Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Speaker, I think that is a very important statistic to discuss during the course of our conversation this evening. The interest payments that the American taxpayers are required to make every single year amount to some $300 billion on the debt that has been accumulated because of the policies of this White House, this Republican House of Representatives, and this Republican Senate.

And how are they going to pay for them?

To the Koreans.

Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will continue to yield, I think it should be rephrased. Why should we borrow more money from foreign governments and from foreigners who invest in this country to pay wealthy Americans money? This is not a tax cut. This is a welfare program financed by nonAmericans, to a substantial degree, to provide more disposable income to the most affluent among us. I dare say this sacrifices our national security.

We hear many in this Chamber, particularly on the Republican side, express concern about China. We are in the position now where we need China to fuel our economy. We need many of those Middle Eastern nations who are not democratic to fuel our economy. As Mr. Ryan and Mr. Meek pointed out, in excess of $1 trillion has been borrowed from foreigners to pay for tax cuts for the most wealthy of Americans.

This makes no sense, Mr. Speaker. It makes no sense from a national security perspective. If we have concerns about China and China's being a potential adversary, why do we continue to borrow money from the Chinese communist regime? Why, Mr. Speaker? It is a question I would like to have somebody answer.

If the gentleman will yield for a moment. You know, how about building some roads here in the United States? How about rehabilitating schools and constructing new schools with taxpayer dollars generated at the Federal level.

Rather than doing that for the United States here, what about our fellow citizens who were ravaged and are expressing frustration ever every single day in the national media in the aftermath of Katrina, and Rita, and other natural disasters, who are living in cars. What about doing something here, Mr. President, for Americans, rather than assuming the cost of nation building in Iraq?

At a minimum, the American people deserve a debate. They deserve a debate. They deserve a debate about the implications, not just in terms of our national security, but the implications for the economic future particularly of your generation, by virtue of the costs that are being borne by American taxpayers, let alone my sons and daughters and your generation with their blood in Iraq.

I mean, from what we can infer, since the American taxpayer is bearing almost the entire burden of nation building in Iraq, let us have a debate about the concept of nation building as a key critical ingredient in the foreign policy espoused by this White House and embraced by this Republican Congress.

Because that, I would suggest, Mr. Speaker, is a marked transformation in traditional Republican principles. We have heard, even in the course of the campaign in 2000 and from previous Presidential campaigns, a denigration of nation building in terms of our foreign policy. And yet, what we have done is we have embarked upon a nation building exercise as part of our foreign policy, as part of our international relations. It is being borne by the American taxpayer.

Let me ask you this. Was al-Qaeda in Iraq prior to the invasion of Iraq?

From September 11 of 2001 to today, has anything changed in terms of our preparedness for a major terrorist attack such as we experienced in New York and here in Washington? Has anything changed according to the 9/11 report of any consequence, of anything substantial whatsoever?

They are excellent points. I think your idea about taking your one ticket and allowing a victim of Katrina and the natural disasters that befell our gulf States, invite them to come and sit in this gallery is an excellent concept. We as a group ought to consider asking our colleagues on both sides of the aisle to allow these seats to be filled by American citizens who have had their lives disrupted and their futures placed in doubt and listen to this President tell them that things are good in America and that their government is helping them. Maybe that might prompt some action, Mr. Speaker. Because just recently, 2 nights ago, there was on one of the networks a story about Americans living in cars waiting to go into trailers. How long do we expect our fellow citizens to endure that kind of an existence? We can feel sorry for those all over the globe that experience poverty, that experience tragedy in their lives, but our first obligation is to our own citizens.

When we speak of nation-building, Mr. Speaker, let's start building America again. That is where we should begin. In terms of your points regarding our lack of preparedness for a terrorist attack, let's be very candid. Those levees that were breached in Louisiana, they were breached because of natural forces, forces of nature. They very well could have been breached by a terrorist attack. And what did we see? We saw a lack of preparation, Mr. Speaker, that offended every American and really, I would suggest, shook the rest of the world because they saw an America that they did not realize existed, an America that was ill-prepared to take care of its own people.

I want to acknowledge the presence of a good colleague and a good friend and clearly a solid Republican, Steve King from Iowa. Let me pose a question to him. The gentleman from Iowa is down here on a regular basis and is an ardent advocate of his point of view. I know we are running out of time.

I think we are coming back for another hour, so we will get him on the other side here.

I will just make this statement and ask for his comment. We have been at war for almost 3 years. It will be 3 years this March. We have not had a single oversight hearing on Iraq in the committees that I serve on, including the House International Relations Committee. Not one.

There are so many questions that the American people have. There are so many questions that we all have, and yet, I would submit that we are not exercising our constitutional mandate to serve as a check and balance on the executive branch. I mean, we do have these allegations of an order of magnitude of corruption that is ongoing in Iraq today.

Let me just quote you from the Washington Times, not a liberal journal. I think you will grant me that.

This is a quote from October 28, a column by Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough, again, people that would not agree with me or my colleagues on this side of the aisle. Here is what they said: Defense officials tell us the scandal involves massive corruption in Iraq related to the United States and international funds meant for reconstruction efforts and the failure of the administration to control these funds.

I am ranking member on a subcommittee that has requested for months an oversight hearing just simply on these allegations, and I am met with silence. Let me tell you that is wrong. It is a disservice to the American people. It is a disservice to the institution, not a single hearing in 3 years.

Mr. Speaker, but the American people have a right of transparency and watching and hearing from these people. You make that effort and I understand that you do and you ask questions, but we need to do this in the light of day. There is pervasive corruption ongoing in the rebuilding of Iraq. It is offensive, and this comes from conservative columnists as well as our own military personnel and from multiple, different sources. Yet, the leadership in this House is denying the American people the right to hear.

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's embrace and affection for freedom. We all aspire to that.

I think I might have misheard, but I guess what I am asking for, is the gentleman making the statement tonight that the invasion of Iraq, the reason that we invaded that country was to liberate that country, or did we have another rationale when we debated here in this Chamber about whether to invade Iraq?

Mr. Speaker, let me pick up where we left off. And where we left off, obviously, was my very brief conversation with my friend from Iowa (Mr. King), because I can never remember a debate on the floor of this House or in any committee of this House where the rationale that was put forth by the proponents of the resolution authorizing the President to invade Iraq was to liberate the Iraqi people.

And clearly the headlines, we all remember the phrases such as mushroom cloud, links to al Qaeda, the potential for an imminent attack on the United States. The gentleman indicates that it was one of those reasons.

What I find interesting, Mr. Speaker, is why was Iraq selected. Because as I look over the map, if it was a combination of reasons, why did we not invade Iran where we had hard evidence relative to weapons of mass destruction, where we knew that they possessed the capability, where there clearly was a denial of freedom? Why did we select Iraq?

And, Mr. Speaker, if we were so concerned about democracy, if the White House had this unstated vision and goal, why did they put a coalition of the willing together that embraced some of the most tyrannical regimes on the face of the Earth? Why did we embrace Islam Karimov in Uzbekistan whose human rights record was the equal of the human rights record of Saddam Hussein? Why did Islam Karimov come to the White House and have a photo opportunity with President Bush? Why did we embrace

Turkmenbashi, another thug, Mr. Speaker, the President of Turkmenistan, who has created a cult of personality that is bizarre, who changed the names of the months of January and June? January he named after himself; and June, demonstrating his filial love for his mother, named after his mother?

Mr. Speaker, with all due respect, if democracy was the motive behind the invasion of Iraq, I fail to see the evidence, because we associated ourselves with those who deny freedom every day to their own people. They were part of the coalition of the willing. What message does that send to the world that we select despots and thugs and tyrants, some are good because they happen to serve our instant interests, our interests of the moment, but some are the worst human violators on the globe?

And with all respect to our traditional allies, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, if the President wants to bring democracy to the dark corners of the world, he does not have to go that far. He does not have to take our young men and women and put them in harm's way. When I hear that it was democracy and liberation that motivated this invasion, I cannot accept that. The evidence does not bear that out, and it was the burden of proof on the administration. They never met the test. Their rationale and their excuse were the weapons of mass destruction.

No one on this side is a pessimist, I can assure you. But it is time we leveled with the American people. It is time that we spoke the truth. It is time that we injected realism into this discourse, into this conversation that we are obliged to have with the American people.

As far as the troops are concerned, they know, Mr. Speaker, that the minority party is with them, and they know that because we have fought for their benefits when they come back from this war that we sent them to.

Mr. Speaker, if I can, what we have here, the issue has been discussed in the news in many venues across the country, about whether the pre-war intelligence was hyped, distorted, and whether the American people were misled by the White House, by the Secretary of Defense, by the Vice President.

Let me put that aside for a moment and suggest that this rosy scenario, this euphoric, unrealistic picture that is now being painted about the realities that exist currently in Iraq is also distorted, is also misleading.

As the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) indicated earlier, the empirical data, the surveys that are being conducted in Iraq have a totally different conclusion and paint a picture of a reality that has to be disturbing to all of us. Just bear with me for just a moment.

This was a poll that was done by the British Ministry of Defense. It was conducted back in October of this year. It reveals the following: 45 percent of Iraqis believe attacks against British and American troops are justified, rising to 65 percent in some provinces. Eighty- two percent, Mr. Speaker, of the Iraqi people are strongly opposed to the presence of coalition troops.

Mr. Speaker, according to this poll, less than 1 percent of the population believe coalition forces are responsible for any improvement in security.

According to this British Ministry of Defense poll, 67 percent of Iraqis feel less secure because of the occupation, and 72 percent do not have confidence in the multinational force.

This is not a question or an issue of pessimism being put forth by Democratic Members of Congress. What this demonstrates, I would submit, is the reality of Iraq today, and that is why we disagree because what we are suggesting is what we hear from the White House, what we hear from some of our colleagues in the majority party, is unrealistic. It is false.

We are not suggesting that any one of our colleagues is lying, but the facts do not support their conclusions. We all wish it was true, but Mr. Speaker, it is not true and let us accept the truth. Let us insist on honesty.

Please.

When you talk about corruption, I have a question for the administration, and it will go unanswered. I dare say the fact that it will go unanswered is a demonstration that our own democracy is not functioning as it should and that we are putting our democratic institutions, particularly this institution, at risk of erosion, because we are not allowed to ask questions that the American people want answers to.

Let me give you one question. Ahmed Chalabi is the deputy prime minister of this interim government. He is an individual who was convicted in a Jordanian court for embezzlement of some $100 million. He became a darling, if you will, of the neo-conservative movement in this country. It is alleged that he provided false intelligence that served those that were advocating the invasion in Iraq.

Later, it was reported in the news that Mr. Chalabi was under investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation; that there was in Iraq a search of his personal residence because he was suspected of providing intelligence that put American military personnel at risk to Iran; that he was a double agent for the Iranian government. Yet several weeks ago, he is meeting with the Vice President in this country and is going around here in Washington.

Please, will someone tell us what happened? Was there any validity to those allegations?

Repeat that. That is unbelievable.

We can do it together.

If I can just interrupt, I heard that in my absence the other night that there were some comments that were made about my lack of, well, made about my absence. Could you explain that to me?

Well, I am part of the 30-Something Working Group. I might be a two-fer, though. You know, I mean, I would suggest that in my case you get two for one.

Something.

Exactly. It is a very loose term.

I did. I am rested up and looking forward to participating tonight.

I do concur with everything you said and, again, I want to acknowledge your commitment, your creativity, and the fact that this is an effort to allow people to participate in our conversation, because we want to know what they are interested in, and my understanding is there has been a number of questions posed. Maybe the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) or the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz) could tell me what the number is.

That is going to take some time.

This is simply an inaugural effort. It will be interesting.

Mr. Speaker, if I can, if the gentleman would yield, what I would like to do is try to emphasize that these questions have been posed by Republicans as well as Democrats regarding intelligence, whether it was manipulated, or whether it was used in a selective fashion.

Now, I am going to begin by quoting the former Secretary of State, Colin Powell, who back in June of 2004 in an interview had this to say about the issue of intelligence: In recent weeks, Powell has apologized for at least 2

lapses regarding information about Iraq and terrorism. In a recent Meet the Press appearance, Powell said that he had relied on faulty intelligence when he told the United Nations in 2003 that Iraq had biological weapons. It turned out that the sourcing was inaccurate and wrong and, in some cases, deliberately misleading.

I want to repeat that this evening, because I believe it is important that the American people pay attention to the former Secretary of State's use of words here: In some cases, deliberately misleading.

Now, he does not go on to explain who did the misleading, whose responsibility it was to review the intelligence, to ensure that the sources were reliable, whether there was manipulation. But what I find interesting, Mr. Speaker, is that we are here on this floor asking these questions years, years after Democrats have asked for full and exhaustive investigations, inquiries, and oversight hearings. We have not had a single oversight hearing. Maybe this is simply the by-product of a situation, when you have a single party controlling both branches of Congress and the White House. But if that is the case, it is damning, because it puts before the responsibilities, the constitutional responsibilities of this Congress party loyalty, and I dare say the American people will not accept that.

If I can further proceed, Mr. Speaker, a statement that the intelligence that was available to him was available to Members of Congress, both Members of the House and Members of the Senate. Well, I find that very interesting. First of all, that is inaccurate and wrong. And to support my premise or the statement I just made, I would refer my colleagues and those overhearing this conversation to read a book called The Price of Loyalty written by a journalist of some renowned, which is basically a memoir of the experiences of the former Secretary of the Treasury, Paul O'Neill whom, by the way, is a conservative Republican, a captain of industry. He ran Alcoa and was selected by this President to serve as his first Secretary of Treasury.

He relates that in the first National Security Council meeting about a week or 10 days after this President was inaugurated, prior, prior to September 11 of 2001, that he was taken aback at that meeting because he participated in those meetings by virtue of his being Secretary of the Treasury, that the focus of the Bush administration was to shift from resolving the Israeli-Palestinian issue to how this administration would deal with Iraq. He was truly taken aback by that.

About a week later, he is at another meeting where there is a map that is put forward about how the oil fields in Iraq would be divvied up; what countries and what companies would be allocated the development of those oil fields.

Go to page 96 of that book. But what was particularly interesting was on page 334. This is Secretary O'Neill, a member of the administration, a good Republican with solid conservative credentials.

In the room.

`` `In the 23 months I was there, I never saw anything that I would characterize as evidence of weapons of mass destruction,' O'Neill told Time, referring to Time Magazine. `There were allegations and assertions by people, but I have been around a hell of a long time and I know the difference between evidence and assertions and allusions or conclusions that one could draw from a set of assumptions. To me there is a difference between real evidence and everything else and I never saw anything in the intelligence that I would characterize as real evidence.' ''

``In response, a top administration official tried to dismiss O'Neill as out of the loop on weapons of mass destruction intelligence. `That information was on a need-to-know basis. He wouldn't have been in a position to see it.' ''

Just imagine this. We have the President saying that the intelligence was available to everybody. Yet a top administration official in response to the assertion by Secretary O'Neill that he never saw any evidence had this to say: ``Oh, it wouldn't have been available to him.''

That to me is just inexplicable. I think we deserve an answer from the President. We deserve an answer from the administration as to what actually happened. And I would like to hear from Secretary O'Neill sometime. I think it is important.

Neither did Paul O'Neill, the former Secretary of Treasury who served on the National Security Council.

We do not know. But you know what is sad is that this Republican majority in Congress will not allow us an oversight hearing to determine whether this report is true or not. There has not been a single hearing in the House of Representatives in terms of the Iraq war and all of the issues that we have raised here, not a single hearing; and I would submit that that is just a total abdication of our responsibility.

And they will not have a hearing. They are afraid of transparency and accountability.

They are eroding the confidence of the American people in this institution; and I would hope that they would reflect, stop, and change course. Because if it continues, it is demeaning to this institution, and it is eroding our democracy.

If I can, just for one moment, let me hold up this chart. The gentlewoman earlier talked about the monies that have been expended by American taxpayers in Iraq. There are an abundance of reports from a variety of sources about Iraq reconstruction. The biggest corruption scandal in history.

I serve as the senior Democrat, the so-called ranking member on a subcommittee of International Relations that ought to be looking into these assertions and allegations. I do not know if they are true.

We have had colleagues that have corresponded seeking to have hearings. This is just some of the quotes.

``It is possibly one of the largest thefts in history.'' This is the Iraqi finance minister speaking about more than $1 billion missing from the Iraqi Defense Ministry.

``This country is filled with projects that were never completed or were completed and have never been used.'' This is a U.S. civil affairs officer who asked not to be identified.

``We were told to stimulate the economy any way we can, and a lot of money was wasted in the process.'' That is Captain Kelly Mims, part of the Army liaison team in Falujah.

``We were squandering the money we were entrusted to handle. We were a blind mouse with money.'' That is Bill Keller, former deputy advisor to the Iraqi Communications Ministry, referring to reconstruction projects.

``I presume that some of them are ghost employees, but we paid them.'' That is Frank Willis, former Coalition Provisional Authority, regarding the payments of salaries to 2,400 people who did not exist.

``I presume that some of them are ghost employees, but we paid them.''

We have wasted billions of dollars of taxpayers' money in Iraq, and yet not a single hearing. And I do not want a hearing where some administration official comes up and presents a 5-minute overview and we have 5 minutes to question. I am talking about a thorough, exhaustive investigation done by staff on both sides of the aisle and by serious Republicans and Democrats who find this kind of waste and scandal abhorrent.

Mr. Speaker, if I can for a moment, I want to take issue with the President's statement relative to support the troops and that asking questions somehow undermines that support. That is false. That is inaccurate.

There is not a Member in this House on either side of the aisle, I cannot believe there is an American anywhere in this country, that does not fervently pray that these young men and women come home, come home without wounds, but I will talk about support for the troops because I believe that if there is a grade to be given for supporting the troops by this White House, it is a failure. It is a failure.

How many letters have we, and again, not just Democrats, but Republicans, sent to this White House complaining about the lack of vests, complaining about the unarmored humvees that so many of our young troops have been killed, permanently maimed, and yet we still have problems? It is an issue that has been lingering for years, not just for months.

I am not suggesting that that was intended, but it is a demonstration of the incompetence of this administration, and underscores, if we are talking about supporting the troops, the lack of that support.

You referenced earlier about veterans. It is easy for the President to wish the troops well as they march into war, and yet it was this White House, this administration, that submitted a budget for the Veterans Administration that was $2.5 billion less than hopefully the budget that this Congress will pass.

Let me suggest to the White House that that demonstrates callousness and turning your back on those young men and women in Iraq, and it is absolutely a stain on our national honor.

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield.

Mr. Speaker, there is no doubt that we know that he did have weapons of mass destruction because we provided, during the 1980s, the means for the development of those weapons to Saddam Hussein.

Members of this administration, former Secretary of State Colin Powell, the Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, they clearly knew because they were involved in assuring that the means to develop weapons of mass destruction were provided to the Saddam Hussein regime.

That is from the VFW.

That is the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

Mr. Speaker, it was interesting to listen to our Republican colleagues and friends in the previous hour. I heard the word ``reform'' over and over again. I heard the term ``fiscal responsibility.'' I heard the concept or the phrase ``spending cuts reining in'' and ``making government smaller.''

And they kept referring to Democrats and the minority side with certain gestures. I guess my response is, who has been running this place for 12 years? Who has been in charge, Mr. Speaker, for 12 years? It was in 1994 that the Republicans came to power and took control of this body. Twelve years ago. Is it just dawning on you now that fiscal responsibility is essential to our economy, essential to the future of our children? And reform, you have had 12 years to do reform. They speak of the veterans and health care and they recite statistics and they were mostly newer Members of the Republican Party that spoke here tonight, so maybe they are unaware of what the Republican leadership in the House did about a year or two ago. The chairman of the veterans services committee, the then chairman was the gentleman from New Jersey, someone whom I disagree with on occasion, but for whom I have great respect because he tells it like it is and he stands tall, and if he believes in something his commitment is unwavering. He made a big mistake. He sided with the VFW. He sided with the American Legion and the DAV, Disabled American Veterans organization. These are the people who understand best. They are not governmental organizations. They are nonprofit voluntary associations of veterans.

Who do not give money to politicians. But because he sided with them in terms of their priorities, their expression of what was needed to properly respect the needs of American servicepeople who have done so much for this country, you know what happened to him? Now, they probably do not know this. He got fired, for all intents and purposes. He was removed as chairman of that veterans services committee. And that is Chris Smith, a man of courage and moral principle.

I say to the gentleman from Ohio, how about some welfare reform? Welfare reform for the oil industry and welfare reform for the pharmaceutical companies. You know, when they speak to the issue of welfare reform, they are not talking about the oil industry or the drug manufacturers. No, they are not talking about those folk. They are not talking about corporate welfare. And as you just indicated, $16 billion to go to Big Oil for what? For an industry that just had record profits.

As you indicated earlier, they were up here today, brought up here by Republicans because it is so embarrassing to have passed an appropriation and provided subsidies for Big Oil, and then they report these incredible profits. I mean, it was embarrassing.

Because he sided with the veterans of foreign wars, with the American Legion, with the disabled veterans and the various veterans services organizations.

And the American people. Because the American people want to take care of the veteran. Before we leave the veteran issue, if anyone who should be watching our conversation this evening has any doubts, do not call us. Do not call our offices. Do not call the offices of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Do not call the Republican Members. Do not call the Republican leadership. Call the Veterans of Foreign Wars where you live. Call the American Legion where you live.

MS. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. We have a very important holiday coming up the day after tomorrow, and each of us is hoping that we have an opportunity to go home and look our veterans in the eye and tell them how much we appreciate and honor them. And I know that I will be able to do that in good conscience. I know that I will stand proud with my veterans and tell them that I did everything I could and will continue to do everything I can and House Democrats will continue to do everything we can to ensure that we honor their service.

I certainly would not want to be any Member of Congress with an R next to their name that votes for this bill tomorrow if it comes up on the floor because, growing up, my mom always told me that the guide that I should use when making a decision was whether I was going to be able to sleep well and then wake up in the morning and look at myself in the mirror and be comfortable with the decision that I made and know that I did the right thing.

Well, I wonder just how well our Republican friends on the other side of the aisle are going to be sleeping tonight. They have a lot for their stomach to be churning about; and for those that are going to wake up in the morning and decide that they are going to vote ``aye'' and support this legislation, I do not know how the very next morning they are going to be able to stand on the podium with their veterans and look them in the eye and say that they continue to honor them.

And, you know, we sometimes stand here and people listening to us or, Mr. Speaker, sometimes people might think that, you know, this is just our opinion, that we are obviously committed Democrats and committed to our beliefs and our agenda. But we are here every night not representing just our own opinion, although we certainly do vociferously express our opinion. We like to make sure that we bring third-party validators to back up the opinion that we are espousing on this floor.

I just want to read an excerpt from a letter that was sent to each Member of Congress, all 535 Members of us, of these two Chambers, on Monday, November 7, 2005 by Robert E. Wallace who is the executive director of the Veterans of Foreign Wars Washington office. And I am hopeful that I am not being repetitive. I am not sure if you have already read his words. But, you know, for those that may question whether or not we know what we are talking about or that we are exaggerating or engaging in hyperbole when it comes to what is in this bill and the priorities of the Republican leadership versus our priorities when it comes to commitment to veterans, he says:

``Dear Senator or Representative. To all Members of Congress, we have at the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States, VFW, observed for the past several months astonishing efforts to cast veterans who have been found to be severely disabled by the Department of Veterans Affairs' own determinations as undeserving of the veterans benefits their grateful Nation has provided for them in the law. This assault on the most vulnerable members of the veteran community, disabled in service to this country and suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, is broad in its scope and execution. At a time when the VA should be preparing to serve combat veterans returning from the war on terrorism being fought in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, they are expending their limited resources planning a systematic effort to reduce or remove benefits earned by the parents and older siblings of the troops fighting in the field today.''

Well, that is not Tim Ryan saying it. That is not Debbie Wasserman Schultz or Bill Delahunt or Kendrick Meek saying it. That is the executive director of the VFW's Washington office.

Well, I think what is going on is that there is a misunderstanding on the part of the Republican leadership when they speak of patriotism. Patriotism is not about a parade. It is not simply respect for the flag. It is about treating the men and women who go to war for us, who serve the country with respect.

That is what patriotism is about.

We hear a lot about patriotism on the floor of this House, and I am sure that those words are uttered with great conviction and sincerity. But I guess what we are trying to convey is that patriotism is not just rhetoric.

Remember what Franklin Delano Roosevelt used to say during World War II? Shared sacrifice. Who is sacrificing for our veterans? Those that receive this egregious tax benefit who are among the most affluent in America. I daresay if those people were inquired of, one by one, they would say, Take that tax break; I want the veterans to be respected.

Did you hear about reform?

Did you hear about limited government? Did you hear about fiscal responsibility?

You know what is interesting? I served with a gentleman who is a genuine conservative and he was part of the leadership on the Republican side. He chose not to run again. And I guess that must be a very liberating experience, because he recently spoke out and this is what he said:

Our President is publicly oblivious to criticism, although off-the- record reports indicate his patience is running thin inside the White House. He argues the right wing is now spending like profligates with no tomorrow, and is displaying a very real arrogance. What they say about absolute power is coming to reality.

Those words were written by, as I said, a former member of the Republican leadership, Representative J.C. Watts of Oklahoma, a conservative, a man of principle.

As I said earlier, we have heard about reform. We hear about we have got to limit government. Well, what have they been doing for 12 years?

Maybe it is just that they do not get it. They have not been here long enough to understand that they have been in power for 12 years. I mean, we have a single-party government in this country today, the Senate, the House, and the White House. And yet conservatives like the President of the American Conservative Union, David Keen, he noted in a letter to members that Federal spending has increased by $300 billion since George Bush took office, including $96 billion for domestic social welfare programs. By comparison, Keen said, spending increased by only $51 billion during President Clinton's 8 years. So I guess what we are talking about is the capacity of an administration to spend money wisely and effectively.

We heard about welfare reform, Mr. Speaker, and yet we have created a welfare state for major corporations. We have created in Iraq a welfare state for Iraqis. And as we have said here before, it was the Republican majority that insisted that the money that goes to Iraq, to rebuild Iraq, never be paid back to the American taxpayers. That just does not make any sense. That makes absolutely no sense. And we stood here on this floor and said, Make it a loan so that we get the money back, so that we can use it to control the deficit, this deficit that is the product of this administration and this Congress.

When Bill Clinton left office, there was a surplus of $5.6 trillion. And I kept hearing something about facts over here. Well, that is a fact that they should recognize, the Republican majority. Bill Clinton left a surplus for the American people. And what do we have now? We have trillions, trillions of a deficit that will explode in future years harming the interests of generations of Americans to come.

Mr. Speaker, may I say something?

I do not know if the gentlewoman had the opportunity to listen earlier to our friends and colleagues, but they talked about common sense and they talked about respect for families. And yet in their proposal there is a cut of some $5 billion in a category called child support enforcement.

Now, common sense would dictate that if you invest money, if you invest $1 and get $4 in return that you do it because that is a good deal. Well, that is a bureaucratic term, child support enforcement. Really what it comes down to is, in most cases, deadbeats, deadbeat fathers who are running out on their obligation to their children, leaving mom and the children without any support, and forcing them onto welfare.

So instead of really demonstrating common sense, this Republican budget reduces the enforcement of audits on fathers to provide support for their children and former wives. It eliminates that or reduces it by $5 billion, and that translates, if you look at it as a business decision, into a loss of some $20 billion, $20 billion that would go to support children in this country.

What did he do?

Is that mandatory?

Is this a semester-long course?

Not being facetious for a moment, we have, I would submit, a very serious problem in terms of the health of our democratic institutions. There has not been, and if you reflect, you will not be able to identify another administration with the obsession for secrecy that this administration has.

What I found particularly interesting, the Republican chairman, highly respected, former Governor of New Jersey, Tom Kean, who headed the independent 9/11 Commission report, he observed that many so-called classified documents he reviewed in the course of their investigation were not true secrets as much as there was information that was publicly available.

It just did not make any sense at all. And what we have seen is a 25 percent increase on documents being classified almost on an annual basis in this administration. We know that they refuse to submit to any oversight or any accountability, and the American people should know that.

In a moment of candor, a friend of ours, again a senior member of the Republican Caucus, had this to say. He aptly characterized recent congressional oversight of the administration. This is Mr. Ray LaHood, a very solid Member and someone respected on both sides of the aisle. These are his words, not mine. This is Ray LaHood, whom the Speaker and every Member in this body knows and respects.

``Our party controls the levers of government. We are not about to go out and look beneath a bunch of rocks to try to cause heartburn.''

In other words, you have a shroud of secrecy that has descended around the democratic institutions that are controlled by the majority party. That is dangerous.

And if you disagree with them, what happens?

Right. Ask General Shinseki, who was dismissed when he disagreed, when he gave just a different opinion as to the number of troops that were going to be required in Iraq. He said 300,000. The then-Under Secretary of Defense, Mr. Wolfowitz, said, Hey, that is vastly overrated. Subsequently, we have discovered that the good general was correct.

What about Larry Lindsey, who was an economic adviser to the President and who came out with an estimate that the range of dollars that would be necessary in Iraq would go from $100 billion to $200 billion. We are way past $200 billion now. But the administration, the White House, kept saying it will not exceed $60 billion. The American people should remember that.

And what happened to Larry Lindsey? He got bumped too.

I would suggest, I say to the gentleman, that it is a little late.

Mr. Speaker, again, I am pleased to join the younger Members, both in age, I want to be very clear about that, as well as time and service, if you will, in this House. I was back in my office, and I apologize for being somewhat late, but I had business to attend to.

I heard my colleagues talking and having this conversation relative to Medicaid. But being, if you will, the senior Member, and I would acknowledge honorary member of the 30-something Group, I really felt compelled to leave my office and come here and address the issue of Medicare, since shortly I will be receiving my Medicare card. It is a year or so away, but I am really getting close. I think it is important to remind senior citizens that they are at risk in this budget process. Now, we do not know what is going to happen, but we know that there have been a variety of proposals out there.

Now, it is my understanding that the other branch of Congress has concluded the budget process and has made cuts in regards to Medicare. Can any of my colleagues help me in terms of what the order of magnitude of those cuts are to Medicare and what does it portend, what does it mean in terms of services and health care for senior citizens in this country, if the Senate cuts should prevail?

Maybe the gentleman can help confirm what I just heard when I was in the cloakroom, and that is over 10 years, it is $40 billion that is reduced from Medicare. Obviously, we are not consulted, and it is not something that we would support. But what does it mean in terms of actual delivery of health care services to seniors? What does it mean? Has anyone explained this to older Americans who need Medicare?

Not Medicaid, but Medicare.

Over 10 years.

I am confused. Again, maybe one of my colleagues or somebody could contact my office or contact the Web site and explain to us what it will mean in terms of the delivery of health care to older Americans if that $40 billion cut is accepted.

Let us remember, by the way, and I think we really should acknowledge our respect for a group of Republicans that comprise the Republican Study Committee, there are in excess, I understand, of 100 Republican Members who belong to this particular group who have the political courage, and I think we should acknowledge that, to stand up and say, if they had their way, they would really cut Medicare.

This is their proposal: they would increase Medicare part B premiums from 25 to 30 percent. What that translates into, my friends, is a cut over 10 years of $85 billion to Medicare, imposing a huge burden on seniors.

But that is not the end of what the Republican Study Committee budget would do. They would restructure Medicare's cost-sharing requirement over a 10-year period; that would be an $87 billion cut. They would go further by imposing a home health care copayment of 10 percent, and that translates into almost a $32 billion cut.

Now, if my math is correct, that amounts to, or that is a cut over 10 years, that this particular group would embrace, in excess of $200 billion to Medicare.

Now, maybe you can help me. I keep hearing how health care costs are continuing to rise and are escalating. And yet, this particular group, the Republican Study Committee budget, if their plan was adopted while health care costs are increasing, they would reduce Medicare funding by $200 billion according to the budget that they announced several months ago in terms of what they were calling Operation Offset.

Now, obviously, we would never, I cannot imagine a single Democrat supporting that particular approach, but I think, Mr. Speaker, we should acknowledge the courage that they have, or not courage, but at least their willingness to be open and transparent and provide us with their blueprint for America, despite the fact that I do not think there is a Democrat, I know there is not a Democrat that would support it. But what do all these cuts mean?

Over 10 years

Well, if I can ask a question, who is paying for the creation or the establishment of all of those primary health care centers in Iraq? Who is paying for that?

Well, if I can, when will that money be paid back to the American taxpayer?

Well, there are some things that we do know. We know this, that there was a debate on this floor several years ago where billions of dollars were appropriated to rebuild Iraq. And those of us on the Democratic side supported that funding, if, if it were going to be provided in the form of a loan because we were concerned about American taxpayers being repaid their money. But the Republican leadership, at the insistence of the White House, said, No way; we are going to give this money to Iraq.

So what we have done, and I think there is an irony here, we have provided free of charge, no interest, no money to be returned, we have provided good health care for Iraqis. We have built 110 primary health care centers. We have educated 2,000 health care professionals. We have vaccinated 3.2 million children. And I think we all applaud that and support that.

We have rehabilitated 2,700 schools. We have paid the salaries and trained 36,000 teachers in Iraq. We have provided $1 billion for safe drinking water and we have marshland restoration initiatives going on in Iraq.

We have built, or we have completed some 3,100 community action programs. We have provided millions for the construction of housing and public buildings for Iraqi citizens. We have rebuilt railways for Iraqis.

And you know what else we did? We rehabilitated a canal system. We built a dam, a beautiful dam, a dam that will hopefully serve well the Iraqi people. We built this dam in Mosul. At the same time, we are cutting millions from the Army Corps of Engineers, including funding for levee construction in Louisiana, Mr. Speaker, in Louisiana. We did that free of charge.

Now, we support it. But you know what? We would hope, given the abundance of energy reserves that the Iraqis have that they would pay us back once they get on their feet. But, no, you know, here is the President that said he didn't believe in nation building. I did not know he was talking about America. But he must believe it when it comes to Iraq. How about doing it for our fellow citizens in Louisiana and Mississippi and Texas that have been devastated by natural disaster?

It is worse than that. You know what is happening in Louisiana, Mr. Speaker? You know what is happening? They have got a bill for $4 billion. That is the estimate. If they want help from the Federal Government they have got to come up with some $4 billion. I think it was the State treasurer there that requested the estimate, and he said we asked for a grant. We asked for a grant, and they gave us a loan. And yet we are doing the opposite in Iraq.

As a Nation, a government, your primary obligation or responsibility goes to your own people. That is what we should be doing. And the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek) is so right.

But they want $4 billion from the State of Louisiana, and the State of Louisiana's annual budget is $8 billion. So half of it would go to the Federal Government so that Louisiana can get relief from their Federal Government. That just does not make sense.

What the gentleman is saying in effect is that we are borrowing money from China so that we can create a welfare state in Iraq. We have become a conduit. That in very simple terms is what is happening because we are borrowing our way into bankruptcy to cut taxes and to support programs, not for American citizens, but for Iraqis who deserve this help but at least should be required to pay it back. That is what it comes down to. Meanwhile, our own citizens in the States, particularly the gulf States, they have to ask the Federal Government for help; and what they hear is, we will give you help, but it will come in the form of a loan. You have got to do matching funds.

I think we have got to be friends to our Republican colleagues too, because there are many Republicans that have spoken out about the incompetence of what has transpired in Iraq, have spoken out about the folly of the approach to the war.

Senator Pat Roberts from a neighboring State to Missouri and Kansas, back in May of 2004, that is a year and a half ago, he made this observation, now he is a Republican, a respected Republican: ``We need to restrain our growing U.S. messianic instincts, a sort of global engineering where the United States feels it is both entitled and obligated to promote democracy by force if necessary.''

That comes from a highly respected Republican, and yet what do we hear from the White House? We have to stay the course, but please, please temper can the White House not just stand up and say that we were wrong? We have heard other individuals say that. They would gain respect.

Senator Lugar, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, a highly well-respected Midwestern Republican senator, this is what he had to say back in September of last year: ``Our committee heard blindly optimistic people from the administration prior to the war and people outside the administration, what I call'' and these are his words, ``the `dancing in the street crowd' that we just simply will be treated with open arms. The nonsense of all that is apparent. The lack of planning is apparent.''

You know what? Now, we face another scandal. We have heard about scandals in the past 6 months to a year. We talk about special interests on this hill, but there is a scandal brewing out there, and the American people are going to discover it.

It was reported by two very conservative journalists in the conservative paper, the Washington Times. Let me quote for just a minute: ``The Bush administration is facing another scandal that is quietly bubbling away in the background as most press attention is focused on the'' Plame affair.

``Defense officials tell us the scandal involves massive corruption in Iraq related to U.S. and international funds meant for reconstruction efforts and the failure of the administration to control'' and monitor ``those funds.

``The officials say conservative estimates put the amount of stolen money at about $9 billion, and that it could be as high as $15 billion.''

So you know what, many of those projects that we had hoped to do to build a Nation, to build a Nation in Iraq, that money went into somebody's pockets. It was the wild West, and you know what, I, as ranking member, the senior Democrat on the subcommittee in the Committee on International Relations dealing with oversight and investigations, have asked repeatedly, let us investigate, let us conduct oversight hearings into what has happened to that money. And you know what I hear?

Are you a patriot? Are you hearing that?

How long does it take to train a Marine?

That is right.

The entire country wants to have those questions posed, and let us be fair. There are Republicans, there are noted conservatives. We all know William F. Buckley, the founder of the Nation, a respected conservative journalist. When he heard what he has heard, he made this statement: If I knew then, meaning around the time of the debate on the war resolution, what I know now about what kind of situation we would be in, I, William F. Buckley, would have opposed the war.

That should resonate among the Republican leadership and particularly the White House, but they do not want to acknowledge that they have made mistake after mistake after mistake and are compounding it, are driving our economy into a structural deficit in an order of magnitude that we have never seen, that we will never get out of, and most importantly, the lives that have been lost and the men and women that are permanently damaged by this war of choice.

They were going to try to pull the same thing in the gulf States. They were doing the same thing. They were importing the same practices from Iraq that have resulted in this incredible brewing scandal. They were going to do the same thing right here in the gulf States, but you know what, the American people have caught on and they are backing off.

Mr. Speaker, what we need is the Congress to reassert itself, coming together on a bipartisan basis and demanding oversight because, you know what, this administration is the most secretive administration in all of American history.

Let me make one final quote, to take one final quote from another Republican, from the Midwest, from the farm belt, Senator Hagel from Nebraska. He had this to say back in 2004. This is not a Democrat. This is his language. This administration has seen Congress as an enemy and a constitutional nuisance. The world right now is in trouble, and we need to have a Congress and a President and an executive branch that is working together. Amen.

Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 7 o'clock and 53 minutes p.m.), the House adjourned until tomorrow, Wednesday, November 9, 2005, at 10 a.m.

If my friend would yield for a moment, I do not know if you are aware or had the opportunity to read the editorial today from the New York Times, but it follows with what we read in the Congressional A.M., so to speak. Let me just read the first paragraph here:

That rare bird, the moderate Republican lawmaker, is suddenly in sight, forcefully objecting to the House leadership's abominable package of budget cuts. The 5-year, $54 billion proposal is

headed for a floor vote this week disguised as an overdue act of fiscal responsibility and government savings. In truth, it is so over-the-top in its inequities and giveaways that embarrassed moderates are actually rebelling, withholding support unless some of the more outrageous measures are killed.

Again, we do not know what is going to happen this week. The Republicans are having discussions intraparty, clearly without any consultation with our side of the aisle, but we know that is the rule rather than the exception. What we do know, however, is that the Senate Finance Committee reported a bill that cut Medicare, not Medicaid but Medicare, by $5.7 billion over 5 years and by $40 billion over 10 years. What does that mean? What can those such as myself who will shortly be eligible for Medicare at age 65 expect in terms of Medicare? There is a group within the Republican caucus called the Republican Study Group. They came in with a proposal to defer that so-called prescription drug benefit for 2 years. I think we are going into very uncertain times, uncharted waters, if you will.

I think it is important for those who might be viewing our conversation right now for you to explain what you mean by negotiating down in what was in the original prescription drug so- called part D benefit plan that most of us voted against because of its cost and because of the fact that it does not really deliver what senior citizens need in terms of their prescription drugs.

Because of the bulk purchasing power.

But that did not happen, did it?

There are 228 Republican members here in this Chamber.

No, I want to commend all of you for your eloquence, your commitment. I think you ought to describe, you know, how this particular group was formed. I know I really speak for the other members of the Democratic Caucus when I say that we are very proud of your commitment, your hard work, and your dedication to the American people, because you are 30-something. You are all under 40. But it is really impressive. And I have to tell you that in many ways you are leaders now, but I am confident that you represent the future; and as more and more people listen to you, particularly people of your generation, they are going to think about these issues in a more serious way. They are going to educate themselves, because you are presenting reality.

You know, I would describe what the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek) said is that tragically there is a great difference between walking the walk and talking the talk. It is great to talk about patriotism. You are right. There is going to be a lot of speeches on November 11, and terms and phrases such as a ``debt of gratitude'' to our veterans, to the men and women that have served this country and are currently serving our country now, whether it be Iraq, Afghanistan or in the multiple deployments of our armed services.

The gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek) is so right. The reality is that when they come home, will they have good quality health care available to them? Will they have access to the kind of care that they deserve? Will they receive the benefits that the generations that served in World War II, that served in the Korean War, in Vietnam have?

And the gentleman is right. There just simply are not the resources there. We can paper it over by passing supplementary or emergency budgets just to get through a difficult time. But I would suggest to our veterans to listen to their leadership and what they have said about the budget proposals on veterans' health care that have been put forth time and time and time again by the Republican Party in this House. We all see letters describing them in various terms.

Now, I am speaking of the American Legion, the VFW, the Disabled Veterans of America, the Paralyzed Veterans of America. The word that comes to my mind is a disgrace, a shame, and a dishonor to the veterans.

The gentleman speaks about third party validators to corroborate the facts as we are presenting them. Do not listen to us. Go to the leadership of these veterans service organizations if you are a veteran and ask. Unfortunately, what we are saying is truthful and accurate, and I would suggest that while we might be talking the talk, what reveals our real character is the commitment that we make. We can go and speak to the troops and tell them that we care, but we all have to make some sacrifice.

We have an all-volunteer Army and we are comfortable here. And most people in this country, because of the policies of this government, are not involved in the sacrifices that are currently being made by our military personnel all over the world. We owe it to them. It is just not policy. It is a moral obligation.

We speak of values. And I daresay that when we turn our backs by our actions on our veterans that we are not living up to the values and the moral authority that we proclaim again and again. We are indulging in hypocrisy, and that is all too sad.

Madam Speaker, I would just make another observation.

Again, we hear much in terms of our public discourse about values and about responsibility towards our fellow citizens, and yet, I was really struck by a headline that appeared in USA Today last week. The headline was ``Louisiana Cannot Pay Katrina and Rita Bills.''

The Federal Government is requiring the State of Louisiana to come up with almost $4 billion as its share for relief from the devastation of those two hurricanes. They have no tax base left practically. New Orleans we know has been devastated. The entire annual budget for the State of Louisiana is $8 billion. It is as if we are turning our back on other Americans, and yet we are giving away billions of dollars without any strings attached, with no matching fund requirements when it comes to Iraq.

Madam Speaker, we are paying for roads in Iraq. We are paying for affordable housing in Iraq. We are paying for dams and levees in Iraq. The American taxpayer will not see a dime in return, and yet, when it comes to our fellow citizens, we are saying if you want that share, come up with $4 billion that they do not have.

Well, I cannot understand why anyone would ask about my accent, because I would submit that I am the only person in this Chamber tonight that does not have an accent.

Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, I am just so impressed with my friend from Nevada, and I really do mean that so sincerely, to come here and to acknowledge that the vote that was taken 3 years ago was a mistake because the American people and Members of Congress were misled. It is that simple.

Members should be aware of the fact that the Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Pat Roberts, it was reported, recently said that if the information had been available, he doubted that the resolution authorizing the invasion into Iraq would have passed the United States Senate. That, to me, really spoke volumes.

But if I could just for one moment get back to a point that was raised by the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek) earlier, and if he could again just show that chart to our friends and colleagues.

Let us just read the title again. ``President Bush does in 4 years what 42 presidents managed in 224 years,'' and that is borrow from foreign governments, borrow from foreign governments the moneys needed to finance the war and finance a tax cut that is primarily created to benefit 1 percent of the American people.

Now, the President speaks of an ``ownership society.'' We have heard that term before. I think it was interpreted by most of the American people that they would have the American dream realized for themselves and their children. But what is happening is America is being mortgaged. America is being sold.

Mr. Speaker, I know that you are aware of this and many of our colleagues, that when debt issues from the Treasury Department, who is purchasing that debt? It is the Chinese Central Bank, the Japanese Central Bank, the Korean Central Bank, individuals and governments in the Middle East. We are being bought by foreign governments that do not share our values.

So not only are we becoming economically dependent on this debt that is being purchased by, in some cases, potential adversaries, but we are eroding our own national security. What if we have political differences with any of these nations?

We constantly hear from the Republicans a concern about Taiwan and what the Chinese are doing in the Formosa Straits. There is a lot of chest-thumping about we cannot let that happen. But if we get right down to it, we are beholden to the Chinese Central Bank. We are selling our country to foreign interests. That is why this is so shocking. Now it is something that I dare say most Americans do not understand, but it is the reality.

If the Chinese wish to leverage our political decisions, all they have to do is say, ``We are not going to continue to finance your debt, the debt that you used to give tax cuts that benefited in a disproportionate way to the billionaires, the 1 percent of Americans.''

He is going to own that interest rate, too, because that is interest rate is going up.

Mr. Speaker, could I just for a moment speak on behalf of those who have white hair and are looking towards receiving Medicare. The United States Senate is sending over a budget to this body, and there will be a so-called conference committee that will reconcile the differences; and in that Senate budget is, for the first time in my experience, and I have been here 9 years, a significant cut not in Medicaid, but in Medicare.

If my colleagues remember, there was a former Speaker of this body by the name of Newt Gingrich. He would come to this floor frequently at this hour of the night, have conversations that were noted by the American people, and he talked on one occasion about beginning to reduce Medicare and allowing it to wither on the vine.

Well, every American who shares the color of my hair ought to be aware of what has happened in the other branch, in the Senate, in terms of Medicare, because I do not want to say it is the beginning of the initiative or the concept of allowing Medicare to wither on the vine, but every American should be aware that there is a cut to that particular program that has saved the lives and extended the lives of millions of elderly Americans.

Mr. Speaker, there is another crisis coming too, and that is the cost of home heating fuel in the Northeast and in the Midwest that is going to strike particularly the elderly. As we know, gas is about $3 a gallon, and the utilities are now predicting that families could pay as much as 70 percent more in terms of their heating bill. The Energy Department predicts that the cost of natural

gas is going to go up by some $350 next season. At the same time that that is happening, we hear that Big Oil has done rather well.

For example, Exxon-Mobile recently reported that its profits in this past quarter, the third quarter, increased 75 percent.

Not a bad quarter. In one quarter, Exxon-Mobile had a net profit of $10 billion. Simultaneously, today in the Budget Committee, there was a motion, a motion to increase the so-called LIHEAP program.

It was a Democratic motion. It would have increased the funding for that particular program, which allows low-income people, primarily elderly people, to benefit from a purchase of discounted energy, whether it be oil or gas, but primarily oil.

While Exxon-Mobile is making $10 million, in the Budget Committee today, Mr. Speaker, the Republican majority said, no, we are not going to increase that program. And, by the way, the chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee said no to any rescission of the $16 billion that this Republican-controlled Congress passed in the form of subsidies for Big Oil this year. If you are investing in oil this year, it was reminiscent of the gold rush back in 1849. You really scored well. Now, is that what we are about as a people? Are we not violating a social compact, a covenant, where we all come together and get through the hard times?

The oil companies are a good place to begin.

Can someone explain to me, anybody, why the oil companies, that had revenues in the last quarter of some $100 billion, each and every one of them saw huge increases in terms of their net profits, why they need subsidies?

Mr. Speaker, I think it has become clear to us, and, again, also I think it is important to note that many on the other side of the aisle have started to speak out. I know that requires considerable courage and that has to be acknowledged. But it is clear that if there could be an appropriate description of this administration, put aside philosophical differences, the fact is that they reflect an ideology that really in many respects is outside of the traditional, mainstream of Republican principles. But the word that I would use to characterize it is that, yes, it is cronyism, but at a fundamental level it has been an administration that has been incompetent.

So this is a question of ability to govern. We know that they do not like government. They see government as a problem. They do not like to govern. So I guess it is understandable. They want to starve government. They want to limit it. And that is a valid argument.

But there are times in this country when you need government. You need a strong military. You need to be prepared to defend the homeland. You need the kind of programs that can be run forthrightly, honestly and effectively that give every American a chance; a chance for an education, a chance for housing, for health care.

I think that this is all part of what we become when we are born as American citizens. We are participants in a social compact that says we are individuals and we have individual liberties and we will always advocate for those liberties, we will fight for those freedoms. But, at the same time, we have mutual responsibilities to each other. That is the essence of our greatness.

But if you do not like government, if you do not see a role for government, then you do not do a very good job when it comes to governance.

Government, with all due respect, and I do not disagree, but what government is about, it is about representing the people.

Mr. Speaker, it was the Founders that created representative government. The Founders believed in government. The Constitution created the government. We should be proud of our government, because this government has served well the American people for better than two centuries. But they do not like to govern. They do not care about governance. They do not need government. They do not need student loans. They do not need Medicare. They certainly do not need Medicaid. They do not need the kind of services that government can provide, because they believe that America could be best served by a society where individuals go their own separate ways.

Well, there has to be a balance if we are going to have a strong country and a strong America.

Yes, we can be critical, we can be very critical of the administration, but let us understand too that Congress has earned its share of blame for the mistakes of this administration, for the incompetence of this administration. Every student of American Government knows that it is the responsibility of Congress to oversee the executive, to take a look at what government agencies are doing.

But this Congress, and maybe this is a by-product of having a single party control all aspects of government, and we can understand that. It is difficult to criticize a President of your own party. You are reluctant to do that. That is natural. But more and more of our friends on the other side of the aisle are speaking out, and more Republicans outside of this institution are speaking out.

But it is the responsibility of the majority to work with the minority, in this case Democrats, to exercise oversight, to take a look at what is wrong, what is going wrong in this country today, and they refuse to. They are afraid, because if they start to peel off the onion, they are going to find something very ugly. And as Joe Gallaway recently wrote, and he happens to be the senior military correspondent for the Knight Ridder news agencies, that when the time comes to point a finger, do not forget, and he is speaking about the war, those who people the marble Halls of the U.S. Congress whose first duties seem to be to protect the Republican Party and their President.

That is the problem. How many times have Members, senior Members of the minority requested investigations, inquiries, oversight hearings into real problems? We heard earlier, for example, from this side, people talking about the troops and the need, the need to respect our troops. Yet, it was the Democrats that started to question the Department of Defense about why our troops were not outfitted with body armor. Why were they being compelled to use Humvees that were not properly armored? It was Democrats, along with a few courageous Republicans who said, you know what, we are not adequately funding health care for veterans. We can wave

the flag and speak of patriotism and send these young men and women to Iraq, but when they come home, they are not going to have the kind of health care that they deserve.

But the reality is, my friend, that they are taking good care of the oil companies. They are providing $16.5 billion in subsidies to the oil companies that are breaking all kinds of records in terms of profits. I cited the example of ExxonMobil, but that is only one out of four or five. In one quarter, in 3 months, their net profit was $10 billion.

Mr. Speaker, the truth is, and the facts are very clear, that the majority party, the Republicans in Congress, do believe in the welfare state. They are advocates of the welfare state, but it is restricted. It is restricted to a constituency, and that constituency is corporate America. Not small business America, not even midsized business, but the very largest corporations, whether they be pharmaceutical companies that they have given more than $100 billion worth of taxpayers' money in subsidies, but also oil companies, at the same time when oil companies are breaking records.

Mr. Speaker, I have to tell my colleagues something about corruption. My colleagues have not seen anything yet.

If you think about it in terms of individuals and then extrapolate to nations, it is really easy to understand. We are borrowing a trillion dollars. Let us say we are borrowing, just for the sake of discussion purposes, half of that from the Chinese Central Bank, the Communist Central Chinese Bank. As you indicate, they are educating some 600,000 engineers. How do they pay for that? Well, you know how they paid for part of it? The American taxpayer, Mr. Speaker. When they pay the interest on the debt to the Chinese, that allows the Chinese to fund the education of some 600,000 students in technical schools in China.

Well, we are paying for their education in China. We are paying for roads, 6,000 miles of roads in Iraq, 5,000 units of affordable housing, Mr. Speaker, in Iraq. We are paying for, you know, primary health care centers in Iraq; and you know what we are doing in the United States? We are cutting everything.

We built a beautiful dam, a magnificent dam, an absolute ultimate in terms of engineering to prevent flooding. And we are familiar now with floods. Clearly, the people in New Orleans, Mr. Speaker, are very, very familiar with floods. There was a problem with a levee in New Orleans in terms of the structural defects.

But the one that I am talking about, the dam that I am talking about, that engineering marvel that we built with taxpayer dollars, American taxpayer dollars, was not built in New Orleans. It was built in Mosul, Iraq.

Where are our priorities?

Do you know what the tragedy of this is? Let us put aside for a moment indictments and a discussion of who might be indicted in the future or misconduct that violates criminal statutes.

What is truly unfortunate here is that we have reached a point where there is a culture that exists here in Washington where if there is disagreement, if there is dissent that it is described as unpatriotic.

We have heard that I think earlier this evening on the floor, the inference being that if there is any dissent or disagreement, somehow motives can be inferred that that courageous individual, in my judgment, who speaks out in opposition is somehow unpatriotic.

There was an interesting article or column just recently by Jim Hoagland in The Washington Post where he said, Mr. President, he wrote a letter to President Bush, he said, Mr. President, would it not have been easier if you had just wrote a letter to the editor in response to the opinion piece that was produced by Mr. Wilson? Would that not have been welcomed by the American people, by Members of Congress?

But what has happened is no, let us design a plan to impugn that individual's integrity. Let us try to destroy that individual. Let us try to discredit him or her. That is not what democracy is about. In fact, today I read the White House had prepared a series of talking points attacking the former National Security Advisor, Brent Scowcroft, who recently went public in saying that the policies of this Bush administration as it relates to Iraq and the Middle East are a failure. They were preparing, according to Mr. Hoagland's column, talking points to attack him. We have got to get away from this politics of destruction and ad hominem attacks and questioning individuals's patriotism. That is not what we are about.

Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, I thank my friend, and again I want to congratulate the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) and the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz) and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek) for really doing a public service. But I think it is important for a moment to reflect not just on this particular case, but what has characterized this administration from the onset, and that is a total lack of transparency, a total lack of genuine consultation. Secrecy, if you will.

What I find most fascinating are those members of the administration, people of good conscience, who have left the administration and are now speaking out. These individuals are good Republicans, good conservative Republicans who embrace genuine American values.

One of them is a former colonel in our military service, Larry Wilkerson. He also happened to be the Chief of Staff for the former Secretary of State, Colin Powell. Here is what he recently wrote in a column that I think provides the context for why this occurred. It gives us an insight into what was happening on the road to war and how little information the American people were given, how little information Members of Congress were given.

Here is what Colonel Larry Wilkerson, former Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, had to say on October 25 of 2005. One can go to the Los Angeles Times, and this same opinion piece was printed elsewhere.

``In President Bush's first term, some of the most important decisions about U.S. national security, including vital decisions about post-war Iraq, were made by a secretive, little known cabal. It was made up of a very small group of people led by Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Its insular and secret workings were efficient and swift, not unlike the decision making one would associate more with a dictatorship than a democracy.''

That is Colonel Larry Wilkerson, a Republican, former Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell.

Let me just say, and this is an understatement, this is disturbing. But this

is the atmosphere, this is the context, this is why we find ourselves in the situation where it is an embarrassment and it erodes the image of the United States. Whether you supported the war or you did not support the war, it is eroding the image of the United States all over the world, not just in the Middle East, not just in Europe, but in Latin America and in Asia.

If my friend from New Jersey would yield for a moment, I would direct my colleagues' attention to Wednesday, October 22, the Congressional Quarterly Today that you all know we receive once a week here. What is the headline? Just to reinforce and corroborate what Frank Pallone just said: ``GOP Says No to Probe of CIA Leak.'' Again and again and again, secrecy. Let us not look at it, because maybe we will find something ugly. Maybe we will find something that will embarrass the administration. Maybe we will find something that will embarrass the majority party and erode their power.

Correct. Let me suggest this: what is at risk here is not the Republican Party, not the Democratic Party, but the viability and the health of our democracy. That is why, along with some very good Republicans, we are insistent that transparency be reintroduced into the legislative process.

Mr. Speaker, again, I think that Larry Wilkerson said it very eloquently. It is more characteristic of a dictatorship than a democracy. Tragically, the Republican leadership in this House has succumbed, if you will, to this insistence on secrecy that has really been embraced by the White House. Again, this is from last week's CQ Today: Republicans are resisting requests for congressional inquiries into a possible scandal linked to the Bush administration's rationale for invading Iraq. The debate over congressional involvement mocks a reversal for the GOP majority, which once had an appetite for layering congressional investigations of alleged executive branch wrongdoing atop criminal probes.

What we have here is an abrogation of responsibility by the Republican leadership to conduct oversight; and they have become part and parcel of a cabal, if you will, of secrecy with this White House. And maybe this is what we get when we have a single-party State.

Mr. Speaker, again, CQ Weekly, this is back in July. This is an independent publication, nonpartisan in nature; but it has become a topic of discussion and concern among people who are avid supporters of the concepts of free institutions in a democracy.

It is classified. Subject: Secrecy in Washington. Date: July 18, 2005. Secrecy is becoming the rule, and there is a whole bunch of redactions, rather than the exception in the Bush administration. But it is hard to hold the Government accountable if no one knows what it is doing, and that is what is happening. And the American people ought to be aware that we do not know what is happening. We as Members of Congress do not know what is happening.

And it does not just impact issues like this. Go back to when we had that Medicare vote. You remember that. We were not allowed access to the Medicare actuary's estimate of cost for the so-called prescription drug plan. Can you imagine that?

Then the debate here on the floor, the issue of cost was some $395 billion; and many Members on the Republican side expressed concern. The White House knew all the time that it was far in excess of $500 billion, and they would not even disclose it to Members of their own party. Talk about secrecy. Talk about consultation. It is missing in Washington. We have become and we are making America a secretive society, and it is time together we take America and make it better for all of its citizens.

Mr. Speaker, I think it is important to understand that not only did the Vice President and his chief of staff, Mr. Libby, withhold information from the American people; they have made a decision to withhold from the Senate Intelligence Committee key documents. It was reported just this past week in a national magazine, the National Journal, that the Vice President and Mr. Libby overruled advice from some White House political staffers, some White House political staffers and lawyers, and decided to withhold crucial documents from the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2004. The withheld documents included intelligence data from Cheney's office and Libby in particular, that they pushed to be included in Powell's speech, referring to his presentation before the United Nations.

The new information, and I am reading here, the new information that Cheney and Libby blocked information to the Senate Intelligence Committee further underscores the central role played by the Vice President's office in trying to blunt criticism that the Bush administration exaggerated intelligence data to make the case to go to war.

They withheld it from the Senate. They withheld it from the Senate. And because there is no conduct of vigorous oversight either in this Chamber or in the Senate, our democracy is being shrouded in this cloud of secrecy.

The gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz) earlier said, What did we do it for? Why? Why? Why, I guess, is going to be the question that people will ask far into the future. If you remember, first it was about the weapons of mass destruction. No weapons of mass destruction. It was about some alleged al Qaeda links, a haven for terrorism. No al Qaeda links. Saddam Hussein despises Osama bin Laden and vice versa because Saddam Hussein, albeit an evil individual, was a secularist. He is not one of these fundamental Islamists. He is just a regional thug. And then finally it was to bring democracy to Iraq.

I think it is so ironic that we are bringing democracy to Iraq and simultaneously eroding democracy because of the secrecy in Washington,

Maybe somebody can help me, because this is a question that the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) posed, but this is directed to this specific case.

What does it tell you about an administration that will not confront a direct challenge as former Ambassador Joe Wilson put forward? Why not just simply say he is wrong and we are confident that he is wrong? But, no, furtively, in the shadows, sneakily calling reporters, we have got something. His wife works for the CIA. Whether it was illegal, whether this indictment will result in guilty, whether Karl Rove is indicted, whether others are indicted, the bottom line is what does it say about the sleaze factor that exists here in Washington when you do it that way?

A point that you made earlier and you referenced the natural disaster, and I am thinking of Katrina. We are talking about whether America is safer today than we were prior to 9/11, and we all know and I am sure the American people that are listening to our conversation here tonight appreciate this, that those levees in New Orleans, they could have been sabotaged. They could have been victimized by a terrorist cell. It did not necessarily require a natural disaster.

But here we are. We have spent billions and billions and billions of dollars on homeland security, and where are we? We are nowhere. But the American taxpayers are picking the bill up. As we discussed last week, not only are the American taxpayers spending money here and not effectively, not effectively, this has been an administration that spends the American taxpayers' dollars.

But, by the way, we are also spending money to rebuild Iraq. But rather than, like every other major donor country in Iraq that loaned the money to the Iraqi government and said we will give

you good terms but pay us back, this White House, in an act of unparalleled excess, in my judgment, made it a giveaway program: Welfare for Iraqis, but nothing for Americans. I mean, up is down and down is up. This is the Alice in Wonderland administration.

I would like to just follow up a point that the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) made about the rationale for the war. They did know, they meaning the cabal that was described by the Chief of Staff to Colin Powell. The cabal knew that they needed the threat of the mushroom cloud.

What is fascinating is that after the release of the initial report of the Senate Intelligence Committee, the chairman of the committee, a Republican, Senator Roberts from Kansas, and Jay Rockefeller, the senior Democrat on the committee, said that they doubted that the Senate would have authorized the President to go to war if senators had been given accurate information regarding Iraq's programs on the weapons of mass destruction. The direct quote of the Republican chairman was this: ``I doubt if the votes would have been there.'' That is Senator Roberts. They would not have their war if they had opened up and provided all of the information.

I am sure some of you read Bob Woodward's book, the reporter for the Washington Post, where he quoted Secretary of State Colin Powell as describing the Vice President as having a war fever. He is out of control, This is what Powell is saying. You talk about third-party validations. It is as if he had a war fever, and here we are today, rampant corruption in Iraq.

We are losing billions of dollar over there, but, as the congresswoman says, the most tragic aspect of this is that we are less safe, and, painfully, we have lost more than 2,000 American men and women.

As a consultant.

You are so right.

You are doing pretty good, though.

The gentleman is a journeyman.

This just came in.

Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, let me just pick up on a point that I think all three of my colleagues made. And the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) and I, with our colleagues in Iraq Watch, Mr. Hoeffel and Mr. Abercrombie, always commented on the absolute lack of capacity to acknowledge mistakes, and we all commended and respected David Kay.

If my colleagues remember David Kay, he was designated by this President, by President Bush, in the aftermath of the so-called major failures of combat in Iraq, to go find the weapons of mass destruction. He was an advocate for the war. He believed in the premise of weapons of mass destruction. He listened to that cabal that put out that information. And he came back and testified before that Senate committee, and those words that he said ring so true now: we were all wrong. We were all wrong.

And you know what? If the President had made a statement similar to that, as all of my colleagues here have said in different ways, it would have been applauded and we would have respected it. But they do not want to share information.

For example, this information, a Pentagon official in Washington confirmed Tuesday that al-Farouq, a top al Qaeda operative, escaped from a U.S. detention facility in Bagram, Afghanistan on July 10, months ago; and we are not informed. Some enterprising reporter presumably discovered this information; and here we are, five Members of Congress and I am sure our colleagues on the other side and members of the other branch on both sides of the aisle, unaware of this information. Why? Because it was an embarrassment. We all make mistakes. That is what we are saying. We acknowledge our imperfections. But the bottom line is that it is so tragic that we cannot come together, all of us, and make America better, go back to those genuine values that are the foundation for democracy of openness and transparency and accountability and the courage to stand up and say simply, I made a mistake.

The gentleman is right. You have all hit it.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Ohio. Before I begin to comment, let me say that over the past several months I have had a chance to observe the gentleman and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek) and the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz). They have done an extraordinary job in reviewing what is happening in America.

It is an honor to join the 30-Something Group. I think in terms of honesty, I would have to disclose that I am a bit over 30. In fact, if you allow me, I am two members of the 30-Something Group because in one body you get 30 times two and maybe a little more.

I see. I know the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone). We share the same alma mater, Middlebury College in Vermont. I know that I graduated a decade or so before the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone).

I think so.

Because we are here to be honest, because in the previous hour I think what we heard tonight from our friends on the other side an attempt at humor. I do not think that they were being dishonest. I think that they were just demonstrating a great sense of humor because I heard the term ``fiscal responsibility'' as I was watching their conversation, and I really laughed out loud.

I do not know if the gentleman from New Jersey saw it like I did, but if the Republicans in this House and in the other branch and the White House represent fiscal responsibility, we are in serious trouble. Because I remember when the gentleman and I were here during the Clinton administration when President Clinton left. My memory is, and the gentleman can help me because I am a little older, there was a surplus in excess of $5 trillion. And maybe the gentleman can tell us, is there still a surplus after the Republicans have run this government?

What we have today is a single-party state, and what has happened? It certainly is not, in my judgment, and I think we probably share this conclusion, it does not reflect fiscal responsibility. What it does reflect is an appetite to borrow money and then to spend it.

With all due respect to my friend from New Jersey, I do not think that he realizes what they meant. They really meant that they would send their kid down to the candy store with a credit card because that is how they have run this country, on a credit card. It is borrow and borrow and borrow and borrow and you know what? Sooner or later that credit card gets maxed out. And the next thing if you are a family or if you are an individual, you are down at the bankruptcy court. That is why I say when I heard the term or the sentence that ``we are the party of fiscal responsibility,'' then I knew they were joking. I really did. And I started to laugh. That was a great punchline.

It is just another example of a great sense of humor on the part of our colleagues on the other side on the aisle. They gave us and the American people who were watching this evening a real good belly laugh. Fiscal responsibility? Please.

Mr. Speaker, I think when we hear our friends on the other side talk about the economy is growing, well, the economy is growing. The question is who is benefiting from that growth, and the answer is very simple. It is a very small segment of the American community. It is the top 1 percent, the top 5 percent. Their income is going up; but remember this, the median income for a family of four in this country that is directly in the middle, it is not an average, it is directly in the middle, has in fact gone down since the Bush administration came to power. There are today in absolute numbers and percentages more Americans below the poverty line.

So what we have is an economy today that is eroding the middle class and is creating a Nation and a society where a very few, a small segment, is doing quite well and everybody else is slipping behind.

What we have or what our friends would do is, they support ironically a welfare program, a welfare program for pharmaceutical companies; a welfare program for large energy companies; a welfare program, by the way, for Iraq, not for the United States, but for Iraq, because here is what we are doing in Iraq. We are building schools. We are building primary health care centers. We are educating teachers. I see the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) has a chart there that illustrates this.

Mr. Speaker, I think another aspect of this conversation ought to be informing the American people and our colleagues that while we are doing such things as building 6,000 miles of roads in Iraq, constructing 2,500 new schools or rehabilitating existing schools in Iraq, we are not going to see a single dime of those American tax dollars come back because we all were here when the money for those initiatives was appropriated. Democrats stood on this floor and said let us make it a loan; let us allow the American taxpayer to be paid back for these billions of dollars that they are investing in Iraq.

The Republican White House, the Republican majority said no. This is the same party who about an hour earlier was talking about welfare. Tell me, Mr. Speaker, can you imagine this kind of a welfare program being sponsored and promoted by a party that claims to be fiscally responsible?

We talk about welfare reform. This is a giveaway of extraordinary proportion; but you know what, we will not do this in America. We will do it in Iraq.

Guess what happened? There are layoffs occurring, as everyone knows, in Louisiana, in Mississippi, because the tax base for municipalities has been destroyed.

They are laying off firefighters, emergency responders, and teachers. Some school districts that formerly employed 2- or 3,000 educators no longer have schools that are operating. They have layoffs.

So what are these communities doing? They are calling on the Federal Government for help. You know what the Federal Government is saying to them? We cannot give it to you, but we will loan it to you. We will loan it to you. In other words, if you are in Iraq, we are going to give it to you. What a giveaway. But here in America, no, you have to have matching funds if you are a community. The State treasurer down in Louisiana said, we asked for a grant, and they said, no grant, but a loan. But if you are in Iraq, because of the action of the Republican majority and the White House, they said, no, we will just give it away.

The United States taxpayer is rebuilding Iraq, and they will never see a dime come back. If they are serious about Operation Offset, I am sure that we could work out a unanimous consent agreement where we would go back and renegotiate with the Iraqi Government and say, we will give you favorable terms, and we will not charge you an arm and a leg in terms of your interest; but at some point in time, that money has to come back to the coffers of the United States Treasury because we cannot carry you.

Do you remember Paul Wolfowitz saying this will not cost anything? They have those massive oil reserves that will fund the reconstruction of their country. They were wrong on that like they were wrong on the weapons of mass destruction, and like they

were wrong on al Qaeda, and like they have been wrong on so many different issues. But if you want to see welfare, go to Iraq. You will see an American welfare state operating today in Iraq.

Mr. Speaker, why should the American taxpayer be reimbursed? Why should we be carrying that burden? If they are serious about Operation Offset, let us renegotiate. We are the only country, the only major donor country, other than, I think, maybe Japan, that did not insist on providing reconstruction dollars on a loan basis. We are not going to be paid back.

And here we have Donald Rumsfeld in March 2003 saying, When it comes to reconstruction, before we turn to the American taxpayer, we will turn first to the resources of the Iraqi Government and the international community. Hogwash. Hogwash.

Mr. Speaker, I would say to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan), you go to Iraq if you are a student and go to school. If you are an Iraqi and you qualify, you get a grant. If you are an American, you have to pay your own way.

Is this Alice in Wonderland, up is down and down is up?

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) makes a very good point about investment. There was just completed in Iraq, in Mosul, a magnificent dam. From every source that I am aware of, it is purported to be extremely well engineered, and it is a dam that will hopefully serve the Iraqi people well. Good for them. They benefit from the welfare state funded by American taxpayers. But you know what? It was reported in the New Orleans Times Picayune, which is the paper down there, that last year the funding for levees in New Orleans was reduced. In other words, a levee that may have prevented the magnitude of the disaster that befell New Orleans and Louisiana could possibly have been averted, and we would not be looking at a $60 billion bill. But oh, no, the government is the problem.

Well, if the government and the Army Corps of Engineers had the funding, possibly, possibly, those levees and the issues of flood control could have been addressed in a timely fashion. But no, what we hear is government is the problem.

Mr. Speaker, there was a dam up in Taunton, Massachusetts, in a district that is represented by the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank) that was on the verge of collapsing and inundating a city of some 50,000 that would have been a disaster. But do not worry if you are in Iraq, particularly if you are in Mosul, you are well protected. You are well protected because you have a brand new dam funded by the American taxpayers. Thank you to the welfare program of the Republican Party for our friends in Iraq.

Mr. Speaker, how about helping our kids? How about helping our elderly? How about helping our disabled? How about protecting our cities? We talk about a strong America. A strong America begins at home. That is really what it is about. Right now, given what is happening to our economy, given all of the problems that are besetting our Nation, it is time that we focused on the United States of America, all of us together. Together we can make America a better place for every citizen.

Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will continue to yield, can I pick up on the corruption theme. I am the ranking member on a subcommittee of the House Committee on International Relations. Its title is the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee. We have not held one hearing after repeated requests to exercise our oversight responsibility into an unprecedented level of corruption in Iraq.

In Iraq, billions of dollars are missing. In fact, the defense minister of Iraq made this statement, that this is the greatest robbery of all time. There is in excess of $1 billion missing from that single ministry. I guess there was one contract where they bought some tanks from Poland that were 28 years old, 28 years old, to the tune of $230 million; and they cannot find the contracts. And the current Iraqi defense minister is saying all we have are scraps of paper and scraps of metal.

I found it particularly interesting listening to Fox News where there were two colonels who were very hawkish in their attitudes that described the situation in Iraq in terms of corruption as totally out of control. That is the biggest scandal of all, because here tragically today was memorable in the reality that there have been 2,000 American servicemen killed; and we all, Republicans and Democrats, join our fellow citizens in our sympathy to the families of those 2,000 as well as to the tens of thousands of American service men and women and others including Iraqi civilians and Iraqi members of their defense force that have been wounded and maimed for life.

But to think that this rampant corruption going on under the auspices of the Coalition Provisional Authority is not being reviewed and examined by the subcommittee with jurisdiction is absolutely an abrogation of our responsibility. They are afraid of it. They will not look into it. They will talk about it, but it is absolutely crying out for review.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the subject of my Special Order this evening.

Mr. Speaker, more often than not, debates on public policy that take place in this Chamber are often characterized with a certain level of disagreement, thoughtful disagreement, and, hopefully, respectful disagreement. But tonight that is not the case. Tonight we put aside partisan disagreements to thank the men and women of the United States Coast Guard for a job well done.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, many Americans have come to know the Coast Guard and their personnel and their heroism and their professionalism. They have been made acutely aware about the services provided by this remarkable service, for it, I would suggest, has truly been one of the Coast Guard's finest hours. And I know I speak as well for my good friend and colleague from the Committee on the Judiciary, the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Coble), in expressing the profound gratitude of all Americans.

Mr. Speaker, I am privileged to represent southeastern Massachusetts, I believe home of some of the most beautiful and pristine coastline in all of New England and, in fact, in all of the United States, and also the birthplace of the United States Coast Guard. I happen to be a very proud veteran of the United States Coast Guard, like my colleague, the gentleman from North Carolina. Of course, he was an officer and a gentleman, while I was a mere enlisted man.

Back in 1997, my colleague and I, and another colleague, the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Taylor), who also served in the United States Coast Guard, sat down and decided that it was time to bring together Members of Congress who are committed to lifesaving, law enforcement, and environmental protection missions that were conducted at sea. So we created the Congressional Caucus of the United States Coast Guard. We did this to advocate for this outstanding service and to increase its profile not just in this institution but among the American people.

Well, their performance before, during, and in the aftermath of the tragedy which befell our Gulf States spoke volumes about the service that they provide to the American people. We learned a lot about the Coast Guard, or at least, and I am sure I speak for my friend who I will ask to say some words in a very few minutes, I know that for many, Hurricane Katrina increased their understanding of really what the Coast Guard is all about.

But it is not just about search and air rescues. In fact, they are the de facto lead agency for homeland security, responsible for guarding 95,000 miles of American coastline and 361 ports. Every day, the Coast Guard interdicts, for example, drugs bound for the United States. In fact, just this past week, while performing their functions in the gulf and along the coastline of the Gulf States, the Coast Guard seized two tons of cocaine off the Colombian coast in South America, cocaine that undoubtedly would have been sold on the streets of our neighborhoods somewhere in this country.

But before I proceed, let me introduce a dear friend, the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Coble), a veteran of the United States Coast Guard.

Like an orphan.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Coble). We have been joined by another friend and a strong advocate for the Coast Guard representing the coast of Connecticut, the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Simmons).

Mr. Speaker, I do not think that we can overstate and overemphasize the quality of education provided at the Coast Guard Academy. That is reflected really in the caliber and quality of the officers that it produces to serve in the United States Coast Guard and to have many of them go on to other careers in public service. It is a first-rate institution. With all due respect to the other services, clearly they also have service academies that are excellent, but the Coast Guard Academy in New London provides an education without equal.

Mr. Speaker, I think it is important to note that there is no training in any service to use a sledge hammer to break through a roof to rescue an individual while you are dangling from a helicopter. Some of our more recognized acts of heroism have been by rescue swimmers. I remember vividly that scene in the movie and also in the book ``Perfect Storm'' when those rescue swimmers from the United States Coast Guard, Air Station Cape Cod, I might add, went into seas of 80 and 90 feet. But here in New Orleans in the Gulf States, they do not have a specialty that involves breaking through roofs, walking through toxic water and being in the position where they are dealing with all sorts of very dangerous circumstances; but they did it, and they did it so well.

Nor when I was.

Mr. Speaker, the point that the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Simmons) made about Admiral Allen being nominated by the President and put in charge, I think, went a long way to restoring the confidence of the American people in our ability to handle from that point on this emergency. I know that I share with both the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Simmons) and with the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Coble) tremendous confidence in Admiral Allen.

The gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Simmons) made the point earlier about they responded so quickly to the disaster that the first rescue actually occurred as the eye of the storm passed; and in the midst of the eye they began operations, plucking people out of harm's way. It is truly remarkable because they had a plan. They did that prepositioning. They were ready. They honored their motto, ``Semper Paratus.''

They knew what they were doing, and they are doing it again. I just read recently a memorandum, a Coast Guard memorandum, prepositioning and preparing for Hurricane Rita. If Members would bear with me for just a moment, let me read this so that maybe we can reassure some folks who feel threatened by what I understand is now a Category 5 hurricane: ``The Coast Guard is preparing assets throughout the Gulf States for the arrival of Hurricane Rita which is expected to reach the gulf coast later this week. The Coast Guard is making strategic shifts in personnel resources while others are conducting overdue maintenance to aircraft used to support Hurricane Katrina relief efforts.''

That goes to the admonition of the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Coble) about the Deepwater Project and the need to provide assets so this can-do service can do it, because we cannot continue to ask the impossible. I think we have to understand that those helicopters, those cutters, those small boats, not only are they old and in some cases they are described as legacy assets, and I presume that is a euphemism for really, really, really old, maybe my age or something along those lines.

But let me just cite one example of a legacy asset, and I think it really underscores the need for all of us, Democrats and Republicans, to come together and advocate for the assets that are necessary so the Coast Guard can continue to respond to these natural disasters, can continue to interdict drugs coming into our communities, can continue to respond to environmental disasters.

It is my understanding that they have responded in Louisiana and the Gulf States to over 240 fuel spills. Just imagine what that would mean if that preparedness, if that can-do attitude, if those resources were not there. I would believe it would be extremely dangerous and clearly wreak environmental ecological havoc in terms of the impacted and affected States. But they did it. They went out and they found a way to do it. But we cannot call upon them to continue to do it with legacy assets.

I remember vividly the story of a cutter called the Storis, launched in 1942, that still is in operation, that while in the Bering Sea on a rescue mission, while a lifeboat was being lowered to effect a rescue, the davits on the superstructure ripped off, dumping nine Coast Guard personnel into the freezing waters of the Bering Sea. Fortunately, those Coast Guard personnel were rescued, and those whom initially they were to rescue were also rescued. But think of the tragedy because of an aging fleet. I think out of 40 fleets, it ranks number 39 in terms of age as far as major naval fleets are concerned.

We are putting these heroes that are doing so much for us and for the American people at risk unless we accelerate the Deepwater Initiative, unless we provide the kind of assets that, when it comes time for such a crisis such as we have experienced and potentially could experience by this weekend, if we do not give them the assets, then we are asking them to do the impossible.

I yield to the gentleman from Connecticut.

Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, there is an additional task that I know that we are aware of, and our colleagues here and I think many Americans, that when we talk about port security on the land

ready to deploy, particularly, for example, when an LNG tanker is coming into Boston Harbor or any harbor or any port in this country, that port security unit is there to ensure that there will be nothing untoward happen and that the vessel, the tanker, can unload without concern. And, again, those low profile, if you will, but absolutely essential critical tasks are performed every day.

I can remember directly in the aftermath of 9/11, cruise liners being boarded in Boston Harbor. And it was the Coast Guard that conducted the search, that had their divers go and check the hulls, that were there to provide confidence to the American people and to those particular passengers that they could enjoy their hard-earned vacation that they were taking on the cruise liner.

The Coast Guard implicates itself in so many different ways in our daily lives. The gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Simmons) mentioned that if one is a recreational boater, there is nothing more assuring that, if they get themselves into some trouble, to know that they can get on that radio and they can call that Coast Guard; or if they are a commercial fisherman and they are out in tough waters and something should happen to their vessel, at least there is hope that they can be rescued.

I yield to the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Simmons).

I yield to the gentleman from North Carolina.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the lieutenant commander for his comments. I feel like I should salute at this point in time, given our respective histories in the Coast Guard.

I would like to just make an observation in response to the gentleman from Connecticut's (Mr. Simmons) review of the tragedy that befell the Kennedy family. As they both know, I represent the South Shore of Boston, Cape Cod and Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard, and obviously Hyannisport is on Cape Cod. I know Senator Kennedy well. I know the Kennedy family well. And everything that the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Simmons) said was so true, that the way the Coast Guard conducted itself in a respectful, professional, no fanfare manner meant so much to that family in a time of tragedy and crisis, as it does with every family in this country.

We talked about aircraft. I happen also to have the Coast Guard airway stationed at a military reservation on Cape Cod. So I am familiar with those helicopters that go out and those fixed-wing aircraft. And as both the gentlemen know, their main search-and-rescue helicopter, the Jayhawk, experienced inflight engine failures at a rate of 329 mishaps per 100,000. The FAA sets a safety standard that is acceptable in terms of an aircraft at 1, not 329, but 1 mishap per 100,000 hours of flight time.

So what we have is not only do we have an aging fleet, and the Deepwater Initiative incorporates upgrading the air assets of the Coast Guard, and as the gentleman from Connecticut well knows, the First District extends from the Canadian border down to New York and that air wing is so important. And these failures limit the Jayhawk's ability to hover over a distressed vessel, for example, and places the lives of its crew and those that hopefully will be rescued in grave danger.

The indisputable fact is that the demands on the Coast Guard have vastly outpaced the resources that are available to them.

I think it is our responsibility to give them those assets, because we want them to escort that LNG tanker. And when the parents of an overdosed teenager discover that the Coast Guard boats were not fast enough to catch the drug dealers, even though they had the intelligence, they could not respond because they did not have the vessel, we do not want to look them in the eyes and say that we failed them.

Or when the family of a deceased fisherman discovered that the Coast Guard could not get there in time because that Jayhawk helicopter was grounded, we do not want that.

Two centuries of experience has taught us that we can rely on the professionalism and the heroism and the commitment of the Coast Guard, whether it is hurricanes or airplane crashes or dealing with drug smugglers, or dealing with foreign factory trawlers that we had a problem with in terms of overfishing our territorial waters. The Coast Guard has always been there. They have been on call for some 200 years.

Mr. Speaker, it is tempting sometimes to put things off. It is really easy here in Washington to do that. It is very tempting. But a long way from here, out in those waves and those white caps, when something is happening to people, that is what we have to keep in mind. We want to not just thank them for what they have done and honor them for what they have done; but we want, I know, to provide them with the wherewithal to continue to honor that wonderful motto of ``Semper Paratus, always ready.''

I think we are winding down, and I just promised the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) that I would give her 5 minutes on some unrelated topic that I do not know what she is going to address.

That is right. So we will be very good to her tonight.

Mr. Speaker, let me acknowledge the gentleman's advocacy on the part of the Coast Guard and the Coast Guard Foundation. Does the gentleman have an address or a contact for that foundation?

And that would be Congressman Robert Simmons, and I am sure that people from all over the country would not have difficulty finding that number, and it would certainly be a wonderful acknowledgment of the Coast Guard personnel that are saving lives, are protecting people, and yet have experienced their own losses as a result of Katrina. I know right now, those helicopters and those fixed- wing aircraft and those vessels of the United States Coast Guard are out there ready for Rita and any consequences that hopefully, God willing, will not be visited upon any of our American people.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur), my distinguished colleague and friend.

Honoring the Life and Legacy of Barney Quilter