight corruption back here. They need our help.

Let me just tell you some of the testimony that Judge Radhi presented to us about the incredible peril that folks in Iraq are subjected to when they try to fight for an honest government. Judge Radhi held that position for 3 years, until he finally resigned amid repeated death threats to himself, his family, and his staff.

He testified in our committee that 31 of his employees had been killed, not injured, killed, as well as at least 12 of their family members. Judge Radhi's home was attacked by rockets, by a sniper's bullet barely missing him as he stood outside his office. He testified about how one staff member was gunned down with a 7-month pregnant wife. He testified about how the father of a security chief was kidnapped and then literally found hung on a meat hook. He testified about how another staff member's father was killed; and when his dead body was found, a power drill had been used to drill his body with holes.

These are officials who are fighting corruption in Iraq, and they are being gunned down, they are being assassinated, they are being tortured; and we are supposed to be standing idly by.

When we ask questions of the State Department what is going on and they take a document that yesterday was unclassified and today make it classified, that is not acceptable. The State Department anticorruption efforts have been a mess. And basically what the State Department is doing is just enough so that they can claim they are trying to do something about corruption; but basically it is status quo, as it has been since the day this war began.

We have to make a decision as Members of Congress that is very simple: we are real, we are serious, or we aren't. And it is about tolerating secrecy, depriving us and the American people of information that we are entitled to, that we must have in order to do our job; or it is turning a blind eye to those folks in Iraq who are standing up on our side and finding their bodies of loved ones drilled with holes and hung on meat hooks. It is not acceptable. The American people know it is not acceptable.

We may have an administration that disregarded the vote of the American people in November when they said they wanted a new direction in Iraq. We may have an administration that disregarded the recommendations of an eminent bipartisan group in the Iraq Study Commission. And we may have an administration that has dismissed and disregarded votes in this House and the Senate, making it clear that we want a new direction even as we struggle to find what that is. But we cannot, any of us on either side of the aisle, accept being an enfeebled Congress that isn't entitled to get the information that our Congress needs to do its job. It is that simple.

And that is what this resolution is about. That is what the Oversight and Government Reform Committee is about. That is what Chairman Waxman is standing up to assert and defend, and that is our constitutional responsibility. Not just prerogative, but constitutional responsibility to do what is required to defend our Constitution, to protect our soldiers, to stand up for our taxpayers, and to restore democratic tradition in this country.

Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

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

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to H. Res. 741, I call up the resolution (H. Res. 734) expressing the sense of the House of Representatives regarding the withholding of information relating to corruption in Iraq, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 5 minutes.

Today we mark an ominous anniversary. It was 5 years ago today that President Bush signed the congressional authorization to use military force in Iraq. As we have learned since, that authorization was based on fatally flawed information. Congress and the American people were told that we needed to go to war against Saddam Hussein because he had weapons of mass destruction. But there were no nuclear bombs or biological weapons.

Now, 5 years later, more than 3,800 U.S. servicemembers have been killed, more than 28,000 have been injured, and the U.S. taxpayers have spent more than $450 billion; and Iraq is in shambles.

Today we are considering a different resolution. The purpose of today's resolution is simple: to end the abuse of the classification process and to demand the truth about corruption in Iraq.

We must stop the pattern of dissembling and the misuse of classified information. President Bush is now asking taxpayers for an additional $150 billion to support the war and to support Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. But . . . is not being honest about the level of corruption in the Maliki government.

Just as it did 5 years ago, the Bush administration is hiding the truth while seeking hundreds of billions of dollars and placing our troops in danger. We cannot allow this to happen.

I gather that the offensive word is that ``he'' is not being honest, and what I intended to say is that the Bush administration is not being honest. I think that removes the objection that would lie against a personal disparagement, so I would seek to make that clarification and ask unanimous consent to withdraw that spoken word.

Mr. Speaker, the Bush administration is hiding the truth while seeking hundreds of billions of dollars and placing our troops in danger, and we cannot allow this to happen.

We need answers to some very important questions: How corrupt is the Maliki government? Are top officials in Iraq stealing billions of dollars to fund insurgents who are attacking and killing our troops? Is corruption undermining the chances for political reconciliation?

Secretary of State Rice says she will answer these questions only on one condition: every Member of Congress who hears the answers has to keep the answers secret. Well, that's an outrageous abuse of the classification system.

Earlier this month, the former head of the Iraqi Commission on Public Integrity, Judge Radhi, testified before the Oversight Committee. He told us that corrupt Iraqi officials had stolen a staggering $18 billion and used part of that money to fund terrorists. He told us that when he tried to track down who was responsible, well, 31 of his investigators were brutally assassinated, and his own family living in the Green Zone was targeted twice with rocket attacks. And he gave us copies of secret orders that Prime Minister Maliki personally issued to protect his allies, including his own cousin, from corruption investigations and prosecutions.

Judge Radhi, Special Inspector General Stuart Bowen and Comptroller General David Walker all told us that

corruption is so entrenched in Iraq that it is jeopardizing our troops and our mission. But when we asked the State Department for unclassified documents about the extent of corruption in the Maliki government, Secretary Rice retroactively classified them. And when we asked the embassy officials when they knew about corruption, she ordered them not to respond.

Secretary Rice has made public statements praising the anticorruption efforts of the Maliki government, and he, himself, she praised; and she even praised the corrupt Interior Ministry. But when we asked embassy officials in Iraq whether her public statements were accurate, they said they were not allowed to respond unless we agreed to keep their answers secret.

Mr. Speaker, 5 years ago, abusive classified information got us into this war. It's time for these abuses to end, and that's why we ask all Members to support this resolution.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Tierney), the chairman of the subcommittee dealing with international relations of the Oversight Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I want to point out that Mr. Burton, who was chairman of our committee, issued thousands of subpoenas. He received millions of pages of documents. He had hundreds of hours of depositions. He conducted an investigation that has been widely regarded as irresponsible and reckless.

Mr. Speaker, I now yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland to speak on this resolution.

Mr. Speaker, I don't understand the argument the gentleman made. But I like his conclusion. So we welcome his support for our resolution.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich), a very esteemed member of our committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Lynch), a member of our committee.

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Speaker, I can understand what the gentleman is saying about sources and methods, and we understand that under some circumstances talking about it in public session might be harmful. But we asked the representative from the State Department questions, such as whether the Government of Iraq currently has the political will or the capability to root out corruption within its government. We were told he couldn't answer that in a public session. That is the problem that we are complaining about in this resolution.

Mr. Speaker, I just want to point out that we asked Mr. Butler from the State Department questions such as whether the Maliki government is working hard to improve the corruption situation so that he can unite his country. We were told he could not answer that question unless we went into closed session, which would mean that if he answered it in closed session, it would be a national security violation for any of us to report his response. That was what was so offensive. They did not want to even discuss a broad kind of questions which go to the nature of our bilateral relations with Iraq how they are doing and what our efforts are doing and whether we are succeeding in stopping the corruption in Iraq, which is jeopardizing our mission and endangering our troops.

I would like to now yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Yarmuth).

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Murphy).

Mr. Speaker, it is my honor and privilege to yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee).

Mr. Speaker, I yield to a very important member of our committee, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Van Hollen), for 3 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, I wish we had everyone sign off on every word in this resolution, but I think the Members ought to understand what this resolution does. It says to the State Department: don't go with a double standard. You can say publicly positive things about the Iraqi Government, but you can't say things that are honest that may be negative about them, and we are not talking about specific statements, but general statements as well.

Mr. Speaker, we are in a war in Iraq. Not everybody in this country is making a sacrifice for that war. But those who are being called to make a sacrifice are called to make the maximum sacrifice. They are giving up their lives potentially. The rest of us are paying through deficit spending billions and hundreds of billions of dollars.

But if we are going to ask people to give up their lives in this war, what we owe them is to know the truth, not propaganda, but the truth about what this Iraqi Government is doing that may enable them to accomplish the goal that we have said we wanted to accomplish in Iraq, and that is to reach out, to bring about reconciliation in Iraq and a government that has credibility for its own people.

If this Government in Iraq is so corrupt that our State Department won't even tell us about it, I have to wonder whether we can ask our brave men and women to risk and to give their lives to support that Iraqi Government.

I urge passage of this resolution.

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

Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H. Res. 734, expressing the sense of House of Representatives regarding the withholding of information relating to corruption in Iraq, introduced by my distinguished colleague from California, Representative Henry Waxman. This important legislation recognizes the incongruities amongst reporting on the situation in Iraq and seeks to hold the Government accountable for the provision of and access to accurate and consistent information.

This resolution expresses the sense of the House that the State Department is misusing the national security classification process to withhold from the American people information about widespread and increasing corruption within the Government of Iraq. This misuse includes the retroactive classification of documents and directions to employees not to answer questions in an open forum that calls for ``broad statements/assessments which judge or characterize the quality of Iraqi governance or the ability/determination of the Iraqi government to deal with corruption, including allegations that investigations were thwarted/stifled for political reasons.''

Mr. Speaker, the American people have poured vast amounts of resources and treasure into the misguided war in Iraq. According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, CBO, the U.S. is spending an estimated $10 billion per month in Iraq. This $10 billion a month translates into $329,670,330 per day, $13,736,264 per hour, $228,938 per minute, and $3,816 per second. For this huge sum of money, we could have repaired the more than

70,000 bridges across America rated structurally deficient ($188 billion), potentially averting the tragedy that occurred August 1st in Minneapolis, MN. We could have rebuilt the levees in New Orleans ($50 billion), protecting that City from future hurricanes that could bring Katrina-like destruction upon the City. We could have provided all U.S. public safety officials with interoperable communication equipment ($10 billion), allowing them to effectively communicate in the event of an emergency, and we could have paid for screening all air cargo on passenger planes for the next 10 years ($3.6 billion). And, we could have enrolled 1.4 million additional children in Head Start programs ($10 billion). Instead of funding increased death and destruction in Iraq, we could have spent hard-earned taxpayer dollars on important progress here at home.

Given the enormous amount of resources involved, coupled with the catastrophic costs in human lives, we would certainly expect adequate oversight and management of U.S. funds and military supplies. We would expect clear records of exactly where those $10 billion a month is going, and to whom it is being given. And yet, the GAO reports that the Pentagon has lost track of over 190,000 weapons, given to Iraqis, particularly in 2004 and 2005. The report's author stated that the U.S. military does not know what happened to 30 percent of the weapons the United States distributed to Iraqi forces from 2004 through early this year as part of an effort to train and equip the troops. These weapons could be used to kill our American troops.

Americans who are footing this enormous bill deserve real answers about where their money is going. Recent indications have suggested that it is not being well spent. The recently released Government Accountability Office report on Iraqi progress toward the 18 legislative, economic, and security benchmarks indicated that only three of these benchmarks have been met by the Maliki government. Despite the surge, despite increasing U.S. military involvement, the Iraqi Government has not made substantial progress toward stabilizing their country. The over 3,750 U.S. casualties and the $3,816 per second we are spending in Iraq have not bought peace or security. Mr. Speaker, the time has long passed for the Iraqi Government to step up to take control of their own nation.

However, as long as corruption remains endemic in Iraq, the government will find it difficult, if not impossible, to address the ongoing insurgency and to successfully achieve stability in Iraq. Mr. Speaker, leading experts have testified to the widespread corruption of the Iraqi Government, and that this problem continues to threaten our mission in Iraq as long as it's not effectively addressed. According to Stuart Bowen, the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, corruption in Iraq is ``a second insurgency'' that ``stymies the construction and maintenance of Iraq's infrastructure, deprives people of goods and services, reduces confidence in public institutions, and potentially aids insurgent groups reportedly funded by graft derived from oil smuggling or embezzlement.'' The Comptroller General of the United States, David Walker, agreed, testifying that ``widespread corruption undermines efforts to develop the government's capacity by robbing it of needed resources, some of which are used to fund the insurgency.''

The State Department must answer questions about the extent of corruption in the government of Iraq, and how this corruption is undermining both our governments' abilities to successfully end the insurgency. Instead, however, on September 25, 2007, the State Department instructed officials not to answer questions in an open setting that asks for ``broad statements/assessments which judge or characterize the quality of Iraqi governance or the ability/ determination of the Iraqi government to deal with corruption, including allegations that investigations were thwarted/stifled for political reasons.'' On top of this, the State Department retroactively classified portions of a report on Iraqi corruption previously released by Comptroller General Walker.

In order to emerge successfully from our war in Iraq, we must be able to understand the situation on the ground and have access to documents and information that will allow our troops and fund to go where they are most needed. While the administration has put forward in a myriad of reports a sunny picture of the situation in Iraq emphasizing the progress of a few over the majority.

This legislation is so significant because it addresses the corruption, within both the Iraqi and the United States Government, which have allowed for such a skewed perception of the reality in Iraq. This legislation illuminates the active work of the State Department in masking information on Iraq from public view. In order for this Congress to do its duty and protect its citizens, both at home and serving in our military overseas, it must be able to see what it is that its funds and soldiers are supporting overseas. Voices of dissent and honesty must be heard. We cannot continue to provide open-ended funding and protection for a government which has failed in its mission to be transparent and based in integrity.

Mr. Speaker, the American people deserve more. The men and women who have fallen in this war due to this endemic lack of information deserve more. I strongly urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this legislation.