Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the late Octavia E. Butler. Ms. Butler will be greatly missed. The world of literature lost a literary genius whose novels and short stories broke the conventional expectations of African Americans, women, and science fiction writers.

Ms. Butler was a Pasadena, California native who attended John Muir High School. She graduated from Pasadena City College in 1968. Octavia spent most of her adult life in the Pasadena/Altadena area where she lived until just a few years ago when she moved to Seattle, Washington. While Octavia's fans have marveled over her extraordinary literary creations, those who knew her as a friend also marveled at her ability to remain down to earth and unmoved by fame. As an adult, Ms. Butler had traveled all over the world, from the Amazon to Russia, to gather authentic material for her books.

Ms. Butler was an internationally acclaimed science fiction author whose novels explored pressing issues such as race, gender, slavery, poverty, and politics. In 1995, she became the first science fiction writer to receive a $295,000 genius grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. She also received two Hugo Awards and two Nebula Awards for her science fiction works. During her funeral service, on March 11, 2006, the Pasadena City Mayor's office read a proclamation that declared March 17, 2006, to be Octavia Butler Day.

Octavia is the author of many novels, including Patternmaster, Adulthood Rite, Mind of My Mind, and Kindred. For many years, Kindred, which is Pasadena's ``One City, One Story'' choice this year, was required reading at John Muir High School. The program is designed to broaden and deepen the appreciation for reading.

I ask all Members of the United States House of Representatives to pause to honor a great woman, Octavia E. Butler, who inspired so many people through her words and her vision. She will be missed not only by her family, but by all who were fortunate enough to cross her path or enjoy her novels.

Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the chairman and the ranking member for working with me on this amendment, and I in particular want to thank you for all of your diligence in making sure that we have the best equipment and that the Pentagon is doing everything else possible to interdict and to defend against these improvised explosive devices.

We have all been to the funerals of our constituents that were lost in Iraq and Afghanistan. Most of them have been lost through improvised explosive devices. I think it is the number one cause of American deaths in Iraq, and I think three out of the four families that I have gotten to know that have lost loved ones in Iraq were killed by IEDs. They have been responsible for 38 percent of all U.S. deaths in Iraq, including those from non-hostile causes, for every month since May of 2005. Through Sunday, IEDs caused 790 American deaths in Iraq, representing a third of all U.S. fatalities since the start of the war.

Clearly, the Iraqi insurgents have learned to adapt to U.S. defensive measures by using bigger, more sophisticated and better concealed bombs. In the first few months of the insurgency, IEDs were often little more than crude pipe bombs that used old-fashioned wire detonators. Now they are sometimes made with multiple artillery shells, Iranian explosives, and rocket propellant. Gone are the days of wire detonators that were easy to spot. IEDs are now detonated by cell phones or a garage door opener and other devices. They range in size from massive explosives capable of destroying 5-ton vehicles to precision-shaped charges that tear through armored vehicles.

IEDs have also become, unfortunately, a greater problem in Afghanistan where, according to analysts, Taliban and al Qaeda forces have been studying the lessons learned by the insurgents in Iraq. Over the past several months, American and NATO forces have been the victim of roadside bombs that previously we had just seen in Iraq.

So, Mr. Chairman, to the chairman of the committee and the ranking member, I very much look forward to working with you on this issue. I appreciate your willingness to work on this amendment.

Mr. Speaker, the single most important function of the Congress is to ensure our Nation's security. Since the time of the Revolutionary War when the Continental Congress directed the efforts of our fledgling Nation to free itself from British rule, the legislative branch has made the security of our Nation a priority.

Bipartisanship has been at the center of America's national security policymaking for much of our history.

In standing behind our Armed Forces and standing up for our diplomatic priorities, in supporting the Intelligence Community, and in supporting the President in times of crisis, Congress has often spoken with one voice. This unanimity was never stronger than the aftermath of the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

When President Bush addressed Congress and the Nation on September 20, there were no Democrats or Republicans in this Chamber. There were only Americans. That unity extended around the world to friends and foes alike.

In London, 2 days after the attacks, Queen Elizabeth ordered the Coldstream Guards to play the Star Spangled Banner at the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, the first time a foreign anthem had been played at that ceremony.

In Paris, the newspaper Le Monde ran an editorial on September 12 that was entitled simply, ``We Are All Americans.''

In the wake of the attacks, NATO invoked for the first time in its history, article 5 of the NATO charter, declaring an attack on the United States to be an attack on the alliance.

As American military assets rushed towards Afghanistan in preparation for the invasion that would topple the

Taliban regime, NATO Airborne Warning and Control System, AWACs air craft patrolled American skies in round-the-clock patrol to protect us.

Four and a half years later, this national and international unity seems quaint. Here at home, our country is now bitterly divided. Our States are red or they are blue. Our communities are divided too. Americans don't even get their news from the same place anymore. Many Republicans only watch Fox, and many Democrats will only watch, well, anything else.

Overseas, we are isolated. Where America was seen as a victim in the wake of 9/11, in the capitals of even some of our closest allies we are now too often viewed as an aggressor. American troops are fighting and dying in Iraq while many of our closest friends sit on the sidelines refusing to provide even promised economic support.

The policies of the current administration and majority in Congress have not only squandered domestic unity and international goodwill; they have poorly managed the war on terror and failed to adequately improve our security here at home. Even as we spend $1 billion a week in Iraq, basic security at home remains underfunded. And as we shall hear from my friend and colleague, Chris Van Hollen, Afghanistan is in danger of slipping back into the grip of the Taliban.

In the days after September 11, the President vowed to capture Osama bin Laden, dead or alive, and that we would smoke al Qaeda out of their caves. Tragically, Mr. Speaker, Osama is still very much alive, and the inability of the pre-eminent super-power to capture him is as dangerous as it is emblematic of the need for a new strategy in the war on terror.

Tonight I have a message for the American people: the Democrats have a plan to win the war on terror. Our plan is tough, it is smart, and it is comprehensive. This plan is part of an overall effort to reconfigure America's security for the 21st century, a plan that we call Real Security.

Several week ago, Members of our party from both the House and the Senate unveiled a comprehensive blueprint to better protect America and to restore our Nation's position of international leadership. Our plan, Real Security, was devised with the assistance of a broad range of experts, former military officers, retired diplomats, law enforcement personnel, homeland security experts, and others who helped identify key areas where current policies have failed and where new ones were needed.

In a series of six Special Order hours in the evening, my colleagues and I have been sharing with the American people our vision for a more secure America. The plan has five pillars, and each of our Special Order hours has been addressing them in turn.

The first is building a military for the 21st century. The second is winning the war on terrorism. The third is securing our homeland. The fourth is a way forward in Iraq. And the fifth is achieving energy independence for America.

Two weeks ago, we discussed the first pillar of our plan, building a military for the 21st century. This would involve rebuilding a state- of-the-art military, making sure that we have the world's best equipment and training, providing accurate intelligence and a strategy for success, providing a GI bill of rights for the 21st century, and strengthening the National Guard.

In future weeks we will address Homeland Security. In the wake of 9/ 11, there have been numerous commissions and investigations at the Federal, State, and local levels as well as a multitude of private studies. All of them have pointed to the broad systemic and other flaws in our homeland security programs.

Almost 2 years ago, the independent bipartisan 9/11 Commission published its report, but most of its recommendations have yet to be implemented.

The Homeland Security plan will implement the 9/11 Commission recommendations. We will screen all containers and cargo. We will safeguard nuclear and chemical plants. We will prohibit the outsourcing at ports, airports and mass transportation to foreign interests. We will train and equip first responders, and we will invest in public health to safeguard Americans.

We will also be discussing a new course in Iraq that will ensure that 2006 is a year of significant transition to full Iraqi sovereignty, with the Iraqis assuming primary responsibility for securing and governing their country with a responsible redeployment of U.S. forces. Democrats will insist that Iraqis make the political compromises necessary to unite their country and defeat the insurgency, promote regional diplomacy, and strongly encourage our allies in other nations to play a constructive role.

Our security will remain threatened as long as we remain dependent on Middle Eastern oil. The fifth pillar and the one with the most far- reaching ramifications for our country and the world is to achieve energy independence for America by 2020. This will involve eliminating reliance on Middle Eastern oil, increasing the production of alternative fuels in America, promoting hybrid and flex fuel vehicle technologies, and manufacturing and enhancing the energy efficiency and conservation incentives.

The pillar of Real Security that we are going to address tonight is in many ways at the center of all of these issues. Since 9/11, the war on terrorism, specifically radical Islamic terrorism, has affected our entire conduct of national security policy. Unfortunately, there is a clear consensus among most experts that we need a new strategy to win the war on terror.

Tonight, I would like to introduce you to our plan. When Democrats are in charge, we will finish the job by eliminating Osama bin Laden, by destroying terrorist networks like al Qaeda, by finishing work in Afghanistan and ending the threat posed by the Taliban. We will double the size of our Special Forces, increase our human intelligence capabilities, and ensure our intelligence is free from political pressure. We will eliminate terrorist breeding grounds by combating the economic, social, and political conditions that allow extremism to thrive; lead international efforts to uphold and defend human rights; and renew longstanding alliances that have advanced our national security objectives.

We will secure by 2010 loose nuclear materials that terrorists could use to build nuclear weapons or dirty bombs. And we will redouble efforts to stop nuclear weapons development in Iran and North Korea.

Our first priority is to eliminate Osama bin Laden and destroy al Qaeda and its other terrorist networks. Who would have imagined on September 11 that after more than 4\1/2\ years, the man responsible, the mastermind of the greatest single loss of American life in a single attack, Osama bin Laden, would still be at large? And now, in fact, al Qaeda has morphed into a worldwide amalgam of discrete cells that are even more difficult to track down.

Under Real Security, Democrats will use all of the tools at our disposal, military, intelligence, diplomatic, legal, to fight terrorism. To destroy al Qaeda and other terrorists on the ground, we will double the size of our Special Forces.

Special Forces were instrumental in working with local Afghan forces to drive the Taliban from Afghanistan, and they are uniquely suited to counter insurgency and counter terrorist operations. Unfortunately, many of the Special Forces units that were working to build a new Afghanistan were diverted to Iraq and replaced with less versatile troops.

Building a military for the 21st century begins with an acknowledgment that we are in a new era that has a set of challenges and threats distinct from those we faced during the Cold War. In this new world, we need a military that is highly mobile, self-sustaining, and capable of operating in small units.

On the one hand, our ability to use air power has extended our global reach and allows us to engage enemies without large numbers of ground troops being employed, as was the case in Kosovo and Afghanistan.

On the other hand, the war on terror, ongoing operations in Iraq, and the increasing need for American forces to play a stabilizing role as peacekeepers and peace enforcers demands the sustained commitment of American forces. Special Forces units are mobile, lethal, adaptable, and trained to work with indigenous forces, a key to winning against insurgencies and terrorists who are expert at portraying

Americans as infidels bent on destroying Islam, undermining local societies and local customs and culture.

But even the best military cannot obtain its objectives without good, sound intelligence. In many respects, 9/11 was a failure of intelligence. Agencies that should have been sharing information with each other could not or would not, and tantalizing, vital threads were left unconnected. This failure was followed by the deplorable failure of our intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction in which dissenting voices within the intelligence community were stifled, and group think took hold and steered analysis.

The U.S. intelligence community is made up of some of America's brightest minds and most dedicated servants, but these talented individuals are working harder and harder just to maintain a status quo that is increasingly irrelevant to the new challenges presented by weapons of mass destruction.

America's enemies today are different from those we faced during the Cold War and pose far more complex threats to our national and international security. We have more numerous and diverse intelligence targets today, with dozens of national and hundreds of non-state entities able to strike a devastating blow to our territory and our economic interests.

Furthermore, the weapons that pose the greatest dangers to our strategic and economic interests are difficult to detect and even harder to counteract. Both the 9/11 Commission and the Silbermann-Robb Commission advocated sweeping reforms of the intelligence community to streamline procedures and facilitate better flows of information and analysis. Both commissions identified resistance to change as the greatest obstacle to better intelligence for senior policymakers.

What we need is an intelligence community that is flexible, able to respond quickly and effectively to an ever-shifting environment and to the rapid pace of today's technological changes. The dispatch of Porter Goss as CIA director indicates that these changes at the agency have still not been undertaken. The coordination we need is still not present in our intelligence community.

The Intelligence Reform Bill that Congress passed in 2004 created a new Director of National Intelligence, but gave the office only ambiguous authorities to carry out its broad responsibilities. The challenges faced by the DNI are myriad, building better human intelligence networks, improving the quality of analysis produced by the 15 agencies under its control and rebuilding the morale of a community that has been badly shaken by 9/11, by Iraq and which continues to this day.

Even as the DNI, the Director of National Intelligence, struggles to control numerous organizations with separate missions and cultures, he needs to preserve a diversity of analysis and a community-wide culture that encourages structured debate among agencies and analysts over the interpretation of information while cooperating in a common purpose with a shared strategic vision.

For too long, the demands for current intelligence have presented the intelligence community from adopting a broader strategic perspective. Such an approach is essential for developing long-term plans, for penetrating today's difficult targets, and identifying political and social trends, shaping tomorrow's threats.

Perhaps the most important piece of our plan is a commitment to eliminate terrorist breeding grounds. Terrorists who attacked this country on September 11 emerged from a part of the world where oppression often finds its outlet in jihadi extremism and hatred of the West, especially the United States.

After the 9/11 attack, the President and other senior administration officials vowed to ``drain the swamp'' that birthed al Qaeda and other radical Islamists. Despite this boast, the administration has done little to combat the social, economic and political conditions that allow extremism to thrive.

Under Real Security, Democrats will fight terrorism, not only militarily, but also by leading international efforts to eradicate poverty, universalize education and provide economic opportunity for those who now provide such a fertile ground for the recruitment of suicide bombers.

We will also renew the long-standing alliances that have advanced our national security objectives for more than a century. We will encourage the growth of civil society, democracy and free-market economics in the Middle East. Extremism thrives and spreads in countries where brittle, autocratic regimes jealously guard wealth and political power while the vast majority of its citizens languish in poverty.

For example, despite the Arab's world vast oil wealth and its rich cultural history, the region has languished in large part because its leaders refuse to enact the liberalization necessary to release the power of hundreds of millions of people. We will use the power of diplomacy and economic aid much more consistently and effectively to bring about real meaningful change that allows for the growth of political, secular institutions. As we have seen in too many cases in recent years, millions of Arabs face the choice between secular, authoritarianism and theocratic rule by religious extremists.

Strong diplomatic relations are essential to America's security. As Madeleine Albright, who served as Secretary of State under President Clinton, has said, diplomacy is our first line of defense. During the last several years, we have failed to use this essential tool of American power wisely, and it has cost us dearly. Democrats will again make human rights central to our conduct of national security, living up to our values, even as we make ourselves safer.

In a few minutes, I will address in specific terms the threat posed by loose nuclear materials and the lethargy at which we are trying to secure those materials.

But before I do, I want to introduce my friend and colleague, Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, to share his thoughts on the dangers posed, in particular in Afghanistan, but also his thoughts on intelligence reform and on the Democrats' Real Security Plan.

I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.

I thank the gentleman for all of his leadership on these issues and the superb work he has done to improve the Nation's security.

You mentioned the growing problems and growing threats we are experiencing with IEDs, with suicide bombings in Afghanistan. I have had a chance to visit our troops there a couple of times.

I was very struck by what one of the soldiers I talked with said during my first visit. He said, You know, we all feel we are in the third front of a two front war, Iraq being the first, then the war on terror, and Afghanistan being the forgotten war. We have Americans fighting and dying there, unfortunately, all the time. For those that are on the ground, Afghanistan is very much the first front. Given the origin of the attacks of 9/11, it really is the first front in the war on terror. Given the presence of Osama bin Laden somewhere in the mountainous regions between Afghanistan and Pakistan, that is the central front on the war on terror.

I want to touch on some of the last two planks of our war on terror plan, and then I would like to come back to some of the comments you made on the lack of oversight in this body, because I think your remarks are right on the money, and it is really an institutional abdication of this Congress not to do its job of oversight.

Under Real Security, we will confront the prospect, the specter, the danger of nuclear terrorism by greatly accelerating the pace at which we are securing nuclear material that can be used to make a nuclear weapon or a dirty bomb, by eliminating loose nuclear material by 2010. We will also redouble our efforts to stop nuclear weapons development in Iran and North Korea.

While Democrats understand that no option can be taken off the table, we are committed to muscular diplomacy as the best option for curbing Pyongyang and Tehran's nuclear ambitions.

Osama bin Laden once termed the acquisition of weapons of mass destruction a religious duty. Intelligence officials have warned that al Qaeda and other radical Islamists are committed to obtaining a nuclear weapon and using it against the United States.

A number of experts feel if we fail to change course, an act of nuclear terrorism is only a matter of time. They are equally united in the conviction that we can avert such an attack by taking a series of steps to prevent nuclear material from falling into the hands of terrorists.

The President has repeatedly called the prospect of a nuclear attack by terrorists the greatest national security threat facing the United States. However, the administration's lackluster efforts to prevent terrorists from acquiring WMD demonstrate a failure of leadership. In fact, the 9/11 Commission Public Discourse Project gave the administration a D grade in this area on its December 2005 report card.

The Democratic Real Security plan commits to an aggressive effort to secure by 2010 loose nuclear material that terrorists could use to build nuclear bombs or dirty bombs. The Democratic approach to prevent terrorists from acquiring WMD is tough and smart. It uses our resources and know-how to make weapons material and capabilities secure and to deter countries from building weapons in the first place.

In many cases, we know where there are nuclear and chemical facilities and materials that aren't adequately protected. Around the world, there are hundreds of tons of weapons grade nuclear material without the level of security we have established for our own nuclear material. This material is spread across hundreds of sites in dozens of countries. We must lock down these materials before they fall into the wrong hands.

But we are moving very slowly. At current rates of progress, it could take us decades to secure materials that could be used in a nuclear attack, a nuclear terrorist attack on the United States. We can do better. To do anything less is grossly negligent with our Nation's future.

A comprehensive strategy to prevent terrorists from acquiring weapons of mass destruction has several parts. It involves securing nuclear material around the world to a gold standard and actually removing nuclear material from the most vulnerable sites. It involves detecting and defeating efforts to smuggle nuclear material and technologies. It involves strengthening the international community's efforts to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

To protect Americans as fully as we can, we must work in a global partnership to keep these weapons away from terrorists and governments that would use them against us. The United States can't be everywhere, can't catch every violation or pay for every inspection. Illegal weapons networks now span the globe, and our partnerships to stop them must be equally global. We need other nations to help do this hard, expensive work and help communicate the benefits of playing by the rules and the consequences when the rules are broken.

We need our allies to share in the burden of global security. To get our allies' support, Democrats will press to include the security of nuclear material in the agenda and diplomatic efforts at the very highest levels. Without the necessary leadership, cooperation negotiated by mid-level bureaucrats will be limited to the slow pace of the last decade.

In addition, Democrats will work with the international atomic watchdog group, the IAEA, to develop comprehensive gold standards for the security of nuclear material and assure that other nations have the ability and will to implement these standards. The international community has demonstrated its support for this approach through U.N. resolution 2004. It will require American leadership to translate this vision into action.

Here in our government, Democrats will demand interagency cooperation and program innovation to accelerate progress on combating loose nukes.

There are several Federal programs working to secure nuclear material that do not interact well with each other. Further coordination will improve the best use of resources and the sharing of best practices.

The President has not charged the Federal bureaucracy with creating fresh and innovative programs to secure nuclear material, and business as usual or modest increases in funding to limited programs will not reach the goal of securing all bomb-making material by 2010.

We must also move quickly to secure the global supply chain. Millions of containers move around the world every year containing the goods that we need. However, they are also an easy target for terrorists to smuggle WMD material. Under the Real Security plan, every container shipped to the United States will be scanned at the point of origin.

Despite the urgency of this global threat, the administration and majority have not taken action commensurate with the threat. On more than one occasion, legislation has been introduced by Democrats to provide real security, but has been blocked.

An amendment by Representative Obey would have provided an additional $2.5 billion for homeland security, including substantial support for nuclear nonproliferation activities, but it was blocked by the majority. An amendment offered by Representative Markey to scan all shipping containers was also blocked. Legislation that I introduced to require the screening of cargo on commercial planes, on passenger jets, commercial cargo on passenger jets was also denied a hearing. The administration and majority have failed to translate the urgency of preventing WMD and nuclear terrorism into action. This must change.

After the attacks of September 11, senior officials repeatedly asserted that we had failed to prevent the attacks because of a failure of imagination. This was the central finding of the 9/11 Commission.

We know about the danger of nuclear terrorism. We are in a race with terrorists who are actively seeking nuclear weapons. The choice is ours: accept the present failure of leadership and risk a nuclear disaster, or take action to prevent it. When one considers the consequences, the choice is really no choice at all.

But I would like to turn now to an issue that was raised by my colleague from Maryland, and that is the role that we have in this body to provide oversight, oversight of the security of our troops overseas.

Today I offered an amendment to the defense department authorization that requires periodic reports on our efforts to disable, to interdict, and to destroy these improvised explosive devices that are claiming the lives of so many Americans.

I have lost at least four of my constituents in Iraq, most of them from improvised explosive devices. I am not satisfied that we are doing all we can to up-armor our vehicles, to provide the state-of-the-art body and side armor that will keep our troops alive. I am not satisfied that we are acting swiftly enough to deploy these technologies that are being developed to jam and otherwise disable these improvised explosive devices.

My constituents would be willing to line up around the block to work in a factory overnight around the clock to produce these materials to protect our troops. There is no lack of a willingness to serve. There is no lack of a willingness to sacrifice among the American people. But they have to be asked, and we in Congress have to provide the leadership to make sure that we are doing everything we can to provide the protection of our troops.

We also have to make sure we are doing our oversight in this body, to make sure that we have the intelligence agencies doing the work to protect us, and, at the same time that we protect our Constitution.

My friend from Maryland makes the point that administrations and majorities can choose their own policies, but they can't choose their own facts. I would add to that, Mr. Van Hollen, they can't choose their own Constitution either. We all operate under the same Constitution. It is a Constitution that has served us very well. It is a Constitution that has allowed us to adapt to the changing needs of the Nation and its people and to the emerging threats facing the country.

As one of our justices said some time ago, the Constitution is not a suicide pact. It doesn't prevent us from taking the steps we need to protect the country. But it does do an awfully important job of making sure, at the same time, that we protect our civil liberties.

I, like my colleague, have been very concerned that some of the NSA programs which could be done under the oversight of the FISA court, and in my view are legally required to be done under the oversight of the FISA court, are not being done with court review.

Today there was yet another revelation of a broader NSA program that may be obtaining information about tens of thousands, perhaps millions, of calls within the United States, a program that probably until news leaks today, Americans and Members of this body were unaware of.

Now certainly there is a need for confidentiality. But at the same time in this body, in classified hearings, there is a need for oversight. And we have not been willing to do it. There has been an allergy by the majority to do the oversight, to make sure that the limits on the executive go beyond the mere good faith of the executive.

When the Attorney General testified in the Judiciary Committee, I asked him what were the limits of the authority as Commander in Chief? Could they bug purely domestic calls without court approval? And the Attorney General said, well, he would not rule it out.

If that is the case, then what is the limiting principle? It is nothing other than the good faith of the executive, and that is not the limiting principle of our Constitution.

I would be delighted to yield to my colleagues the gentlemen from Maryland.

If I can interject, Mr. Van Hollen. Prior to the vote on the authorization to use force, several of us were invited to the White House to sit down with Mr. Tenet. I was most concerned about the nuclear program, Iraq's nuclear program, about the evidence that you discussed a moment earlier.

And I asked Mr. Tenet and then head of the NSA, our now Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, how confident were they in the intelligence on Iraq's nuclear program? On a scale of 1-10, how confident were they?

They were a 10. They were supremely confident. And they were supremely wrong. And as you very well point out, this has had the most enormous of consequences in terms of this Congress making a decision to go to war, in terms of our credibility vis-a-vis Iran now.

When we talk about oversight, the lack of oversight has these most far reaching consequences.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague. I was struck, and perhaps you were too, as some of the networks pointed out with the near identity of language that the President used in describing his proposed nominee, General Hayden, for the post of Director of the CIA, saying that he was the right man at the right time for the right job, which was merely identical to what he said about Porter Goss a year and a half earlier, which kind of begged the question about what time he was referring to today. Is his proposed nominee the right man at the time a year and a half ago, or the right man right now when the last right man is being pushed out the door?

But I suspect what it means is that during the last 18 months the agency has been adrift and that we are not much farther ahead than we were a year and a half ago in assimilating our intelligence agencies and coordinating them and improving the quality of our human intelligence which was identified as such a glaring weakness within our overall intelligence capability.

But getting back to the consequences of all of this, the consequences of Congress' lack of oversight. When we talk about Congress being in the dark about this new NSA program, for example, the problem is that without someone being able to review whether these programs make sense, whether they are getting the results we need, we may be expending enormous sums of money and manpower and time and energy in fishing expeditions that lead us nowhere.

Even if they were within the confines of the Constitution, which is a substantial enough question, that does not mean that they are actually effective. We may have mountains of data about domestic calls to the United States that is of little or no value except to raise the anxiety of the American people that their privacy is being eroded.

There would be nothing worse than the erosion of our privacy without any commensurate benefit to the national security. But unless we do our oversight, it is impossible for us to know. And, unfortunately, I think that dearth of oversight has allowed these intelligence reforms to drift along or, worse, allowed the coordination of intelligence to degenerate over the last year and a half.

That is very well put, and we have seen the consequences of our intelligence failures. They manifest. We have seen the consequences of our diplomatic failures as we are seeing in abundance now with Iran where we just had a terrible setback in our efforts to mobilize the international communities to deal with Iran's weapons program.

We have seen the consequences in our failure to stop North Korea from proliferating. But I am confident with our Real Security plan we can reverse the decline in our own national security, and I want to thank the gentleman from Maryland again for all of his great work and for joining this Special Order hour.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate John Davitt who is retiring as Superintendent-President of Glendale Community College after 38 years of exemplary service.

Dr. Davitt has been president of Glendale Community College since 1985 and is the longest-tenured head of a community college in California. He is credited with overseeing a tripling of enrollment, bringing the current student population to about 22,000. There are literally tens of thousands of former Glendale College students who live not only in the Glendale community, but throughout Southern California, who have attended the college--taking a class to enrich their lives, or several general education classes in order to transfer to a four-year university.

Dr. Davitt has always included everyone in the campus community, from students and faculty to administrators and staff, when faced with the decision-making process that affected the students. Dr. Davitt acted each day to bolster opportunities for the students. He was instrumental in obtaining funding for the new state-of-the-art science center and planetarium--a facility no other community college in the nation boasts. Through his devoted focus on quality academics, Dr. Davitt has propelled Glendale to the forefront of the community colleges.

In 1968, Dr. Davitt introduced his unique and open management style to our community by taking the position of Administrative Dean of Personnel Services at Glendale Community College. In 1983, he was named Vice President of Instructional Services. Subsequently, in 1985 he became the college's Superintendent-President, transforming the campus into an innovative and productive center for learning. Dr. Davitt has devoted 38 years of dedicated service to the Glendale community. He is a remarkable man who is respected not only by the college's faculty, but by the student body as well. Dr. Davitt has managed to instill strong values of academics and workmanship while serving Glendale Community College, and these ideals are still gratified today.

The Glendale community is indebted to Dr. Davitt for his countless achievements. I want to again congratulate John Davitt on a truly exemplary professional and public service career, and for his immense commitment to Glendale Community College and the students it serves.

Mr. Speaker, today is World Press Freedom Day, a time set aside to honor the work and sacrifice of journalists around the world. I believe that freedom of the press is vital to American national security and to our democracy here at home.

Today, my colleague from Indiana, Mr. Pence, and Senators Chris Dodd and Richard Lugar joined me in launching a new bipartisan, bicameral caucus aimed at advancing press freedom around the world. The Congressional Caucus for Freedom of the Press creates a forum where the United States Congress can work to combat and condemn media censorship and the persecution of journalists around the world. The launch of this new caucus sends a strong message that Congress will defend democratic values and human rights wherever they are threatened.

This evening, Mr. Pence and I hosted an event here in the Capitol to celebrate World Press Freedom Day. We were honored by the presence of Musa Klebnikov, the widow of murdered American journalist Paul Klebnikov, the editor of Forbes Russia who was gunned down on a Moscow street in July of 2004. A Moscow court is due to hand down a verdict against the alleged triggermen tomorrow, and Mrs. Klebnikov spoke movingly about continuing her late husband's work of helping the Russian people by working with them to build an independent press.

In launching this new caucus, we have been encouraged by the wide range of organizations and individuals such as Reporters without Borders, Freedom House, and the Committee to Protect Journalists, which have all enthusiastically endorsed this effort. But I was most gratified to receive a letter of support this morning from Walter Cronkite, the longtime CBS News anchor who is not only an American icon but a living symbol of the positive force that journalists can have in shaping our lives.

Freedom of the press is so central to our democracy that the Framers enshrined it in the first amendment of our Constitution. At the time, there was little in the way of journalistic ethics; and newspapers were filled with scurrilous allegations leveled at public figures. Even so, our Founders understood its importance to advancing our experiment in democracy.

Throughout our history, journalists have jealously guarded their rights and American courts have, in the main, carved out broad protections for the press. In the United States, the press operates almost as a fourth branch of government, the Fourth Estate, as it is called, independent of the other three and positioned as watchdogs of our freedom.

The United States, as the world's oldest democracy and its greatest champion, has a special obligation to defend the rights of journalists wherever and whenever they are threatened. A free press is one of the most powerful forces for advancing democracy, human rights, and economic development, so our commitment to these larger objectives requires active engagement in the protection and the promotion of this freedom.

These are difficult and dangerous days for reporters around the world. According to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, 47 journalists were killed in 2005, most of whom were murdered to silence or punish them. While last year's death toll was lower than the 57 deaths in 2004, they were well above the yearly average over the last two decades. But too many have paid the ultimate price just for doing their jobs.

Daniel Pearl was the Wall Street Journal's South Asia bureau chief and was on his way to an interview with a supposed terrorist leader when, on January 23, 2002, he was kidnapped by a militant group that claimed that he was a spy. For weeks, speculation persisted about his fate, until his decapitated body was found in a shallow grave outside Karachi in late February.

In Algeria, Mr. Mohamed Boualem Benchicou, the former editor of Le Matin, was given a 2-year prison sentence for being too outspoken.

He has been held in El Harrach prison for the past year as his health deteriorates and members of his newspaper staff are routinely subject to interrogation by Algerian authorities and also to judicial harassment.

Raul Rivero Castaneda is one of Cuba's best known dissident journalists. Over the years, Mr. Rivero has paid dearly for his commitment to providing Cuban citizens with independent, unbiased information. In March 2003, Rivero was arrested and charged with ``acting against Cuban independence and attempting to divide Cuban territorial integrity,'' writing ``against the government,'' organizing ``subversive meetings,'' and collaborating with U.S. diplomats. Sentenced to 20 years in jail, he served 8 months before being allowed to seek asylum in Spain in April 2005.

These are just some of the journalists that our caucus will highlight and profile to bring attention to those brave, committed members of the press around the world who are fighting for the freedom of all of us and to highlight those countries where press freedom is under attack. We welcome all of your membership in this caucus.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the Rusnak Automotive Group in celebrating 40 years as a premiere automotive dealer in Southern California. Paul Rusnak opened his first location in 1959 because he saw the beginning of a fascination with European sports cars.

Over the years, his business grew to include more than 25 different automotive brands, both domestic and European. From Culver City to Pasadena, Rusnak Automotive Group has centered its market in convenient locations for our community members.

A short distance from Art Center College of Design, where many automotive designers are inspired, is the intersection of Orange Grove and Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena, California. This location is where Rusnak showcases cars such as Jaguar, Porsche, Audi, Rolls-Royce, and Bentley in historic buildings that have served as automotive dealerships since the turn of the century. The famous Walter M. Murphy Motors and Murphy Co. Coachworks of Duisenberg fame was housed where Rusnak now displays Porsches. Also, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics has designated the Rolls-Royce dealership as one of the nation's historic aerospace sites--it was the first plant for Aerojet Engineering Corporation, which was the site of the invention of rocket fuel.

The largest automotive mall in the world houses Rusnak/Westlake and BMW, Porsche, and Audi dealerships. Rusnak Automotive Group has received many awards over the years including the first J.D. Powers ``Customer Approved Retailer.'' But--the best awards have come from the many repeat customers who have made Rusnak the number one volume Audi dealer in the Western United States and the fastest growing Mercedes- Benz dealer in Southern California. Looking to the future, Rusnak now has a new BMW dealership on the 101 Freeway in Thousand Oaks, California.

Mr. Paul Rusnak, his daughter, Liz Rusnak Arizmendi, Vice President Public Relations, and Rusnak Automotive Group are generous supporters of many local charitable organizations, including Childrens Hospital Los Angeles, Make a Wish of Greater Los Angeles, the Pasadena POPS Orchestra, the AIDS Service Center of Los Angeles, Hillsides, Methodist Hospital Foundation, the American Red Cross and the Ronald McDonald House of Pasadena.

It is my distinct honor to recognize the contributions of Rusnak Automotive Group. I ask all members to join me in congratulating Paul Rusnak and his staff for celebrating 40 years of contributions to the community and automotive industry.

Mr. Speaker, Saturday marked the 36th annual Earth Day, a day set aside for reflection, education, and action on the impact of human beings on our planet. Although it is certainly important to celebrate the rich diversity of nature with our families and communities, my greatest hope for the Earth is that my children's children will not have to observe an Earth Day. Instead, I look forward to a future when concern for the environment is part of each decision our country makes, rather than only a matter we address one day each year on a date set aside to make us consider the impact we are having on our surroundings.

While the front pages of our newspapers routinely carry stories on the degradation of our natural resources, environmental issues have yet to rise to a top priority in Congress. Nonetheless, the decisions we make today will profoundly impact the way we live for years and generations to come. Indeed, our stewardship of the environment is inextricably tied to our economic security and growth.

This is not news to the American people. Over the last 20 years, more Americans have said that environmental protection is a high priority for the Nation. Nearly three in five Americans are active in or sympathetic to the environmental movement, but most believe the government has a negative, or at best negligible, impact on these efforts.

One area in which the Federal Government has failed to lead is global warming. A recent Gallup poll found that nearly two-thirds of Americans worry about the greenhouse effect, up from just over half in 2004. Eighty-three percent believe that global warming will become a problem for the U.S. and 57 percent feel it poses a very serious threat to the world. And, Mr. Speaker, 68 percent of our fellow citizens believe the Federal Government should be doing more to combat it.

The science of climate change has become clear and alarming. NASA recently confirmed that 9 of the last 10 years have been the warmest since modern records began in 1861, with 2005 topping the list. Much of this rise can be explained by a 35 percent increase over preindustrial levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, caused by the burning of fossil fuels, deforestation, and industrial production.

Even if we stopped emitting greenhouse gases today, the current levels of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere will cause the Earth's temperature to reach its highest point since the end of the Ice Age some 9,000 years ago. Average global temperatures could rise by 3 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century. This would melt the polar ice caps, causing sea level to rise twenty or more feet, causing severe worldwide flooding that would put large parts of Florida and California underwater. Warmer weather will also lead to severe weather patterns that will contribute to food shortages, increase the spread and severity of disease, increase the damage and displacement from a range of natural disasters, and jeopardize billions of people around the world.

In 2005, the economic costs of weather-related catastrophes have been estimated at more than $200 billion. As temperatures rise, so will this economic toll. The extinction of millions of plant and animal species presents another priceless and irreversible toll of global warming.

While some temperature rise is inevitable, most scientists still believe that concerted action can prevent the most apocalyptic consequences of climate change. The global nature of this challenge creates not only an obligation for the U.S., but also an opportunity. By conserving the resources we have and developing new, cleaner sources of energy, we will reduce our dependence on foreign oil, protect our wilderness, and purify our air, water, and soil. Taking the lead in improving energy efficiency and reducing greenhouse gas emissions will improve our economic security and prosperity today and for generations to come.

New scientific findings highlight the urgency of addressing global warming and related environmental challenges. Fortunately, the innovative and enterprising spirit of the American people puts us in an ideal position to seize this opportunity. Together, we can change the headlines to reflect a more optimistic outlook for our planet while improving our own quality of life. The American people have made it clear that the environment should be on our agenda every day, not just Earth Day, and I hope that Congress will heed this appeal.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to commemorate the 63rd anniversary the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day, or in Hebrew, Yom HaShoah--Day of the Destruction. The ``destruction'' is an apt description of the horrific crime that resulted in the deaths of six million Jews and destroyed families and communities across Europe.

In remembering the unspeakable horror of the Holocaust, we must recommit ourselves to ensuring that this tragedy never happens again and to fighting the precursors that led to this mass genocide--the bigotry of anti-Semitism, the discriminatory Nurenberg Laws, and the blind eye that the world turned for far too long. We honor the memory of those that suffered, and we pray for a world free from such hatred and despair.

The Jewish people have a long history of persecution and redemption. This month, the Jewish people celebrated Passover--a commemoration of the Exodus when the Jews received their freedom and were redeemed after 400 years of enslavement. This cycle of persecution and redemption has continued over the thousands of years since then, and in the years following the Holocaust, the Jewish people were redeemed through the founding of the State of Israel.

The nation was founded on principles of democracy and freedom, and has maintained these ideals in the face of the ongoing terrorism that continues to plague its people. However, despite these attacks on its people, this Jewish State continues to serve as haven for persecuted Jews and since World War II, has taken in entire communities from the former Soviet Union, South Africa, Ethiopia, Argentina, and throughout the world.

Immediately following the liberation of the concentration camps, we pledged to ourselves, never again. Never again will the world stand idly by while individuals are being slaughtered solely for their race, religion or ethnicity. But in the years since then, we have seen atrocities committed in Bosnia, Rwanda and Kosovo and a genocide is still ongoing in Darfur. Today, I rise on this solemn day to remember these brutal acts of genocide and recommit myself to this pledge, never again.

Mr. Speaker, our most important duty as Members of Congress is to ensure our Nation's security. National security is the single-most essential purpose of government. All of the other blessings of our liberty flow from it, our strength and vitality as a people depend upon it and, our economy and our way of life are reinforced by it.

A strong, bipartisan tradition has been at the core of America's national security policymaking for much of our history. A succession of American Presidents, from Woodrow Wilson to Franklin Roosevelt to Harry Truman to John F. Kennedy, guided this Nation through two world wars and some of the tensest days of the Cold War. Their leadership was based on asserting America's power in a way that advanced the ideals of our Founders and which made America a beacon to millions of people who were suffering under fascism and communism.

Most importantly, these men knew the limits of any one nation's ability, and they saw the wisdom of marshalling our strengths with that of other freedom-loving people, and they listened to the counsel of these allies abroad and Members of both parties here at home.

Harry Stimson, who served as Franklin Roosevelt's Secretary of War throughout the Second World War, was a Republican. Harry Truman cooperated with a Republican Congress to pass the Marshall Plan and the Truman Doctrine, which were instrumental in rebuilding postwar Europe and halting Soviet expansion.

But unlike these giants of the 20th century, who put the Nation's security before chauvinism or partisanship, the current administration has too often believed that it had all the answers and did not need to pay attention to the ideas of others.

This refusal to listen to other voices and excessively partisan and ideological approach has resulted in an America that is more isolated than it should be and less safe than it needs to be. Around the world, among nations that should be our strong allies, we are often seen less as a force for good in the world, and this has jeopardized the cooperation that we need in the war on terror.

In Iraq, a stubborn refusal to commit enough troops to save the lives and pacify the country in the months after the invasion has led to a protracted fight against Baathists and Islamic insurgents and increasing sectarian violence that has claimed more than 2,300 American lives and wounded thousands more.

At home we have wasted valuable time in making real strides to safeguard the Nation from terrorist attack. Most significantly, we have failed to reckon with the Achilles heel of our national security, our reliance on foreign oil to supply our energy needs.

Clearly, Americans want and deserve change. Last month, Members of our party from both the House and the Senate unveiled a comprehensive blueprint to better protect America and to restore our Nation's position of international leadership. Our plan, the Democratic plan, is called Real Security. It was devised with the assistance of a broad range of experts, former military officers, retired diplomats, law enforcement personnel, homeland security experts and others, who helped identify key areas where current policies have failed and where new ones were needed.

In a series of six Special Orders, my colleagues and I will share with the American people our vision for a more secure America. Two weeks ago, we discussed the plan as a whole and laid out the five pillars that make up that plan. I would like to go over some of these in summary before we turn to the pillar that we will discuss tonight.

These five pillars of security are the creation of a 21st century military, the successful prosecution of the war on terror, a more successful strategy to provide real homeland security, a way forward in Iraq, and the securing of energy independence for the United States of America.

One of the pillars of our Real Security plan focuses on the war on terror. It devises a strategy to destroy al Qaeda and finish the job in Afghanistan. It would have us double our special forces and improve our intelligence-gathering processes. It would eliminate terrorist breeding grounds. It would use preventive diplomacy and bring new international leadership, recognizing that we are strongest when we cause the world to join us in a cause.

Secure loose nuclear materials by 2010, this is one of the greatest vulnerabilities we have. You might recall in the debate between Senator Kerry and President Bush both acknowledged that the number one threat facing the country was that of nuclear terrorism. In fact, when we had testimony in the Nonproliferation Subcommittee, I asked Jim Woolsey, former director of the CIA, what was the most likely suspect if a nuclear weapon went off tomorrow in New York, Los Angeles or Washington? He thought about it for a moment and then he said, ``al Qaeda.''

I said, ``I think that is exactly right. But if al Qaeda is the number one threat, then the most likely delivery vehicle is not a missile, it is a crate, and why are we not doing more to secure those materials that al Qaeda has said they want?''

Osama bin Laden, who has called it a religious duty of Muslims to obtain the bomb and use it against the United States, who wants an American Hiroshima, at the pace it is going it is going to take years, if not decades, to secure the nuclear material in the former Soviet Union, and this makes our Nation at risk of calamity.

If you think the debates we have now over civil liberties and national security are difficult, imagine the world after a nuclear detonation here in this country or against our troops in the theater. All of that debate would be moot. This Nation would be a very different Nation. It would be one we would not recognize. It would certainly not be one we would want to live in.

All efforts must be made to deal with this threat, and too little has been done. Precious little has been done, and time is not on our side.

We must redouble our efforts to stop nuclear weapons development in Iran and North Korea. Too often the administration's policy in this area has been on-again off-again, as if we can only focus on Iran right now and we can take our focus off North Korea, where 6 months ago we could focus on North Korea to the exclusion of Iran, or we couldn't focus on either while we were focusing on Iraq.

The reality is we must continually focus on all of the above, and we must marshal the international community to stop this weapons program in Iran and in North Korea. Only through sustained and vigorous and dedicated efforts to pressure Russia, to pressure China and to bring that world community together do we have a chance to stop that nuclear weapons development in Iran and North Korea.

Let me turn to one of the other pillars of our Real Security plan dealing with homeland security. In the weeks to come, we will be going through the details of this pillar, which involves implementation of the 9/11 Commission recommendations. We support the immediate implementation of those recommendations.

The 9/11 Commission, probably no other commission in the last half century has done a more valuable job, a more bipartisan job of analyzing the vulnerabilities of the United States and making good, strong and sound recommendations about what we can do to address them, many of which affect this body. In fact, it is an irony not lost to anyone here, or shouldn't be: those recommendations of the 9/11 Commission that affect how we organize our business in the Congress are the last to have been implemented. Most of them have not been implemented.

But a great many of their recommendations are being ignored at our peril, and, indeed, what I was talking

about a moment earlier, in terms of dealing with the loose nuclear materials in the former Soviet Union, this was something that the 9/11 Commission paid great attention to and is one of the great deficiencies in our response to their recommendations. We should put those recommendations into effect now. Under the Real Security plan, that is exactly what we will do.

Another pillar: part of this pillar of homeland security is screening all containers and cargo. Again, if the threat to this country comes in the near term, in the near term, in a crate and not on a missile, then why aren't we investing more in that portal technology to keep nuclear material out of this country, to keep a nuclear weapon out of this country, to keep a radiological weapon out of this country?

Why is it in terms of cargo coming in through our airports that when you go to the airport to get on a flight and you have to take your shoes off and your belt off and you have to be wanded down, that at the same time in the cargo hold of that plane, where half of the cargo on most passenger jets is commercial, it is not your luggage, it is commercial cargo, 98 percent of that cargo or thereabouts is never screened for explosives? So you have to take off your shoes, yes; but you could ship a bomb the size of a small piano in a crate, and it may never be inspected for explosives.

That doesn't make sense. That is a real deficiency that has to be addressed. We cannot afford to wait until there is a calamity. Terrorists don't need to fly planes into our buildings to destroy the economy of this country. It would be enough to destroy that plane in mid-flight. We simply cannot afford to take these risks, and we must screen all containers and cargo.

The job at our ports is an even more difficult challenge, but it is one that can be met. It can be met through a homeland security plan that is tough, that is smart, and where the priorities match the nature of the risk. That is exactly what we have to do in homeland security. We have to prioritize, what are the greatest risks facing the country, and that is where we need to devote our greatest resources.

We need to safeguard our nuclear and chemical plants, which still have not been adequately safeguarded.

We can't outsource our security of our ports or airports or mass transit to other interests. We have to train and equip first responders. I had a group of first responders from my district in to visit with me today from the cities of Burbank and Glendale and other parts of Los Angeles to talk about their lack of interoperable communications equipment. They can't talk to each other across the cities. They are starting to be able to. They are patching this system together.

But here we are, years after 9/11. Can it be that our emergency responders still can't talk with each other, don't have that capability? That is simply inexcusable. We saw on 9/11 the communication problems we had. The fact that we have not dealt with that problem still years later is beyond comprehension.

Finally, we have to invest in public health to safeguard Americans. You might recall it was just a few weeks ago the burning issue in the Nation was the avian flu. It still ought to be a burning issue in the Nation. Yet we saw when this was at the top of the news how unprepared we are.

We are still unprepared. That hasn't changed. The issue may have fallen out of the top of national news. It hasn't fallen out of the tomorrow of the national dangers facing this country. Those are not even man-made disasters.

Terrorists purposely attempting to spread a biological pathogen, perhaps at multiple locations in the United States at the same time, imagine the havoc that would ensue. Are we prepared? We are not nearly as prepared as we must be.

Let me turn to another pillar of the Real Security plan, that dealing with Iraq. The Real Security plan proposes that 2006 be a year of transition to full Iraqi sovereignty, that we have a responsible redeployment of U.S. forces, that we work harder to promote Iraqi political compromise to unite the country.

We saw this week that we had a change in the position of prime minister, and that is hopeful and we all hope that leads to the formation of a unity government. But those hopes have too often been disappointed. We must ensure that within the next 30 days that government is stood up, and it is a government that is representative of Sunnis, Kurds and Shiites that the Iraqi people will defend.

Ultimately, if the Iraqis choose civil war, if they choose to murder each other in large numbers, there is not much that we can do to stop it. But if they decide to be one country, if they decide as one country to take on the foreign jihadists and the terrorists, that is a fight they can win and a fight we can help them win. But if they are determined to squander this opportunity, if they don't form this unity government, then they have to understand that the patience of the American people is running out.

We must encourage our allies and others to play a more constructive role in Iraq, and we must hold the Bush administration accountable. We had a hearing in the International Relations Committee on Iraq this week. It was one of the first hearings we have had in years on Iraq.

I asked the panel, which included top level DOD, Department of Defense, and top level Department of State officials, I asked them, given the history of I think fairly well-recognized mistakes in the prosecution of the war, of course, the failure to find WMD, the standing down of the Iraqi Army, the failure to bring enough troops in to maintain order that allowed the insurgency to get out of hand, who has been held accountable? Who has been held accountable for these errors?

And I ask my colleague, Mr. Inslee from Washington State, do you know what the answer to me was?

I thank the gentleman. This was precisely the nature of the testimony in the committee. When I asked that question of the witnesses, who has been held accountable, it was really quite remarkable what happened. There was an incredible silence as the witnesses looked at me and then looked at each other, and then looked at me, and then looked at each other. And it seemed like an eternity before anyone could respond.

And I said, your silence speaks volumes. To me, and I expressed this to the committee, the only one who has been held accountable was General Shinseki, and he was accountable for speaking the truth.

Now you mentioned the Truman Commission, and I was thinking about just the same thing when I was mentioning just a few moments ago that as part of our homeland security pillar we intend to implement the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission.

And probably not since that Truman Commission have we had a group of former Members and elected officials, experts on national security, come together and had such a credible work product that was so deserving of our respect, attention, and implementation as the 9/11 Commission, not since the Truman Commission. Would you agree?

If I can interrupt the gentleman, this has, I think, precisely been the problem. It has been a shared responsibility. There has been the failure of the executive to act promptly on the 9/11 Commission recommendations that have put us at risk, and most probably, I agree with you 100 percent, most prominently that risk is something coming in through our ports or on the back of a truck across the border that has nuclear material in it. That is, I think, the chief threat that we face.

But it is a shared responsibility, because we here in Congress have done nothing about that. Because there has not been oversight of the executive; the majority has been allergic to doing oversight. I am on the investigations and oversight subcommittee of the International Relations Committee.

We have had 6, 8, 10 hearings. The majority of them I believe have been on what, are they on overseeing problems within our own government? No. They have been on the United Nations. When you do not want to oversee what you are doing, what do you do, you oversee the United Nations.

Now, admittedly the U.N. has got plenty of problems and is in desperate need of reform, but that cannot be the sole area of our oversight. We have had hearings in the subcommittee on Iraq, as our chairman recently pointed out. You know what it was on? How bad a man Saddam Hussein was. As I said at the outset of the hearing, I think we can stipulate that Saddam Hussein was a horrible man, was a tyrant, was a dictator, was guilty of crimes against humanity. That is not in dispute.

But what we ought to be overseeing is whether we are implementing the

9/11 Commission recommendations that make us safe; we ought to be investigating the Inspector General's analysis that $9 billion in reconstruction funds in Iraq is unaccounted for. We ought to be looking into, this is something that has really troubled me, I raised it with the Secretary of Defense during our briefings, how is it that we continue to have problems with equipment and material to protect our troops.

How is that possible? I mentioned to the chairman of Armed Services that if this was a problem of production, my constituents would line up around the block to work on up-armoring vehicles, provide state-of-the- art body armor.

There was no lack of will. But none of the country, other than those people in uniform and their families, have been asked to sacrifice at all. And we are desperate I think around the country to make a sacrifice to be part of the greater good and the greater effort protecting the country. We have not been asked to do it. The Congress has not asked. The President has not asked. We have not done the oversight to even ask the hard questions.

And so we are a Nation at risk. A Nation that is not as well prepared as it should be, and as it really must be.

I have to take my hat off to my colleague from Washington, because no one has led more consistently and more strongly on this issue than you have.

Before our caucus had a strategy jointly that we have put forward before the President came forward, Jay Inslee was there, and you have been just the most powerful advocate for years for an Apollo-like project to bring about energy independence.

Let me touch on the first point you made, and then I want to go a little bit more into energy independence and talk about some of the other pillars, and then get to the pillar we are going to focus on this evening.

You mentioned that the priority has to be placed on securing this nuclear material in the former Soviet Union. I agree with you exactly. When you look at what is preventing al Qaeda from detonating a nuclear weapon on our soil, you might look at the difficulty of getting the material in the country.

Well, that is not very difficult. Unfortunately, as we have discussed, we don't have the portal technology engaged to the degree that we need it, and how would you get a nuclear weapon in the country? Well, I like to quote the chancellor of UCLA, Chancellor Carnesale, who says, well, you could smuggle it in a bail of marijuana. That is one way you could get it in. That is sort of the magnitude of the problem of keeping it out. That is a tough strategy at the border.

Well, then, you might ask, what about the technology? Maybe it is tough to actually build the mechanics of the bomb. But that is not hard either. That is a 50-year-old technology. Cal Tech is in my district. I bet I could pick any two Cal Tech students and they could design a crude nuclear weapon for me using information on the Internet.

What is the obstacle? Is it the will of al Qaeda? It is not the will, as Osama bin Laden has talked very plainly about the imperative to bring about an American Hiroshima. I think those writings and those speeches he has given are basically his own Mein Kampf, and we ignore that at our own peril.

So if it is not lack of will or the lack of technological prowess or the lack of ability to get it into the country, the question is why hasn't al Qaeda brought this off? The answer is, it is hard to get the material. It is still hard to get the material. That is the only

real prevention we have. You know something? It is just not hard enough. It is just not hard enough.

As you point out, some of this material is secured with a chain link fence and a night watchman and a bike lock. Some of it is more secure. But much of it is in the form of highly enriched uranium at research reactors. Some are defunct or stockpiled. It is all too accessible. We cannot wait for a disaster.

Turning to your second point, one of the pillars of the real security plan is the energy independence by 2020, which would eliminate our reliance on Middle East oil and all of the distortions that accompany our foreign policy as a result of that dependence. It would increase production of alternative fuels in America, promote hybrid and flex- fuel vehicle technology and manufacturing. It would enhance energy efficiency and conservation incentives.

I believe exactly what you do. We are the American people. We are the best entrepreneurs and inventors anywhere in the world. This isn't like where we were in terms of putting a man on the Moon. It is not like we were when we had to embark on the Manhattan Project. We are so much farther along on this goal technologically. A lot of these technologies are already in existence.

It is a question of making sure that they are made better and that they are made much more use of, would be a large part of the solution. It is not that we can imagine these technologies; they are out there, many of them. It is just the lack of will and the lack of leadership, and it is having a crippling effect on our economy now with gas prices at the pump, on our foreign policy, and I just want to thank you again for your tremendous leadership on this issue.

Well, you pose an interesting question. How can the administration's policy, which is dubbed a ``reduce our dependence on foreign oil,'' be a policy which, if you actually play it out over the years, will increase our importation of foreign oil? I can only say, because this is Washington.

This is the same place where 3 weeks ago the majority announced its deficit reduction package, which was, I don't know, $30- or $40 billion in spending cuts, and about $70- or $80 billion in tax cuts, which more than offset the spending cuts. So the net effect was increasing the national debt, and that was a deficit reduction plan? I guess if that is a deficit reduction plan, then the administration's energy plan is subject to the same logic.

I think this is part and parcel of the broader problem, where there is a lack of accountability, there is a lack of responsibility. The reality is that our friends in the majority have been in the majority now for years. They control this body, they control the Senate, they control the White House, they have got a pretty favorable Supreme Court, and there has been not only inaction on energy independence, but actually we have lost ground and are moving in the wrong direction.

There is really only one party to blame and one party responsible for that failure.

And for several years the blame was all placed on the Clinton administration. Everything that was going on years after the Clinton administration was the fault of the Clinton administration. But at some point you have to take responsibility when you are in the leadership. When you are in the majority, you have to take responsibility.

Let us take the pillar that we wanted to highlight tonight, and that is the 21st century military, the part of our Real Security plan that would strengthen our military and that would rebuild a state-of-the-art military; that would ensure that we have the world's best equipment and training; that will provide accurate intelligence and a strategy for success; that would bring about a new GI Bill of Rights for the 21st century, and that will strengthen the National Guard.

Let me talk briefly about a couple of those items, and then I would love to hear your thoughts as well. In poll after poll, the American people have demonstrated they have more faith in the military than in any other public institution in this country. I have been to Iraq three times, I have been to Afghanistan twice, I have met with our troops there and have spent a lot of time with military personnel here and around the world and other places, and that confidence in the troops is well placed. America does have the finest military in the world.

In Iraq and Afghanistan, our soldiers, our sailors, our airmen and marines have done everything we have asked of them and more. But since 9/11, our Nation's Armed Forces have become overextended. We have had recruiting goals that have not been met, forcing the armed services to enlist less qualified men and women.

Because of the poor planning by the administration, many units are on their second and third tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Army and Marine Corps personnel still don't have adequate body armor and sufficiently armored vehicles to the degree they should.

We are committed to ensuring that the United States military remains second to none and, more importantly, committed to building the Armed Forces to confront the threats of the 21st century. The Real Security plan, which I went over, has these elements that will rebuild the state-of-the-art military by making the needed investments in equipment and manpower so we can project power to protect America wherever and whenever necessary.

Second, we will guarantee our troops have the protective gear, equipment, and training they need and are never sent to war without accurate intelligence and a strategy for success.

Third, we will enact a GI Bill of Rights for the 21st century that guarantees our troops, active, reserve, retired, and our veterans and their families receive the pay and health care, the mental health services and other benefits they have earned and deserve.

Finally, we will strengthen the National Guard in partnership with the Nation's Governors to ensure it is fully manned, equipped and, available to meet missions at home and abroad.

Building this 21st-century military begins with the acknowledgment that we are in a new era with a new set of challenges and threats distinct from those we faced in the Cold War. Our colleagues on the other side of the aisle delight in accusing our party of having a pre- 9/11 mindset. But their stewardship of the Nation's defenses makes it clear that it is the majority that has been living in the past.

We need a military that is highly mobile, self-sustaining, and capable of operating in small units. On the one hand, our ability to use air power has extended our global reach and allows us to engage enemies without large numbers of ground troops being employed, as was the case in Kosovo and Afghanistan. On the other hand, the war on terror, ongoing operations in Iraq and the increasing need for American forces to play a stabilizing role as peacekeepers and peace enforcers demands the sustained commitment of American forces.

Our friends in the majority used to deride these types of operations as nation-building. But in a post-9/11 world, we cannot allow states to fail and become havens for Islamists and other radicals to plot attacks against us. Clearly, we need to increase the size of the active-duty Army and Marine Corps.

These are just some of the steps we will take. There are others I want to highlight, but I will be happy to yields to my colleague from Washington.

Just to interrupt for a second. I visited our troops in that very same hospital, as well as here in Bethesda at Walter Reed. That is exactly what they told me also. They just want to get back to their unit. These young people, and they are so young, that is the most striking thing when you meet them in the field. They are so committed, it just can't help but take your breath away.

If I can add one thing, before you do, and that is one of the things that really concerns me, and here again is the failure of us in this body to do the oversight we should, to have the majority support that oversight, and that is have we moved as quickly as we can, as quickly as this great Nation can to provide the technology to defend against these improvised explosive devices that have taken so many Americans lives? I think the answer is, no, we have not done all we can. We have not moved as fast as we could.

I know certainly in Congress, when these questions have come up, we haven't gotten the answers, I think, to go home to our constituents and say every rock is being turned over, every effort is being made, every resource is being expended to make sure we are protected against the IEDs. I think there is more we could be doing.

And the L.A. Times had an analysis recently of a promising new technology and the frustration of those that have been working on this program about how difficult it is to get that technology actually out into the field. That is inexcusable. If there is promising technology, it needs to be fast-tracked, and it needs to be put to immediate use.

The fact that we would lose a single life because of the failure of the richest Nation on Earth to provide the body armor, the up-armored vehicles, or the technology to defeat the IEDs is just inexcusable.

And this is precisely the problem. When we discuss where we are in the rest of the world, what our standing is in the world, and some of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle will pejoratively say, well, we don't care about the court of public opinion, we are not in this to be popular. Well, it is true we are not in this to be popular. But when we alienate the rest of the world, it has a real cost to us in terms of our own security.

We are dependent, like it or not, on information about al Qaeda's operations from other nations. If we can't get their cooperation, that affects our security. If we communicate to the rest of the world that we don't care about their priorities, when we go to them about ours, when we go to them about North Korea or Iran or Iraq, how can we expect a warm and ready and welcoming response? We can't. And that puts us more at risk.

So this has had real consequences. When I consider where we were in the world's estimation and the kind of cooperation we could get pre-9/ 11, and I look now, when it should be that much greater given what took place on 9/11, but it is that much more problematic because these world leaders, even if they wanted to help us, and many of them do, because they recognize the threat to themselves from terrorism as well, but if our Nation is that unpopular, or our chief executive is that unpopular and politically they can't afford to do it, that is a real problem.

When people are running for office in foreign capitals of our allies on a platform of who will be most opposed to the United States policy, that is a problem for our security. It is not about popularity; it is about security. And this is why we need a change. We need a change that will, as you say, bring the world together in a great cause. Because in the end, this fight we have with terrorism unites us. It is an attack on civilization.

And was it Ben Franklin who said, ``We have to hang together or we shall all hang separately''?

I thank the gentleman from Washington for his great work.

Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to recommit

Yes, in its current form.

Mr. Speaker, the motion to recommit is based on bipartisan legislation that I introduced, along with Representatives Flake, Harman and Inglis, dealing with the NSA surveillance program. And the basic premise of this legislation is that the Government must have all the tools it needs, it must have all the authority it needs to pursue al Qaeda using every tool in the toolbox.

But the premise is also that we are a Nation of laws, and that whereas the Commander in Chief has the authority to eavesdrop and surveil off American shores, when it comes to the electronic surveillance of Americans on American soil, Congress has the authority to regulate that surveillance. And, in fact, Congress has regulated that surveillance through title III and through the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act; and, in fact, those two laws form the exclusive authority to surveil Americans on American soil.

Now, we have learned, both through a disclosure in The New York Times and through the disclosures of the present administration, that there is an NSA surveillance program that, among others things, surveils conversations between Americans or people on U.S. soil and people overseas who may be affiliated with al Qaeda. Other than a small number of us, we don't know much about the contours of this program.

Recently when the Attorney General testified in the Judiciary Committee, I asked about the limiting principle of this program: Was it restricted only to these international calls? What if the Attorney General decided tomorrow or

the administration decided tomorrow that it had the inherent authority as Commander in Chief to tap purely domestic calls between two Americans; did it feel it would need to go to court for that authority? And the Attorney General said he would not rule it out. He would not rule out having the pure authority, without going to court, to tap the calls between two Americans on American soil.

So what is the limiting principle if this program can change from day to day without the input of Congress? The only limiting principle is the good faith of the executive, which when the executive shows it is infallible might be a sufficient limiting principle. But the executive is no more infallible than we are here in Congress, and so we have a role to play.

And this motion to recommit says that that role is the following: that, first, when we pass a law, like FISA and Title III, where we say the exclusive means of domestic eavesdropping is under these provisions with court approval, we mean what we say; that, second, the authorization to use military force that we voted on in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 did not create an exception to the authority to eavesdrop on Americans on American soil; that, third, if the President believes that FISA or existing law is insufficient to the task, he should come to Congress through his representatives and ask us to amend the law.

And this is what is most disturbing about what has happened so far. When the administration did come in the context of the PATRIOT bill and asked us to change FISA, we made changes to FISA. When one of the Republican Senators asked the administration, do you need us to change FISA more; is there a problem with FISA; is it not keeping pace with the terrorists or technology? The answer from the administration was, no, FISA is working just fine. The more truthful answer would have been, no, because we don't feel bound by FISA. We feel we can do what we choose to, what we feel we must, without consulting with Congress.

So this bill says, importantly, that if the administration feels that existing law is not enough, it should come to us and ask for amendment. And, finally, it asks the administration to report to Congress on the extent to which Americans have been surveilled on American soil so we can do our job as a coequal branch of government.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to my colleague, the ranking member from California.

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, the Iraq war is now in its 4th year, and I, like many of my colleagues and millions of my fellow citizens, are troubled about the direction the conflict is taking.

I have been to Iraq three times to visit our troops there, and I have spent time with our wounded here and in Germany. They have done everything we have asked of them, and they have done it magnificently. While we have a moral obligation to do whatever we can to avoid having Iraq spiral into an all-out civil war, now is the time for the Iraqis themselves to decide if they wish to be one country. And, Mr. Speaker, it is time for us to take steps that will ensure that 2006 is a year of significant transition to full sovereignty for the people of Iraq.

This is a conflict that has come to grief in many ways. In the fall of 2002, I voted to authorize the use of force against Iraq because of the threat that Saddam Hussein had stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and because I was concerned that he had an

active nuclear weapons program. If you go back and look at the debate in the House and Senate, this was a decision taken by the Congress to prevent Iraq from acquiring or using or transferring nuclear weapons.

Months later, as American forces pushed across the Kuwaiti frontier and into Iraq, we were on a hunt for weapons of mass destruction. Delivering the Iraqi people from the brutality of Saddam Hussein was a noble act, but the promotion of democracy in Iraq was not our primary reason for going to war. Similarly, we knew the Shiite majority had suffered terribly under the Ba'ath regime, and freeing them from the oppression of the Sunni minority was an added benefit of the invasion. But reordering the ethnic balance of political power in Iraq was not our primary purpose for going to war.

Soon after the fall of Baghdad, it became clear that many of the pre- war assumptions that had guided the President and his advisers were wrong. There were no chemical or biological weapons, there was no nuclear program, and while many Iraqis celebrated the ouster of Saddam Hussein, they did not line the streets of Baghdad to greet our troops with flowers. In fact, within days, there emerged the beginnings of what would become an organized and deadly insurgency that would quickly put an end to General Tommy Franks' plan to pare down the 140,000 troops in April 2003 to about 30,000 by September 2003.

In recent months, even as our military has become more adept at combating the insurgency, the nature of the struggle in Iraq has changed yet again. Long-simmering ethnic tensions, which had been suppressed under Saddam's totalitarian regime, have threatened to tear the country apart. While the full-scale civil war that many feared in the wake of the bombing of the Askariya mosque in Samarra has not yet come to pass, most observers believe the country is currently in the grip of a low-level civil war that could erupt into a full-scale conflict at any time.

The ongoing sectarian strife has been exacerbated by the protracted struggle among and inside Iraq's political factions over the formation of a permanent government. Last week's decision by the Shiite parties that make up the largest block in parliament that was elected 4 months ago to replace Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari with Jawad al-Maliki paves the way for the formation of a broad-based government. The question is now whether this hopeful development will be enough to pull Iraq back from the precipice.

There is a broad census among experts here and abroad that Iraq's future will be determined by politics and not by force. The formation of a permanent Iraqi Government, one that will have the power of legitimacy and vision to assume primary responsibility for securing and governing the country, is a necessary precondition to ending the insurgency, preventing a civil war, and allowing large-scale reconstruction to begin.

Consequently, our role in Iraq must become more political and less military. For if there is one thing that Iraqis of every ethnic, religious, and political stripe can agree on, it is that they do not want foreign troops in their country indefinitely.

I support a responsible redeployment of our troops during the course of 2006 so we are not drawn into sectarian conflict and so Iraqis are forced to take primary responsibility for securing and governing their country. A responsible redeployment of American coalition forces will have to be done in stages to build greater Iraqi sovereignty and control over security, not civil war. We should also publicly declare that the United States does not seek to maintain a permanent military presence in Iraq, and I have cosponsored legislation to prevent the establishment of permanent bases, which can only serve as a catalyst for the insurgency and for foreign jihadis.

Devising and implementing a successful end-game in Iraq will be difficult, but an open-ended commitment to remain in the country is untenable and unwise. The American people want Iraq to succeed and for a representative government there to survive and to lead to a better future for the Iraqi people. But it will ultimately be the Iraqi people who must decide whether they wish to live together in peace as one country or continue to murder each other in large numbers. We cannot decide that for them.

In the fight against the malicious al Qaeda in Iraq, foreign jihadis bent on destroying a government chosen by the Iraqi people, we are in solidarity with the Iraqi people who want a better life for their children. But, Mr. Speaker, we will not stand as a shield between Iraqi sects bent on killing each other. The new prime minister and leadership have the next 30 days to form a strong unity government. We hope they will be successful in that task, and we hope that the Iraqi leaders understand that the patience of the American people is running out.

Mr. Speaker, the Iraq war is now in its fourth year and I, like many of my colleagues and millions of our fellow citizens, am deeply concerned about the direction that the conflict is taking.

I have been to Iraq three times to visit with our troops there and I have spent time with our wounded here and in Germany. They have done everything that we have asked of them and they have done it magnificently.

Tragically, these American heroes are still being killed and wounded daily. Over 2,300 troops have been killed and thousands more have been injured. American taxpayers are paying approximately $194 million a day for the war according to the Congressional Budget Office--that's more than a billion dollars a week. A new CRS report puts the current costs of continued operations in Iraq and Afghanistan at close to $10 billion a month, with most of that money going to Iraq.

While we have a moral obligation to do whatever we can to avoid having Iraq spiral into all-out civil war, now is time for the Iraqis themselves to decide whether they wish to be one country. And, Mr. Speaker, it is time for us to take steps that will ensure that 2006 is a year of significant transition to full sovereignty for the people of Iraq.

This is a conflict that has come to grief in so many ways. In the fall of 2002 I voted to authorize the use of force against Iraq because of the threat that Saddam Hussein had stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and because I was convinced that he had an active nuclear weapons program. If you go back and look at the debate in the House and Senate, this was a decision taken by the Congress to prevent Iraq from acquiring and using or transferring nuclear weapons.

Months later, as American forces pushed across the Kuwaiti frontier and into Iraq, we were on a hunt for weapons of mass destruction. Delivering the Iraqi people from the brutality of Saddam Hussein was a noble act, but the promotion of democracy in Iraq was not our primary reason for going to war.

Similarly, we knew that the Shiite majority had suffered terribly under the Ba'ath regime and freeing them from the oppression of the Sunni minority was an added benefit of the invasion. But reordering the ethnic balance of political power in Iraq was not our primary purpose for going to war.

Soon after the fall of Baghdad, it became clear that many of the prewar assumptions that had guided the President and his advisors were wrong. There were no chemical or biological weapons; there was no nuclear program; and, while many Iraqis celebrated the ouster of Saddam Hussein, they did not line the streets of Baghdad to greet our troops with flowers. In fact, within days there emerged the beginnings of what would become an organized, deadly insurgency that would quickly put an end to General Tommy Franks' plan to pare down the 140,000 troops in Iraq in April 2003 to about 30,000 by September 2003.

In recent months even as our military has become more adept at combating the insurgency, the nature of the struggle in Iraq has changed yet again. Long-simmering ethnic tensions, which had been suppressed under Saddam's totalitarian regime, have threatened to tear the country apart. While the full-scale civil war that many feared in the wake of the bombing of the Askariya mosque in Samarra has not yet come to pass, most observers believe that the country is currently in the grip of a low-level civil war that could erupt into full-scale conflict at any time. I am especially concerned by media reports that Shiite militias have been deploying to Kirkuk, Iraq's third largest city, in a bid to forestall any attempt by Kurds to assert control over this major center of Iraq's oil-rich north.

The ongoing sectarian strife has been exacerbated by the protracted struggle among and inside Iraq's political factions over the formation of a permanent government. Last week's decision by the Shiite parties that make up the largest bloc in the parliament that was elected four months ago to replace Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari with Jawad al- Maliki paves the way for the formation of a broad-based government. The question now is whether this hopeful development will be enough to pull Iraq back from the precipice.

There is a broad consensus among experts--here and abroad--that Iraq's future will

be determined by politics and not force. The formation of a permanent Iraqi government--one that will have the power, legitimacy and vision to assume primary responsibility for securing and governing the country--is a necessary precondition to ending the insurgency, preventing a civil war and allowing large-scale reconstruction to begin.

Consequently, our role in Iraq must become more political and less military; for if there is one thing that Iraqis of every ethnic, religious and political stripe can agree on, it is that they do not want foreign troops in their country indefinitely.

I support a responsible redeployment of our troops during the course of 2006 so that we are not drawn into sectarian conflict and so that Iraqis are forced to take primary responsibility for securing and governing their country. While the process of training Iraqi security forces has gone more slowly than many had hoped, recent reports have indicated that we are making progress and that every week more Iraqi units are capable of taking a greater role in combating the insurgency.

A responsible redeployment of American and coalition forces will have to be done in stages to build greater Iraqi sovereignty and control over security, not civil war. In the first phase of the redeployment, our forces should be gradually withdrawn from insecure urban centers and moved to smaller cities where reconstruction is supported by the local population, and to remote bases where our troops will be able to support Iraqi units if necessary. Over time, these troops will be withdrawn from Iraq altogether and redeployed outside the country, either in the region or back to the United States. We should publicly declare that the United States does not seek to maintain a permanent military presence in Iraq and I have co-sponsored legislation to prevent the establishment of permanent bases, which can only serve as a catalyst for the insurgency and for foreign jihadis.

Devising and implementing a successful endgame in Iraq will be difficult, but an open-ended commitment to remain in the country is untenable and unwise. The American people want Iraq to succeed, and for a representative government there to survive and lead to a better future for the Iraqi people. But it will ultimately be the Iraqi people who must decide whether they wish to live together in peace as one country or continue to murder each other in large numbers. We cannot decide that for them.

In the fight against the malicious Al Qaeda in Iraq, foreign jihadists bent on destroying a government chosen by the Iraqi people, we are in solidarity with the Iraqi people who want a better life for their children. But we will not stand as a shield between different Iraqi sects bent on killing each other. The new Iraqi prime minister and leadership have the next thirty days to form a strong unity government. We hope that they will be successful in this task. But our hopes in Iraq have too often led to disappointment, and the Iraqi leaders must understand that the patience of the American people is running out.

Mr. Speaker, the Preamble to our Constitution lays out the basic functions of government and notably featured is the need to provide for the common defense.

National security is the single most important purpose of government; all of the other blessings of liberty flow from it. Throughout much of this country's history, Senator Arthur Vandenberg's famous maxim that ``Partisanship must end at the water's edge'' has guided the formulation and execution of America's national security policy.

Unfortunately, over the past several years that bipartisan tradition has been undermined by the Republican Party which has sought to convince Americans that only one party could be entrusted to preserve our Nation's military strength and its position as the world's preeminent power.

This unwillingness to listen to other voices has reached its zenith under the current administration, which took office with one overriding principle, that was to guide American national security policy. Yet when the previous administration, that of President Clinton, was for it, they were against it. The result is an America that is less safe than it should be and less safe than it needs to be.

Our military has been stretched to the absolute limits in Iraq, leaving us precious little ability to respond to other contingencies around the globe. Overseas, we are less often seen as a force for good in the world, and surveys of public opinion consistently show that we as a Nation are viewed negatively, even by our friends in Europe.

At home, we have frittered away the 4\1/2\ years since September 11 instead of making real strides in safeguarding the Nation from terrorist attack.

In Iraq, a stubborn refusal to commit enough troops to save the lives and pacify the country in the months after the invasion has led to a protracted fight against the Baathists and Islamist insurgents that has claimed now more than 2,300 American lives.

And finally, we have failed to reckon with the Achilles heel of our national security, our reliance on foreign oil to supply our energy needs.

Clearly, Americans want and deserve change. Last week, Members of our party from both the House and the Senate unveiled a comprehensive blueprint to protect the American people and to restore our Nation's position of international leadership.

Our plan, Real Security, was devised with the assistance of a broad range of experts, former military officers, retired diplomats, law enforcement personnel, homeland security experts and others, who helped identify key areas where current policies have failed and where new ones were needed.

During the next several weeks, Democratic Members of the House will be doing a series of 1-hours where we will discuss the particulars of the Real Security plan. Tonight, we will give an overview of that plan, and in the following weeks we will flesh out each of the five pillars of the Democratic Real Security plan for the country.

It is a tough and smart strategy to rebuild our military, equip and train our first responders and others on the front lines and here at home, provide needed benefits to our troops and veterans, fully man and equip our National Guard, promote alternative fuels and reduce our dependence on foreign oil, restore Americans' confidence in their government's ability to respond in the face of a terrorist attack or natural disaster.

To protect the American people, we will immediately implement the recommendations of the independent bipartisan 9/11 Commission and finally protect our ports and airports, our borders, mass transit systems, our chemical and nuclear power plants, and our food and water supplies from terrorist attack.

After September 11, all Americans trusted the President to take the steps necessary to keep our country safe. Since then, inadequate planning, sometimes incompetent policies, have failed to make Americans as safe as we should be. The tragedy of Hurricane Katrina showed that the Federal Government was still not prepared to respond.

Under the administration's leadership, the war in Iraq began with intelligence that was at best wrong and at worst manipulated. 140,000 of our finest young people were sent into Iraq without an adequate plan for success.

Our ports and other critical infrastructure remain vulnerable, while both soldiers in the field and first responders at home lack the basic equipment and resources they were promised.

Both in the Persian Gulf and on our own gulf coast, lucrative, no-bid contracts have gone to companies like Halliburton, Kellogg, Brown&Root and others with friends in high places.

Despite record high fuel prices, our country remains heavily dependent on foreign oil because of an energy policy that benefits the big oil interests.

The Real Security plan rests on five pillars that my colleagues and I will introduce to you tonight. They are the creation of a 21st-century military, a smart strategy to win the war on terror, a plan to secure the homeland, a plan to move forward in Iraq, and a proposal for achieving energy independence for America by 2020.

Under Real Security, a Democratic Congress will rebuild a state-of- the-art military by making needed investments in equipment and manpower so that we can project power to protect America wherever and whenever necessary.

We have all heard the stories of parents using their own money to purchase body armor for their own children serving in Iraq. I personally asked Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld about the shortage of body armor, about the lack of adequately armored vehicles, and the holdups in development of equipment to counter roadside bombs that have killed and maimed so many of our troops. Despite his assurances, there are still problems and young Americans are still paying the price.

Under Real Security, Democrats will guarantee all of our troops have the protective gear, equipment, and training they need and are never sent to war without accurate intelligence and a strategy for success.

I have been to Iraq now three times; and I visited our wounded troops here at home, there, and in Germany. I have spoken at the funerals of my constituents who have been killed in Iraq, and I have sat with their families as they have mourned. These experiences have reinforced my sense of commitment to ensuring the well-being of America's soldiers and their families and our veterans.

Democrats will enact a GI bill of Rights for the 21st century that guarantees our troops, active, reserve and retired, our veterans and their families, receive the pay, health care, mental health services, and other benefits they have earned and deserve.

Our active military are stretched to the breaking point, but our Guard and

Reserves have also been ground down by multiple deployments and falling enlistment and reenlistment. This has, in turn, added to the stress on the active Army and Marines.

As part of our Real Security plan, Democrats will strengthen the National Guard in partnership with our Nation's Governors to ensure it is fully manned, properly equipped, and available to meet missions at home and abroad.

The next pillar of Real Security is a broad strategy to win the war on terror. Four and a half years after 9/11 Osama bin Laden is still at large, and al Qaeda has morphed into a worldwide amalgam of discrete cells that are more difficult to track down.

When Democrats are in charge, we will make the elimination of Osama bin Laden our first priority. We will destroy al Qaeda and other terrorist networks, and we will finish the job in Afghanistan and end the threat posed by the Taliban. We propose to double the size of our special forces, increase our human intelligence capabilities, and ensure that our intelligence is free from political pressure.

Despite their vow to drain the swamp, the administration has done little to eliminate terrorist breeding grounds by combating the economic, social, and political conditions that allow extremism to thrive. Democrats will fight terrorism with all means at our disposal by leading international efforts to uphold and defend human rights and renew the long-standing alliances that have advanced our national security objectives.

Under Real Security, we will confront the specter of nuclear terrorism by greatly accelerating the pace at which we are securing nuclear material that could be used to make a nuclear weapon or a dirty bomb. Our goal is to secure loose nuclear material by 2010. We will also redouble our efforts to stop nuclear weapons development in Iran and North Korea. While Democrats understand that no option can be taken off the table, we are committed to a muscular diplomacy as the best option for curbing Pyongyang and Teheran's nuclear ambitions.

The third pillar of Real Security is homeland security. In the wake of 9/11, there have been numerous commissions and investigations at the Federal, State and local level, as well as a multitude of private studies. All of them have pointed to the broad systemic and other flaws in our homeland security program. Almost 2 years ago, the independent bipartisan 9/11 Commission published its report, but most of its recommendations have yet to be implemented.

As part of Real Security, Democrats will immediately implement the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, including securing national borders, ports, airports, and mass transit systems. We will implement the screening of 100 percent of containers and cargo bound for the U.S. in ships or airplanes at the point of origin, and we will take steps to better safeguard America's nuclear and chemical plants and our food and water supplies.

Democrats will prevent the outsourcing of critical components of our national security infrastructure, such as ports, airports, and mass transit to foreign interests that could put America at risk. Under Real Security, Democrats would provide firefighters, emergency medical workers, police officers, and other workers on the front lines with the training, staffing, equipment and cutting-edge technology they need.

While the immediate threats to our national security come from terrorists, we face other dangers as well. Democrats are committed to a security strategy that will protect America from biological terrorism and pandemics, including the avian flu, by investing in the public health infrastructure and training public health workers.

The fourth pillar, and the one that will have the most immediate effect on our security, is to chart a new course in Iraq that will ensure that 2006 is a year of significant transition to full Iraqi sovereignty, with the Iraqis assuming primary responsibility for securing and governing their country with a responsible redeployment of U.S. forces. Democrats will insist that Iraqis make the political compromises necessary to unite their country and defeat the insurgency, promote regional diplomacy, and strongly encourage our allies in other nations to play a constructive role.

As a part of Real Security, Democrats intend to hold the administration accountable for its manipulated prewar intelligence, poor planning, and contracting abuses that have placed our troops at greater risk and wasted billions of taxpayer dollars.

Our security will remain threatened as long as we remain dependent on Middle East oil. The fifth pillar, and the one with the most far- reaching ramifications for our country and the world, is to achieve energy independence for America by 2020.

Under Real Security, Democrats will increase production of alternate fuels from America's heartland; biofuels, geothermal, clean coal, fuel cells, solar and wind, promote hybrid and flex-fuel technology and manufacturing, enhance energy efficiency and conservation incentives. All this we will do, and more, to meet the real national security needs of the country.

And now, I would like to turn to some of my colleagues who have been leaders on national security issues. I would like to begin by introducing my colleague from California (Susan Davis) to hear her thoughts on one of the five pillars.

I thank the gentlewoman from California for all her work in this area, and I know that you represent a very large constituency of servicemembers in your district, probably one of the largest in the country. Undoubtedly, you have had the opportunity to visit with a lot of the families of those serving in Iraq and Afghanistan and know firsthand some of the demands being placed on our active duty but also on our guard and reserve.

Many of them pulled out of their jobs, earning a lot less on active duty than they were in their civilian occupations. This must be a tremendous hardship for families.

I imagine that you have had the experience that I have with some of my constituents in talking to their families, those that are serving in Iraq and the concerns that they have, and in talking with the soldiers when they return about whether they had the up- armored vehicles that they needed, and finding out from them firsthand that, notwithstanding protestations to the contrary by the Pentagon, that in fact they often didn't have up-armored vehicles. I still have people coming back telling me of the inadequacy of materiel they have to work with and to keep them safe.

But I thank you so much for all your leadership on this issue. You do a tremendous job on behalf of your constituents in the San Diego area and in the armed services area for all the rest of our country. Thank you.

I would like to turn now, Mr. Speaker, to one of my close friends and colleagues here, David Scott of Georgia. We cofounded, along with Steve Israel, the Democratic Study Group on National Security. He has been a strong voice and a great leader on national security issues. We are very grateful for your joining us this evening.

The gentleman from Georgia.

Mr. Scott, we are proud and grateful to have you here. You mentioned the proud history of the Democratic Party and national security under the leadership of Presidents like Roosevelt and Truman and Kennedy and others.

Today we saw in the press reports that the President authorized Mr. Libby, the chief of staff of the Vice President, to disclose classified information, national security information, for a political purpose. Can you imagine Roosevelt or Kennedy or Truman doing that? Can you imagine, for political reasons, any of them disclosing classified intelligence information for a political reason?

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman.

It gives me great pleasure to yield to Mr. Bennie Thompson, our ranking member on the Homeland Security Committee, someone who has brought great intelligence, foresight, and determination to protecting America, to ensuring we have port security and airport securing, and that we plug many of the gaping holes here in the homeland. I yield to the ranking member of the Committee on Homeland Security.

I thank the gentleman, and I particularly appreciate your talking about the common sense changes that have to be made to protect this country. Does it make sense, I ask our ranking member, to have a policy where you have to take off your shoes at the airport to get through the metal detector, but 50 percent of the cargo on the plane you are flying on is commercial and 98 percent of that is never checked for an explosive? You can ship a bomb the size of a piano that will never get opened in a crate under that same plane, but you have to take your shoes off. Does that make sense?

And that last point, I think, is the key one. The President, I am sure you recall, during the first debate with Senator Kerry, was asked what is the top national security threat facing the country? And he said, nuclear terrorism. Senator Kerry agreed. I think they were both right.

But if that is true, and the most likely suspect for nuclear terrorism is al Qaeda, then the most likely delivery device is not a missile but a crate. And that crate is going to come into one of our ports. And why we haven't mobilized the resources to implement that portal technology, why we are spending as much as we are on a more distant threat in terms of national missile defense, rather than the more proximate threat of a smuggled in dirty bomb or crude nuclear weapon is not in our Nation's national security interest.

I thank the gentleman very much for all his leadership in improving our Homeland Security.

I would now like to turn to my colleague, Dennis Moore from Kansas, who does a tremendous job. He is one of the true leaders on a variety of issues, including energy self-sufficiency and energy independence. It is one of the pillars of our national security plan. Dennis Moore.

Mr. Moore, we thank you for you tremendous leadership on this issue and for joining us this evening.

Now it gives me great pleasure to yield time to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz), who I would say is a rising star in the Congress, but she was a rising star. She is now a full star in the firmament. The rise has already been complete. But we are so grateful for your leadership, and I yield to the gentlewoman from Florida.

I thank the gentlewoman and I am tremendously grateful for your leadership and participation tonight.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Maryland, Chris Van Hollen, for his patience this evening. It has been a long evening already, and I have been keeping him and my other colleagues from the beginning of the recess. He has done a tremendous job in his tenure here in the Congress. He has already established himself as a superb leader on national security and other issues, education. Without any further ado I turn over my time to Mr. Van Hollen for such time as he may consume.

I thank the gentleman for his leadership and his eloquence and the tremendous job that he also does as we serve together on the Judiciary Committee.

I am now pleased to yield to Jay Inslee from the great State of Washington, who has been a pioneer in the area of energy independence.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleagues this evening for all their comments and their leadership. Over the next several weeks, we will be unveiling in greater detail each of the pillars of security: how we intend, as Democrats, to rebuild the 21st-century military; how we intend to take the war on terror to Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda; how we intend to beef up our homeland security and repair a lot of the broken pieces of our homeland security policy that make us continue to be vulnerable; how we will make Iraq in 2006 a year of transition to full Iraqi sovereignty; and how, as Mr. Inslee points out, we can achieve energy independence, something vital to the present and this Nation's future.

I want to thank my colleagues for their leadership, David Scott for all his great work, Chris Van Hollen, Jay Inslee, all of the other speakers tonight. We look forward to continuing this dialogue with the American people.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 3128, the Darfur Peace and Accountability Act of 2006.

Three years ago, the United Nations Security Council declared its grave concern at the widespread human rights violations in Darfur and expressed its determination to do everything possible to halt a humanitarian catastrophe. Since then, at least 300,000 people are estimated to have died in Darfur. Currently, more than 3.5 million Darfurians depend on international aid for survival and another 2 million have been driven from their homes.

In 2004, pressure from Congress and American citizens prompted the Bush administration to become the first government to recognize the mass killing in Darfur as a genocide. Since then, the U.S. has played an important role by pressing for an international response to the crisis in Darfur at the U.N. supporting the deployment and expansion of the African Union Mission In Sudan (AMIS), and providing critical humanitarian aid. Unfortunately, the U.S. and the international community have yet to muster the will or cooperative action necessary to adequately protect civilians, end the killing, and broker lasting peace.

Last week the U.N. Security Council issued a resolution reaffirming that the situation in the Sudan continues to constitute a threat to international peace and security. In Darfur large scale attacks on villages have been replaced by rampant banditry, a campaign of sexual violence, and the practical entrapment of civilians in camps. Government backed militias have not been reined in and rebel groups are contributing to violence on the ground. Civilians continue to be attacked, women and girls raped, humanitarian workers harassed, and critical aid supplies disrupted. For people of Darfur, the situation remains one of daily violence and insecurity, desperate living conditions, and the persistent threat of hunger and disease.

Sixty years ago, in the wake of the Holocaust, the international community vowed, ``Never again.'' Ten years ago, confronted with the death toll of the Rwandan genocide, leaders of the same nations again declared, ``Never again.'' Today, tens of thousands of women, men, and children have been murdered and hundreds of thousands continue to suffer in Darfur. The Darfur Peace and Accountability Act reminds the administration and the international community that the genocide in Darfur demands urgent attention and action, and calls upon the President to use both economic and political leverage to elicit cooperation from the Sudanese government.

Passing the Darfur Peace and Accountability Act is a small, but important demonstration of this nation's commitment to human rights. I hope that passage of this important legislation will spur more concerted national and international efforts to bring security and stability to the people of Darfur.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 3128, the Darfur Peace and Accountability Act of 2006.

Three years ago, the United Nations Security Council declared ``its grave concern at the widespread human rights violations'' in Darfur and ``expressed its determination to do everything possible to halt a humanitarian catastrophe.'' Since then, at least 300,000 people are estimated to have died in Darfur. Currently, more than 3.5 million Darfurians depend on international aid for survival and another 2 million have been driven from their homes.

In 2004, pressure from Congress and American citizens prompted the Bush Administration to become the first government to recognize the mass killing in Darfur as a genocide. Since then, the U.S. has played an important role by pressing for an international response to the crisis in Darfur at the UN, supporting the deployment and expansion of the African Union Mission In Sudan (AMIS), and providing critical humanitarian aid. Unfortunately, the U.S. and the international community have yet to muster the will or cooperative action necessary to adequately protect civilians, end the killing, and broker lasting peace.

Last week the UN Security Council issued a resolution reaffirming ``that the situation in the Sudan continues to constitute a threat to international peace and security.'' In Darfur large scale attacks on villages have been replaced by rampant banditry, a campaign of sexual violence, and the practical entrapment of civilians in camps. Government backed militias have not been reined in and rebel groups are contributing to violence on the ground. Civilians continue to be attacked, women and girls raped, humanitarian workers harassed, and critical aid supplies disrupted. For people of Darfur, the situation remains one of daily violence and insecurity, desperate living conditions, and the persistent threat of hunger and disease.

Sixty years ago, in the wake of the Holocaust, the international community vowed, ``Never again.'' Ten years ago, confronted with the death toll of the Rwandan genocide, leaders of the same nations again declared, ``Never again.'' Today, tens of thousands of women, men, and children have been murdered and hundreds of thousands continue to suffer in Darfur. The Darfur Peace and Accountability Act reminds the Administration and the international community that the genocide in Darfur demands urgent attention and action, and calls upon the President to use both economic and political leverage to elicit cooperation from the Sudanese government.

Passing the Darfur Peace and Accountability Act is a small, but important demonstration of this nation's commitment to human rights. I hope that passage of this important legislation will spur more concerted national and international efforts to bring security and stability to the people of Darfur.

Madam Speaker, I rise in strong support of H. Res. 736, a resolution to Condemn Afghan Attempts to Prosecute Converts. I share my colleagues' deep concern regarding the case of Mr. Abdul Rahman and the questions it raises regarding Afghanistan's commitment to religious freedom and human rights. I have sent a letter to Afghan President Hamid Karzai, and I submit it for the Record.

Dear President Karzai: I am writing to you concerning the

case of Abdul Rahman, whose conversion to Christianity could

have cost him his life under traditional Sharia law.

Along with many in the U.S. as well as in Britain, Germany,

Italy, and Australia, I am relieved that Mr. Rahman will not

be tried for exercising a right that is guaranteed to him by

national and international law. I recognize that you face

strong domestic opposition to this decision, but I urge the

Afghan government to stand by it and to use this opportunity

to demonstrate your Government's commitment to tolerance, the

rule of law, and the democratic ideals that are just

beginning to take root in Afghanistan.

Afghanistan's Constitution stipulates that Afghanistan

shall abide by the United Nations' Universal Declaration of

Human Rights, which states that ``everyone has the right to

freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right

includes freedom to change his religion or belief.''

Additionally, although Afghanistan is an Islamic state, its

Constitution expressly grants followers of other religions

the right to freely exercise ``their faith and perform their

religious rites within the limits and the provisions of

law.'' The case of Abdul Rahman highlights the need to define

these limits.

Your steady and principled leadership during the uncertain

post-war period earned you the admiration and trust of the

citizens of Afghanistan, who chose you to defend their hard-

won freedoms and rights as their first democratically-elected

President. Similarly, the international community has

supported your reform efforts and we congratulate you on the

major social, political, economic and security improvements

in Afghanistan since the defeat of the Taliban.

The strength and legitimacy of your democratically-elected

Government will ultimately depend upon that government's

ability and willingness to protect and promote the

fundamental human rights of all Afghani citizens. While it

may be permitted under Islamic Sharia law, the threatened

execution of Mr. Rahman would have violated the U.N.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Afghan

Constitution. We are grateful this man's life has been

spared, and we hope that your government will take this

opportunity to clarify the supremacy of Afghanistan's

constitution within your country's legal framework.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to commemorate the 45th anniversary of the establishment of the Peace Corps.

On the heels of his historic Inaugural Address, President Kennedy signed an Executive Order on March 1, 1961 to establish the Peace Corps in order to promote world peace and friendship.

Over the past 45 years, the Peace Corps has deployed over 182,000 volunteers to more than 138 nations to work on various important issues. At the beginning of the 21st century, the Peace Corps' mission remains as relevant as ever with 7,810 volunteers working in 75 countries to address some of the globe's most pressing challenges, such as the HIV/AIDS pandemic. In addition, the Peace Corps has swiftly responded to recent natural disasters.

I recently visited East Timor--the world's newest democracy and one of the poorest nations in Asia--as part of my work on the House Democracy Assistance Commission. While we were there, we met several Peace Corps volunteers and learned about the wonderful work they were doing to improve the lives of the people of that new nation. I could not have been more impressed with their dedication, compassion, and commitment to service.

I would like to recognize past and present Peace Corps volunteers who have made invaluable contributions in all corners of the globe over the past 45 years. I am proud to say that 12 of my constituents are currently serving overseas as Peace Corps volunteers. They are: Khaled Alquaddoomi, Wendy Chien, Jennifer Chow, Nicole Gabriel, Kelly Golden, Karen Hamilton, Ibrahim Kalla, Alice Luck, Keenton Luong, Kristina Ortiz, Lassana Toure, and Katherine Wang. Let us commend these dedicated young Americans--and all of those who have served--for their efforts in such a noble task, defined by President Kennedy as ``bringing to man that decent way of life which is the foundation of freedom and a condition of peace.''