Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for allowing me to take the rest of this time. It is tough to follow the gentleman from Georgia. He is not only a nice human being but he is a real genuine person as you can tell by the way he handles issues, totally committed to his job and his family. I want to let the gentleman know he is someone for whom I have the highest admiration and always brings a few laughs to us while he use that kind of down-home southern humor to convey the real message of what the American people want us to be doing. I thank my friend and colleague for his comments.

Mr. Speaker, tonight I rise for the major purpose of outlining the results of a trip that I led to North Korea this past weekend, but I want to start out by responding to some of the concerns raised by my colleagues on the other side where they have continued to demagog and basically say that President Bush and the administration lied about the reasons for the Iraqi war. I heard one of our colleagues earlier say, show me the evidence of weapons of mass destruction. I could not help let that go by, Mr. Speaker. I am the vice chairman of the House Committee on Armed Services. I work issues involving proliferation of weapons of mass destruction technology, and for anyone to suggest that there just was not a case of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq is just plain wrong. In fact, all one has to do is go to the U.N. and look through the records of the U.N. on abuses of human rights and look at the record of Saddam Hussein.

In fact, Mr. Speaker, I will at this point in time insert in the Record two charts. One is the past Iraqi use of weapons of mass destruction and the second is the amount of weapons of mass destruction that Iraq admitted to having at the time of the war.

1. PAST IRAQI USE OF WMDS ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Date Area used Agent Casualities Target pop. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1983............................ Hajj Umran........ Mustard........... <100.............. Iranians/Kurds. 1983............................ Panjwin........... Mustard........... 3,000............. Iranians/Kurds. 1984............................ Majnoon Island.... Mustard........... 2,500............. Iranians. 1984............................ al-Basrah......... Tabun............. 50-100............ Iranians. 1985............................ Hawizah Marsh..... Mustard/Tabun..... 3,000............. Iranians. 1986............................ al-Faw............ Mustard/Tabun..... 8-10,000.......... Iranians. 1986............................ Umm ar Rasas...... Mustard........... 5,000............. Iranians. 1987............................ al-Basrah......... Mustard/Tabun..... 5,000............. Iranians. 1987............................ Sumar/Mehran...... Mustard/Nerve..... 3,000............. Iranians. 1988............................ Halabaj........... Mustard/Nerve..... 800............... Kurds. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

2. AMOUNT OF WMDS IRAQ ADMITS HAVING ------------------------------------------------------------------------

Quantity Iraq

Weapon Effect claimed ------------------------------------------------------------------------ VX..................... Nerve Agent--Paralysis 3.9 Tons.

and Death. Sarin.................. Nerve Agent--Paralysis 812 Tons.

and Death. Mustard Gas............ Blister Agent--Burns 3,080 Tons.

Skin, Eyes, and Lungs. Anthrax................ Bio Agent--Lung Infection 2,200 Gallons.

and Death. Botulinum.............. Bio Agent--Death if 5,300 Gallons.

inhaled or Digested. Aflatoxin.............. Bio Agent--Causes Liver 520 Gallons.

Cancer. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mr. Speaker, the facts cannot be refuted. Saddam Hussein was responsible for killing over 20,000 human beings by using weapons of mass destruction. What were they? Mustard gas, tabun, nerve gas. From 1983 to 1988, known facts in this chart which our colleagues can read tomorrow in the Congressional Record are the specific dates, the locations and who was killed. And who was killed? Iranians and Kurds. Innocent people. And what did Iraq admit when in 1991 they in fact were kicked out of Kuwait? What did they tell the U.N. they had? They told the U.N. they had VX, which is a nerve agent, causes paralysis and death. In fact, they publicly said we have 3.9 tons of VX. They said they had sarin gas, nerve agent, causes paralysis and death, 812 tons. They said they had mustard gas, a blister agent, burns the skin, eyes and lungs, 3,080 tons. They said they had anthrax, a biological agent, lung infection and death, 2,200 gallons. They said they had Botulinum, a biological agent, death if inhaled or digested, 5,300 gallons; and they said they had aflatoxin, another bioagent that causes liver cancer, 520 gallons.

Mr. Speaker, this was the leadership of Iraq publicly telling the U.N. what weapons of mass destruction they had. For my colleagues and friends to stand up here and say they do not have any weapons of mass destruction and therefore the administration lied is just wrong and it is really unfair. In fact, every major debate involving the

events leading up to the war in Iraq, both on the Democrat and the Republican side in this body and the other, they were not arguing over whether or not there were weapons of mass destruction, they were arguing over whether we should let the U.N. inspectors continue or in fact get more time or whether we should follow the President's lead because the time had run out. Because we have not found anything since the war ended, their rallying cry is, well, where are the weapons of mass destruction? First of all, you are talking about a country the size of California, which is an extremely large area to go through, to look in every school, every underground complex, every building. And we already have found two trailers that we know were used for the development of weapons of mass destruction. The fact is we are going to continue to look and I am convinced that we will find additional evidence of weapons of mass destruction. But to say that they had no weapons of mass destruction is ridiculous. I have put in the Record tonight the documentation of what we have in fact verified, what the U.N. has verified.

But let me get to another point for those who criticize the President. What about Saddam's record of human rights violations? My colleagues on the other side were quick to support Bill Clinton 4 years ago when he decided we should go to war in Yugoslavia, an independent nation, because he decided the human rights record of Slobodan Milosevic was so bad that we should remove him with force. Incidentally and ironically coerced by both the French and Germans, we decided not to go to the U.N. but to bypass the U.N. because the Russians were going to issue a veto of any U.N. resolution and for the first and only time ever in the Clinton administration, we used NATO, which is a defensive body, for an offensive purpose, pushed by France, Germany and the U.S., we invaded a non-NATO country to remove the sitting head of state. Why? Because he had weapons of mass destruction? No. Because he was committing human rights violations.

In the case of Saddam Hussein, every organization on the face of the earth, from Amnesty International to the U.N., has clearly stated that Saddam Hussein's human rights record is far worse than anyone since Adolf Hitler. And so this argument being put forth by the left that somehow the Bush administration was not truthful with Congress and the American people leading up to the war is just plain wrong.

It is a case to try to be used by the candidates running for the nomination of the other party to try to get some kind of traction or leverage against President Bush.

The fact is, we did what we did because Saddam Hussein had a terrible human rights record, he used weapons of mass destruction. We wanted to make sure he never had that chance to use them again, and that is exactly what we have accomplished.

Mr. Speaker, the real and primary purpose of my special order tonight was to focus on a trip that I just led, we got back yesterday, from North Korea, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

Mr. Speaker, no one from America in an elected capacity had been to Pyongyang, North Korea, for the past 6 years, and in fact the only contact we have had with the leadership of DPRK has been through our State Department diplomats. We had a team there almost a year ago, or last fall, actually, and we had our Assistant Secretary of State, Secretary Kelly, meet in Beijing to have further discussions with North Korea.

About a year ago, Mr. Speaker, I decided it was important that the Congress attempt to understand what was happening inside of DPRK, because of the tensions building between North and South Korea. I wanted to make sure we did not end up in another conflict. So I set out to take a delegation of 13 of our colleagues into Pyongyang last May.

We sat in Beijing and we sat in Seoul for 4 days waiting for the visas to be approved. They never came. The reason given by the North Korean government was that President Bush had referred to North Korea as a part of the axis of evil, and, therefore, they did not think it right we should be allowed admittance to their country.

But, Mr. Speaker, I persevered, and throughout the last 12 months traveled up to the UN on at least two occasions, met with the Ambassador for the DPRK mission at the UN, Ambassador Han, the only representative of North Korea allowed in America, and I talked to him about taking a delegation in.

Every time I met with him, as I have done in all of my contacts, I made sure I talked to the folks at the White House, the National Security Council and the State Department, so I kept them informed.

I used seven or eight individuals and groups that have contacts inside of North Korea to convey the message that it was more important for us to bring in a delegation of non-diplomats. There was an added sense of urgency because in the late summer-early fall our intelligence community gave the evidence to the State Department that in fact North Korea had an active nuclear weapons program under way, which was a clear violation of the 1994 agreed upon framework that was negotiated in the Clinton administration.

So, for all of those reasons I kept the pressure on to take a group into Pyongyang to meet with the officials of that country, not as diplomats, not as representatives of the President, not as representatives of the State Department, but as elected officials from our country, to put a face on the American people and to tell the people of North Korea that none of us want war, none of us want conflict.

Approximately 10 days ago, Mr. Speaker, at the 11th hour, after I had planned a trip to go to Moscow and then on into North Korea, we were initially told the visas were not coming forward. Then the day after we canceled that trip I got a call from the New York embassy or New York office of the mission at the United Nations and Ambassador Han said Congressman Weldon, Pyongyang has invited you to bring your delegation into my country.

Very quickly we reassembled a team, three Democrats and three Republicans, and traveled to Pyongyang on a naval aircraft. The Navy did a fantastic job in providing support to us. We left on a Wednesday evening and flew all night. The trip took us about 30 hours, with the fuel stops that we had to make in the C-9 we were traveling in, and we arrived into Pyongyang, North Korea, from a stop in Japan, at approximately 9:30 a.m. last Friday.

For 3 days, we were hosted by the leadership of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the DPRK regime.

Mr. Speaker, I would say at the outset that we let it be known going in we were not going in to represent the President of the United States, nor the State Department. We were not going in to do any negotiations. We were simply going in to put a face on America so that the leadership of DPRK that has been so outrageously nasty within their country toward America and the American people should see who we are, not as diplomats, but as ordinary people.

The three Democrats and the three Republicans who went to Pyongyang made it be known that we were not going to negotiate because that is not our position, and in fact we were going in supporting the position of President Bush and Secretary Powell; that a multilateral approach to dealing with North Korea in the end had to be the vehicle, the way to get this issue of this nuclear threat under control.

Our goal was to put the human face on, and we did. In fact, during the 3 days that we were in Pyongyang, North Korea, it was an unbelievable experience. I had asked in advance, Mr. Speaker, to visit 10 sites so that we would not just be taken where they wanted us to go, but rather we would pick the type of sites that we would like to see. In fact, half of those sites they agreed to and we visited.

One was a school, a school with 1,800 children from the age of 3 years to 18 years. It was an impressive sight, a model school for the country. But it gave us an understanding of the support of the DPRK government to educate their children.

The second was the Pyongyang Computer Center, one of three buildings in the downtown city area that are used to develop North Korea's technology and information and the use of computers.

We had to visit a film studio because the leader of North Korea, Kim Chong-Il, has a major interest in producing video productions, actually movies. He does not import any from the West for his people because society in North Korea is totally closed. So I thought it would be relevant to visit what I had heard to be one of the largest studio complexes outside of Hollywood and Orlando, Florida. We visited that site where there are 1,500 employees.

Mr. Speaker, to say the least, it was unbelievable. We were driven through the back lot. I have been through the back lot of Universal Studios, and I can tell you, that this rivaled that back lot. There were scenes for movies that could be shot about Japan, about China, about Korea, about Europe, about the West. All of these sets were established so that North Korea each year can produce between 20 and 25 feature lengths films that are shown in the movie houses of North Korea, which are all oriented toward the propaganda message and the message of the North Korean leadership. So we visited that facility.

We had a shopping visit to interact with the ordinary people that were in the city. We visited restaurants.

Mr. Speaker, on the last day we were there, we were scheduled to meet with the Minister of Trade, but I asked the delegation the night before if they wanted to do that meeting, and they said not really. So I told the representative who handles U.S. issues for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that we did not want to go to the meeting with the Minister of Trade, but instead on Sunday morning we wanted to go to church.

They agreed. They picked us up at our hotel at 9:45 in the morning, and six Members of Congress went to church in a Protestant church on a hill in North Korea, in the middle of this closed society, where there were no pictures of Kim Chong-Il or Kim Il-Song, his father, but rather were crosses, and with 300 people we worshipped in a Protestant church, much like churches all over America do every Sunday morning. So we had a good glimpse of this closed society.

Let me say, Mr. Speaker, I have visited the Soviet Union when it was communist many times and I visited China under its communist system. North Korea makes those two societies in their worst days of communism look like an open society. It is an absolutely closed society to the outside world, no access to outside media, no access to newspapers, totally closed. In fact, limitation on people traveling in is also closed.

But, Mr. Speaker, we are in a tense situation right now, because North Korea has admitted publicly in our meetings that we held that they have nuclear weapons today. They admitted that they are reprocessing the 8,000 nuclear rods from their nuclear power plants and they admitted that that reprocessed nuclear weapons grade fuel will be used to build more nuclear weapons.

Mr. Speaker, the fact is that if North Korea uses the fuel from those 8,000 rods, they will have the ability within a year to build four to six additional nuclear weapons. That is unacceptable, Mr. Speaker, and that is why we have to aggressively at this point in time move in to find a common way to solve the nuclear crisis that exists between North Korea and the rest of the world.

The thing I wanted to mention to our colleagues, Mr. Speaker, is after meeting with the leadership, after meeting with the foreign minister, the speaker of their parliament called the Supreme People's Assembly and the vice foreign minister, I came away convinced that we in fact can find a way to get the North Koreans to give up their nuclear capability.

Tomorrow morning I will talk to Secretary Powell on the phone, and I will relay to him the exact details of what I think could become the basis for his experts and professionals to conduct negotiations within the context that the President and the Secretary of State have defined to allow us to move away from the brink of nuclear war.

Mr. Speaker, the alternative is unacceptable. The alternative would be for North Korea to continue to develop nuclear weapons. If we try an economic embargo, they would likely offer to sell their nuclear weapons to other nations, rogue groups, terrorist organizations. That is unacceptable.

Regime change by means of war I think is unacceptable, at least until we make every possible effort to find a way to convince the North Koreans, as President Putin and Chinese President Hu Jintao have said, to have them remove nuclear weapons from the Korean Peninsula.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to include the trip report, and I would like to thank our congressional delegation Members, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Ortiz), who was my co-chair; the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Reyes); the gentleman from New York (Mr. Engel); the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Wilson); the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Miller). They were a dynamic team, and together we have now brought back to our colleagues the knowledge and a fuller understanding of this nation that has been so secretive.

But more importantly, we bring back to America the possibility that we can resolve this nuclear crisis on the Korean Peninsula through peaceful discussions and through peaceful resolution. Hopefully, Mr. Speaker, under the leadership of our great President and our Secretary of State and Condoleezza Rice, our security adviser, we will in fact this year be able to solve this very difficult challenge in a peaceful way.

The material referred to earlier is as follows:

Mr. Chairman, I thank my chairman for yielding time to me.

If for no other reason, I would ask my colleagues to look at this amendment en bloc because it contains perhaps one of the most significant pieces of legislation that we have passed in this Congress.

Approximately 1 month ago, 25 Members of Congress, including the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards) and I, introduced the Nuclear Security Initiative Act of 2003. This bill is the first major, comprehensive expansion of our efforts to work with the former Soviet states to take away the threat of the use of weapons of mass destruction.

The bill authorizes $78 million of funding, but, more significantly, includes a whole vast, new array of engaging the Russians, including the establishment of a Duma-Congress initiative to focus together on nonproliferation, the establishment of fellowships between the Kurchatov Institute and Lawrence Livermore Laboratory to focus on nonproliferation, the killing in our policy to work with NATO and do appropriate cooperative relationships in development and deployment of theater missile defenses, to work with the Russians on early warning, the Ramos program, to expand that, to create a Teller-Kurchatov alliance for peace to work together, to provide more in the inherent accountability and transparency on how we spend money in Russia to take apart these weapons of mass destruction.

This particular bill, which is in fact as it was introduced, H.R. 1719, was endorsed by the Heritage Foundation, the Carnegie Endowment for Peace, the Nuclear Threat Reduction Initiative, Sam Nunn's group, the Physicians for Social Responsibility, all coming together, along with the Vietnam Veterans Foundation, saying this is the direction we should be moving in.

My colleagues on both sides of the aisle, including the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) on the minority side and the gentleman from California (Mr. Cox) on the Republican side, are original sponsors.

It is a major step forward, a major step forward for this Congress, for this body in taking the lead on helping to secure these weapons of mass destruction. I thank the distinguished chairman.

Mr. Chairman, I include for the Record letters from top Russian leaders thanking this Congress for taking this bold step, including one letter I received yesterday signed by 30 of the top leaders in the Russian Duma thanking this Congress for its leadership role in helping to provide a vision for a new relationship with Russia that goes beyond the Nunn-Lugar program, that allows us to truly establish a new framework in dealing with the issues of weapons of mass destruction that still exists within the bounds of the former Soviet states.

The letters referred to are as follows:

Hon. Curt Weldon,

Member of Congress, House of Representatives, Washington, DC.

Dear Congressman Weldon. With satisfaction we knew about

your new initiative (a Bill) towards higher cooperation with

the Russian Federation on nonproliferation of nuclear weapon

and other weapons of mass destruction.

We think that the Russian Federation and the United States

as the countries, which possess the biggest inventories of

nuclear warheads, are responsible to the world future in the

matter of deterrence and nonproliferation.

The especially important role belongs to transition of the

nuclear warhead industry to peaceful aims--development of

ecologically clean nuclear energy. The Russian and American

scientists are especially responsible for this. That's why

establishment of the Teller-Kurchatov Alliance for Peace may

be an important and useful step. It would be also extremely

important to engage students, post-graduates, and young

scientists in this work.

We consider that establishment of the Nuclear Treaty

Reduction Working Group as a subgroup of Duma-Congress Group

will help to setup an additional control on international and

national programs in this field.

Dear Mr. Weldon, we wish you success in your initiative

promotion, and you can count on our understanding and

assistance.

With best regards,

Mr. Chairman, this bill is about America's patriots. This bill is about America's heroes. From Kabul to Baghdad, from Riyadh to Graznyy, our sons and

daughters are in harm's way doing a fantastic job, and we applaud them with this legislation.

But this bill is also about two other patriots. This bill is about the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter), and it is about the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton), two great Americans, Mr. Chairman, who brought us together; two great Americans who worked us for 30 hours over 2 days in the most extensive markup that I have been involved in in 17 years in this body. And while there were some issues that were very tightly split, in the end only two Members out of 60 dissented. And as we have done in the past, we will work our will and our way today to come up with a bill that we can be proud of.

But I want to pay tribute, especially to Duncan Hunter and Ike Skelton for their leadership. They are both great Americans. They both served their country in military combat. They both understand as much as anyone else in this body what this bill is all about. It is an honor and a privilege for me to serve with both of them. And I know my colleagues on the Committee on Armed Services and in this body understand and appreciated the leadership of both of these outstanding individuals.

So this bill is about their leadership in helping us mold a bill that will provide the support for our patriots. In our subcommittee, the Subcommittee on Tactical Air and Land Forces, we increased funding, with the help of our two patriotic leaders, by almost $2 billion. And where do we put that money? We put $600 million of it into additional authorization for M1 tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles, because they did so well in the recent battles in Iraq. We put $200 million of extra money to maintain our ammunition industrial base, vitally important for our capabilities for the future.

On the F-22 program, we kept the authorized amount at the level requested by the Air Force and DOD; but we performed our legitimate role of oversight, and we said to the contractors in the Air Force, you are not making enough progress on the software for this vital aircraft; and until you do, we are going to fence a portion of this money. Because as stewards for the taxpayers, we must make sure that the money we spend is, in fact, spent in the most cost-effective way possible.

Mr. Chairman, we also put $1.7 billion in the legislation for the Future Combat System in transition of our Army, and we provided multiyear procurement for the E-2C and the F-18, as well as the C-130J.

Mr. Chairman, this bill will not be perfect to each one of us individually; but collectively, as we come together as 60 Members of the committee and 435 Members of the House, it is a bill that we all can support, a bill that would do what needs to be done to support those brave patriots who are today serving our Nation.

In addition, on some of the more contentious issues involving cooperative threat reduction and involving nuclear policy, the chairman and the ranking member have worked with us to craft some important additions in this bill. We, in fact, include in the bill the requirement of establishing a Strategic Nuclear Commission to look at what our nuclear posture should be over the next 20 years in a bipartisan approach. We have included language to find compromises on the way that we assist the former Soviet states in taking apart their weapons of mass destruction.

So, Mr. Chairman, I have no problem in supporting this legislation. There will be some amendments that will be offered that will be helping to perfect it even more. And in closing, besides thanking our two patriots, I want to thank my good friend and colleague, the gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Abercrombie). He is the ranking member of our subcommittee. He is an outstanding American. He has been involved in every aspect of the development of this portion of our bill. He is a quiet man, who never speaks his mind; but all of us love him because, in the end, we know that he means well by those soldiers, sailors, Marines, and corpsmen who this bill is written to support.

Mr. Chairman, I thank our colleagues and urge a ``yes'' vote on the bill and again thank our two leaders for their great work.

Mr. Chairman, I do not understand this amendment because we reached a compromise on the floor of the House last year, and it was not as my colleagues said, Republicans. In fact, I have the vote here. It was 243 to 172. The last time I checked, there are not 243 Republicans in this House. And that very carefully crafted amendment that we passed was an amendment that was crafted by the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) and by others that said we should be allowed to continue to do research.

My colleague makes it out as if we want to automatically build some kind of Earth penetrator and that we are some kind of Darth Vaders. The fact is anyone who has studied the Ministry of Atomic Energy and has watched the career of Mr. Mikhailov, who used to be the director of that agency, when he left that agency, he came back as the number two person, and we put on the record in committee from Mr. Mikhailov's own mouth that his job was to develop a whole new class of small atomic munitions that are nuclear.

If we follow through on the logic of those like my friend from Massachusetts, we cannot even research what the Russians are building. That has nothing to do with what we want to build. We cannot even research the small weapons the Russians have said publicly they are building. That is outrageous. That is outrageously stupid.

This is not about whether or not we are going to nuke underground. It is whether or not we allow our scientists to have the ability to do research. The amendment last year which I was able to broker with our side that did not want it said we have to have very tightly defined limits, and we did that. The gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) was the cosponsor of that. The gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) told me in committee he would support that language, and I take him at his word.

This amendment takes all the money from being able to do that research. One cannot do research without money. The proponents of this amendment say we can do this with conventional weapons. We are spending in this bill $279.6 million for conventional weapons in this area. We take away the only money left, which is 15 million; and we say to the scientists the carefully crafted amendment that we did last year in a bipartisan manner on the floor is okay, they are allowed; but we are not going to give them any money. We are not going to give them any money. We are going to take the money away. Cut me a break. Then say

that. Say you want to prohibit the research. Do not say you allow the research with the amendment that the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) agreed to last year, which I think some of the Members at least supported. I would assume the gentlewoman did support that amendment.

Did the gentlewoman support it last year?

I yield to the gentlewoman from California.

Not about the RNEP. Okay.

Mr. Chairman, the point is the gentlewoman has tried to also find the middle ground. And I think not to allow this research by taking the money away is a mistake because, in fact, the Russian Ministry of Atomic Energy has announced publicly they are researching this area, and so have other entities, other countries. North Korea is doing a nuclear program. Therefore, I would strongly urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment and continue to support the bipartisan compromise last year reinforced by our actions in committee.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague and my distinguished friend and Member for yielding me time, and I thank the Members that are involved in this debate.

Mr. Speaker, I have been in this body for 17 years; and, as Members know, I work issues involving fire protection. I have been in every State in the country. I have been on the forest fires myself in California, Colorado, Montana, Oklahoma, Washington, and Idaho, to name a few, not as a Member of Congress but as one of those out there trying to learn lessons as to how we can better respond.

Mr. Speaker, I want to support the President's healthy forests initiative, but I am here today to put the President and the administration on notice because I am not happy.

Mr. Speaker, it was just 6 years ago when I chaired the Subcommittee on Research of the Committee on Science; and in looking for solutions to apply technology to solve problems with forests fires, I was able to put $14 million of DOD money into using our classified satellite system to detect forest and wildlands fires when they start and to have that information transmitted instantly to the local responders. It makes sense. You put the fire out when it starts, you do not have a problem.

Mr. Speaker, that was 6 years ago. The money was spent. The technology was developed. The software system exists, but there was a debate over which agency would head it up, the NRO, NOAA, DOD, FEMA. Guess where it is today, Mr. Speaker, as America burns? The software that we paid for to protect America's forests and wildlands is sitting in boxes in Crystal City because the agencies are feuding over who will run the program.

Mr. Speaker, I will not accept this. I have used the process available to me. I talked to Joe Allbaugh when he headed FEMA. I have talked to the administration, to the White House; and today we have no response. The use of this is scheduled for 2006; $7 million today would put the program in place in time for this fire season.

So if we do not have it in place, we are going to spend billions of dollars in the amount of money necessary to respond to forest fires when $6 million today would put into place the fire program that exists in boxes in Crystal City and has been sitting there for 4 years.

We should have offered an amendment to the bill, but I want to give the President the benefit of the doubt. But I am putting you on notice. If we do not get this program operational this year, it is the fault of the White House and this Congress, because the technology is there to detect and deal with these fires as soon as they occur. The firefighters know that. The State forest firefighter leaders know that. It is about time that we responded.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today with great sadness and tremendous gratitude to honor the life of a brave young man, Lance Cpl. Joseph Basil Maglione III, who made the ultimate sacrifice for our country. Lance Cpl. Maglione was just 22 years old. He died Tuesday, April 1, 2003, in Camp Coyote, Kuwait. Joe was serving with the Bridge Company Bravo, 6th Engineering Support Battalion, 4th FSSG (Force Service Support Group) of Folsom, Pennsylvania.

Joseph was a Marine Corps Reservist and a full time Architectural Engineering student at Drexel University. He was about to start his senior year. Joe attended boot camp at Parris Island, S.C. in June 2000. He served in Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, Fort Lee, Virginia, Folsom, Pennsylvania, and Camp Coyote, Kuwait.

Born in Abington, Pennsylvania, he was the son of Joseph B. Maglione II of York, Pennsylvania and Rosemary Corr of Audubon, Pennsylvania. He was the grandson of Mary and Jim Corr of Lansdale and the late Joe and Anne Maglione.

Joe was a 1999 graduate of North Penn Senior High School in Lansdale. He attended Council Rock High School in Holland from 1997 until 1998. He also attended Holland Junior High School from 1994 until 1996. In Lansdale, Joe attended Pennbrook Middle School and Gwyn Nor Elementary School from 1987 until 1993.

Joe began his studies at Drexel University in 1999 in the Mechanical Engineering area. He changed his major to architectural Engineering last year.

Joe worked for Northampton Township Water Authority and AV Weber in North Wales as credit for his Drexel Co-op Program. Joe loved sports. In North Penn he was on the rugby team and track team. In Council Rock he played football, was on the track team, ran the hurdles and was on the wrestling team. Joe was also a student of Tae Kwon Do in Bong Pil Yang's Martial Arts School in Lansdale from 1987 until 1993. Joe attended art classes offered by Michener Art Museum in Doylestown. He was a talented artist.

Mr. Speaker, Lance Cpl. Joseph Maglione III exemplified the spirit of service that has made this country great. It is proper to remember and honor a man of such worth and character with great respect for what he stood for. Our pride in Joe shall certainly live on--his life, his courage, his sacrifice and strength of character. The example of his citizenship and dedication to duty will be his enduring legacy. Mr. Speaker, at this time I ask you and my other distinguished colleagues join me in honoring the memory, life and service of Lance Cpl. Joseph Maglione III, and in sending our heartfelt condolences to his family, his friends and community.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the memory of Speaker Matthew J. Ryan, a 21-term member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives and second longest-serving Speaker in state history. Few Commonwealth leaders have matched the record of public service attained by Speaker Matthew J. Ryan. As one of Pennsylvania's finest public servants, he truly left this world a better place.

Speaker Ryan, a former First Lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps, was an attorney by profession. He was elected Speaker for the first time in 1981. Throughout his distinguished tenure, Speaker Ryan was known and lauded by his colleagues from both sides of the aisle for the nonpartisan, fair manner in which he presided. Those of us who had the privilege to work with him on behalf of our mutual constituency knew him to be a man of great passion, compassion, and principle who worked with skill and determination for the best interests of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the Nation. I looked to him for guidance on many occasions and could always rely on him for good solid advice on issues affecting our mutual constituencies.

Speaker Ryan would readily tell the House freshmen that the qualities of an outstanding legislator are ``skill at listening and understanding, respecting others'' strengths and accepting their limitations, commitment and courage, and learning the art of compromise.''

He did not seek public service for fame or glory, he sought simply to help people. In an era of cynicism towards those in public life, Speaker Ryan reminded us of why we serve. His legacy will endure not only in the principles he stood for and the improvements he brought to his beloved Pennsylvania, but also his wonderful family, his wife, Judge Patricia Jenkins and children. They, too, carry Matt Ryan's commitment to public service and community.

Speaker Ryan will long be remembered in the halls of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. It is a better institution because of his service and leadership. More importantly, he was an effective public servant and improved the lives of thousands of families in his state and beloved Delaware County.

Mr. Speaker, our region has lost a great leader, and I have lost a good friend. Matt Ryan exemplified the spirit of service that has made this country great. It is proper to remember and honor a man of such worth and character with great respect for what he stood for.

Mr. Speaker, I thank you for recognizing me, and I will not take the full hour, but I rise this evening to discuss and put on the record some concerns about the current war and about where we are going and some problems that we will face in the future, and I hope to lay these comments on the record so that our colleagues can use them for the basis of discussion and perhaps action over the next several weeks and the rest of this session.

First of all, Mr. Speaker, what we saw today on our national television around the world is a complete vindication of the efforts of our President, our Secretary of Defense, our Secretary of State, the National Security Advisor, and most importantly our military. We heard nothing but shrill rhetoric coming out of this city, and in some cases coming out of this body, from those who said that military action was not justified and that it would not be successful.

Now, granted we have not completed this action, Mr. Speaker, but here we are 3 weeks after the actual military conflict as begun and we now have secured a major portion of Iraq and the capital city of Bagdad. Saddam Hussein is on the run. He either has been killed or he is hiding like a coward and is looking for a way out, perhaps in the neighboring country of Syria.

But, Mr. Speaker, through all of this our military has performed in an absolutely astounding manner. The brave men and women of America who went over to serve have done an absolutely fantastic job. Our hearts and our sympathies go out to those family members of those brave Americans and British troops who paid the ultimate price and to those hundreds who have been injured and have received casualties because of this conflict.

But in the end, Mr. Speaker, the plan established by our Pentagon leaders was a valid plan, is a valid plan, and, in fact, has accomplished not only what we could have in our wildest dreams imagined and expected, but it has even surpassed our expectations in the success, in the efforts to secure the oil fields, to open the port facilities, to prevent missiles from being lobbed into Israel and Jordan and Kuwait which we knew the Iraqis wanted to do, to show the people of Iraq in all the cities that we are there not to dominate or take over their country but rather to liberate them and eventually turn the country back to them so they can elect their own leaders in free and fair elections.

Mr. Speaker, as well as things are going we must also look to where we are going to the future. And I mention that because we need to continue to pursue several other issues. The first of which is the request to convene a war crimes tribunal, not just to hold Saddam Hussein accountable but to hold the leaders of his regime accountable.

Several weeks ago, Mr. Speaker, I introduced legislation which has received scores of Members who have co-sponsored it to create such a war crimes tribunal. Yesterday, Senators Specter and Bayh and I announced the reintroduction of a concurrent resolution between the House and the Senate that calls for this war crimes tribunal. We hope to have this legislation passed both bodies within a matter of weeks. And the legislation specifically focuses not just on the well- documented war crimes of Saddam Hussein himself, but also of those leaders in his entourage and those military leaders and those military police and thug leaders who

have increased the amount of atrocities they have committed on the innocent Iraqi people, our POW's and our troops over the past 3 weeks.

Mr. Speaker, I am talking of people like Tariq Aziz. Tariq Aziz has been invisible over the past several days. I met the man over a decade ago when we had the attack on the USS Stark. I know him. And I want our colleagues to go on record as saying that, Tariq Aziz, you will be held accountable. You will not be able to walk away from this conflict because you publicly on international TV supported the types of activities that were used in direct violation of the Geneva Convention that resulted in the deaths of Americans POW's. And, Tariq Aziz, wherever you are, you will pay the ultimate price if it takes us the rest of our lifetime to track you down and put you in the proper attitude of a criminal court, much like we are trying Milosovic right now in the Hague.

Mr. Speaker, it is important that this war crimes resolution be brought up on the floor of this body and the other body to send a clear and unequivocal signal to the leadership of what is left of Saddam's regime that they will be held accountable for what they have done and for what they continue to do. The best thing these leaders of a former regime in Iraq can do is to lay down their arms, turn over our POW's, blend into society and admit, in fact, that Saddam's regime was oppressive and out of control. And if they do that and if they do not commit war crimes, then, in fact, they will not be held accountable under this action. But we will pursue those people who have, in fact, committed war crimes. And, in fact, we have asked our military and our allies to document, along with the Iraqi people, to document dates, times, places, so that in the end justice will prevail for the years and years of human rights abuses that Saddam Hussein and his regime have perpetrated on innocent people. And especially in recent times on our POW's and our soldiers who were sucked into situations where people were pretending to be coming forward in a gesture of surrendering, hiding behind the garb of civilians only to inflict serious wounds and killings on our troops. All of which is unacceptable under the international rules of conflict. So, Mr. Speaker, this is an item that I would hope all of our colleagues would support.

Mr. Speaker, I also want to address the cost of this conflict. As the vice chairman of our Committee on Armed Services and the chairman the Subcommittee on Tactical Air and Land Forces which oversees the bulk of our procurement dollars for the military, we are facing a crisis. We have used significant amounts of ammunition in this conflict. We have tested the machines and equipment from helicopters, to tactical aviation units, to our ships, to our ground combat vehicles. There is need for repair, upgrades, improvements and replacements of this equipment.

Now, granted, Mr. Speaker, the emergency supplemental that President Bush asked for that has passed this institution will go a long way to meet those immediate shortfalls that have to be taken care of; but, Mr. Speaker, we are beginning, when we return from this two week period, to mark up our defense authorization bill for fiscal year 2004. And, Mr. Speaker, we have serious problems. We are going to have an extremely difficult time in meeting the kinds of resources challenges that will allow us to motivate an increase in our ship building program, to continue to purchase those unmanned aerial vehicles, to move forward in our tactical fighter programs, the FA-18, the joint strike fighter and the F-22, as well as continue to pursue missile defenses like the PAC-3 that was so successful in this conflict, or THAD or our international missile defense capabilities.

To do all of those things is going to require us to be extremely prudent in how we spend the Defense Department dollar. And I want to send out a signal to our colleagues that many have come forward and ask for specific add-ons in our defense bill this year. In fact, within the jurisdiction of my subcommittee alone, Mr. Speaker, I have received requests from our colleagues on both sides of the aisle that total $14 billion above what the President has asked for. Now, in the past we have been able to meet the needs of many of our colleagues as long as, in fact, their priorities have been requested and are supported by the military services.

Our policy has been and will be in this new markup process in May that we will not be able to even consider requests for add-ons where the military services have not, in fact, indicated their support. To plus up that kind of funding would, in fact, be a gross disservice to the men and women serving our country.

To our colleagues I say, during the next several weeks and months, we are going to have to make some difficult decisions about which priorities we, in fact, can fund.

It is also going to provide, Mr. Speaker, a unique opportunity for us. I think there are some ways that we can, to some extent, revolutionize some aspects of our defense spending and free up some money that can help us meet the shortfalls caused by the war.

Within a period of several weeks, Mr. Speaker, I will be coming out with a new initiative that I have discussed with my colleagues in this body on a number of occasions, but I hope it receives strong bipartisan support that will unleash the power of the private sector to privatize much of our military base housing around the country.

Currently, and what has been the practice in the past, Mr. Speaker, is that we use taxpayer dollars to fund the construction of new family housing and barracks units for our troops. These construction projects are extremely expensive, very inefficient and oftentimes, because we do not have the funding to maintain them, within a matter of a few short years, these housing units become extremely costly to operate and, in fact, have serious problems.

The private sector, which for years has been developing university housing for our university campuses and other types of private sector funding, have come forward and told us as they have shown to both the Army, the Marine Corps and the other services, that they can take the needs that we have in housing, and using private funding that they secure from private sector lending institutions, they can finance the actual construction of brand new family housing units and barracks units on any base throughout this Nation.

In taking this approach, it negates the need for the Federal Government and our Defense Department to put the funding up front to build these homes. In fact, the private sector will come in, design the homes, family housing, barracks units, to the specifications of our military, will abide by contracts such as those that have been developed especially by the United States Army and allow us to build state-of-the-art housing units with all of the amenities that are even much more improved over what exists today, as well as providing infrastructure in the form of water piping, sewer system, playgrounds, swimming pools and community centers, and do it all within the cost of what we are currently spending in terms of housing allowance for our troops.

By taking a bold initiative, Mr. Speaker, as I will present and offer over the next several weeks, we can, in fact, put into place a multibillion dollar 5-year housing renewal program for our troops. This multibillion dollar program, which could see as much as $20- to $50 billion of new housing, is a real shot in the arm for our local economies, provides brand new state-of-the-art housing for military bases around the country, totally funded with private dollars.

By doing that, giving the upgraded housing to our troops so that we can maintain and increase the quality of life for their families and for these troops that will be coming home from Iraq, by taking those actions, we can then reduce the military construction budget where we spend between $2.5 to $3 billion every year. That money then, Mr. Speaker, can be channelled into those program shortfalls that we are going to have to meet this year because of the Iraqi war.

In addition, Mr. Speaker, we are going to have to be prepared in this body to support the President in aggressively asking our allies, those that especially did not provide troops in that 50-Nation coalition, to put money on the table to help us defray some of the costs of this conflict.

In addition, Mr. Speaker, the revenues realized from the sale of Iraqi oil also should be used, especially to help

in the beginning of the rebuilding of Iraq and the stabilization of Iraq's infrastructure and their economy, and that should begin immediately by using the frozen assets that President Bush and the administration have frozen over the past several years.

Mr. Speaker, we talk about reconstruction of Iraq. We need to understand the activities in rebuilding Iraq, while led by the U.S. and Great Britain, and I fully support that process, must also involve the Nations of the world. I think it would be extremely shortsighted for us, as much as many of us have very serious reservations about allowing those Nations that were not a part of our coalition benefit, I think it would be a serious mistake for us if we did not allow the U.N. to play a constructive role.

First of all, Mr. Speaker, Nations of the world, along with the U.S., have frozen over $6 billion of Iraqi funds that are currently being held in banks around the world. That money cannot be accessed unless all the Nations of the world are a part of a coalition with us. So I encourage the administration, as Secretary Powell and as the President has stated, to work together with the U.N.

Make no mistake about it, Mr. Speaker, I think the U.S. and Great Britain and Australia should play the lead role, and I think our companies and our consulting contractors should have an edge over those other contractors and Nations that did not see fit to support the liberation of the Iraqi people.

Let me talk about the three most prominent Nations that did not support us in this effort, Mr. Speaker, the first being Germany. Some would say that we should not allow Germany, France and Russia to play any type of role in a post-Iraqi renewal. I think we have to look at this very carefully Mr. Speaker.

In the case of Germany, she has been a long-time ally of ours, and if we look and listen to the leaders of the German military, if we listen to much of the mainstream political leadership coming out of that Nation, it is very supportive of the U.S. and our position. My own feeling is that our problem with Germany resulted from a regime that today is very unpopular in that Nation, and I think the feeling towards Germany should be focused on the leadership of that Nation as opposed to the German people. They continue to house significant amounts of our troops and our military bases in Germany, and their military continues to play a very close working relationship with our troops.

Hopefully, Germany will deal with its own leadership problems internally, and hopefully, the German government will, in fact, take action separate from the words and actions of Mr. Schroeder that will allow Germany to again become a solid partner of ours.

In the case of France, Mr. Speaker, I would say perhaps it is a different story. France has also been a long-term ally of ours, and I have been a long-term friend of both the Germans and the French. In fact, I was to have received the highest award that France offers for homeland security in traveling over there in March which I refused to do because of my concerns for the comments of both their foreign minister and President Jacques Chirac.

My concern with France is much deeper than it is with Germany, Mr. Speaker, because it is not just one person. It is, in fact, a pervasive attitude among the leadership of France that the U.S. was inherently wrong in our effort and that we should be condemned really by the Nations of the world for the actions that we took in regard to Iraq.

As I wrote to President Chirac and President Schroeder one month ago or several weeks ago when this conflict started, I cannot understand how they could be more hypocritical.

Mr. Speaker, I would remind our colleagues that it was only 4 years ago that Jacques Chirac was pounding on America's door, begging and imploring us to send our troops into harm's way in Yugoslavia. It was the same Jacques Chirac who recently said that America should be condemned for taking military action without U.N. support. It was the same Jacques Chirac who 4 years ago convinced our President at that time, along with the German leadership, that we should use America's sons and daughters, through NATO, the first time NATO had ever been used since NATO is a defensive organization, a collective organization of countries that pledge to defend each other, the first time in the history of NATO that it was used in an offensive mode to attack a sovereign non-NATO Nation. Because of Jacques Chirac and because of the German leadership and our own President, in fact, we sent more troops than either Germany or France. We invaded a sovereign country to remove a leader because of his human rights violations.

Mr. Speaker, all of us, including myself, acknowledge that Milosevic is a war criminal, and he is justifiably being tried in The Hague for his crimes, but Mr. Speaker, as we all know, when that conflict started, we did not want Russia involved. In fact, the only way we ended that conflict after our aerial bombing campaign did not dislodge Milosevic was to convince the Russians to come back in and as a part of the G-8 process help us negotiate a framework to get Milosevic out of power.

In the end, Russia was a key ally, but if we remember just 4 years ago, it was the same Jacques Chirac who was telling America we cannot go to the U.N. to get Security Council support for the action against Milosevic because Russia will veto any Security Council resolution. So the same Jacques Chirac, who was today condemning America for not getting a U.N. resolution of support, is the same man who 4 years ago convinced America not to go to the U.N. but to invade Yugoslavia in a NATO-led mission to remove a leader of another Nation.

Mr. Speaker, I really have a problem with France. I think France has made some very fundamental blunders in its relationship with the U.S. that are not going to be easily healed. I do not want to create rifts between Europe and America, but Mr. Speaker, the continued arrogance of Jacques Chirac and the French, as we now look to rebuild Iraq, is mind boggling to me, and I think the French people have to understand this is not some parting feeling that we have that will go away quickly.

The feelings of the comments, of the actions taken by the leadership of the French Government, to me, are despicable, and France is going to have to eventually answer for the actions and the lack of support they have taken. And, most importantly, for the absolute hypocrisy of the French Government 4 years ago in sucking us into a conflict with our troops without going to the U.N. and then now saying that we should not have used our military to remove the worst human rights abuser on the face of the earth since Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin.

And, Mr. Speaker, that is not my assessment. That is the assessment of Max Vanderstahl, the U.N. Special Rapporteur For Human Rights, who just a few short years ago documented, in an official U.N. publication, that there has been no regime since Adolf Hitler that has committed the kinds of human rights abuses that Saddam Hussein has been documented as having committed, including Milosevic.

So, Mr. Speaker, France is a different story. And my own feeling is that we should look very closely at any involvement of those companies and entities in France, especially those funded with government subsidies because, as we all know, significant parts of the French economy are directly tied to the French Government. And I for one, Mr. Speaker, will have an extremely tough time justifying any governmental entity that is a ``business entity'' benefiting in the reconstruction of Iraq.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, let me talk about Russia. Now, I am not here to make apologies for Russia. I was extremely disappointed that Vladimir Putin did not come out and support the United States in our effort. I was convinced, as someone who chairs the interparliamentary dialogue with the Russian Duma, as someone who has traveled to that country many times and knows all of their leaders, I was convinced that Russia would in fact support us. And I am still convinced to this day that if it had come down to a U.N. vote in the Security Council that Russia would have abstained as opposed to vetoing or opposing a resolution. That would be my best guess.

But, Mr. Speaker, let me talk about Russia for a moment. What Russia did in not supporting us was wrong, and I have conveyed that message very strongly to my friends in Russia in the Duma, the federation council, and to the Russian leadership. Likewise, I have expressed in very strong terms, as I have done for the past 10 years, my outrage that technology has continued to flow out of Russia into the hands of Iraq and other unstable nations. And that is an issue that we have to deal with that I will talk about in a moment.

But I want to look at the Russian perspective for just one moment, Mr. Speaker, and I want us to try to put ourselves in the minds of the Russians. Because since Putin has decided to fundamentally put his country in the camp of the U.S. and the west, there has not been much that we have done to give him political victories back home. After all, Mr. Speaker, it was the U.S. that pulled out of the ABM Treaty.

Now, Mr. Speaker, as my colleagues know, I have been a leader in saying that that treaty had outlived its usefulness. But we all know that the ABM Treaty was an extremely important political statement in Russia in terms of bilateral security with the U.S. The fault with the ABM Treaty was not that we pulled out of it, as President Bush did, with my support, it was how we handled the pulling out of the ABM Treaty. We did not give Putin any degree of cover politically back home in his country.

And the same thing occurred with the expansion of NATO. Again, I supported the expansion of NATO and all of those countries that are currently NATO members, including the Baltic States; the former Soviet states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania; the former eastern block nations, all of which are a part of NATO. I absolutely supported the membership of those countries into the family of nations in NATO. But, again, from the Russian perspective, we move NATO up to Russia's doorstep. Again, we did not take the appropriate steps to give Putin the political cover to his people that this was not some kind of an overt move or some kind of overt effort to try to threaten Russia and its stability and security.

The third thing was, Mr. Speaker, the war in Kosovo, which I just described a moment ago, 4 years ago, where we bombed Milosevic and deliberately kept Russia out of the equation. In fact, Mr. Speaker, 4 years ago I led a delegation of 11 of our colleagues to Vienna, five from the Democrat side and five from the Republican side. I let each of those 11 Members read on the airplane ride to Vienna an internal memo that was written by Strobe Talbott to Vice President Gore and Sandy Berger that outlined the fact that we did not want Russia involved in helping to find a solution to get Milosevic out of power. So, again, we sent the wrong signal to Russia.

And, finally, Mr. Speaker, the one priority that Russia has consistently asked for, that President Bush promised he would deliver to President Putin over 1 year ago, was the elevation of Russia out of Jackson-Vanik restraints. Now, Mr. Speaker, there is strong overwhelming bipartisan support in this body to elevate Russia out of Jackson-Vanik, and many of my colleagues have cosponsored that legislation. President Bush promised President Putin over 1 year ago that we would elevate Russia out of Jackson-Vanik. Because of actions by Members in the other body over issues like poultry imports and steel imports, action was never taken on elevating Russia out of Jackson- Vanik. So another commitment that we made to Russia never materialized.

So if you look at it from Putin and Russia's standpoint, it really has been a one-way effort in terms of trying to convince the Russians that we want to be their equal partner. That does not justify Russia's action in not supporting us. In my opinion, Russia should have been with us because they have the same problems with terrorism that we have. And, in fact, I might add, Mr. Speaker, Russia has been very cooperative in working with us in sharing intelligence and allowing us to use airspace and allowing us to use former Soviet military bases for our troops in fighting the war against terrorism.

But my disappointment in Russia and its position is also partly modified by the reality of what happened over the past several years that I think caused Russia not to be as supportive as perhaps they should have and could have been.

Mr. Speaker, in Russia today we still have a major problem. One of the points that I have made to my colleagues repeatedly over the past 10 years is that much of our problem with homeland security today has come about because we did not enforce the requirements of arms control regimes in the mid to late 1990s that allowed technology to flow out of Russia into the hands of five nations, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya and North Korea.

As a student of Russia and someone who has spent much time working with the Russian leaders, during the late 1990s I saw instance after instance where we had solid evidence that technology, including chemical precusors, biological technology, technology associated with missile systems, and conventional weapons was being sold out of Russia into the hands of people in those five unstable nations. In fact, in 1998 I did a floor speech where I laid on the Congressional Record documentation prepared by the Congressional Research Service outlining 38 times that we caught Russian and Chinese entities illegally transferring technology to five nations, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya and North Korea. In all 38 of those cases, we did not take the appropriate steps. In fact of the 38 cases, we imposed the required sanctions 8 times.

I was in Moscow in January 1996 a month after the Washington Post ran a front page documenting the story of accelerometers and gyroscopes for Iraq's missiles. I went to see our ambassador, Tom Pickering, in Moscow in January. I asked, What was the Russian response? That is a violation. They are not allowed to transfer that kind of technology to Iraq. His answer was, You have to ask Washington, I do not make that call.

I wrote to the President and he wrote me back in March, Dear Congressman Weldon, I share your concerns. We are investigating the allegations that are in the Washington Post, and if it did occur, it would be a violation of the missile technology control regime, but we have no evidence.

Since I work closely with the intelligence community, several of my friends in one of our agencies brought in a package and showed me two devices which I have used in speeches around the country probably 500 times, a Soviet-made accelerometer and a Soviet-made gyroscope that we caught being transferred out of Russia to Iraq 3 times.

During the year that our President told me he was investigating the transfer of illegal technology to Iraq, we caught Russian entities illegally transferring technology 3 times. Over 100 sets of those devices were in the hands of our intelligence agency. What were they used for, to improve the accuracy of the missiles that Saddam Hussein fired against our troops in 1991 and tried to fire against our troops just over the past several weeks.

Mr. Speaker, the problem of our homeland security today is because we did not take the appropriate steps in the 1990s to secure the weapons of mass destruction within Russia's borders. We made some success, the Nunn-Lugar program, the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, and the Nuclear Nonproliferation Program did make good strides. They allowed us to take apart nuclear weapons and dismantle offensive arms. They allowed us to begin to control the amount of chemical and biological agents and understand them. But even that program did not go far enough. In fact, that program did not have enough in the way of accountability to make sure the funds that we were expending were being used for the proper purpose for which they were intended.

Just this past month, we held a hearing in the Committee on Armed Services where over $100 million of U.S. money was paid to a U.S. contractor to build a plant in Russia that was supposed to destroy fuel that Russia had which we felt was a potential threat.

After $95 million of that money was spent and the plant was completed, we realized that Russia no longer had the fuel. They in fact used the fuel for their space program leaving us with a

$95 million empty plant and an absolutely red face.

Mr. Speaker, in our programs to help Russia control and monitor these weapons of mass destruction, it is essential that we have accountability. Mr. Speaker, I want to say to my colleagues, now is not the time for us to back away from engaging Russia in helping her control these technologies that are the reason why we went to war in Iraq in the first place, these chemical and biological agents, these weapons of mass destruction, these potential nuclear programs.

In fact, it was retired Soviet General Alexander Levitt who entertained a delegation that I took to Moscow in May of 1997 who responded to a question I asked him about the status of the Russian military in this way. I said General Levitt, you have just left President Yeltsin's side as his top defense adviser. You have been in a position of overseeing all of Russia's military on behalf of your country's President. Would you tell me the status of your military?

He looked at our bipartisan delegation and he said it is in total disarray. He said our best Soviet war fighters, our most competent Soviet generals and admirals have left the service of their country because they have not been paid. They do not have decent housing, and morale among our troops has never been worse. So Congressman, all of those technologies and weapons that we built during the Cold War to use against you are being sold by those generals and admirals, and they are being sold to your enemies.

How right he was in 1997 to tell us what would happen in the future. Those Soviet generals and admirals, not the Russian government, those Soviet generals and admirals who felt betrayed by the motherland resorted to selling off technology to unstable leaders like Saddam Hussein. So today in Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya and North Korea, we have technologies that flowed out of Russia into the hands of evil people and are now being considered for transfer to unstable terrorist organizations.

Now Russia still contains vast amounts of weapons of mass destruction. When I had Dr. Alexa Yobakov come to Congress in the fall of 1998 to testify before my subcommittee, and he is perhaps the most respected environmentalist in all of Russia, he said this about Russia's chemical weapons stockpile. He said publicly we have claimed that we produce and have 40,000 metric tons of chemical weapons. But he said my hunch is that our actual inventory is probably closer to double that amount, 80,000 to 100,000 metric tons of chemical weapons.

These are the same chemical agents that we have been so concerned about Iraq using. We cannot now move away and not help Russia stabilize the security of those weapons and destroy them because if we do, they will ultimately get again in the hands of the wrong people.

Likewise, Mr. Speaker, the Soviet Union before it became Russia and a nation that divided itself, produced significant amounts of biological weapons. In fact, a good friend of mine, Dr. Ken Alibek, who at one time was the number two leader of the Soviet agency that produced the biological weapons for the Soviet Union and is now a professor at George Mason University here in the States, in testimony again before my subcommittee in 1998 and in his book ``Biohazard'' that he has produced nationwide, Ken Alibek talks about the significant amount of biological weapons that the Soviet Union produced again to use against America. In his book he documents 60 strains of anthrax, smallpox, botulism, VX gas, mustard gas, all of which the Soviets produced and stockpiled so that one day they might have to use them against us. Well, those stockpiles are still there, Mr. Speaker. Those biological agents are still stored throughout the former Soviet Union.

It is not enough for us to pull away and think that somehow Russia is going to have the money and the will to take apart and destroy all of those chemical and biological agents.

In addition, Mr. Speaker, in the transition of Russia from a communist society to a free market democracy, many of their most competent nuclear scientists are out of work. They used to produce nuclear weapons, nuclear warheads. Today they have no work. They are driving taxicabs. So it is equally essential that we not allow those scientists to end up working in Iran or Iraq or North Korea or Syria or Libya or China or India or Pakistan, helping them develop a new generation of nuclear weapons.

For all of those reasons, Mr. Speaker, it is essential that we renew our effort to help Russia, in spite of our concerns with their position on the Iraqi conflict, to stabilize, secure and destroy those weapons of mass destruction.

Because of that, Mr. Speaker, tomorrow, joined by my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, with our lead minority sponsor the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards), I will introduce the most comprehensive nuclear nonproliferation cooperative threat reduction program with Russia and the former Soviet States in the history of our relationship.

This 35 page bill will be introduced tomorrow. I would encourage our colleagues on both sides of the aisle to sign on as original cosponsors. At this point in time we have approximately 10 Members of the Republican Party and 10 Members of the Democrat Party. I have not yet introduced the bill, nor have I sent it out for consideration.

Tomorrow this comprehensive legislation will be filed, which builds and expands upon our successes in the Nunn-Lugar program and the nuclear nonproliferation and weapons of mass destruction programs and creates new possibilities to go into Russia and to help them identify, secure and destroy these nasty weapons that we do not want to get in the hands of other leaders that might one day do what Saddam Hussein did in Iraq.

It is absolutely essential, Mr. Speaker, now at this critical juncture, that we redouble our effort with Russia to help her stabilize and destroy these most nasty weapons that are the most significant threats to our homeland security.

This legislation, Mr. Speaker, is creative. It creates a number of new initiatives, all of which are involved to have a closer working relationship.

Mr. Speaker, in my initial discussions with the Russians, they have told me if America passes this kind of comprehensive legislation, they will work with us to open up all of those other secret sites that up until now Russia has been unwilling to allow our scientists to visit.

If we truly want to secure the homeland, Mr. Speaker, then we have to go to where the threats are, and the threats to our security and our homeland, the threats of chemical, biological, nuclear strategic missile systems, are contained within the confines of the former Soviet States.

This legislation gives us new initiatives to address those threats cooperatively with Russia, and, in doing so, convinces the Russians that they have got to stop keeping some of their facilities closed and off limits, but rather allow us to work collectively together.

It also provides something new, Mr. Speaker. It provides for an accountability process that will prevent future expenditures of U.S. money from being misspent the way we have seen dollars misspent in past programs, where the projects were not in fact doing what was intended to be done and did not accomplish the objectives that we laid out initially.

So, Mr. Speaker, I would ask my colleagues to join on this legislation tomorrow morning. Our press conference at 9:30 in the Capitol will be attended by support groups that I think represent the broad cross-section of ideology in America. The Carnegie Center for International Peace, the Heritage Foundation, the Organization of Vietnam Veterans and the Nuclear Threat Reduction Campaign will all join with us in a bipartisan announcement to put forward a new initiative, a bold initiative that allows us to deal with the underlying threats to our homeland security, the reasons why we had to go to war in Iraq, because Saddam had obtained these terrible technologies from a destabilized Russia.

Mr. Speaker, the minister of atomic energy from Russia, Rumyantsev, is in our city tonight. I will be meeting with him tomorrow morning at 9 a.m. I know the minister well. He wants to work with us in a constructive way to reduce threats. We must seize the opportunity and the initiative. We must not allow ourselves to be clouded, to

think that somehow pulling away from Russia is the answer. It is the worst solution. It is the worst alternative in terms of dealing with the concerns of our homeland and its security.

So I would encourage our colleagues to look at this legislation, to cosponsor it and to work to get it brought up on the House and Senate floors as quickly as possible.

Finally, in closing, Mr. Speaker, let me just speak a word or two about a man who I think will go down in history as the 21st century Winston Churchill. I was not a big fan of Tony Blair's up until this year, Mr. Speaker, but let me tell you, I have changed my mind.

You know, Britain went through a very difficult time when Adolf Hitler was in power in Germany, and I remember from my history lesson the position of Winston Churchill as a minority voice in Great Britain, calling out for the people to be wary of this man Hitler and what he might do to dominate people around him and to eventually inflict pain on Britain.

The people of Britain laughed at him. They said Churchill was an alarmist. Instead, they listened to Neville Chamberlain. Neville Chamberlain had a very famous meeting with Adolf Hitler. At that meeting he supposedly received assurances from Adolf Hitler that Hitler had no intention of harming Great Britain, that Hitler had no intention of harming Europe.

So Neville Chamberlain went back to Britain and gave a famous speech. In that famous speech he pronounced those famous words: ``Don't worry, Britain. Peace is at hand.'' Within a matter of a few short weeks, Britain was being bombarded with missiles launched by Germany, Adolf Hitler.

It was Winston Churchill who then rose to prominence. It was Winston Churchill, who had been mocked by the people of Britain, who stood up and provided leadership, and perhaps Britain, Europe and the world's worst hour. It was Winston Churchill who had the courage to do the right thing, in spite of the animosity generated by the people of his Nation and by those who said, ``We can negotiate with Hitler. He will listen to us. He has agreed not to attack us and agreed not to harm Europe.''

Thank goodness for Winston Churchill, that he was there, to call to arms Great Britain, Europe and eventually America.

I am convinced, Mr. Speaker, Tony Blair is the Winston Churchill of the 21st century. Under absolutely outrageous odds, from his own party, internal bickering and sniping at him, to the British people, to world opinion, to the European leaders, his neighbors, Tony Blair stood up, and he stood for his convictions, and he did the right thing.

So, Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight in final summary of my discussion about the war to pay tribute to someone who I think will go down in history as an equivalent to Winston Churchill in the 21st century, a man who stood up and did the right thing under impossible conditions.

Now, that is not to minimize the leadership of our great President. George Bush provided the vision, but it would have been far easier for Tony Blair to blend in with the European crowd, with the Jacques Chiracs, the Gerhard Schroeders, and said that is not our battle, that is not our worry. Tony Blair did not do that.

This Nation, this body and the world owes Tony Blair on this evening of the celebration of the stabilization of Iraq and Baghdad a tremendous vote of thanks.

Mr. Speaker, Marcus C. Hansen is one leader whose accomplishments and dedication to both his vision and values have gained him the respect and admiration of individuals across this great country. It is a privilege to take this opportunity to recognize his outstanding leadership as President of Lockheed Martin Management & Data Systems (M&DS). Under Mr. Hansen's leadership for the past six years, M&DS--a $2.3 billion business unit of the Lockheed Martin Corporation headquartered in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania--has contributed vitally to the proud history of Lockheed Martin. It has been both a great honor and a distinct pleasure to work with Marc over the years, and I salute him for his unwavering dedication to our country, citizens and economy.

On March 31, 2003, Mr. Hansen will retire as President of Lockheed Martin Management & Data Systems (M&DS). Mr. Hansen had responsibility for all aspects of the organization's business, including management of more than 8,000 employees. The company's record under his leadership speaks for itself: outstanding execution, disciplined growth and unquestionable commitment to customer and corporate success. Under his tenure, M&DS has truly grown into a world-class organization that values its customers, employees, and the community. Mr. Hansen is often described by his peers as a strong leader who is able to motivate those around him to continued success. Over the years, I have seen first-hand his ability to inspire, and I applaud his talents and dedication.

Since he became president of M&DS in 1997, the company has met or exceeded its financial goals every year while increasing sales from $1 billion to over $2 billion. Under Mr. Hansen's leadership, M&DS has received several business awards and distinctions, including the highest technical accreditation ever accorded a single company, SEI SE/ SW CMMI Maturity level 5 from the Carnegie Mellon Institute. Computerworld magazine also featured the company as one of the ``Top 100 Best Places to Work in IT'' for the last two years.

Mr. Hansen directed a broad array of information technology business areas with capabilities in system engineering and integration, architectural definition, and large-scale data and information software systems design, development and implementation. Additionally, major elements of the company are engaged in system operations, maintenance and enhancement at customer facilities.

Mr. Hansen's business philosophy is driven his unwaivering commitment to the highest ethical standards. He strongly believes that if you genuinely care about your customers and help them succeed, you succeed. To maintain competitiveness, Mr. Hansen believes a company must attract and retain the best employees and create an environment that allows them to flourish.

Mr. Hansen began his career in 1968 with GE Aerospace (GEA) in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. In 1974, he became program manager supporting the Landsat satellite system. In 1977, he joined Management & Data Systems where he held a number of increasingly responsible engineering and program management positions. In 1988, Mr. Hansen took on the assignment of managing GEA's Aerospace Information Technology component. In 1989, he transferred to Syracuse, New York as General Manager of Engineering, Ocean and Radar Systems, and in 1992 he assumed the same position at Government Electronic Systems in Moorestown, New Jersey.

In January 1994, Mr. Hansen returned to M&DS as vice president, Requirements Management Systems, and in March 1995 assumed the role of executive vice president of M&DS. Mr. Hansen was then named president of Management & Data Systems in March 1997.

With his career at M&DS near its end, Mr. Hansen said that if he could leave just one thing behind, it would be M&DS Guiding Principles or what he calls ``the right stuff''--his recipe for a world-class business. He urged employees to read, understand and personalize them, and he encouraged them to make certain that decisions are made in the best interest of the country, the customer and the corporation.

Mr. Speaker, fellow colleagues, please join me in paying tribute to the exemplary accomplishments of Mr. Marcus C. Hansen, for his achievements as a business leader and patriot who exemplifies the spirit that has made this country great. I wish Marc continued success as he utilizes his energies and talents in new and exciting ways. I wish Marc and his wife Cheryl much happiness in the future.

Mr. Speaker, I wish to express my sincere condolences both to the family of Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic and to the nation of Serbia-Montenegro. His assassination cannot be allowed to stop the process of democracy and reform that Mr. Djindjic promised.

The world mourns the loss of a true democrat and lover of freedom; having dedicated his life to these ideals, Mr. Djindjic was willing to risk everything to bring freedom to his homeland. Both during their time in opposition and after the Democratic Party came to power, a rise in which he played a major role, Mr. Djindjic stood not only for democracy in Serbia-Montenegro, but also for justice, as demonstrated by his critical role in bringing Slobodan Milosevic to justice.

Prime Minister Djindjic worked tirelessly to bring Serbia-Montenegro out of the international isolation forced upon it by the regime of Milosevic. Toward this goal, I met with the Prime Minister in January of this year, and I was quite impressed by both his commitment to democracy in Serbia-Montenegro and to making it an integral part of Europe and the world.

In order to ensure democracy and justice, Mr. Djindjic also was a committed opponent of organized crime, the scourge of so many democratizing states. Without political leaders commited not only to the ideals of democracy, but also to a basic foundation of justice, a free society cannot flourish. Prime Minister Djindjic was a prime example of just such a political leader--one that Serbia-Montenegro, and the world, needs more of.

Yesterday was truly a sad day for democracy, one of its champions fell; but we cannot let the crimes of a few undue the good of lifetime devoted to freedom. Although the world has lost Zoran Djindjic, we must all make sure that his dream lives on.

Mr. Speaker, I am confused today. I have been in Congress 17 years and I have been a strong supporter of our relations with our European friends, with parliamentarians from Russia, Ukraine, China, and every other major nation in the world. I have traveled to France and Germany several times, and have hosted scores of members of parliaments.

But what I saw occur last week and what I am hearing coming out of the President's mouth disturbs and confuses me. President Chirac of France and his counterpart, Chancellor Schroeder of Germany, have said that they will not support the U.S. effort to remove Saddam Hussein from Iraq. They have further said there is no justification for war unless it is approved by the U.N. Security Council.

But I look at each country and I wonder what they are referring to, because it was France just 4 years ago when they wanted the U.S. to come in and assist them militarily in removing Milosevic from power in Belgrade. It was France who came to the U.S. and convinced our President to put our sons and daughters in harm's way. But in doing so, along with the French, in pushing America to fight this military battle, they would not go to the U.N. Security Council because they knew that Russia would veto any resolution.

So what did France and Germany do? Just a few short years ago, for the first time and only time in NATO's history, along with our President, at that time Bill Clinton, they used a NATO military force to invade a non-NATO sovereign nation to remove the head of state, and that head of state was Slobodan Milosevic. Now, Milosevic was a bad guy, a war criminal, he has done bad things, but everyone, including the special rapporteur for human rights at the U.N., Max van der Stoel, including Bill Clinton's own Ambassador to the U.N., Ambassador Holbrooke, have all said publicly that, in fact, Saddam Hussein is far worse than Milosevic ever was. In fact, a U.N. special rapporteur said there has been no leader since Adolf Hitler who has done the kinds of human rights abuses that Saddam Hussein has done.

How, then, can France and Germany when just a few short years ago for their own benefit, because a neighbor was threatening in their case, they felt, their security, enticed the U.S. to come in and use our troops to remove Milosevic from power militarily and today say, in a situation far, far worse in Saddam Hussein, that force is not justified?

I am also reminded of just a year ago, President Jacques Chirac, saying it again, the U.N. Security Council is the final group that should decide the change of regimes, sent French troops to the Ivory Coast because of a coup attempt, sent French troops there, without going to the U.N. Security Council, without asking for a vote, without employing the very tactics that he is standing up now and demanding around the world.

Mr. Speaker, I am troubled. The French and Germans have been our longtime friends, and hopefully they will be once this is over; but the words coming out of the mouths of Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schroder and their foreign ministers leave me confused and bewildered. I really wonder what France stands for. I really wonder what Germany stands for. Are they really against human rights abuses as defined by Amnesty International and every other major human rights group? Are they really convinced that people who are bad actors like Milosevic should be removed from office, as we did with their pushing and support just a few years ago militarily? And if so, why the change with Saddam Hussein? I hope it is not because of the ties to oil that France has with Iraq. I would hope that is not the case with the French. But, Mr. Speaker, I do not know what the proper response is.

Mr. Speaker, I include for the Record two letters which were sent by me to President Jacques Chirac last Friday and Chancellor Gerhard Schroder, also last Friday, which basically lay out the facts and then asks the question of the French and Germans, Do you have a double standard? Is it okay to entice America to come in and fight a battle in front of you in your backyard to remove a leader that you have said publicly is a human rights abuser, even though you do not want to go to the U.N. and did not go to the U.N. to achieve the U.N.'s support? Is it okay to do that and then a few years later, after 12 years of seeing Saddam Hussein kill tens of thousands of innocent people, use chemical weapons against the Kurds, commit war crimes against our own American POWs, 21 of them, in fact, and, in fact, commit the most horrendous crimes against the Kuwaitis and all the other minority groups inside Iraq, and then to come forward and say, ``Well, in this case it's different''?

House of Representatives,

Washington, DC, March 7, 2003

President Jacques Chirac,

Republic of France, c/o Embassy of France, Washington, DC.

Dear President Chirac: As a long time friend of the French

people and a steadfast facilitator of inter-parliamentary

cooperation between our nations, I am compelled to contact

you to express my disappointment with your government's

actions. Throughout my tenure in Congress, I have hosted

dozens of French parliamentarians, traveled to your country

to speak to government officials and industry leaders, and

endeavored to strengthen the relations between our great

nations. However, I was outraged today by your Foreign

Minister's statements before the United Nations opposing the

use of force to uphold the United Nations Charter and the

sixteen multilateral resolutions written after the Gulf War

cease-fire in 1991. Your government's words and actions have

done serious, if not permanent, damage to the once unshakable

foundations of the great transatlantic alliance that has

served our mutual interests for so long.

Your continued opposition to the use of force to disarm

Iraq without the full support of the United Nations is

steeped in hypocrisy of such epic proportions, that your

sudden reverence for the inviolability of the United Nations

is laughable. When the dictator Milosevic threatened western

Europe's back door, France was entirely content to bypass the

United Nations Security Council and take military action.

History will forever judge your use of NATO--championing the

organization's first offensive action against a non-menber--

without any attempt to employ the global diplomacy of the

United Nations. The actions of your Foreign Minister opposing

the dedication of the United States stands in stark

contradiction to the practices and motivations of your

government in Yugoslavia. During negotiations within the

Security Council amidst the NATO engagement, Alain Dejammet

justified France's actions through the enforcement of three

resolutions under Chapter VII on Kosovo and Yugoslavia's

refusal to fulfill its obligations under those agreements.

Your opposition and veto threat sends a disturbing message to

future generations that international interference is no

longer desired to end genocide, obstruct terrorism or aid a

suffering people under a demonic regime. Even more

disturbing, is that the efforts to remove the cancer of

Slobodon Milosevic could not have been accomplished without

the vast majority of coalition troops, air strikes and

logistical support provided by the United States. In fact,

France went to great lengths to have America commit our sons

and daughters for this moral purpose, and we dutifully

obliged.

I am quite sure that the foreign ministers of France and

Germany slept soundly while the bombs fell on Kosovo without

United Nations approval. However, the historically peaceful

people of France are now roused to defend the sacred honor of

the Security Council, the very same Security Council whose

honor they flouted just five years ago. Convenience, not

principle, seems to be France's guiding compass. Your

constant opposition to America's effort to remove a regime

that has continually violated several, if not all of the

human rights provisions within the United Nations charter and

presents an increasing threat to democracies all over the

world is nothing short of appalling. The dictatorship in Iraq

far surpasses the practice of

murder and oppression that ever existed in Yugoslavia.

Nevertheless, your country insists on turning a blind eye to

the atrocities and breeding ground for terrorism that fail to

occur near the borders of old Europe.

France's continued indifference to the plight of the Iraqi

people, its neighbors and those who fall subject to Saddam

Hussein's evil rule defies explanation. The atrocities

perpetrated under Hussein's regime are well documented by

organizations such as Human Rights Watch, the International

Federation for Human Rights, Amnesty International, the

Coalition for International Justice and even the United

Nations. In fact, the former United Nations Special

Rapporteur for Human Rights in Iraq, Max Van der Stoel,

stated that ``the brutality of the Iraqi regime was of an

exceptionally grave character, so grave that it has few

parallels in the years that have passed sine the Second World

War. . . . It is to comparisons with the obscenity of the

Holocaust and Stalin's mass murders that observers are

inevitably drawn when confronted with the horrors of Saddam's

Iraq. . . This is a state that employs arbitrary execution,

imprisonment and torture on a comprehensive and routine

basis.''

The vile methods of torture inflicted upon Coalition

prisoners of the Gulf War, Kuwaitis, Kurds, Sh'iit muslims,

Iranians, Turkomans, and anyone else who dares to live a life

contrary to the wishes of Saddam Hussein are well documented.

Primitive executions, dismemberment, castration, hangings by

barbed wire, the raping of women in front of family members

and children, burning flesh with acid, finger and toenail

extraction, boring holes into bodies with drills and the

ignition of gasoline pumped into various orifices of the

human body are routine measures employed by Hussein and his

henchmen.

Yet France continues to make every effort to block

Hussein's removal and protect a despot whose country has the

highest number of disappearances and displaced persons in the

World. You callously refuse to acknowledge the documented

destruction of life and repeated offensive military actions

against surrounding countries since the 1970's. Your actions

condone the blatant disregard of United Nations resolutions

since 1991, and repeatedly make it clear that international

law should not be honored. The statements made today and your

acquiescence may forever undermine the peaceful objectives

that are the foundation of international law and serve to

entice future evils.

America will not follow France's lead and remain content to

concern ourselves solely with problems that border our

country. We will not allow economic investments and resource

dependency to impede our future judgments to alleviate the

suffering of others. The American people and my colleagues in

Congress will not soon forget the rank hypocrisy and blatant

disloyalty displayed by your country today, and I am

confident that the free people of the world will also refuse

to follow your misguided lead.

Sincerely,

Curt Weldon,

Member of Congress.

Mr. Speaker, I rise this evening to lay on the record information that needs to be brought to the attention of this body and every American as we struggle with the current crisis involving our relationship with Iraq.

We have seen a lot of information, in the media, a lot of public protests, both against and for action that this country might need to take, but there has been one major part of the debate that has been missing.

As we talk about Saddam Hussein and the need for him to abide by the agreement that he reached with the U.N. And the U.N. Security Council 12 years ago, as we discuss the fact that the U.N. inspectors have not yet been able to determine that he in fact has taken apart his weapons of mass destruction, there is in fact one set of facts, Mr. Speaker, that are obvious, that are documented, and that need action.

It is for this reason that I rise this evening to present to this body, our colleagues, our country and the world, the facts that will support a resolution that I will introduce in this body on Thursday of this week, a bipartisan resolution, with the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cardin) and the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), and a whole host of other Democrats and Republicans, that calls for the President to require and request the U.N. to convene a special war crimes tribunal to hold Saddam Hussein accountable for the egregious acts against human beings that he has perpetrated over the past 20 years.

Mr. Speaker, it is certainly time that the world holds Saddam Hussein accountable.

Mr. Speaker, the facts are all over the place. They have been documented by human rights groups, by Amnesty International, by agencies of the U.N. and the U.S. Government, and by other nations around the world. In fact, there have been specific actions taken by the U.N. The United States budget in fiscal year 2001 and 2002 contributed $4 million to a special U.N. Iraqi War Crimes Commission to document the evidence, some of which I am going to put out this evening.

The United Nations Security Council and the Commission on Human Rights have repeatedly condemned Iraq's human rights record. On April 19, 2002, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights passed a resolution drawing attention to ``the systematic widespread and extremely grave violations of human rights and of international humanitarian law by the Government of Iraq resulting in an all- pervasive repression and oppression sustained by broad-based discrimination and widespread terror.''

In fact, the United Nations Security Council Resolution 674 called on all states to provide information on Iraq's war-related activities and atrocities to the U.N.

Mr. Speaker, it is amazing to me as we heard Americans, especially those coming from Hollywood, recently on our national media outlets, praising and defending Saddam Hussein as a man who can be trusted, as someone who will do the right thing if just given the right amount of time.

It is amazing to me that this country went to war just a few short years ago, pushed very aggressively by France and Germany, to remove Milosevic from power in Yugoslavia because he was allegedly committing war crimes.

Now, Mr. Speaker, I am no fan of Milosevic. In fact, I think he is where he belongs, in the Hague before a war crimes tribunal. But, Mr. Speaker, tonight I am going to lay out the evidence that will make the case that Saddam Hussein makes Milosevic look like a common street criminal. In fact, I am not the only one that feels this way, Mr. Speaker.

Let me quote from a recent op-ed that ran this past Sunday, written by Richard Holbrooke. Now, Richard Holbrooke was the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations under President Bill Clinton. Let me quote from Mr. Holbrooke's op-ed that ran nationwide this past weekend.

``When one considers that Saddam Hussein is far worse than Slobodan Milosevic and that Iraq has left a long trail of violated Security Council resolutions while there were none in Kosovo.'' So Richard Holbrooke, the U.N. Ambassador under President Clinton, has publicly acknowledged as recently as this past week that, in his opinion, Saddam Hussein is far worse than Slobodan Milosevic.

This country went to war to oust Slobodan Milosevic. This country murdered innocent Serbs with bombs to oust Slobodan Milosevic. And who pushed this country? France and Germany, because the French and Germans were concerned that Milosevic was in their neighborhood.

In fact, Mr. Speaker, in a quote from a book just recently released, The Threatening Storm, by the expert on Iraq during the Clinton administration in both the CIA and the Security Council, Ken Pollack, one section documents the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq, and I want to quote from this book, which I think every Member of this body should read. It is page 122, discussing the Iraqi state and security. Again, this individual, Ken Pollack, is an acknowledged intelligence expert on Iraq. This is what he said:

``Max Van der Stoel, the former United Nations Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in Iraq, told the United Nations that the brutality of the Iraqi regime was of an exceptionally grave character, so grave that it has few parallels in the years that have passed since the Second World War.''

In other words, Mr. Speaker, that the Saddam Hussein regime has not been equaled since Adolf Hitler. Not Slobodan Milosevic, who the Germans and French supported militarily to remove, but not since Adolph Hitler.

Let me continue. ``Indeed, it is to comparisons with the obscenity of the Holocaust and Stalin's mass murders that observers are inevitably drawn when confronted with the horrors of Saddam's Iraq. Saddam's Iraq is a state that employs arbitrary execution, imprisonment and torture on a comprehensive and routine basis.''

A full catalogue is not yet totally available, but tonight we are going to put on the record, Mr. Speaker, the examples that are available.

Let me read again some from Ken Pollack's account, and these are not the most pleasant facts, but they are facts, Mr. Speaker.

``This is a regime that will gouge out the eyes of children

to force confessions from their parents and grandparents.

This is a regime that will crush all the bones in the feet of

a 2-year-old girl to force her mother to divulge her father's

whereabouts. This is a regime that will hold a nursing baby

at arm's length from its mother and allow the child to starve

to death to force the mother to confess. This is a regime

that will burn a person's limbs off to force him to confess

or comply, a regime that will slowly lower its victims into

huge vats of acid, either to break their will or simply as a

means of execution. This is a regime that applies electric

shocks to the bodies of its victims, particularly their

genitals, with great regularity. This a regime that in 2000

decreed that the crime of criticizing the regime, which can

be as harmless as suggesting that Saddam's clothing did not

match, would be punished by cutting out the offender's

tongue.

A regime that practices systematic rape against its female

victims. A regime that dragged in a man's wife, daughter, and

female relative and repeatedly raped her in front of him. A

regime that forced a white-hot metal rod into a person's anus

or other orifices. A regime that employs thallium poisoning,

widely considered one of the most excruciating ways to die. A

regime that beheaded a young mother in the street in front of

her house and children because her husband was suspected of

opposing the regime. A regime that used chemical warfare on

its own Kurdish citizens, not just on the 15,000 that were

killed and maimed at Halabja, but on scores of other villages

all across Kurdistan. A regime that tested chemical and

biological warfare agents on Iranian prisoners of war and

used the POWs in controlled experiments to determine the best

ways to disperse these agents to inflict the greatest damage.

All of this, Mr. Speaker, I quote, and is from the documentation by Ken Pollack, the intelligence expert on Iraq during the Clinton administration in the book available to everyone in America entitled ``The Threatening Storm.''

But, Mr. Speaker, it is not just Ken Pollack. In fact, the citations and documentations of the violations of human rights by Saddam Hussein are overwhelming and comprehensive. As a member of the Human Rights Caucus in this Congress, I am outraged that there has been no solid vocal outcry, not just from this body and America, but from those countries in Europe, especially Germany and France, who claim to be for the human rights of innocent people.

Let me summarize. The methods of torture, the human rights abuses documented by our special military commission looking into our own POWs that Saddam held against the Geneva Convention that controls the treatment of prisoners. Let me read the documentation in summary.

Americans experienced the following: 21 service members captured during Desert Storm were all covered by the Geneva protections. They were beaten to the rhythm of songs. The beatings were done by led pipes, by clubs, by rifle butts, by rubber hoses, by black jacks and batons, by kicks and punches to the face, neck, ears, prior injuries, genitals and kidneys. Malice to their knees, cat-o'-nine tails, burning of individuals with cigarettes, including the butts being placed into open wounds. Urination on POWs. Genital investigations and harassment to determine if POWs were circumcised as Jews. Mock executions, threatened dismemberment, threatened castration, cattle prod shocking, talkman shocking, electrocuted wires run around a person's head attached to the ears, causing massive convulsions in the jaw, knocking out teeth, sexual abuse, fingernail extraction, person hung by their feet with barbed wire.

Mr. Speaker, these were American citizens, and this is how they were treated by Saddam Hussein in direct violation of the international agreements on caring for prisoners of war. This was not made up, Mr. Speaker. These are documented cases involving America's sons and daughters.

Where is the outcry in America? Where is the outcry in Hollywood and from those experts on TV and the movies who claim to know all about how Americans were treated by this madman in Baghdad? And what about the actions that have been documented by Amnesty International, by all of the major groups that monitor human rights of what Saddam did against the Kuwaitis and the Kurds?

Let me again run through some of those cases that have been documented, including knifings, boring holes in bodies with drills, tongue and ear removal, hammering nails into hands, eye-gouging, inserting broken bottlenecks into rectums, pumping air and gasoline through people through their rectums and other orifices and then igniting the gasoline until the bodies exploded. Pouring acid on skin, forcing detainees to watch the torture, rape and execution of others and relatives, random and unjustified killings, electric shocks to the mouth, forcing women to eat flesh cut from their own body, removal of eye balls, placement of people into rotating washing machines, execution by electric drill, cutting with razors, rubbing salt into wounds, castrations, blow torches, suspension from ceiling fans.

Mr. Speaker, all of these actions are documented and conducted and ordered by Saddam Hussein and those people currently in control in Baghdad.

Where is the outrage, Mr. Speaker? France and Germany, pushing America to go in to remove Milosevic who committed ethnic cleansing; none of the charges against Milosevic at the Hague at this point in time come anywhere near the atrocities that Saddam Hussein has been documented as having committed on a regular and routine basis. There is no shame in those countries, Mr. Speaker, because it is unbelievably a double standard and total hypocrisy.

Let us talk about some of the documented human rights violations within Iraq. Again, these are all documented, Mr. Speaker, documented through extensive files, portions of which I will lay into the Record this evening for our colleagues to review. In Iraq, this is what Saddam has done: killing of prison inmates to account for overcrowding. Loss of freedoms of speech, press, assembly, association, religion, movement and due process; arbitrary punishment of death for suspected violations of laws, political disagreements and social actions; beheading of prostitutes and displaying of heads. Iraq is the country with the highest number of disappearances reported to the working group on enforced and involuntary disappearances established by the Commission on Human Rights. Beating of Iraqi soccer players because they lost a game. Refusal to permit visits by human rights monitors. Campaign of murder, summary execution and protracted arbitrary arrests against religious followers of the Shia Muslim population, the Kurds. Harassment and intimidation of relief workers and U.N. personnel, removal of children of unwanted minority groups to get them from cities and regions, and only 48 percent of the supplied medicines and equipment to clinics and hospitals. The rest were in government warehouses overflowing.

This is a man who challenged our President to a debate. What an absolute joke, Mr. Speaker. This man deserves to debate no one. This man deserves to be taken to the Hague and deserves to have a war crimes tribunal convened to lay out all of the charges that have been brought forward against him in a formal way by the U.N., and this resolution we will put into place on Thursday will have this body go on record in asking that that be done.

Let us talk about the chronology of murder of Saddam Hussein, Mr. Speaker, again, all documented. Not documented by the U.S. Government; documented by international groups that monitor human rights, documented by the U.N. special rapporteur for human rights. Let us go through them in a chronological order.

In 1979, the purge of the Baath Party leadership, members were forced to confess to invented crimes and then arbitrarily executed. Family members were held hostage. In 1980, Saddam led the attacks on the Fayli Kurds, removal of the Kurds in Baghdad and the southern cities of Kut, Basra and Hilla. Forced expulsions from homes to Iran. Execution of most captured young males; there was an unknown amount of these young males that were executed. Fourteen tons of captured Iraqi secret police documents, videotapes and pictures provided a character of Iraqi rule over the Kurds that has been matched by no one since the great Holocaust of World War II. In fact, there is enough paperwork to document over 200,000 murders.

Mr. Speaker, where are the French and the Germans who cried to America

to get Milosevic out of power for his ethnic cleansing, when we have documentation through the U.N. and these NGOs that Saddam Hussein has been responsible for the murder of 200,000 people? In 1980, Mr. Speaker, the invasion of Iran, a clear violation of article 2, section 4 of the U.N. charter. Launch of indiscriminate attacks on civilian targets. Use of human shields, physical and mental torture of captives, all documented, on-file offenses. Eight military offensives in 1988. Systematic campaign of extermination and genocide waged against the Kurdish population of northern Iraq. Code name Anfal comes from a Koranic verse that legitimizes the right to plunder women and the property of infidels. During this time there were mass executions and indiscriminate killings of fighters and civilians. There was an order very similar to the Nazi order of ``sturm and nebel'' to proclaim thousands of square kilometers of Kurdistan to be a free-fire zone in which neither human nor animal life was to remain.

Saddam during that time used chemical weapons and poison gas. He forced resettlement. He destroyed between 1,000 and 2,000 villages. The estimated killings during that period was between 50,000 and 100,000; but it may be as high as 182,000 people. There were 16,496 reported disappearances in 1988.

Mr. Speaker, I cannot hear the French and the Germans. Where is their outrage, Mr. Speaker? Are the French so blinded by oil that their principles have gone down the cesspool? Was Slobodan Milosevic so bad that he is in the Hague being tried, but Saddam Hussein who has committed these crimes is not worthy of action by the U.N.?

Let us go on, Mr. Speaker. In 1990, the invasion of Kuwait, Saddam orders to kill any civilian found after curfew or bearing anti-Iraqi slogans on homes. A violation of the clear contravention of article 2, section 4 of the U.N. charter. Systematic torture as a method of extracting information. Holding thousands of foreign hostages to dissuade their countries from joining the coalition and used as human shields, including Americans.

In 1991, the invasion in March, attacks on civilians following a cease-fire in the cities of Basra, Najaf, Karbala; massive executions, bombarding residential areas, destroying religious shrines. And how about other actions before 2000, Mr. Speaker? Mass executions in a grave in Burjesiyya, a district near Zubair south of Basra, torturing and extended detentions preceding the deaths due to suspicion of political demonstrations. In April 14, 1999, 56 detainees charged with treason who were executed at Abu Ghraib on August 10 of 1999; 26 prisoners were executed at Abu Gharaib prison. March of 1999, the bombarding of residential areas of tribes by an armored division number 6 in Basra, Al-Ghameigh, Bail Wafi and Bait Sayed Noor. January, February, 1999, destruction of 52 houses of political opponents with bulldozers in Basra, nine in Jamhuriyah, five in Al-Zubier, seven in Al-Karmah, 12 in Abo Al-Khaseib, and five in Al-Tanumah. July 20, 1999, demolished six houses in Thawra after the detention of their entire families.

But here is a man, Mr. Speaker, who has a family of human rights abusers of the worst possible kind. It is not just Saddam.

His son, Udai Hussein, created the Saddam's martyrs, who go around, 30,000, dressed in black, and they are known for executing and doing gruesome public spectacles of killing the President's critics. In fact, he is known, when there is a sporting loss, for torturing and in some cases killing the athletes because they have not been successful. His group has also been known to abduct women from the streets.

Qusai Hussein, the deputy for his father's military security and intelligence, heads Amn al-Khass, and they have also conducted outrages against innocent people.

Finally, Lieutenant General Hussein Kamal Hassan al-Majid, is known as ``Chemical Ali'' for his brutality against the Kurds, especially for his use of weapons procurement and weapons of mass destruction, and being able to sneak in those supplies that the U.N. has prohibited.

This individual defected. He returned to Iraq after having received a pardon. What happened? Saddam murdered him and he murdered his family, his own blood relatives.

Mr. Speaker, we have people in this country and we have people in France, we have Jacques Chirac, saying we should trust Saddam Hussein, just give him time. Mr. Speaker, it is time to lay the facts on the table. It is time to hold Saddam Hussein accountable.

Whether one is for military action or against it, this resolution does not discuss that. Whether one supports Iraq, whether one disagrees and does not support Iraq, whether one thinks there should be more time, 2 months, 5 months, 12 years, it does not apply to this resolution. This resolution simply says that we must hold this regime responsible for the crimes they have committed against humanity.

Mr. Speaker, I call upon my colleagues to hold this man accountable, at least equal to the way we are holding Slobodan Milosevic accountable.

Mr. Speaker, just a few short years ago there were claims from the administration that there would be mass graves that we would find in Serbia containing perhaps millions of bodies. Well, several years after the fact, the truth did not quite bear that out. That is not to lessen the atrocities of Milosevic; he is a war criminal, make no mistake about it. But there was a gross exaggeration of what he had done, even though the crimes he committed were outrageous. He is being held accountable for those crimes right now at the Hague, in a trial that has been going on for almost a year.

Mr. Speaker, the French and the Germans, where were they in this case? They were pushing America: Get your troops over here, America. Get this man out of power. He is a brutal dictator. He has committed ethnic cleansing. Help us rid Europe of him because of the crimes he has committed against humanity. In the words of Richard Holbrooke, who was our U.N. Ambassador during the nineties under Bill Clinton, Slobodan Milosevic does not come anywhere near Saddam Hussein in terms of committing war crimes.

Mr. Speaker, do I detect a double standard here? Do the French think that Milosevic is worse than Saddam? The U.N. does not think so. Are the French denying the facts of the U.N. special rapporteur? Are the French and Germans not realizing the gross atrocities that have occurred against human beings, or do they not want to admit to what occurred?

Let me go through some more evidence, Mr. Speaker. I take this information from the Report on Iraqi War Crimes prepared under the auspices of the U.S. Army. This was released on March 19, 1993, as a result of an intense investigation of our own citizens who were captured by Saddam. These are specific cases. Americans and members of this body can ask for the documentation of these cases and they can get them.

POW number 1, file number 176.1. Our own Americans were exhibited as war prizes. They were urinated on. They were beaten constantly, including to the rhythm of a song on a radio.

POW number 2, file number 176.2. He was abandoned by his captors in spite of having a broken leg. In fact, they put an Arab headdress on him.

POW number 3, file number 176.3. Saddam's troops beat and kicked him while being transported; punched him in the face; hit him in the head with a rifle; kicked him in a circle, and injured his leg; beaten severely with a lead pipe; and from the guards' boots smeared on the face. He had multiple cigarette burns all over his body from Saddam's leaders.

POW number 4, file number 176.4, American POW. Dragged by the hair, kicked by the captors, sexually molested during transport, slapped and spat upon, threatened with death. That was a female, Mr. Speaker.

Where are those in America expressing outrage at what this man ordered to be done to our citizens?

POW number 7, file number 176.7. Karate-chopped, forced to make a videotape.

POW number 9, beaten with fists, batons, rifle butts; kicked in the head and legs broken; beaten to the rhythm of a song; knocked unconscious many times; forced to make a videotape; beaten in the stomach and back with club, resulting in long-term pain to his kidneys; eye injuries from his beatings.

Mr. Speaker, these are actions documented by Saddam Hussein against American citizens. We have Saddam Hussein now on international TV proclaiming he is for peace, he is against war. Mr. Speaker, cut me a break. Are we that naive? Are we that short of our memory that we do not understand what this man has done over the past 20 years?

Let me go through some more examples, Mr. Speaker.

As we know, in capturing a prisoner-of-war, the only thing a prisoner has to do is to state their surname, first and last name and rank, their date of birth, and their army or unit that they are involved with. That is all they have to give under the special protections under the Geneva Convention. That is it.

In the case of our POWs, Saddam consistently, along with his military, grossly abused their rights and tortured them. In fact, he forced them to do things that are absolutely sickening to read.

POW number 12, assaulted twice with a cattle prod; beaten with a hard rubber stick while being interrogated by the voice; assaulted with a stun gun; an AK-47 placed against his head and threatened with execution as a war criminal; threatened with dismemberment; shocked with a Talkman; multiple beatings.

POW 13, struck with hands, fists, a wooden club, blackjack, and sticks; punctured his eardrums; loosened his teeth from the beatings; beaten so severely he could not walk and could not stand.

Mr. Speaker, there is a lawsuit that has been filed in the courts of the District of Columbia. The lawyer represents these brave American POWs who are suing Saddam and Iraq because of what he did to them. Is America going to stand behind these brave young people? Are we going to stand up and hold Saddam accountable for what he did, or can they only sue civilly in a court, as documented by this lawsuit?

Mr. Speaker, I am going to ask special permission to have texts of this lawsuit entered into the Record, even though it will cost extra money, because I want every one of our colleagues and every American to understand the facts of what was done to our citizens by Saddam Hussein and by his evil subordinates in his military.

Let us go on to Article 32, documented by the Army also back in 1993, the specifics of some of which I mentioned already.

Iraq's violation and Saddam's violations of Article 27 and 32, which were absolutely outrageous: torturing Kuwaiti nationals. Widespread and barbaric actions, such as beatings on all parts of the body with various implements; beating people while they were suspended in air; hanging with cables; breaking appendages; knifings; extracting their finger- and toenails; boring holes in their body with drills; cutting off their tongues and ears; cutting off their body parts with saws; gouging out their eyes; castrations; hammering nails into their hands; shootings; rapes; inserting broken bottlenecks into their rectums; pumping air or gasoline into their orifices; pouring acid on their skin; Asian and Kuwaiti women routinely raped by Iraqi soldiers; all of this documented by the official commission of our Army and sent to the U.N. for further action.

How about some specific cases, Mr. Speaker, that were also filed with the U.N. that took place in Kuwait City?

This Kuwaiti citizen file number 66.01015 was arrested by the Iraqis at his home on the 23rd of December 1990 and held until mid-December. During his captivity he received repeated beatings and electric shocks to his mouth, nose and genitalia. He was suspended from the ceiling and subjected to mock executions. He witnessed the torture of other Kuwaitis by techniques which included forced ingestion of gas causing abdominal pains, forcing a woman to eat flesh cut from her own body, an execution by ax, removal of eyeballs, dismemberment, burning with a hot iron, execution by electric drill, and placement of a person into a large rotating washing machine.

Mr. Speaker, we are not dealing with a human being. We are dealing with an animal. We are not dealing with a person that we can have some feeling of a moral authority. This man is the lowest of the low, Mr. Speaker. It has all been documented through thousands of pieces of information assembled by nonprofit organizations, organizations concerned with human rights violations by governments around the world and by the U.N. itself. It has been documented. It is time to hold him accountable.

Mr. Speaker, here is a man, with all the documentation we have, who some people say we should trust. If you listen to Jacques Chirac, whose country has millions of dollars of oil contracts with Saddam Hussein and who himself is a personal friend of Saddam's, we should trust this man. Shame on Jacques Chirac. Mr. Speaker, shame on Jacques Chirac. By defending someone like Saddam Hussein, by not having his government take action to hold this man accountable, he has no moral authority. In fact, in my opinion he has no credibility.

Our government, Mr. Speaker, can do the right thing. Members on both sides of the aisle have introduced resolutions in the past 10 years. The Senate has voted on a resolution in the past 10 years. One of my Democrat colleagues offered a resolution, has an amendment in the Committee on International Relations just recently holding Saddam accountable.

This body has repeatedly publicly called on the U.N. to hold Saddam accountable, and I think we should do it again, Mr. Speaker. And so, therefore, this Thursday I will introduce along with colleagues from both sides of the aisle, there are already over 25 co-sponsors, and I urge all of my colleagues to sign on to a resolution to ask our President to appeal to the U.N. to convene a special war crimes tribunal against Saddam Hussein.

Mr. Speaker, we did that for Milosevic, and he is today being tried for those crimes he committed against innocent people in the former Yugoslavia. Innocent Kosovars, innocent Serbs, innocent Montenegroans, innocent people that Milosevic thought he could abuse. He deserves the full weight of the punishment meted out by that special tribunal.

Is Saddam Hussein any less deserving of a tribunal? Are all of these cases documented by the U.N., by these NGOs, by other governments, should we just discard them and pretend that they do not exist and let Saddam go on as if nothing has happened?

Mr. Speaker, we have not done right by the American people. We talk about the need to deal with Saddam because he has chemical precursors for his weapons of mass destruction, because he has missiles that will go longer than what the U.N. said he could. They are all violations, and they are all material breaches of the agreements that were reached by Saddam and the U.N. 12 years ago. But why, Mr. Speaker, is there not more discussion about this man for the evil person that he is?

The U.N. special rapporteur said, No one has come close to this kind of activity since World War II, since the great Holocaust. No one, Mr. Speaker, including Milosevic. Is the world going to ignore the activities of Saddam Hussein? Are we going to ignore the atrocities he committed against our own people when they were captured? If that is the case, then international agreements mean nothing. The Geneva Convention has no basis. The Helsinki Final Act has no meaning. If we are not going to hold leaders who commit such outrageous acts accountable, then we might as well not have those acts, those agreements existing in the first place.

Mr. Speaker, this body, our body can take action soon, to lay out to the world those who support military action and those who oppose military action, that regardless of whether or not you think war is inevitable, there is one thing that we all can agree on: Saddam Hussein is a war criminal. There is no doubt about that.

Those who understand the facts, those who look at the documents, those who see the evidence understand that this man comes as close to Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin as anyone that we have seen in the last several decades.

And so, Mr. Speaker, I appeal to our colleagues to co-sponsor this legislation before I drop it. Our colleagues have that opportunity. Democrats and Republicans are already on. We have over 25 Members and that was in the

first day. I would hope that we would end up with over 300 co-sponsors and send a signal to the world that Saddam Hussein is an unacceptable leader because of his war crimes.

Again, Mr. Speaker, and I know I have said this before, but it really irks me because initially I opposed the Kosovo war, not because I support Milosevic, he is a war criminal, but because I felt that we had not brought Russia in to use their influence to get Milosevic out of power. In fact, Mr. Speaker, I led a delegation to Vienna with five of our Democrat colleagues and five of our Republican colleagues. We took a State Department official. And with the support of our State Department, we flew to Vienna; and for 2 days around the clock working with the leaders of the Russian political factions, we fashioned a statement that called Milosevic a war criminal for his ethnic cleansing. We laid the groundwork with the help of the Russians that became the basis of the G-8 document to end the war 10 days later.

Mr. Speaker, we were prodded into war against Milosevic by the French and the Germans. They were bold back then. They did not want to put their own troops in harm's way without America being there. So we went into Kosovo. America was the number one supplier of the military. There were more American planes than there were any other nation, even though Yugoslavia is not far away from France and Germany. The French and Germans came in after us, but they pushed us the whole way. And why? Because they said Milosevic was a war criminal who had abused people. And they were right. But, Mr. Speaker, so is Saddam Hussein, only a far worse war criminal than Milosevic ever was. Those are not my words. Those are the words of Richard Holbrook, U.N. Ambassador for the United States under President Clinton in an op-ed he wrote this past week. Those are the words of the special rapporteur of the U.N. who said that Saddam Hussein's regime has no equal since World War II.

Mr. Speaker, I would hope that every one of our colleagues would cosponsor the resolution to hold Saddam Hussein accountable for war crimes. It is a very simple resolution and I at this point in time enter that resolution into the Record so that all of our citizens, all of our colleagues can see the text, the documents, the actions, that we now request of the United Nations against Saddam Hussein.

H. Res. --

Whereas in 2001 and 2002, the Department of State

contributed $4,000,000 to a United Nations Iraq War Crimes

Commission, to be used if a United Nations tribunal for Iraqi

war crimes is created;

Whereas the United Nations Security Council and the United

Nations Commission on Human Rights have repeatedly condemned

Iraq's human rights record;

Whereas Iraq continues to ignore United Nations resolutions

and its international human rights commitments;

Whereas on April 19, 2002, the United Nations Commission on

Human Rights passed a resolution drawing attention to ``the

systematic, widespread and extremely grave violations of

human rights and of international humanitarian law by the

Government of Iraq, resulting in an all-pervasive repression

and oppression sustained by broad-based discrimination and

widespread terror'';

Whereas United Nations Security Council Resolution 674

calls on all states or organizations to provide information

on Iraq's war-related atrocities to the United Nations;

Whereas Iraq's aggressive pursuit of nuclear, chemical, and

biological weapons, and its past use of weapons of mass

destruction against its own people and Iraq's neighbors

illustrates the danger of allowing Saddam Hussein to go

unchallenged;

Whereas torture is used systematically against political

detainees in Iraqi prisons and detention centers;

Whereas this regime gouges out the eyes of the victims,

crushes all of the bones in their feet, and burns a person's

limbs off to force him to confess or comply; and

Whereas citizens of Iraq live in constant fear of being

tortured, kidnapped, or killed: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That consistent with Section 301 of the Foreign

Relations Authorization Act, Fiscal Years 1992 and 1993

(Public Law 102-138), House Concurrent Resolution 137, 105th

Congress (approved by the House of Representatives on

November 13, 1997), and Senate Concurrent Resolution 78,

105th Congress (approved by the Senate on March 13, 1998),

the Congress urges the President to call upon the United

Nations to establish an international criminal tribunal for

the purpose of indicting, prosecuting, and imprisoning Saddam

Hussein and other Iraqi officials who are responsible for

crimes against humanity, genocide, and other criminal

violations of international law.

Mr. Speaker, in fact, the resolution which does not have yet a number, lays out the fact that we spent, as I said earlier, $4 million in each of the past 2 years for a special U.N. Iraqi War Crimes Commission. It is already in place, continuing from the 1990s. American tax dollars are being used to support this U.N. effort.

This war crimes commission has, in fact, seen resolutions passed by the Security Council and the Commission on Human Rights as recently as April 19 of 2002, U.N. Security Council Resolution 674, all of which deal with Saddam Hussein's abuses of human rights. This resolution says, and resolves, that consistent with section 301 of the Foreign Relations Authorization Act, the House concurrent resolution and the Senate concurrent resolution, that the Congress urges the President to call upon the United Nations to establish an International Criminal Tribunal for the purpose of indicting, prosecuting, and imprisoning Saddam Hussein and other Iraqi officials who are responsible for crimes against humanity, genocide, and other criminal violations of international law.

Mr. Speaker, we can do no less.

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

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 11 o'clock and 22 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until tomorrow, Wednesday, February 26, 2003, at 1:00 p.m.

Mr. Speaker I rise to commemorate Mr. William T. Lee, a great patriot who served the United States well for years.

Mr. Lee passed away in his home in Alexandria, Virginia on October 30, 2002 due to complications associated with advanced cancer. He was born in Pass Christian, Mississippi and grew up with his grandparents in Missouri. He is survived by his former wife, Dixie Lee. They had no children.

Mr. Lee served as a Senior Intelligence Officer during the Cold War and was a vigorous advocate for a national missile defense. He was a prominent figure and an insightful expert concerning the assessment of the Soviet Union's economy, size and scope of its military.

Mr. Lee was an accomplished analyst of missile defense, a published writer and a formidable lecturer. His life accomplishments include an exceptional understanding of ballistic missile defenses of the Soviet Union and Russia, authoring 6 books and numerous articles and lecture tours in Europe, Asia and South America.

Mr. Lee embarked on his impressive career with an induction into the Army Air Corps in 1944 where he supported the effort in the European theater during World War II. After the war, Mr. Lee began his academic education with 2 years at The University of Puget Sound and 2 years at the University of Washington and emerged in 1950 with a degree in history with a concentration on Russian studies and economics. Later he received a masters degree from Columbia University in advanced Russian and Chinese studies.

As a Soviet economic and military affairs analyst for the CIA in the 1950's and early 1960's, Mr. Lee, along with colleagues, contended that the Agency had underestimated the share of the Soviet's gross national product that went into the military for years before the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989.

From 1964 to 1972 Mr. Lee lent his talents to the Stanford Research Institute as a senior analyst who helped produce intelligence reports forecasting Soviet and Chinese conventional and strategic weapons programs for the office of the secretary of defense.

After working as an independent consultant to private research organizations on contract to government agencies for a few years, he joined the Defense Intelligence Agency in 1979 and was promoted to a member of the government's Senior Executive Service by the time he retired in 1992.

Mr. Lee was a vital intelligence professional during the Cold War. As a member of the Committee on the Present Danger, he was instrumental in influencing the defense buildup during the Reagan administration. Lee never received public recognition for his tough estimates concerning the Soviet Union's vast military expenditures. His judgments were mostly embraced in 1976 by ``Team B,'' a committee of skeptics charged by then-Director of Central Intelligence George H.W. Bush with providing a second opinion on the capabilities of the Soviet military. The findings of Team B were confirmed as much more accurate than the Central Intelligence's estimates by showing that CIA and DIA continuously underestimated Moscow's spending due to their faulty methodologies. With regard to Soviet defense spending Lee's friends used to say there was the CIA, the DIA and William Lee.''

It is important to note Mr. Lee's analysis of numerous documents including Kremlin archives and the private diaries and memoirs published by officials associated with the Kremlin's anti-ballistic missile programs. Lee's analyses and his books reflect his unwavering determination to find the truth. ``Lee was a cantankerous yet thoroughly focused analyst,'' said Derek Leebaert, a Georgetown University professor. ``His objective was not to prove the essential wickedness or aggressiveness of the Soviet system, but . . . just [to report] what was happening in both the Soviet Union's military and its economy.''

In one of his books, The AMB Treaty Charade: A Study in Elite Illusion and Delusion, Mr. Lee showed how, as a matter of state policy, the USSR violated the requirements of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty by building and deploying a territorial AMB system explicitly prohibited by the accord. A second book, written with Richard Starr, entitled Soviet Military Policy Since World War II was translated by the PRC.

This book, considered a classic, enjoyed extreme popularity in the United States, Europe and Asia. After being translated by the Chinese military, Mr. Lee was invited to lecture the military several times.

His awards include the Army Distinguished Civilian Service Medal and the Meritorious Service Medal from the DIA.

Mr. Lee was neither a Republican nor a Democrat, a conservative nor a liberal but a rock solid patriot. His passing will be felt by many.

Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege to take this opportunity to pay tribute to Richard (Dick) Nugent, upon his retirement as Refuge Manager for the John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge at Tinicum, Pennsylvania. Dick has served the United States Government for more than 35 years, including the last 25 years at Tinicum. I was pleased to work with Dick Nugent to make the dreams of this unique National Wildlife Refuge a reality, promoting conservation and a cleaner, healthier environment for both wildlife and the citizens of the greater Philadelphia region.

The history of Tinicum Marsh, the largest remaining freshwater tidal wetland in Pennsylvania, goes back to the first settlements in the region in 1634. Swedes, Dutch, and English diked and drained parts of the marsh for grazing. At that time, the tidal marshes measured over 5,700 acres. The rapid urbanization since World War I reduced tidal marshes to approximately 200 acres. The remnant of this once vast tidal marsh is protected by the Refuge. Throughout his government career, Dick Nugent has been an environmental champion and a respected public servant. His selfless contributions are most deserving of our recognition and I am honored to bring forth his particular accomplishments at the Tinicum Refuge before this body and our nation today. The following list represents just some of what Dick has done:

Involved with the Refuge's master planning process and land acquisition efforts during the 1970s and 1980s.

Assisted in the planning, designing, and construction of the Refuge's maintenance complex and Cusano Environmental Education Center.

Instrumental in the increasing of the Refuge staff from 4 personnel to 14 full-time positions, several internships, a Refuge Friends' Group consisting of over 200 members, and a large cadre of volunteers.

Worked with the Environmental Protection Agency and other service staffers for the past two decades in assessing the contamination status of the Folcroft landfill, prior to it becoming a component of the lower Darby Creek Area Superfund Site.

Involved with the cleanup and natural resource damage assessment of Sunoco's 192,000-gallon oil spill on the Eastern portion of the Refuge that occurred on February 5, 2000.

Involved in the management and monitoring of various wildlife-related diseases and threats including: Lyme disease, West Nile Virus, rabies, tularemia, and botulism.

Responded to many Refuge-based fires and law enforcement incidents.

Served as the Fish and Wildlife Service's Field Response Coordinator for oil spills in the Delaware River/Bay Tri-State area.

Responded to dozens of spills to assess the impact to natural resources and to retrieve impacted waterfowl for rehabilitation at the Tri-State Bird Rescue and Research Center in Newark, Delaware.

During his long tenure in public service, Dick Nugent has demonstrated unfailing dedication, a high degree of loyalty, and a large measure of hard work. Dick will carry his strong spirit of public service, his respect for the natural world, and his concept of our duty to the environment into his retirement.

On the occasion of his retirement from government service, I commend Dick Nugent for his outstanding service. He is among Pennsylvania's finest, and I wish him well in the years ahead. Thank you Dick, you'll be missed.

Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight on the eve of the historic State of the Union the President is going to provide to the American people to discuss the role that Congress has played in a very constructive way, in a very bipartisan way in assisting this President in some of the most difficult foreign policy decisions that have ever confronted this Nation.

We have heard a lot of rhetoric about the partisan politics of this President not doing what he said he would do and this President wanting to go into war and jump ahead of events and threaten the lives of the American people, and we all know that is just rhetoric. This President, to his core, does not want war. This Congress does not want war. This Congress and this President do not want conflict. So when Members on either side get up and spew out rhetoric that makes it appear that this President is bent on creating conflict with Iraq or North Korea, it is untrue.

I want to analyze some of the events that occurred over the recent recess, the role of Congress in a constructive way to assist this President on foreign policy. I want to lay the groundwork for what I think will be the President's comments tonight about some of the most difficult crises that we face today.

Much of the President's speech tonight will focus on domestic issues, and I look forward to that because we have to have a blueprint to restart this economy. He will talk about education, about health care and prescription drugs, and those are issues that we have to continue to address, and this President has a plan for those issues. He has a national energy strategy that we passed in the House that got hung up in the Senate last year. We passed a prescription drug bill which could not get through the Senate. The President tonight will challenge us to complete the work domestically that he has outlined for us in the past, and he will outline a new vision in terms of jump-starting the economy.

But the real focus has to do with our national security, because as we all know, Article I, section 8 of our Constitution, which defines the role of the Congress, does not mention health care as a key priority. It does not mention the environment as a key priority. In fact, it does not mention education. But Article I, section 8 mentions the responsibility of the Congress. In five specific instances it mentions this: To provide for the common defense of the American people. That is our ultimate responsibility, because without a strong defense, we cannot have an education system, quality health care, or a decent environment. A national security provides that underpinning.

It is amazing to me when I hear the candidates who have announced they are running for the President 2 years down the road get up and spew out this rhetoric about how this President has caused all of these hostile relations with Saddam Hussein and other leaders around the world.

I would remind Members, it was over the past 10 years that when we as a Nation did not enforce the arms control agreements already on the books that technologies were transferred out of Russia and China 38 times. In fact, I had the Congressional Research Service document those 38 instances. Thirty-eight times during the 1990s we had solid evidence of technology being leaked, illegally sold and transferred out of Russia and China to five countries. Those five countries were Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya and North Korea. What were those technologies? They were chemical and biological precursors that would allow Saddam Hussein to build chemical and biological weapons. They were missile components to allow Iraq and Iran to build their medium-range missile systems that they now have today. They were nuclear components to allow these countries to develop nuclear weapons capabilities.

Mr. Speaker, all that occurred during the 1990s, and the documentation showed it occurred 38 times. Of those 38 instances, we imposed the required sanctions of the treaties less than 10 times. The other 28 times we pretended we did not see it, partly because our policy towards Russia during the 1990s was to keep Yeltsin in power; and, therefore, we did not want to raise any concerns that might embarrass Yeltsin back to Moscow. So even though we knew this technology was flowing, we pretended we did not see it.

I remember very vividly a meeting in Moscow in May 1997 in the office of

General Alexander Lebed. He was a retired two-star general, and had just left Yeltsin's side as his defense adviser.

My bipartisan delegation said, ``General, tell us about your military.''

He said, ``Congressman, our military is in total disarray. Our best warfighters, our best Soviet generals and admirals have left the service of the country because of a lack of pay, because of indecent housing, and because of morale problems beyond their control.''

He went on to say that they feel betrayed by the motherland, and they are selling off the technology that we built to use against the United States during the Cold War, and they are selling it to your enemies. General Lebed went on to say to our bipartisan delegation, ``Our problem today is your problem tomorrow.'' How right General Lebed was.

Mr. Speaker, that was in May 1997 at the height of the time when many of us in the Congress in both parties were screaming for enforcement of arms control regimes, because if we had taken steps back then, Saddam Hussein and bin Laden and the rest of these terrorist cells would not have this technology that we are now having to allocate billions of dollars to defend against because Iraq and Iran could not themselves build chemical and biological agents. They got that technology from Russia, a destabilized Russia. North Korea did not have the technology for long-range missiles. They got that technology from China and also from Russia.

So when I hear our colleagues, primarily on the other side of the aisle, taking shots at the President, saying he created all of this, it makes me sad because the facts do not support that conclusion.

Mr. Speaker, we are paying the price today for the inaction of all of us during the 1990s. Since I was a Member of this body at that time, I include myself. We could have and we should have done more to reinforce the transparency and the control mechanisms that were in place to prevent these kinds of technologies from being leaked into the hands of unstable players.

Mr. Speaker, unfortunately we are where we are today, and the fact is that Iraq has chemical and biological and nuclear weapons. As a senior member of the Committee on Armed Services, I have sat through hundreds of briefings. I have gone to classified intelligence sessions. While I cannot talk about what I have seen publicly, there is no doubt in my mind, there is no doubt in the mind of anyone who follows these issues, that Saddam Hussein has the worst weapons imaginable.

Mr. Speaker, in Ken Pollack's recent book, talking about the ultimate activity that we are now in against Saddam Hussein, he quotes some U.N. special documents that compare the atrocities of Saddam Hussein's regime to those of Adolph Hitler before World War II. What is amazing to me is those candidates running for the Presidency on the Democratic side who have criticized President Bush, I did not hear their rhetoric spewing out when President Clinton went to invade Yugoslavia. And as bad as Slobodan Milosevic was and is, and thank goodness he is being tried for war crimes today, even the actions of Slobodan Milosevic do not compare to what Saddam Hussein has committed on his own people.

We know that he has used chemical weapons on his own people. In fact, we had one instance where 15,000 people were killed by the actions of Saddam Hussein.

We know Saddam has a biological weapons program. In fact, in 1992 when Saddam Hussein was driven out of Kuwait, he signed a document pledging to the world community, not just the U.S., pledging to the world community that he would disarm, he would destroy all of his weapons of mass destruction. So the inspectors from the U.N. went into his country. We knew at the time he had chemical, biological weapons. We knew they were there. We saw them. We knew they could be accounted for, and we knew he was developing a nuclear capability.

And yet in the mid-1990's, Saddam kicked out those U.N. inspectors, and we did nothing about it. In 1998 everything was gone out of Iraq while Saddam continued to do exactly what the world community told him not to do and which he agreed not to do in 1992. When President Bush came in in 2000, he said in his very simple analysis we cannot allow this to continue. We are allowing a man who will use weapons of mass destruction against us to build additional capability, and that is why the actions that we are leading up to today through the U.N. and with the President are so essential to be supported by all of us.

In fact, Mr. Speaker, I met with some of my Russian friends recently and they said, You know, the problem, Curt, in your country is you get out front and you have all these people taking shots at your President and Saddam Hussein reads that as weakness, he reads that as an inconsistent policy towards him and if he just holds out long enough, the antagonism in America will go away. So in effect those people in some cases crying most loudly for peace are the very ones that might lead us to war. If we as a Nation would get behind this President and show solid bipartisan support that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction that the world has acknowledged, that need to be destroyed, then Saddam Hussein would get the message that it does not matter how long he can prolong this effort and deny the U.N. inspectors; he must open up and let us see these weapons that we know he has.

Colin Powell yesterday said it best, Mr. Speaker. He asked some very fundamental questions: Where are the chemical weapons? Where are the mobile vans? Where are the biological agents that we know we had in the past that all of a sudden have disappeared? And my colleagues would do well in challenging this President to repeat the fact that all we want is Saddam to publicly acknowledge and then allow the destruction of those weapons to take place. Who can be against that, Mr. Speaker? No one. And if he does not do that, then we have to face the possibility of using force to accomplish the security that our Nation deserves.

And some would say the polls do not support the President. Mr. Speaker, no decent President in American history has governed by polls. We do not elect a President to put his finger in the air to read the way the winds are blowing. We elect a President to exert leadership, to be out front where others think perhaps he is going wrong. And this President has showed that leadership time and again. Mr. Speaker, it was this President who moved us out of the ABM treaty.

I would remind my colleagues on both sides, remember what we heard from the liberal left in this city. The world was going to end, a nuclear race would start, Russia and China would go off the deep end. We pulled out of the ABM treaty because of the President's desire to protect our own people, and there was a giant yawn around the world. Ironically today we are looking to do more missile defense cooperation with Russia than ever before. In fact, in a recent visit with the chairman of one of Russia's largest space institutes, Kurchatov, they showed me a document and asked me to support it; but I could not talk about it until the ABM treaty had expired because it would violate the terms of the treaty, allowing Russia and America to work together for the common defense of our people.

George Bush showed leadership. In spite of what the polls said, in spite of what our colleagues said in this body and the other body, George Bush stood up for what was right for America, and history has proven that he made the right decision.

The same thing is applicable now, Mr. Speaker. We have some extremely tough challenges. We have never had a more complicated foreign policy situation than we have today. Thank goodness we have a President who understands people who can lead. Thank goodness we have a President who put Colin Powell in the position of power, who has integrity, who has respect around the world perhaps unlike any other Secretary of State in the history of this Nation. Thank goodness we have a President who put Condoleezza Rice as the head of the National Security Council, his top advisor on security, someone who is not a politician but someone who understands geopolitical issues and is there at the side of the President advising him on policy direction and on procedures to deal

with other nations. And thank goodness we have Don Rumsfeld as the Secretary of Defense, someone who to his core will make sure that our military is the best prepared and the best equipped not to fight a war but to deter aggression. The reason we have a strong military is to deter aggression from those enemies and those adversaries who would want to take us down or who would want to harm our allies and our friends. And Don Rumsfeld plays that role extremely well.

So, Mr. Speaker, I am proud of this administration; and I am proud of this President, and I am also proud of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle who have worked together for bipartisan support of some very difficult issues.

Mr. Speaker, in December I led a delegation that started out in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia. We went to Georgia for several reasons. First of all, to meet with President Shevardnadze to assure him that we are a key ally that he could count on to help Georgia in rebuilding their Nation, their economy, and this new democracy. We went up and got the briefings on the Pankisi Gorge when we went to Moscow, we could reassure the Russians that the Georgians were doing everything possible along with American assistance to drive out the terrorist cells that had been in the Pankisi Gorge in the past that posed such a threat to the people of Russia.

But perhaps the most important reason we went to Georgia, Mr. Speaker, was our concern that last winter the gas supplies for the Georgian people to heat their homes was cut off. In the middle of the winter they had no heat, and so I invited to meet us in Georgia the president of the primary gas supplier for that Nation. President Igor Makarov of the Itera Corporation met us in Georgia at my request, and I asked him to make a public statement, which he did; and that public statement at our suggestion was to guarantee the people of Georgia that no gas supplies would be shut off this winter so they in fact could not be dangled by anyone using energy, using heat as a source of manipulation. The Congress played an extremely constructive role in that visit, and I thank my colleagues for their support in that effort.

We then moved on to Belarus. Belarus has not been a friend to the United States in recent years. President Lukashenko has drifted aside. He has unfortunately manipulated the Parliament and has caused problems in our relationship. In fact, just before we arrived in Minsk, the capital of that country, he kicked out the OSCE inspectors that were there to monitor human rights, free and fair elections, and the oversight of the OSCE responsibilities that all 55 member nations agree upon.

When I arrived in Minsk, our ambassador, who is a very capable man, said, ``Congressman, President Lukashenko is not going to meet with you. He meets with no one from the West nor from America.'' I said, ``Ambassador, I would not be here if I had not received a personal invitation from President Lukashenko.'' At five o'clock on the afternoon of the evening we arrived, the foreign ministry from Belarus contacted us at the hotel and said that we were in fact invited to President Lukashenko's home for a private dinner meeting, which I attended along with my colleague from the Senate, Senator Conrad Burns, and our colleague from the House, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Bartlett).

We spent 5 hours, 5 hours in the home of President Lukashenko, with the President and two other individuals, one of whom was a good friend of mine. We sat around a table and for the first hour we talked about ice hockey because that is a passion of the President, and Belarus was the Cinderella team in the Olympics in America just a few years ago. And then we turned to more serious issues, and I conveyed to President Lukashenko that we wish his people no ill will, that President Bush does not want to have sour relations with Belarus, but there were certain parameters that Belarus had to get back to so that we in the Congress could support an agenda to assist the people of Belarus in dealing with their economic problems, their health care problems. And those issues deal with free and fair elections, a legitimate Parliament. Those issues deal with the concerns that we have over proliferation coming out of Belarus, and those issues deal with restoring the OSCE representatives back into Minsk.

After 5 hours of discussion, President Lukashenko agreed with our assessment. We shook hands and we thought we had reached an agreement that would last and change a direction of our relationship with this nation that some have called one of the most untrustworthy in all of Europe. Unfortunately, the next day the foreign ministry of Belarus misinterpreted what we had said, and we had to come back publicly and make some very strong statements against the President of Belarus.

A week later, I was contacted by my friend who is a personal friend of Lukashenko, and he said, ``Congressman Weldon, President Lukashenko understands that perhaps things were not conducted the way they should have been, the way it was discussed with you and your colleagues.'' The bottom line is, Mr. Speaker, that 1 month later President Lukashenko in Vienna announced that all six OSCE reps would be restored to their positions in Minsk. Congress again played a constructive role in supporting our President in moving toward a stable relationship with this nation.

We moved on to Moscow, Mr. Speaker, and there we signed a historic document. Members of the United States House, the United States Senate, the Russian Duma, and the Russian Federation Council met together in one room to agree to a document that we all signed, supported by almost 100 members of our Congress, House and Senate, and the Russian Parliament, Duma and Federation Council. These identical pieces of legislation that we drafted back in the fall call for a new energy strategy that the U.S. should rely on Russian energy sources and move away from the troubled resources of the Middle East. The documents that we signed, which I will present to Speaker Hastert and President Bush this week, signify a new time in our relationship where the four parliaments understand a new strategic opportunity to move together, to help America move away from Middle Eastern crude, to help Russia realize the financial resources they need to help their economy by selling America her energy capabilities. While in Moscow we also met with the senior leaders of the Russian Government and the Duma and the Federation Council. We talked about arms control and proliferation, and we talked about our strategy for a new relationship, a document that one third of this Congress signed on to a year and a half ago before the first summit.

Mr. Speaker, I am so proud of our colleagues in this body because prior to the first presidential summits, a group of our colleagues who have traveled to Russia, Democrats and Republicans together united, working with those think tanks to focus on Russian-American relations, we produced a 40-some page document with 108 recommendations in 11 key areas to say to our two Presidents that it was time that America and Russia moved together as they had announced publicly in speeches they had given. These 11 areas included agriculture, health care, education, science and technology, energy, the environment, local government, judicial systems, and defense and security. These 108 recommendations, Mr. Speaker, were endorsed by one third of this body and in the other body by our colleagues, Senator Joe Biden, Senator Carl Levin, and Senator Dick Lugar, so that when President Bush and President Putin were hand delivered these documents, they both knew that Congress was ready to move our relationship into a new direction.

That was a year and a half ago, Mr. Speaker. In May of last year, when I led a delegation of 13 colleagues to Moscow on the last day of the Moscow summit, we had a luncheon in the Presidential Hotel in downtown Moscow with Members of our Senate, our House, the Russian Duma and Federation Council. One of the former candidates for the Presidency of Russia, Gregor Lavinsky, stood up to give a speech. Mr. Speaker, he held up this document and he said this was the basis of the Russian approach to both summits.

Again, Mr. Speaker, when the Congress unites and takes away the partisan rhetoric, we can accomplish great

things, and we can do it together, with our President, to move us in a new direction, as we have done with Russia.

Mr. Speaker, on our trip to Moscow in early December, I was overwhelmed with what occurred when we went to the Russian Academy of Sciences. In the former Soviet States their Academy of Sciences are the ultimate, the elite, those who really are the most respected people in those Soviet societies.

In Russia, its Academy of Sciences is the ultimate body. It is even a part of the government. Irregardless of who the President is, the Academy is part of the government as advisors.

I had been asked to speak to the Academy of Sciences, so we scheduled a visit. I walked in the room, and there before me were 300 academicians from all over the country. At the head table up front was former Presidential candidate and Communist Party leader Zyuganov, the former Foreign Minister and a whole host of former Russian leaders from all factions.

The Chairman of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Mr. Osipov, was seated at the center of the head table. He brought me to the front and sat me down and said, Congressman, we are asking you to speak about this document for this new relationship which your Congress produced. I said, I will be happy to. He said, following your speech, we will open it up for questions.

I spoke for 25 minutes with our colleagues in the audience before 300 academicians. When I finished, Chairman Osipov asked them to ask us questions, which they did. Some were tough; most were positive.

But, Mr. Speaker, something then very strange happened. Chairman Osipov asked me to stand up and brought out a black cap and black gown, and they asked me to put it on. And then probably the most rewarding event that I have had in all of my years in public office, the Russian Academy of Sciences, the social science network, made me the first American member of their Academy. What an honor was bestowed upon me and all of my colleagues, because it was a process that involved members of both parties.

Following that ceremony, something extremely unusual happened that I wish I could share with every colleague in this body and the other Chamber. The Russian Academy of Sciences voted unanimously to make this document their document; to make our document, A New Time, A New Beginning, the official document of the Russian Academy of Social Sciences and to distribute it to every member of the Russian Duma and Federation Council.

Mr. Speaker, when members of both parties come together on foreign policy, we can achieve unbelievable results. We can shape the system, we can open new doors, and our colleagues from both parties deserve the praise that should be lavished on everyone for this new relationship that we have achieved with Russia.

Mr. Speaker, following our trip to Moscow in December, I went back to Moscow a second time in January for another very special purpose. Igor Kurchatov is the founder of the Soviet nuclear bomb. Much like those in America that were nuclear scientists who did not want their careers to focus on killing people, but rather wanted peaceful use of atomic energy, Igor Kurchatov was told by Stalin to build a nuclear bomb to respond to the American program for nuclear weapons following World War II. Igor Kurchatov built the Soviet nuclear weapons program. During the Cold War, it was Kurchatov's work and the work being done at our labs that allowed the two nations to build all of these nuclear weapons.

January 8, 2003, was the 100th anniversary of Igor Kurchatov's birth, the celebration at the institute named after him that day. It is the largest nuclear institute in Russia, with thousands of scientists.

Mr. Speaker, I was given the honor of speaking as a keynote speaker, along with the Japanese Prime Minister and the former Foreign Minister of Russia, to talk about this new relationship and about this laboratory that was built and designed for production of nuclear weapons, but now was being transformed for peaceful purposes.

The director of that lab, Dr. Evgeny Velikhov, is one of my best friends. He is a real scholar and a real leader for all of humanity. He has taken an agency in Russia that was designed to develop nuclear weapons and has transformed it into peaceful projects with our nuclear agencies and labs in America.

I would include at the end of the speech, Mr. Speaker, my speech at Kurchatov entitled A New Millennium. That speech outlines a new relationship between the U.S. and Russia to take apart our nuclear weapons, to dismantle our chemical and biological weapons, to follow through on the recommendations in our document to allow the U.S. and Russia to work together.

That speech, Mr. Speaker, was extremely well received on the Russian side, and I challenged them to build a new network of interaction between our labs and the Russian labs.

Following that speech we cut the ribbon on a brand new training facility that is retraining 600 Russian nuclear physicists who used to work on bombs to do software engineering for Russian IT companies working with American IT companies.

Mr. Speaker, we have come a long way. The new relationship with Russia just did not happen. It happened because the Congress, Democrats and Republicans, worked together, following the leadership of Presidents Bush and Putin, who set the vision for our nations, who talked about a new time and a new era of cooperation and support. Amazing things can happen, Mr. Speaker, when this Congress comes together and realizes that foreign policy challenges require us to act as a common body.

Yes, we can disagree in the process, but not to the point where we undermine our strategic leadership needs as best put forth by Colin Powell and President George Bush.

Mr. Speaker, we want to expand those programs, those nuclear nonproliferation programs, those cooperative threat reduction programs. But let me issue a word of caution to some of my colleagues in both bodies, because some have put out some misinformation that perhaps we in the House do not want these programs to move forward.

Nothing could be further from the truth. To those who have said publicly that the House is trying to handicap cooperation with Russia and dismantling chemical and biological and nuclear weapons, I say hogwash. What we did do last year, Mr. Speaker, as the stewards of the American taxpayer dollars, is to say that every dollar we spend in Russia, we must hold them accountable for how those dollars are ultimately given out.

Why is transparency and integrity and fiscal responsibility so critical here, Mr. Speaker? Well, for one reason, last year there was an audit done by the Department of Defense inspector general, who found $95 million misused by some unscrupulous people inside of Russia. Mr. Speaker, that is unacceptable. As much as I want to take apart chemical and biological weapons and reduce Russia's nuclear stockpile, I do not want $95 million siphoned off for some other purpose, and neither does any other taxpayer in this Nation.

For my colleagues in both bodies to stand up and to say in op-eds and public speeches that somehow this body wants to stop those programs is absolutely false and is an outrageous misstatement. All we want in expanding these programs is transparency. All we want are some basic conditions that show the Russian side and the American contractors doing this work in Russia that we want accountability for every dollar spent. We should seek no less for the taxpayers, because it is their money that we are spending.

As the chairman of the subcommittee that oversees much of our defense procurement, I can imagine the outrage if one of our defense contractors could not account for $95 million of taxpayer money. It would be a national scandal. But there are those in this body and the other body who want to pretend that is not a problem.

This year we in the House will continue to support expansion of programs for nuclear nonproliferation, for cooperative threat reduction. In fact, I am preparing a new package of legislation at this very moment. But in the end we will also guarantee that every dime of money that we spend is accounted for and is not being abused by anyone.

Mr. Speaker, following our trip to Moscow, we went on to Belgrade. We

met with the Prime Minister of Serbia, the leadership of the Parliament there, and we got an update on the progress that Yugoslavia is making following the war of just a few short years ago.

Mr. Speaker, I have to tell you, I was disappointed. We bombed Belgrade, we bombed Yugoslavia, and we promised after the bombing as a Nation and as a group of nations that we would help them rebuild if they followed certain conditions. Mr. Speaker, they have followed those conditions. Our embassy in Belgrade certified to us that they are making progress, yet we, Mr. Speaker, and our allies have not taken the steps to properly support the rebuilding of Yugoslavia, and that is an outrage.

So I come back tonight and I plead to our colleagues in both bodies to work to live up to the promises that we made to the people of Yugoslavia, that they, in fact, can rebuild their country which we bombed just a few short years ago to rid them of the scourge of Milosevic.

Our last stop on that trip, Mr. Speaker, was in Vienna. The trip to Vienna had two purposes, to receive at the IAEA the most recent briefing on nuclear weapons in both North Korea and Iraq. For 2 hours we sat at their headquarters, and they walked us through this Agency's assessment of the nuclear capability and potential of Iraq and the nuclear capability and potential of North Korea.

I would tell my colleagues, Mr. Speaker, it was not a pretty briefing. In fact, I invited the IAEA to come to Washington, which they accepted, where they will allow for every Member of Congress to receive the same briefing, the briefing as to the capabilities of both North Korea and Iraq with nuclear weapons and nuclear facilities such as the reactors that are being built in North Korea, the reactor being built in Iraq, and the potential for that material to be used illegally by either or both nations.

Mr. Speaker, we also in Vienna visited the OSCE, hosted by our very capable Ambassador Steve Minikes. At the OSCE headquarters I had the privilege to speak to 10 of the major nations' ambassadors, including Russia, about America and our policies relative to the OSCE. Ambassador Minikes and the OSCE team is doing a fantastic job. Again, it is because of the bipartisan support of people like the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) and the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith) and those people who involve themselves in the interparliamentary dialogue that is a part of the OSCE process.

So, Mr. Speaker, I come full circle, and I come full circle because tonight in a few short hours the President will stand behind us and give a speech, and a major part of his speech will focus on foreign policy. I say to my colleagues, Mr. Speaker, we have proven time and again that we can take on any challenge the Nation has and win if we stick together, if we take apart the partisan rhetoric and get down to the substance of what America needs to do.

None of us want war. None of us want conflict. None of us want to see Americans go overseas and shed any blood. Now is the time for us to stand together, at the most difficult point in the recent history of this Nation. We face the scourge of terrorism. We face uncertainty in the Middle East. We face China and Taiwan, North and South Korea, India and Pakistan, all of which require us as a Nation to act together; to disagree on the way we approach these solutions, but to do it in a civil way, to show these countries that, in the end, we are united. I would just caution our colleagues in both bodies in both parties to understand the importance of that approach to these very difficult foreign policy challenges.

Mr. Speaker, one final word. Over the recess, as it was for the past year, we have tried to take a bipartisan delegation into North Korea, to DPRK. In May of last year, 13 of our colleagues were together. We went to Moscow, we went to Beijing and Seoul, being promised all along we would get visas to go into North Korea to open some dialogue with Kim Jong-il and the North Korean Supreme People's Congress. We were denied that ability; even though we had been promised, we were not given the ability to travel in there to open doors.

In August we received an e-mail from the North Korean Government to try again. I went back up to the U.N. two more times and met with the DPRK ambassador, Ambassador Han, and pleaded with him to allow us to bring a delegation in. In January of this year, with his support, I reissued a letter asking for support for our delegation to visit, equal Members of Democrat and Republican from this body. With the support of President Jiang Zemin in China, which we received in May of last year personally, and with the support of Kofi Annan who called me at home a week ago and said Congressman, we are behind your effort; with the support of his chief interlocutor who has been working the DPRK issue for the U.N., Maurice Strand; with the support, quietly, of our own government, aware of what we were doing and not telling us to oppose it, the North Korean Government again has consistently opposed an effort, an honest effort by Democrats and Republicans, to open a new dialogue.

So, Mr. Speaker, I thank our colleagues in both parties who have stood together and said, we will go back to Pyongyang, we will take a delegation in, we will have a discussion, we will tell Kim Jong-il and the North Korean people that we wish them no ill will, we do not want a war with them, we want to encourage the south in its effort to establish a peaceful relationship, but there are certain things that the DPRK must do, as outlined by our President and Secretary of State. They must return to their commitment to a safe policy of relationships with our neighbors. They must end their program of developing highly enriched uranium which will lead to nuclear weapons; and if they take those steps, then we can peacefully cooperate with them. We can become a trading partner, and we in this body can open new doors and new opportunities as we have done with Russia, as we have done with other nations around the world.

So in closing, Mr. Speaker, I encourage our colleagues tonight who have done so much, so much good with so much foreign policy challenge existing around the world, Democrats and Republicans have consistently united; and I encourage my colleagues to look for that opportunity again, so that following the State of the Union tonight we can come out with one voice, with one Nation and say that we all want to avoid war. But we must continue to exert the pressure that was required by the U.N. resolutions in 1992, that was required by the arms control agreements that North Korea has now opted out of, and if they come back to the normalcy that they were once a part of, that, in fact, we can have peaceful coexistence without conflict.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues for their cooperation. I will insert the speech, ``A New Millennium,'' that I presented to the institute as a part of the Congressional Record at this time.

A New Millenium

To stand before you today--as an American, as a member of

the United States House of Representatives--and deliver the

keynote address in celebration of the 100th birthday of Igor

Kurchatov, is an astonishing privilege. An invitation to

attend this important occasion would have been honor enough.

That I stand here as a principal speaker is so much more than

I could have ever imagined. It is truly a humbling

experience.

How far we--the United States and Russia--have come! From

adversaries to friends, from competitors to partners--we have

moved huge distances from the world of our youth. The cold

war is over, finished forever. Today, Russians and Americans

are called to be the instruments of a new and, hopefully,

more peaceful, prosperous, and democratic world in which each

and every human being on this globe will live in peace and

dignity.

I have had a lifelong interest in Russia. I have studied

Russian language, history and culture. Over time, I have been

blessed with many opportunities to travel to this great

country. I have learned that the Russians are a proud people,

historically aware, and mindful of Russia's unique global

role.

I also have a passion for science and the good things it

can accomplish. My home city of Philadelphia was the home of

a famous American, Benjamin Franklin. As a child I was told

of the wonderful discoveries and practical application of

science by Mr. Franklin, who is one of the founders of our

nation. I have since been interested in what science can do

for mankind. Russia and science make such a wonderful

combination, a combination that could springboard to a

wonderful and prosperous future.

One hundred years ago--on January 8, 1903--Igor Kurchatov,

son of a nobleman who was himself the grandson of a serf, was

born

to a life of great destiny. Igor Kurchatov was one of those

central persons of 20th century Russia, who helped to define

Russia's role in the modern world. He was a remarkable man

who left his mark and legacy on Russia forever.

We gather here today more than 40 years after his death to

pay tribute not only to him, but the institute that bears is

name. Indeed, the occasion of Igor Kurchatov's 100th birthday

provides us with an opportunity to salute the entire Russian

scientific community, especially the nuclear science

community. For it is my firm belief that the emerging future

of a prosperous, democratic Russia will rely on the hard work

and talent of Russia's scientific and engineering community--

a community that Igor Kurchatov was instrumental in

establishing.

As I briefly trace some of Igor Kurchatov's

accomplishments, I want to begin at the end of his life--in

1958, more than 40 years ago. In his last public address,

Kurchatov said, ``I'm glad that I have dedicated my life to

Soviet nuclear science. I believe that our people and

government will use science only for the good of mankind.''

Today, on the 100th anniversary of his birth, I believe

Kurchatov's final wish is coming true. From my position in

the United States, I have had the opportunity over the past

decade of seeing the Russian scientific community emerge from

the shadows of the cold war and turn their formidable talents

toward peaceful contributions to Russia and to the world.

Even as I speak here today, the men and women in the

institute that bears his name are hard at work, beating their

swords into plowshares. And they are not alone in this great

task--as scientists and engineers at other Russian institutes

also turn to science to serve--rather than destroy--humanity.

Igor Kurchatov was both a world-class scientist and a loyal

citizen of the Soviet Union. He was the father of the Soviet

Union's atomic bomb. His country depended on him to create

and provide its nuclear deterrent during the cold war. He

succeeded in this demanding task under very difficult

circumstances, despite the tyranny of his bosses: Joseph

Stalin and Lavrenti Beria. He succeeded very well. The Soviet

nuclear arsenal became and remained a serious worry of the

United States throughout the cold war.

In retrospect, I can say that the nuclear deterrence of the

United States and the Soviet Union provided the basis for

stability during dangerous times of enmity and opposition.

These weapons kept us from ever firing a shot in war or anger

against one another. However we might think about that 50-

year era and whether nuclear weapons and the threat of mutual

assured destruction through their use was moral or wise,

deterrence worked. Both countries--indeed the entire world--

escaped the devastation of nuclear weapons because both

countries had them and both recognized the consequences of

their use.

The scientific infrastructure that Igor Kurchatov created

to bring this about is, and will remain his enduring legacy,

long after the days of the nuclear deterrence created by the

capability of mutually assured destruction fades from our

collective memory. What Kurchatov created goes well beyond

nuclear weapons and encompasses the entire range of peaceful

uses of the atom. No one can dispute the world-class

capabilities of Russia's present nuclear science network. It

is your inheritance from him.

The later part of Kurchatov's career was spent increasingly

on peaceful uses of nuclear strategy. He oversaw the

construction of particle accelerators and research in fusion.

This new focus occupied him as his health gradually

deteriorated. Like his fellow scientist Sakharov, he called

for an end to nuclear testing.

Kurchatov died in February 1960 of a blood clot in the

brain. His last public appearance was to attend a performance

of Mozart's Requiem. The haunting refrain of dona eis requiem

(grant them peace) must have rung in his ears as he returned

home from the concert hall moments before he died. I repeat

that refrain now: dona eis requiem, grant the world peace,

grant him--Igor Kurchatov--the peace that belongs to a man of

peace.

You--the scientists and citizens of Russia--carry his torch

into tomorrow. You are carrying it into an uncertain future.

The future is always uncertain, no matter how hard we try to

prepare for it. Your work will delineate the tomorrows for

your children and grandchildren. It will define the future

and improve it for Russia and the world. You--the scientists

and engineers of Russia--have already begun the next phase

of scientific endeavors for your country, and you have

done it in the most difficult and troubling of times, and

in the face of grave uncertainty.

I stand here today and tell you that you are not alone in

this quest. The United States of America will stand with you

as you build a new prosperous and democratic Russia. I am

proud that the United States has been a partner with Russia

and its scientists in so many ways since the end of the

Soviet Union. I, as a member of the U.S. House of

Representatives, have supported all of the efforts of our

U.S.-Russian partnership--whether through the International

Science and Technology Center, the Initiatives for

Proliferation Prevention, or the Nuclear Cities Initiative. I

have supported the joint U.S.-Russian work on nuclear

materials--the conversion of Weapons-grade highly-enriched

uranium (HEU) into Low-enriched uranium (LEU) for use in

peaceful power reactors, the transformation of Weapons

Plutonium into MOX fuel, also for peaceful use in reactors,

and the safeguarding of nuclear material through the joint

Materials Protection Control and Accounting (MPC&A) program.

The list of our partner projects goes on and on. I expect

that we shall walk hand-in-hand in the scientific community's

efforts against terrorism. These programs are also a key to

Russia's and the United States' joint efforts to prevent the

proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

I am particularly interested in how you, the scientists and

engineers of Russia, can transform your nation through the

commercialization of Russian science, often in cooperation

with U.S. companies. I see such commercialization as a key to

future Russian prosperity.

Last month, I attended and addressed the annual meeting of

the United States Industry Coalition, a group of more than

140 companies working with Russia and other former Soviet

republics in cooperative scientific commercial ventures.

These private companies have put aside all vestiges of cold

war thinking. They are committed to and see the importance of

creating jobs and viable business in Russia as their

contribution to peace. I believe that such cooperation with

the U.S. will help create, if not become, the locomotive of a

new and prosperous Russian economy that takes full advantage

of your greatest strengths--the thousands of excellent

scientists, engineers, and technicians.

The institute that bears Igor Kurchatov's name plays a

major role in all of these efforts. Its leaders, Academicians

Evgeny Velikhov and Nicholai Nicholoaivotich Ponomarev-

Stepnoi, have shown an aggressiveness and entrepreneurial

spirit that should be emulated by all the science institutes

of Russia. They see the future of Russia in high tech

industries. One of the most foresighted efforts in this area

is their participation with the United States Industry

Coalition to create a sister organization, the National

Industry Coalition here in Moscow, to encourage Russian

companies to take advantage of Russia's technical expertise

in new business ventures.

The Kurchatov Institute is not just standing still, waiting

for tomorrow, but it creating the future. I urge all the

scientific institutions of Russia to emulate the endeavors of

those who are creating a new high tech commercial community

in Russia. This need not just be an effort on behalf of

weapons scientists.

We have the opportunity to accomplish so many things in our

new U.S.-Russian partnership. We are already doing so against

the horrors of terrorism and will do much more in that

critical area. In fact, there are few areas where the United

States and Russia cannot work together.

Last year I put together a blueprint for a U.S.-Russian

partnership. This document was endorsed by one-third of the

United States Congress. I called it A New Time, A New

Beginning. In this document I present a new vision for U.S.-

Russian relations. I wrote in because I believed then, and

even more so today, that now is the time, with Vladimir Putin

and George Bush as presidents of our two countries, to

improve our relationship for the long-term. It is time to

stop the roller coaster ride of the past decade and settle

down into a steady forward path. Our route must continue to

take full account of defense and security issues, even when

they collide. However, it is now time to move beyond these

issues as we step into the new millennium. It is time to take

a holistic approach to cooperation--one that takes into

account Russia's myriad concerns and needs as well as those

of the United States.

I would like to describe the series of initiatives that I

have proposed. These initiatives take a comprehensive view of

what might be accomplished if we--the United States of

America and the Russian Federation--set our minds and hearts

on them. They deal with initiatives in environment, energy,

economic development, and health care--as well as defense and

security. Let me describe what I believe can be accomplished

if we have the will and perseverance to stay the course.

It is time for greater cooperation on agricultural

development. This means not only improving production, but

expanding private-sector investment.

We must facilitate Russia's accession to the World Trade

Organization (WTO) and its acceptance of all WTO agreements.

In addition, we should increase funding for OPIC and the U.S.

Export-Import Bank projects here in Russia. Also essential

for economic development is improvement of intellectual

property rights so that companies will invest here.

Energy and natural resources are one of the great strengths

of Russia. We should cooperate in oil and gas exploration,

for example in Timan Pechora. Success in joint cooperation on

energy will hinge on eliminating bureaucratic obstacles on

both sides of the oceans. Our collaboration should

investigate the energy security implications in this new

environment of sub-national terrorism and the efforts of both

our nations to snuff out such terrorism.

Of course, I consider cooperation in science and technology

to be a linchpin of our future relationship. Our future

economies will rest most assuredly on the ability to

capitalize on new science and technology and create new

businesses that meets the world's needs.

This cooperation includes cooperation in the area of

nuclear fuel cycles. We must put

to rest public concern about the safety, environmental, and

proliferation concerns associated with nuclear power. Over

the long-term fusion may be the key to the world's energy

needs. Therefore, we must cooperate more on fusion research.

We should also cooperate in the embryonic nanotechnology

industry.

We have the opportunity to perform joint cutting-edge

research in medical technology and treatments. The Department

of Energy and Institutes such as MINATOM can collaborate on

breakthrough technologies such as radiopharmaceuticals and

advanced medical diagnostic and treatment equipment. We can

also encourage research on devastating chronic illnesses such

as cardiovascular disease and diabetes between the U.S.

National Institutes of Health and appropriate Russian

Research institutes. Our cooperation would include a more

extensive exchange of physicians and scientists.

Scientists would also cooperate in Space and Aeronautics on

projects like space solar power, propulsion technology and

weather satellites. They would also expand cooperation on

marine science research and on developing Russian

technologies for environmental protection and remediation.

I would like to see creation of a fund from Russian foreign

debt transferal that would be the economic engine for many of

these initiatives. For example, commercial success in

technology could lead to repayment of loans or grants from

the fund. Such repayments could then be the basis for new

investments in these programs.

Of course there are many other ways in which we should

become partners. I propose to also include cultural and

educational development, improvement of the Russian judicial

and legal systems in order to firmly establish the ``rule of

law,'' as well as assistance to local Russian governments so

that they can provide necessary services to the public and

also encourage democracy at the grass roots level.

This is a very ambitious agenda that I propose. I put it

forward because I happen to believe that there is no limit to

what we can achieve in our partnership. After all, it is a

new time. And new times call for new beginnings.

Much has happened in the one hundred years since the birth

of Igor Kurchatov. The vast scientific and technical complex

that is his legacy has done much to advance knowledge and

technology. It will do much more if we set our minds to it.

Before leaving Washington to travel to Russia and

Kurchatov, I sought the personal feelings and thoughts of

another great leader in the world of nuclear physics--a man

who met Igor Kurchatov and professionally respected the work

of this great man. Born in the same decade as Igor Kurchatov,

Edward Teller was a key architect of the early nuclear work

of the United States. Now in his 90's, living in California,

Edward Teller wanted me to relay his personal feeling on this

great occasion.

He said, ``like Igor Kurchatov, I long for peace far more

than I oppose war.'' He went on to say that ``cooperation

between scientists is the most important aspect of the United

States and Russia working together--it is a splendid

foundation for future progress when former adversaries work

together.''

One hundred years after the birth of two men who devoted

their lives to nuclear research and whose lives and thoughts

were focused on peace while their countries used their work

for security--it is appropriate that we look to move to a new

level of cooperation in nuclear science that forges a 21st

century U.S./Russian alliance that builds on and rededicates

our two great nations to the peaceful use of nuclear energy

for the improvement of the quality of life for all human

beings on the face of the Earth.

I propose that we create the Kurchatov-Teller Alliance for

Peace that brings together in a formal way Kurchatov

Institute and the labs of the Ministry of Atomic Energy with

Lawrence Livermore Laboratory (Teller's base of operation

today) with Oak Ridge, Argonne, Los Alamos and the labs of

our Department of Energy for the specific purpose of

enhancing the use of nuclear power worldwide while

controlling proliferation. Projects like Thorium Power (that

offer so much promise in stopping weapons production and

eliminating environmental problems) and cutting edge research

by scientists in both nations can be brought together within

one new bi-lateral entity that truly moves us into a ``New

Time and New Beginning.''

We are still at the beginning of the 21st Century. Much as

Kurchatov set out to do in the last century, we have the

opportunity to solve the problems and challenges of the next

100 years. The scientists and engineers of our countries--

together with the businessmen and entrepreneurs in both

countries--could solve nagging problems of safe,

environmentally friendly, and plentiful energy sources. They

can solve difficult and complicated medical issues and use

science to increase agricultural production. We have an

almost limitless horizon before us.

Our task ahead is daunting--some might say impossible. But

I am the eternal optimist--perhaps born out of being the

youngest of nine children in a poor family. My parents never

completed high school, yet they were the smartest people that

I have ever met--they had common sense and moral decency.

My father, who only went to the 8th grade, gave me some

advice as a youngster that is just as fitting to our

challenge. He said in life you can accomplish almost anything

that you can dream. He used to say ``Your only limitations in

life will be those that you self-impose.'' And that applies

to us today.

Together, following in the footsteps of the great

scientific leaders of our past, like Igor Kurchatov, our two

great nations can solve any problem, overcome any challenge

and rise to any occasion for the good of mankind--if we work

together as one.

And so, I shall end where I began, by expressing my

profound gratitude for the honor you have bestowed on me by

inviting me to make this address. I am your friend and I will

continue to work for our joint U.S.-Russian interests. Let us

work together. Let us clear out the underbrush, let us do

away with petty bureaucratic obstacles on both sides of the

Atlantic. Both governments have to commit themselves to

making cooperation easier, and not filled with time-consuming

procedures. You can be assured that this U.S. Congressman

will work tirelessly toward this goal.

Again, I thank you for inviting me. I wish you all well.

God bless the United States and Russia.