Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, it is a great honor for me to rise today to commend the residents of the Seventh Congressional District and the people of southeastern Pennsylvania for their generosity and compassion toward the people of the gulf coast in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

As vice chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, I visited Louisiana 5 days after the storm hit, and witnessed the strength and resolve of the citizens and those working to save lives and restore order. This weekend I am pleased to host gulf coast first responders in my district to recognize their indomitable spirit and their great relief efforts. In the days and dark nights that followed the hurricane disasters, these first responders worked around the clock with remarkable resiliency in moving forward a person, a house, a building at a time.

More than 6 months have passed since the most devastating natural disaster in American history. In that time, as has been the case in every time of national crisis, the citizens of my region have opened their hearts to their fellow citizens.

Displaced residents were welcomed to our communities, schoolchildren held fundraisers, supplies were donated, prayers were said and communities sent their fire and EMS personnel to aid neighbors in towns hundreds of miles away, that were unknown to them weeks earlier. College students from my district are spending their spring break in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama assisting with the recovery and rebuilding effort.

To this day, our local citizens continue to donate money, time and effort to help rebuild this devastated part of our country. This spontaneous generosity--great and small, emotional and financial--of all of my constituents in the wake of this tragedy has been remarkable. I have never been more proud to represent the Seventh Congressional District. The extraordinary efforts of the residents of Delaware, Chester and Montgomery Counties are exemplary of the spirit of service that has made our Nation great.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all those who have dedicated not only their time, but also their resources, to the recovery effort along the gulf coast. I am proud to recognize and commend the tremendous commitment, kindness and generosity of southeastern Pennsylvanians whose invaluable dedication to helping our Nation deserves our special recognition.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in solid support of this legislation and with deep thanks to the leadership on both sides of the aisle for their work on this issue.

This is a critically important piece of legislation, not just for the people of Ukraine but for the people of the world. As a founder and cochair of the Ukrainian Rada-U.S. Congress relationship, this has been our number one priority for a number of years. But going back in my own career as a mayor and former county commissioner, I can recall each January that, with hundreds of my Ukrainian-American constituents, we would assemble and light candles. We would light candles for those people who are being oppressed by the Soviet regime.

In working with groups like the National Council of Soviet Jewry, we would make visits into the Soviet Union and go to those homes where people were being oppressed. We understood in a real way the oppression that was being brought by the Soviet leadership. And those candles that we lit each January were to show our solidarity with the Ukrainian people, that one day they would achieve independence and one day they would achieve the full equal respect of our country.

In the early nineties they achieved their independence. Today they receive the full respect of America and its people, because today we grant them equal status as a trading partner.

Ukraine has been working hard to achieve the basic foundation of democracy. They worked hard as a million people stood in the streets in the area of the Maden and stood up to the leadership in attempting to take away the election of the people. They stood tall for the leadership of President Yushchenko.

President Yushchenko has continuously called for this action that we take today. And certainly the timing is appropriate because in several weeks Ukraine will elect a new Rada. This sends a signal that Ukraine now has the full and equal respect of the government and of the people of the United States. And it sends a signal to all those other emerging democracies that you can follow the Orange Revolution.

Ukraine has been very helpful to us, Mr. Speaker, in ways that we do not often talk about publicly. It was President Kuchma, before Yushchenko, who laid the groundwork with contacts in Libya through his Foreign Minister, Konstantin Greshenko, to assist us in getting Gadhafi to give up his weapons of mass destruction. Quiet discussions among Ukraine leaders were assisting us to achieve what many thought was impossible in Libya.

It has been Ukraine and the diaspora in this country that has constantly reminded us of the economic bonds between our two nations. Today we stand tall with the people of Ukraine, and we tell them that we are with them, as we told Prime Minister Yekhanurov when he was here only a few weeks ago.

Today Ukraine becomes a symbol for all of the world. Hopefully, we will continue to work with Russia to achieve a similar status before the end of this year. I was encouraged by the comments of our Trade Representative in calling for that ultimate conclusion, once Russia has continued to show success and improvement in their economic relations.

To all of our colleagues, I say vote for this issue.

Slava Ukraine.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today with great sadness and tremendous gratitude to honor the life of my good friend, Samuel B. Ward, a longtime Chester Heights Fire Chief, veteran, engineer and community leader. As his family, friends and neighbors mourn the passing of Sam Ward, I want to take a few moments today to remember his work and the difference he made in the community he served so bravely and selflessly.

Mr. Ward was born in Chester, but grew up in Chester Heights, a community with whom he had a life-long affiliation. After enlisting at the end of World War II, he attended Pennsylvania Military College, now Widener University, where he played football and received a Bachelor of Science degree in Industrial Engineering.

Commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the Ordinance Corps, he was detailed to the Infantry and served in Korea as a Heavy Mortar Platoon Leader and Executive Officer, earning his Combat Infantry Badge. After returning from Korea, he was assigned to the Tank and Automotive Command in Michigan before leaving the military and returning to Chester Heights.

After his military service, he returned to the fledgling Chester Heights Volunteer Fire Company, and was elected to positions of increasing leadership including Engineer, Assistant Fire Chief, and finally Fire Chief, a position he held for 35 years.

Firefighting is a matter of life and death, and individuals like Sam Ward assume an enormous responsibility when they accept the job of running a fire department. They are responsible for the lives, homes, and livelihoods of thousands of citizens throughout their community. And on a day-to-day basis they become directly responsible for the health and welfare of all the men and women they supervise. Chief Ward discharged his enormous responsibilities with real distinction. During his 35 years as chief, a good department became even better. Chief Ward was respected for his commitment to public safety and his ability to get things done.

An innovator in the fire service, he developed the first workable portable Air Bank in the county, a system which recharges the air packs worn by firefighters. As chairman of the Delaware County Radio Committee, his work laid the foundation for the county-wide fire response radio and the 911 service.

Within the community, Mr. Ward served the borough of Chester Heights in numerous capacities, including Fire Marshal, Council Member and President of Borough Council. In later years, he used his expertise from the fire service to serve as Coordinator of Emergency Preparedness.

Mr. Ward's service activities also included a very active role in the Boy Scouts of Troop 260, where as a boy he earned his Eagle Scout. His leadership on the troop committee provided opportunities for boys of the area to experience adventure activities and other projects to enhance their scouting life. His other community involvement included various service organizations, including the Lions, Jaycees, Veterans of Foreign Wars and Concordville Rotary.

Mr. Ward worked throughout his career as a metal fabricator, eventually founding his own business, which had a reputation for quality and innovation for more than 34 years.

He married the former Mary Frances Ahearn, his high school and college sweetheart, in 1951, who died in 1995. He is survived by one daughter, Joan and four sons, Steven, James, Lawrence and Joseph, and one sister, Polly (Madeline); and seven grandchildren.

Mr. Speaker, the 7th Congressional District has lost an exceptional public servant, and I have lost a good friend. I wish Chief Ward's family, my heartfelt condolences and may they find comfort in knowing that the many people he impacted deeply value his dedication and generosity and the example of his life and work. Chief Samuel B. Ward exemplified the spirit of service that has made this country great. This man was a genuine community leader. He not only did his job well, he loved it, and the community he served. We are safer because of his life and service. I am personally grateful to have known Chief Ward as a friend, and mourn his passing.

Mr. Speaker, it is a great honor for me to rise today to congratulate the Radnor Fire Company for 100 years of dedicated service to the residents of Radnor, Tredyffrin and the surrounding communities in Pennsylvania.

On a historical note, after 30 years of service in 1904, the Wayne Hose Company & Wayne Chemical Company disbanded leaving no fire protection for the community. Following a devastating fire that completely destroyed the Wayne Suburban newspaper building in March of 1906, 24 men organized the Radnor Fire Company to protect the community and incorporated on March 15, 1906.

The Wayne steam plant agreed to sound the steam whistle if there was a fire and it sounded its first alarm on May 24, 1906 for a working house fire near Strafford train station. In that first year of existence the Radnor Fire Company responded to 13 fire calls.

In 1907, looking to improve the firefighting capabilities the members were tasked to find a motorized fire truck. Since none existed at that time they drew specifications and The Knox Company was hired to build the first motorized fire pump in the United States.

The firefighters of the Radnor Fire Company have an impressive record when it comes to firefighting. The fire company has fought such spectacular blazes including four at Villanova University, six at Valley Forge Military Academy, the Pennsylvania Fire Works Company explosion in Devon, the Wayne Opera House, Caley Nursing Home and crashes of P-40 fighter planes during World War II. During that time, the fire company manpower was augmented by a ``school boy fireman''-- Rick Taddeo, who is still a member today.

The first ambulance was purchased in 1947 with funds raised by the Rotary Club following the death of a Radnor firefighter. By the 1970's the fire company was responding to 390 fire and 890 ambulance calls annually. Today they answer nearly 800 fire and 4,000 ambulance calls annually.

From its beginning with a horse-drawn fire apparatus to the first motorized firefighting equipment to its modern new trucks of today, Radnor is a leader in firefighting capabilities and continues to protect the citizens of Radnor, portions of Tredyffrin and the surrounding communities.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all those who have dedicated not only their time, but also their lives, to the safety of all Radnor residents as well as surrounding communities. As a former fire chief in Marcus Hook, I am aware of the risks firefighters face each day, under intense pressure, in life or death situations. Our thanks and appreciation can never repay those who put their lives on the line to ensure our safety. I am proud to recognize and commend the tremendous commitment, courage and dedication of the Radnor Fire Company members who continue

to reflect the same spirit in which the department was established more than 100 years ago. I am honored to rise today to extend my thanks for what the members of the Radnor Fire Company do each day and congratulate them on this milestone anniversary.

Mr. Speaker, three years ago it was my privilege to lead a bipartisan delegation of my colleagues to the Korean Peninsula. At the time, we had a rare opportunity to visit Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea, as well as Seoul, the capital of South Korea, which I have had the pleasure of visiting on more than one occasion. During that trip, we gained a greater understanding and appreciation of the security challenges we face in Northeast Asia and the particular challenges faced by the Republic of Korea. Our delegation made a return trip to North Korea in January 2005.

With that in mind, Mr. Speaker, I rise today to acknowledge the seldom noted fact that our close friend and staunch ally, the Republic of Korea, has contributed the largest contingent

of military personnel in Iraq, after the United States and the United Kingdom. South Korea has currently deployed 3,300 troops to Iraq, performing important functions in the northern part of the country, freeing up U.S. forces for operations elsewhere.

The South Korean government, through legislation passed by its National Assembly in December 2005, extended the time period of deployment of their troops for another year, despite political pressures to withdraw altogether. The extension of the stationing of troops is an expression of South Korea's deep and abiding support for the U.S. efforts to rebuild Iraq and establish a permanent peace there. By its actions, South Korea demonstrates its firm commitment to a rapid reconstruction of Iraq and to establishing stability as soon as possible.

Mr. Speaker, South Korean troops have been stationed in Iraq since they were first dispatched in August 2004. Named the Zaytun Division, derived from the Arabic term for ``olive'' and symbolizing peace, the unit has been actively involved in rehabilitating civilian infrastructure facilities for local residents and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).

The South Korean National Assembly announced that there will be a gradual reduction of the Zaytun troops by one-third to 2,300 over the course of the coming year. It will be a phased reduction in close consultation with the U.S. and dependent on the Iraqi police force's readiness and the situation on the ground. It is important to note, however, that while there will be a gradual reduction in presence, the role of Zaytun will be enhanced.

In fact, the South Korean troops will soon provide security service for the Irbil Regional Office of the U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI), protecting UNAMI's middle ring and its convoys. Additionally, the USAID office will now be stationed within the Zaytun compound and protected by South Korean forces.

Mr. Speaker, I am afraid that our South Korean friends have not been thanked loudly or frequently enough for this contribution to the stabilization of Iraqi society. It is a genuine shame that the news media in the U.S. missed this significant story, which was widely reported in the Korean press.

On January 18, 2006, a letter from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was delivered to the commander of South Korean forces in Irbil, a city in northern Iraq, expressing our country's appreciation for their peacekeeping efforts. The letter said, in part, ``The humanitarian and reconstruction activities your troops have undertaken have made lasting and substantive contributions to the quality of life for the people of Irbil.''

For these reasons, Mr. Speaker, I wish to express my personal appreciation to the government and people of South Korea for their lasting contribution to the coalition forces in Iraq and for their commitment to playing an important and responsible role in the international community. As a staunch ally of the United States with a mutually comprehensive alliance partnership that has spanned over fifty years and four major conflicts since the end of World War II, South Korea deserves our recognition and expression of support.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today with great sadness and tremendous gratitude to honor the life of Francis L. Brannigan, who over the years has helped firefighters be more astute to the importance of knowing building construction to promote firefighter safety. As a groundbreaking leader in providing for firefighter safety, Frank was one of the first to realize that the biggest threat to firefighters were the buildings they were working in. Throughout his career, Frank provided constant focus on the issues associated with building construction and the fire environment. The safety of firefighters was always the focus of his message and as a result, generations of firefighters will be safer because of his message. The knowledge that he possessed, and generously shared, was second to none.

Frank Brannigan devoted more than half of his 63-year career to the safety of firefighters in building fires. He was well known as the author of ``Building Construction for the Fire Service,'' and for his lectures and videotapes. The first edition of his ``Building Construction for the Fire Service'' was an instant success in 1971. Since then, it has sold more than 130,000 copies in three editions, the most recent of which was published in 1992. Designated by Fire Chief as one of the 20 people who most influenced the fire service in the 20th century, Frank Brannigan was truly one of the giants of the fire service.

Frank Brannigan was not a fire chief or an engineer, but he became one of the most important influences in the fire service in the last quarter of the 20th century. I am proud to say I knew Frank Brannigan.

Mr. Speaker, the Fire Service has lost an exceptional leader and guardian of firefighters everywhere. I wish Frank Brannigan's wife Maurine and family my heartfelt condolences and may they find comfort in knowing that the many people he impacted deeply value his dedication and generosity and the example of his life and work. Frank Brannigan exemplified the spirit of service that has made this country great. As long as firefighters fight fires, the fire service will be the beneficiary of Frank's writing, scholarship, zeal and life-saving message.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to Chief Joseph J. Manerchia upon his retirement as Fire Chief of the Marcus Hook Fire Department after more than 30 years of distinguished and dedicated service to the Department.

Joseph J. Manerchia joined the Marcus Hook Fire Company No. 1 at the age of 15 in

1975. In the years that followed, he held every administrative and Fire Line office within the company. In 1995, he became company chief and is credited with initiating many positive changes in the operation of the company, especially in areas of firefighter/fire officer training, firefighter safety, development of fire officer qualifications and training programs for apparatus drivers. He also wrote the first Standard Operating Guideline Manual adopted by the fire company and developed a ``Fire Department/Police Department Interface Program'' to promote better cooperation between the two agencies. Chief Manerchia led his company to 4 consecutive Pennsylvania State Championships as the ``Best Appearing Marching Unit'' in the Pennsylvania State Firemen's Convention Parade.

In 1999, Joe rose to the rank of Borough Fire Chief, a position he would hold through 2005 which made him the longest serving Borough Fire Chief in the history of the department. At that time, the Marcus Hook Fire Department was comprised of the Marcus Hook Fire Company No. 1 and the Viscose Fire Company No. 2. As Borough Fire Chief he provided the leadership that would eventually consolidate the two local fire companies into one organization. In the year 2000, he was instrumental in developing a plan that led to the replacement of the fire department's aging aerial ladder truck with a new 75 Foot Quint. Again under his chairmanship, the State spotlight was cast on Marcus Hook as the Fire Department hosted the Pennsylvania State Firemen's Convention in September 2003, a first for the fire department and the borough.

The Chief has attended local, State and nationally accredited fire, hazardous materials and command training classes. He is the graduate of several National Fire Academy on campus programs as well as programs at the University of Texas A&M and the University of Nevada at Reno. Joe holds Pro-Board Certification as a Fire Instructor and as an Industrial Firefighter and is a Pennsylvania certified Emergency Medical Technician and Vehicle Rescue Technician. He is a member of the International Association of Fire Chiefs, International Association of Fire Service Instructors and is on the board of directors of the local chapter of the American Red Cross.

Currently Chief Manerchia is working on a degree in Emergency Management and accreditation as a ``Chief Fire Officer Designate'' through the International Association of Fire Chiefs. He continues to lecture locally and regionally on fire company consolidations and chairs a committee charged with consolidating three fire companies in two municipalities. Joe is still active with the Marcus Hook Fire Department and is a member of the Emergency Management Committee of the Borough of Marcus Hook.

On January 21, 2006, Chief Joseph M. Manerchia was recognized for his 7 years as Borough Fire Chief as well as his 30 years of service to the community and the Fire Department at a banquet held in his honor hosted by the Marcus Hook Fire Department and the Borough of Marcus Hook. During his 30 years of service, he certainly has earned this recognition, and I call upon all of my colleagues to join me in applauding his leadership in both his Department and community. While his service will not soon be forgotten and his boots will not soon be filled, the high standards he has set for his department will strengthen fire service for many years to come.

Mr. Speaker, I, first of all, want to thank the distinguished chairman and the ranking member for their outstanding support of this legislation, and this legislation is extremely important because it sends a signal not just to our colleagues but to the country that this is an institution where we all work together in a very compatible way.

Oftentimes people who watch C-SPAN and people who read about the Congress think that we are filled with adversity, that we do not get along, and nothing could be further from the truth.

This is a great institution. I have had the pleasure of serving here now 19 years. I am in my tenth term, and I have met some wonderful people, people on both sides of the aisle, people who may disagree on the issues but are strong and close friends when we get together when we are not in session or when we have events that are important for this country.

But what makes this institution work are the staff, the people who work behind the scenes, the people who take down the minutes of what is said, the clerks, the people who record, the people who run the C-SPAN camera system, the people who run this institution of the building itself, the Architect of the Capitol and the employees. And while many members of the public do not get to see behind the scenes, there are in fact two Cloakrooms, one for each side of the aisle. Yet we are certainly welcome to go into either Cloakroom anytime. There is no prohibition, and I am sure Helen has served perhaps as many meals to Democrats as she has to Republicans.

And it is appropriate that we honor someone who has been with this institution for one-third of the history of this institution. Can we imagine that, Mr. Speaker? This woman served this country and this institution for a period of time that is equal to one-third of the history of this Nation and this institution. A woman who started following in her father's footsteps when she was a teenager, he would bring here down here to the Republican Cloakroom. Her father ran the Cloakroom where, during the hours that we were in session, Members can go back and take telephone calls. They can purchase a sandwich or a cup of soup. They can sit and chat. And Helen was always there for the past 71 years to provide an atmosphere of friendship, an atmosphere of positive reinforcement after Members of Congress from time to time would leave the well after having given lengthy speeches.

And she served during unbelievable times, starting with the Great Depression and serving in this institution when some of the great moments in our country's history were declared, when some of the greatest State of the Union speeches were made.

So she is a part and a legacy of what makes this institution great, and it is only appropriate that we honor her in this way because, in fact, Mr. Speaker, she served 71 years. There is no employee in the history of the Congress, including Members of the House or Senate, who has served more than Helen Sewell.

Helen could not be with us today, Mr. Speaker, but she is watching this proceeding from her bed at her retirement home. We have talked to Helen's family. We talked to her daughter, and they are watching with her.

And, Helen, we are not allowed to speak to you directly because that violates the rules of the House, but through the Speaker, I will say to you, Helen, that we wish you well. We are all thinking about you. Many of your friends are signing a card for you, and if you look behind me, these beautiful roses will be delivered to you later on today as a symbol of the love that all 1,500 Members of Congress that you have come in contact feel about your service.

Every Member of Congress has had a chance to interact with Helen Sewell. Think of that. Fifteen hundred Members of Congress that have come and gone over the past 71 years have interfaced with this lady.

In fact, Mr. Speaker, we keep these photographs in the back of the Cloakroom that I thought it might be appropriate to let our constituents see. Here is Helen Sewell, and it shows the love by Presidents of the United States who also served as former Members of Congress. We can see by the admiration that these Presidents have for Helen that they enjoyed her company, and we can see the high degree of respect that

they would pay to her when they frequently visited the House Chambers.

Now, because she worked for us I do not have any photographs of Democrat Presidents, but I know President Clinton was just as fond of Helen Sewell as were Republican Presidents, but it is just that she worked for our side.

This is another photograph of Helen with one of our dear Presidents.

So, Mr. Speaker, this resolution is a celebration of this institution. It is a celebration 1 week before Christmas, where we in fact are wrapping up the business of the people. But we take the time to honor those people who allow this institution to work, the people whom you do not see, the people who do not make the speeches, the people who do not go out and get their pictures on national TV and in the media, but the people whom really we rely on to allow us to be successful.

Helen, we thank you for your great support and the commitment you have made to America in support of our Congress.

Helen has three children: Jameille Thomas, Anthony Sewell, and Ava Fuller.

Ava, thank you for talking to me today and telling me about your mother.

Helen's father brought her to this institution, and we want to also recognize Helen's father. And, boy, did he have an appropriate name: Benjamin Franklin Jones. It was Helen's father who brought her to this institution 71 years ago to allow her to begin to work and love this institution that was such a critical part of her life.

Helen was also involved with her church. She was active with the Petworth United Methodist Church here in D.C. She was a trustee. She was a church historian. She was an active member of the Northwest Civic Association. Helen has nine grandkids, and I have been told she has too many great grandkids to number, that it is probably in the dozens and dozens.

And we also, Helen, have to tell a few secrets about you, because as these Members of Congress would go into the back Cloakroom to get sandwiches we would sometimes have to get Helen's attention.

Helen had a small TV set, one of these small 10-inch TV sets. And Helen's favorite preoccupation, when she was not waiting on Members of Congress, was watching the soaps. Helen was a national expert and historian on the soap operas. She could tell us any day of the week who was dating whom and which person was, in fact, in trouble with which other person.

Helen, we will preserve those memories of your activities in the Cloakroom and the fact that your famous word of hollering to us ``next'' will be remembered by all the Members of Congress that miss you today. But when they enter the Cloakroom and see that sign above it that says ``Chez Helen,'' the House of Helen, that was in fact provided by our former colleague Amo Houghton, we want you all to know, Helen, that we love you, that we miss you, that your retirement is a symbol of work that you have put forward and it is a symbol of how we in this institution have to from time to time stop and say ``thank you,'' ``thank you'' to those people behind the scenes who make this Congress and this institution such an important part of America's history and legacy.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to pay tribute to our distinguished chairman and the distinguished ranking member for such a fantastic job under very difficult circumstances to get this conference report to the floor. This was a very difficult piece of legislation, but the chairman persevered and we are very happy to have the legislation here tonight.

I know our soldiers all around the world are happy that this bill is going to be brought forward because there are so many positive things in it. I have the particular pleasure of serving as the chairman of the Air, Land Subcommittee; and I want to pay tribute to my good friend and ranking member, Mr. Abercrombie from Hawaii, who is not here right now, for the excellent work that he did.

In supporting the global war on terrorism in our area, we have included a number of additional programs, including $450 million for up-armored Humvees, $260 million for other armored tactical vehicles, $450 million for small arms, $250 million for ammunition, $30 million for Stryker combat vehicle combat losses, $180 million for radios, $117 million for blue force tracking, $285 million for night vision devices, $35 million to counter improvised explosive devices, $108 million for countering rockets, artillery, and mortars, $50 million for Hellfire missiles, and $180 million for unmanned aerial vehicles.

Mr. Speaker, these are all critically important platforms for the troops in the ongoing battle against terrorism, as well as the theater of operation.

We have also reinstated the C-130J multiyear procurement. We have put some language on the future combat systems budget. We reduced it by $50 million to make sure we are giving the taxpayers the best possible oversight of the SCS program.

We have also attempted to put some more accountability in the DOD acquisition programs and significant language in other provisions that we think are going to provide the taxpayers and the warfighter with more accountability and more efficiency.

Mr. Speaker, I want to pay particular thanks to the leadership, both Mr. Skelton and Mr. Hunter, for including two very important commissions that we worked hard to achieve, the Nuclear Strategy Forum and the EMP Commission. I want to pay particular thanks to Mr. Roscoe Bartlett, Chairman Bartlett, for his outstanding work on this issue. The EMP Commission now will have an ongoing process of evaluating our military platforms against the threat of an EMP.

Overall, Mr. Speaker, this process has been long. I think this is the latest we have ever gone with the Defense authorization bill, and the credit for all of this outstanding work goes to my distinguished chairman. He is a great American. The one thing about Mr. Hunter and the one thing about Mr. Skelton, everything that we do, they keep in mind the warfighter, the soldier. Each of them has made trip after trip into the theater, into Iraq, into Afghanistan, meeting the troops and making sure that we are in fact holding the Defense Department accountable to giving our troops the best possible equipment and technology.

I am happy to support this conference report. I would ask all of our colleagues to give an overwhelming vote of support for this. Again I want to thank the distinguished chairman and ranking member for their leadership.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to oppose this resolution. I have been in this body 19 years, and I did not support setting artificial dates to remove our troops from Bosnia, Somalia, Kosovo, East Timor, Macedonia and all the other times that we have deployed our troops.

In fact, even when we were told back in 1997, the year after we entered Bosnia, that our troops would be home by Christmas, I did not rise to bring them home. We were told in Christmas of 1998 they would be home and Christmas of 1999. The fact is we still have troops in the Balkans. They have been there 10 years, even though it was not part of the original plan.

Mr. Speaker, all of us support our troops, but I want to tell my colleagues, in my 19 years I learned a lesson of supporting the troops from the gentleman from Pennsylvania. He took me under his wing when I came here as a freshman 19 years ago. I have traveled with him around the world. I have seen his personal dedication to the men and women who serve.

Now, there are many others in this body on both sides of the aisle that we can say the same thing about, but I want to stand up as a Representative from the other side of Pennsylvania and tell the story of Jack Murtha who epitomizes what our military's all about. I wish I could say I have been to Landstuhl, a medical facility in Germany, as many times as Jack Murtha has been there.

I wish I could say that weekly I would go over to Walter Reed Hospital and meet with the troops as Jack Murtha has done week after week after week.

I wish I could say I have gone and held the hands of the wives and the children of the sailors at Bethesda as Jack Murtha has done.

Mr. Speaker, I wish I could say that I have done all that, but I cannot. Jack Murtha is one of a kind. He is an example for all of us in this body, and none of us should ever think of questioning his motives, his desires or support for our American troops.

Mr. Speaker, I also want to say I have been here 19 years. I have been here with Republican and Democrat Presidents. Yes, Jack Murtha's been there. He stood up when Bill Clinton tried to cut the funding for our troops, and he stood with us on some very tough votes. He stood up with us on the tough policy questions. He was with us on missile defense. He was with us when others in his party would not be with us on defense and security issues. On some very tough leadership spots Jack Murtha was there, and for the 5 years that President Bush has been President, I cannot count on my hands the number of times Jack Murtha has stood with our President in supporting our troops in supporting more money, in supporting the policies that give us the kind of capability that we need.

Mr. Speaker, we are in a sad state today. We are in a tough time with our troops. They are wondering what is going on back here. It is not about Jack Murtha trying to undermine anyone, just as I and others would not

have tried to do that in the other 40 deployments in the 19 years that I have been here, but it is wrong, Mr. Speaker, that a gentleman with the reputation and leadership of Jack Murtha should have to wait 5 months to get a response to a letter expressing his concerns to the administration. That is not right.

So, Mr. Speaker, I would hope we would all come together, and I would hope that our Commander in Chief would invite the good gentleman from Pennsylvania down to the White House to have a discussion about how we can move forward together to support the troops and win the day in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Mr. Speaker, I include material regarding Able Danger for the Record:

House of Representatives,

Washington, DC, November 9, 2005.

Hon. Donald Rumsfeld,

Secretary, Department of Defense, The Pentagon, Washington,

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Concurrent Resolution 307, 109th Congress, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. Speaker, first of all, let me thank my friend and colleague for allowing me to take this 5-minute special order before his 1 hour. I will be brief, but I rise for an issue of severe concern to me, Mr. Speaker.

As someone who has spent 19 years working on defense and security issues in this Congress and currently serves as the vice chairman of the Armed Services and Homeland Security Committees, I have to report to my colleagues continuing efforts to try to find out what happened before 9/11 and, unfortunately, have to report that we are being stonewalled. In fact, Mr. Speaker, I cannot use any other term but the appearance of a cover-up.

Just a few moments ago, I questioned one of the cochairs of the 9/11 Commission, Lee Hamilton, why the Commission has not yet responded to a letter that I sent to them on August 10 of this year, which I will enter into the Record at this point.

August 10, 2005.

Hon. Thomas H. Kean, Chairman,

Hon. Lee H. Hamilton, Vice Chairman,

9/11 Public Discourse Project, One DuPont Circle, NW.,

Washington, DC.

Dear Chairman Kean and Vice Chairman Hamilton: I am

contacting you to discuss an important issue that concerns

the terrible events of September 11, 2001, and our country's

efforts to ensure that such a calamity is never again allowed

to occur. Your bipartisan work on The National Commission on

Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States shed light on much

that was unclear in the minds of the American people

regarding what happened that fateful day, however there

appears to be more to the story than the public has been

told. I bring this before you because of my respect for you

both, and for the 9-11 Commission's service to America.

Almost seven years ago, the National Defense Authorization

Act for Fiscal Year 1999 established the Advisory Panel to

Assess Domestic Response Capabilities for Terrorism Involving

Weapons of Mass Destruction, otherwise known as the Gilmore

Commission. The Gilmore Commission reached many of the same

conclusions as your panel, and in December of 2000 called for

the creation of a ``National Office for Combating

Terrorism.'' I mention this because prior to 9/11, Congress

was aware of many of the institutional obstacles to

preventing a terrorist attack, and was actively attempting to

address them. I know this because I authored the language

establishing the Gilmore Commission.

In the 1990's, as chairman of the congressional

subcommittee that oversaw research and development for the

Department of Defense, I paid special attention to the

activities of the Army's Land Information Warfare Activity

(LIWA) at Ft. Belvoir. During that time, I led a bipartisan

delegation of Members of Congress to Vienna, Austria to meet

with members of the Russian parliament, or Duma. Before

leaving, I received a brief from the CIA on a Serbian

individual that would be attending the meeting. The CIA

provided me with a single paragraph of information. On the

other hand, representatives of LIWA gave me five pages of far

more in-depth analysis. This was cause for concern, but my

debriefing with the CIA and FBI following the trip was cause

for outright alarm: neither had ever heard of LIWA or the

data mining capability it possessed.

As a result of experiences such as these, I introduced

language into three successive Defense Authorization bills

calling for the creation of an intelligence fusion center

which I called NOAH, or National Operations and Analysis Hub.

The NOAH concept is certainly familiar now, and is one of

several recommendations made by your commission that has a

basis in earlier acts of Congress. Despite my repeated

efforts to establish NOAH, the CIA insisted that it would not

be practical. Fortunately, this bureaucratic intransigence

was overcome when Congress and President Bush acted in 2003

to create the Terrorism Threat Integration Center (now the

National Counterterrorism Center). Unfortunately, it took the

deaths of 3,000 people to bring us to the point where we

could make this happen. Now, I am confident that under the

able leadership of John Negroponte, the days of toleration

for intelligence agencies that refuse to share information

with each other are behind us.

The 9-11 Commission produced a book-length account of its

findings, that the American people might educate themselves

on the challenges facing our national effort to resist and

defeat terrorism. Though under different circumstances, I

eventually decided to do the same. I recently published a

book critical of our intelligence agencies because even after

9/11, they were not getting the message. After failing to win

the bureaucratic battle inside the Beltway, I decided to take

my case to the American people.

In recent years, a reliable source that I refer to as

``Ali'' began providing me with detailed inside information

on Iran's role in supporting terror and undermining the

United States' global effort to eradicate it. I have

forwarded literally hundreds of pages of information from Ali

to the CIA, FBI, and DIA, as well as the appropriate

congressional oversight committees. The response from our

intelligence agencies has been

underwhelming, to put it mildly. Worse, I have documented

occasions where the CIA has outright lied to me. While the

mid-level bureaucrats at Langley may not be interested in

what I have to say, their new boss is. Porter Goss has all of

the information I have gathered, and I know he is ready to do

what it takes to challenge the circle-the-wagons culture of

the CIA. And Pete Hoekstra, the chairman of the House

Intelligence Committee, is energized as well. Director Goss

and Chairman Hoekstra are both outstanding leaders that know

each other well from their work together in the House of

Representatives, and I will continue to strongly support

their efforts at reform.

All of this background leads to the reason I am writing to

you today. Yesterday the national news media began in-depth

coverage of a story that is not new. In fact, I have been

talking about it for some time. From 1998 to 2001, Army

Intelligence and Special Operations Command spearheaded an

effort called Able Danger that was intended to map out al

Qaeda. According to individuals that were part of the

project, Able Danger identified Mohammed Atta as a terrorist

threat before 9/11. Team members believed that the Atta cell

in Brooklyn should be subject to closer scrutiny, but

somewhere along the food chain of Administration bureaucrats

and lawyers, a decision was made in late 2000 against passing

the information to the FBI. These details are understandably

of great interest to the American people, thus the recent

media frenzy. However I have spoken on this topic for some

time, in the House Armed Services and Homeland Security

Committees, on the floor of the House on June 27, 2005, and

at various speaking engagements.

The impetus for this letter is my extreme disappointment in

the recent, and false, claim of the 9-11 Commission staff

that the Commission was never given access to any information

on Able Danger. The 9-11 Commission staff received not one

but two briefings on Able Danger from former team members,

yet did not pursue the matter. Furthermore, commissioners

never returned calls from a defense intelligence official

that had made contact with them to discuss this issue as a

follow on to a previous meeting.

In retrospect, it appears that my own suggestions to the

Commission might have directed investigators in the direction

of Able Danger, had they been heeded. I personally reached

out to members of the Commission several times with

information on the need for a national collaborative

capability, of which Able Danger was a prototype. In the

context of those discussions, I referenced LIWA and the work

it had been doing prior to 9/11. My chief of staff physically

handed a package containing this information to one of the

commissioners at your Commission's appearance on April 13,

2004 in the Hart Senate Office Building. I have spoken with

Governor Kean by phone on this subject, and my office

delivered a package with this information to the 9-11

Commission staff via courier. When the Commission briefed

Congress with their findings on July 22, 2004, I asked the

very first question in exasperation: ``Why didn't you let

Members of Congress who were involved in these issues testify

before, or meet with, the Commission?''

The 9-11 Commission took a very high-profile role in

critiquing intelligence agencies that refused to listen to

outside information. The commissioners very publicly

expressed their disapproval of agencies and departments that

would not entertain ideas that did not originate in-house.

Therefore it is no small irony that the Commission would in

the end prove to be guilty of the very same offense when

information of potentially critical importance was brought to

its attention. The Commission's refusal to investigate Able

Danger after being notified of its existence, and its recent

efforts to feign ignorance of the project while blaming

others for supposedly withholding information on it, brings

shame on the commissioners, and is evocative of the worst

tendencies in the federal government that the Commission

worked to expose.

Questions remain to be answered. The first: What lawyers in

the Department of Defense made the decision in late 2000 not

to pass the information from Able Danger to the FBI? And

second: Why did the 9-11 Commission staff not find it

necessary to pass this information to the Commissioners, and

why did the 9-11 Commission staff not request full

documentation of Able Danger from the team member that

volunteered the information?

Answering these questions is the work of the commissioners

now, and fear of tarnishing the Commission's legacy cannot be

allowed to override the truth. The American people are

counting on you not to ``go native'' by succumbing to the

very temptations your Commission was assembled to indict. In

the meantime, I have shared all that I know on this topic

with the congressional committee chairmen that have oversight

over the Department of Defense, the CIA, the FBI, and the

rest of our intelligence gathering and analyzing agencies.

You can rest assured that Congress will share your interest

in how it is that this critical information is only now

seeing the light of day.

Sincerely,

Curt Weldon,

Member of Congress.

This letter asks significant questions about a Top Secret intelligence unit in the military that identified Mohammed Atta and three associates in a Brooklyn cell 1 year before 9/11.

Mr. Speaker, these individuals are still in the military, and they have offered to testify publicly, but this administration is gagging them. This administration is not allowing these military officers to speak, and in fact, the Defense Intelligence Agency is in the midst of destroying the career of a 23-year Bronze Star recipient, a lieutenant colonel in the Army, for doing one thing, for telling the truth.

Mr. Speaker, there are bureaucrats in this administration, in the previous administration who do not want the story of Able Danger to come forward. Even though this secret intelligence unit was ordered by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, carried out by Special Forces Command, and we now know had information 2 days before the attack on the Cole that could have prevented 17 sailors from losing their lives; and in January of 2000, identified Mohammed Atta and, in September of 2000, tried to transfer that information to the FBI on three occasions.

In fact, Mr. Speaker, the 9/11 Commission did not mention Able Danger at all. When they were asked about it by the New York Times in August of this year, they said, Well, it was historically insignificant.

Mr. Speaker, Louis Freeh, the FBI Director during the time of 9/11, was interviewed on national news by Tim Russert on ``Meet the Press'' 2 weeks ago, and when he was asked about his role in the information on 9/11, he said, Well, you know, if we would have had the information from the Able Danger team, and I quote, ``that is the kind of tactical intelligence that would have made a difference in stopping the hijacking.'' Louis Freeh says it could have stopped the hijacking, and the 9/11 Commission now says it is historically insignificant.

Mr. Speaker, there is something wrong in the Beltway. Tomorrow, at 12:30 in the House gallery, I will unveil additional new information on Able Danger. I will unveil an enhanced set of investigations because, Mr. Speaker, in the end, the families of the 3,000 victims, the families of the 17 sailors, the people in this country deserve to know the truth.

What happened before 9/11? Why is information being held in secret? Why are military officers being gagged? Why can the truth not be told?

Mr. Speaker, we must in this body demand the truth publicly.

Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to talk to our colleagues and through our colleagues to the American people about an issue that troubles me greatly.

I have been in this institution 19 years, and during those 19 years I have been on the Committee on Armed Services. Currently, I am the vice chairman of that committee and chairman of the subcommittee that oversees the purchase of our weapons systems. In the past I have chaired the research subcommittee. I have chaired the readiness subcommittee, and I have spent every available hour of my time working to make sure that our military troops were properly protected and have the proper equipment and training.

I am a strong supporter of our military. Whether it was in the last 2 years of the Reagan administration, the four years of the Bush administration, the 8 years of the Clinton administration, or the current administration of President George W. Bush, I have been a strong supporter of our military. I am a strong supporter of President Bush. I campaigned for him. I am a strong supporter of Secretary Rumsfeld. I say all of that, Mr. Speaker, because tonight I rise to express my absolute outrage and disgust with what is happening in our defense intelligence agencies.

Mr. Speaker, back in 1999 when I was Chair of the defense research subcommittee, the Army was doing cutting-edge work on a new type of technology to allow us to understand and predict emerging transnational terrorist threats. That technology was being done at several locations, but was being led by our Special Forces Command. The work that they were doing was unprecedented. And because of what I saw there, I supported the development of a national capability of a collaborative center that the CIA would just not accept.

In fact, in November 4 of 1999, 2 years before 9/11, in a meeting in my office with the Deputy Secretary of Defense, Deputy Director of the CIA, Deputy Director of the FBI, we presented a nine-page proposal to create a national collaborative center. When we finished the brief, the CIA said we did not need that capability, and so before 9/11 we did not have it.

When President Bush came in after a year of research, he announced the formation of the Terrorism Threat Integration Center, exactly what I had proposed in 1999. Today it is known as the NCTC, the National Counterterrorism Center. But, Mr. Speaker, what troubles me is not the fact that we did not take those steps.

What troubles me is that I now have learned in the last 4 months that one of the tasks that was being done in 1999 and 2000 was a top-secret program organized at the request of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, carried out by the general in charge of our Special Forces Command, a very elite unit focusing on information regarding al Qaeda. It was a military language effort to allow us to identify the key cells of al Qaeda around the world and to give the military the capability to plan actions against those cells so they could not attack us as they did in 1993 at the Trade Center, at the Khobar Towers, the U.S.S. Cole attack, and the African embassy bombings.

What I did not know, Mr. Speaker, up until June of this year, was that that secret program called Able Danger actually identified the Brooklyn cell of al Qaeda in January and February of 2000, over 1 year before 9/11 every happened. In addition, I learned that not only did we identify the Brooklyn cell of al Qaeda, but we identified Mohamed Atta as one of the members of that Brooklyn cell along with three other terrorists who were the leadership of the 9/11 attack.

I have also learned, Mr. Speaker, that in September of 2000, again, over 1 year before 9/11, that Able Danger team attempted on three separate occasions to provide information to the FBI about the Brooklyn cell of al Qaeda, and on three separate occasions they were denied by lawyers in the previous administration to transfer that information.

Mr. Speaker, this past Sunday on ``Meet the Press,'' Louis Freeh, FBI Director at the time, was interviewed by Tim Russert. The first question to Louis Freeh was in regard to the FBI's ability to ferret out the terrorists. Louis Freeh's response, which can be obtained by anyone in this country as a part of the official record, was, Well, Tim, we are now finding out that a top-secret program of the military called Able Danger actually identified the Brooklyn cell of al Qaeda and Mohammed Atta over a year before 9/11.

And what Louis Freeh said, Mr. Speaker, is that that kind of actionable data could have allowed us to prevent the hijackings that occurred on September 11.

So now we know, Mr. Speaker, that military intelligence officers working in a program authorized by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the general in charge of Special Forces Command, identified Mohammed Atta and three terrorists a year before 9/11, tried to transfer that information to the FBI were denied; and the FBI Director has now said publicly if he would have had that information, the FBI could have used it to perhaps prevent the hijackings that struck the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the plane that landed in Pennsylvania and perhaps saved 3,000 lives and changed the course of world history.

Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight because we have been trying to get the story out about Able Danger and what really happened. Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, I have to rise tonight to tell you that as bad as this story is, and as bad as it is that the data was not transferred to the FBI, and as bad as it is that the 9/11 Commission totally ignored this entire story and referred to it as historically insignificant even though it was authorized by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, even though Louis Freeh has now said it could have provided information to prevent the attack against us, the 9/11 Commission ignored it. Not because the commissioners ignored it, but because someone at the staff level on the 9/11 Commission staff decided for whatever reason that they did not want to pursue the Abel Danger story.

Mr. Speaker, in August and September I met with the military officials involved with Abel Danger and one by one they told their story, until, Mr. Speaker, leaders in the Defense Intelligence Agency, including the deputy director, decided they do not want the story told. I think because they perhaps are fearful of being embarrassed and humiliated.

So what direction had they taken, Mr. Speaker?

They have gagged the military officers. They have prevented them from talking to any Member of Congress. They have prevented them from talking to the media. And the Defense Intelligence Agency has began a process to destroy the career and the life of Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Shaffer.

Now, it might be easy for us to ignore this, Mr. Speaker. We all have busy careers and worry about reelections every 2 years and worry about our own families and our jobs. But I cannot do that in this case and neither can this body, and neither can the other body. You see, Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer took an oath to defend our Constitution. He took the words ``duty, honor, country'' seriously and devoted 23 years of his life in four deployed intelligence operations of our military to protect America.

During the time he served our country, he has received the Bronze Star, an award that does not come easily, for showing acts of courage, leadership, and bravery in the course of his activities.

He has received public commendations from previous directors of the Defense Intelligence Agency, including General Patrick Hughes, including generals at Special Forces Command, and including Admiral Wilson of the Defense Intelligence Agency. He has received dozens of letters and commendations for his work. The laudatory comments I reviewed in his files are unbelievable.

But, you see, Mr. Speaker, there is a problem. The Deputy Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency was in a meeting with Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer almost a year before 9/11, and Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer showed him a disk in his office with information about al Qaeda and Mohammed Atta, and the Deputy Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency stopped the briefing and said, you cannot show me that. I do not want to see it. It might contain information I cannot look at.

Now, Tony Shaffer was not in the room alone, Mr. Speaker. There were other people, and we know their names. So we have witnesses. Now, the Deputy Director has denied that meeting and denied he was there and denied this particular story, but the fact is he knows that we are going to pursue it.

So what has happened to Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer, Mr. Speaker? The Defense Intelligence Agency has lifted his security clearance. One day before he was to testify before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, in uniform, they permanently removed his security clearance. And now our Defense Intelligence Agency has told Colonel Shaffer's lawyer that they plan to seek a permanent removal of his pay and his health care benefits for him and his two children. Why, Mr. Speaker? Because Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer, like Commander Scott Philpot of the Navy, like J. D. Smith, and like a host of other Able Danger employees, has told the truth.

Now, Mr. Speaker, I sat here in the 1990s and I sat here during the 9/11 investigation and watched a ridiculous situation develop with Sandy Berger, the National Security Adviser under President Clinton. He walked into the National Archives before he was to testify before the 9/11 Commission looking through documents. He took documents out of the archives and stuffed them in his socks and pants so that no one would see them as he left the National Archives. Now, that is a felony, tampering with Federal documents and removing classified information regarding our security and information that the 9/11 commission needed to see.

Sandy Berger initially lied about it. He said he did not do it. Then he admitted it, and he was given a punishment. And, oh, by the way, his security clearance was temporarily lifted, but he will get it back again, for lying, for stealing, and for committing an act of outrage against our country's security. Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer, a Bronze Star 23-year military veteran, simply told the truth and now his life is being ruined.

His career is ended. He is no longer in military intelligence. They have taken his security clearance, and they are about to destroy him as a person. They are about to deny him the basic health care and the salary that he has earned, and they are doing it in this way. This is outrageous. It is evil. They do not want to fire Tony because they also do not want him to talk to the media. So by suspending him and removing his pay and his health care, they hurt him bad, but he cannot talk because he is under suspension and his lawyer has advised him that to talk to the media, to talk to Members of Congress, even when he is not being paid, would cause him further problems and totally prevent him from ever having this gross problem reversed. Mr. Speaker, this is outrageous. Mr. Speaker, this is not America.

Over my 19 years in Congress, I have led 40 delegations to the former Soviet Union. I have sat in the face of the Soviet Communists and confronted them on full transparency. I sat at the table with President Lukashenko of Belarus, who has been called by our Secretary of State the last dictator in Europe. I took both delegations to North Korea, Mr. Speaker, and sat across the table from Kim Gye Gwan and I told him we abhor the way they treat their people, the way they lie about what is happening, and the way they distort information.

Mr. Speaker, I took three delegations to Libya to meet with Qadhafi, and I told him that we are absolutely outraged at what Libya did in helping complete the Lockerbie bombing and the bombing of the Berlin nightclub.

You know, Mr. Speaker, I never thought I would have to take the floor of this Chamber and make the same statements about the Defense Intelligence Agency. As a supporter of the President, as a supporter of the military, Mr. Speaker, if we allow this to go forward, then we send the signal to every man and woman wearing a uniform that if you tell the truth, you will be destroyed if a career bureaucrat above you does not like what you are saying. If you tell the truth, we will take your health care benefits away from your kids. If you tell the truth, we will ruin you.

Mr. Speaker, this is not America. Mr. Speaker, this is not what I have been told by Secretary Rumsfeld that we are doing with our troops in protecting them, in giving them the best equipment and the best training. This is not what I spend hours in committee hearings on. This sends the wrong signal to America's troops. It tells them, do not be honest. Do not respect the fact that you have to be truthful. If there is somebody that the truth offends, then you better be silent.

Mr. Speaker, I have today asked for an independent investigation of the Defense Intelligence Agency and their efforts at destroying Tony Shaffer's life. This is outrageous, Mr. Speaker. They trumped up charges against him. They said while he was overseas in Afghanistan, forward deployed, that he forwarded cell phone calls from his official phone to his personal phone; and when they checked that out, it ran up a cost to the taxpayers of about $60. The second verbal charge they gave him was that he went to a course at the Army War College and he got reimbursed for his travel, his mileage and tolls, 100-some dollars. And they said he received a commendation for which he was not entitled, even though it was signed by his commanding officer and the acting Secretary of the Army.

But they went beyond that, Mr. Speaker. They went beyond that with this man. They said he had $2,000 of debt, personal debt. Well, I would like to have every Pentagon employee tomorrow, I would like to have the senior leadership show us what debt they have in the Defense Intelligence Agency so we can make that public.

They even went to this length, Mr. Speaker: the Defense Intelligence Agency wrote in an official document that Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer stole public property. A serious charge. Well, when you check what that public property was, it was an assortment of pens, government pens. But what they did not say in the Defense Intelligence report was that he took those pens when he was 15 years of age and was with his father when he was on assignment at one of our embassy outposts. He took the pens to give to other students at the school when he was 15 years of age. And by the way, Mr. Speaker, it was Tony Shaffer himself who admitted to that thievery when he applied for his security clearance. So the Defense Intelligence Agency knew that during his entire career of 23 years, but they put that in the document against him.

This is a scandal, Mr. Speaker. It is an outrage. It is a travesty. Everyone that worked with Tony Shaffer, the Navy officers, the private citizens have all said the same thing. This is a scandal to get Tony Shaffer because he has told the truth.

Now, this Defense Intelligence Agency and this Deputy Director had the audacity to have their legal counsel send Tony Shaffer's lawyer a letter on September 23. I cannot put that letter in the Record because it is privileged information, but it will eventually come out. But in that letter, in the second to last paragraph, the legal counsel for the Defense Intelligence Agency says to Mr. Shaffer's lawyer, he cannot receive any more classified information from the Defense Intelligence Agency because I checked and his security clearances have all been removed. Therefore, he is not allowed to look at anything that is secret or confidential.

Now, that is a letter sent by the general counsel of the DIA on September 23 of this year. Two weeks later, Mr. Speaker, to show the stupidity of the Defense Intelligence Agency, they send seven packages to Mr. Shaffer's lawyer

of his personal belongings, which the Deputy Director of the DIA told my staff 3 months ago did not exist any more. And in those seven boxes, Mr. Speaker, were five classified memos. The Defense Intelligence Agency sent five classified memos to Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer, which they told him on September 23 he was not allowed to have access to.

Mr. Speaker, that is a felony; and I have asked the Inspector General and the legal officials to investigate and prosecute the Defense Intelligence officials who sent five classified documents through the mail or by hand delivery to Tony Shaffer.

In addition, Mr. Speaker, the Defense Intelligence Agency, in its absolute total stupidity, included in those boxes $500 worth of Federal property, including a multi-hundred dollar GPS system owned by the Federal Government, which they sent to Tony Shaffer, I guess to keep. They also sent, Mr. Speaker, 25 pens, brand new, and marked on them is ``Property of the U.S. Government.'' The Defense Intelligence Agency, in its absolute utter stupidity, sent Tony Shaffer Federal property which they accused him of taking when he was 15 years of age.

Mr. Speaker, there is something desperately wrong here. There is a bureaucracy in the Defense Intelligence Agency that is out of control. They want to destroy the reputation of a 23-year military officer, Bronze Star recipient, hero of our country, with two kids because people in defense intelligence are embarrassed at what is going to come out.

And what is going to come out, Mr. Speaker? Well, we are going to find out, Mr. Speaker, that that unit, Able Danger, not only identified Mohammed Atta before 9/11, not only did they try to pass that information to the FBI, not only was that large data destroyed in the summer of 2000, but now, Mr. Speaker, I can add a new dimension to this whole story. Yesterday, Mr. Speaker, I met with another Able Danger official. I was not aware of this official's knowledge because he does not live within the Beltway.

This official, Mr. Speaker, has impeccable credentials. I cannot reveal his name today. I will to any Member of this body, any of our colleagues that want to come to me, I will tell you privately who this official is, and you will agree with me when I tell you his name that he has impeccable credentials. This official yesterday, Mr. Speaker, in a meeting in my office, told me that he has never been talked to by the Pentagon. He has never been talked to by the Defense Intelligence Agency in their supposed investigation. He has never been talked to by the 9/11 Commission staff in their investigation; yet this official had a leadership position in Able Danger.

This official told me that there is a separate cache of information collected from over 20 Federal agencies in 1999 and 2000 on Able Danger that still may exist. Now, the Pentagon has told us all this material was destroyed, and now I have a senior official telling me there is a second pot of information that may well still exist.

Furthermore, at the hearing over in the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, when Senator Specter asked why this data was destroyed, the witness who destroyed the data said, well, I was told that we could not keep this data for more than 90 days because it might involve information that contains U.S. persons, so we had to destroy it.

Well, I found out that is not the story. The reason the data was destroyed was because Special Forces Command asked the Army for that data and within a matter of days, that data was destroyed so the Army would not pass it to Special Forces Command. Yet there still is, was and I hope still is a massive pot of data.

But furthermore, that official that I talked to yesterday will also say that there was no 90-day requirement, as was testified before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary. He said on a regular basis they kept information from Able Danger data mining for months and months and months. In fact, he will say he had a discussion with a lawyer in DOD named Schiffren who told him do not worry about it, just fill out a document, sign your name that you need it, put it in the box, and you can keep it as long as you want.

Mr. Speaker, that is entirely contradictory to what the Defense Intelligence Agency has been telling us, to what DOD has been telling us. Now we have someone who is willing to come forward and say that 90- day period is not real, they kept Able Danger information for months and months and months.

Mr. Speaker, there is something desperately wrong here. A sitting President of the United States resigned his position because he tried to cover up a third-rate burglary when some low-level operatives from the Republican committee to reelect him broke into the Democrat headquarters in Washington, D.C. No one was killed. No money was stolen. No State secrets were stolen. It was a third-rate burglary, but it caused the resignation of President Richard Nixon.

Mr. Speaker, we are talking about the deaths of 3,000 Americans.

Mr. Speaker, we are talking about 2.5 terabytes of data about al Qaeda. That is equal to one-fourth of all of the printed material in the Library of Congress.

Mr. Speaker, we are talking about Mohammed Atta and three of the terrorists that attacked us on 9/11.

Mr. Speaker, we are talking about military intelligence officers, including an Annapolis graduate who will command one of our destroyers in January of 2006 who risked his entire career to state on the record I will swear until I die that I saw Mohammed Atta's face every day starting in January of 2000, a year and a half before 9/11.

Mr. Speaker, this is not somebody off the street, this is a graduate of Annapolis, a 23-year Naval officer who will command one of our destroyers in January who is agreeing with Lieutenant Shaffer. We have three other people who have testified under oath that they saw the same photograph, and the person I met yesterday will testify that he had the name of a Mohammed Atta before 9/11 but not the face.

Mr. Speaker, this is not some third-rate burglary coverup. This is not some Watergate incident. This is an attempt to prevent the American people from knowing the facts about how we could have prevented 9/11 and people are covering it up today. They are ruining the career of a military officer to do it and we cannot let it stand. I do not care whether you are Democrat or Republican, you cannot let a lieutenant colonel's career be ruined because of some bureaucrat in the Defense Intelligence Agency. If we let that happen, then no one who wears the uniform will ever feel protected because we will have let them down. Anyone who wears the uniform of this country who is serving today expects us to back him or her up and that is not happening. We are seeing lying, distortion.

Mr. Speaker, do you know, Wolf Blitzer on CNN told my staff that a Department of Defense employee told him that Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer was having an affair with one of my employees. How low can we go, Mr. Speaker? How low can we go to allow this Defense Department to try to ruin the reputation and the personal life of a lieutenant colonel with a Bronze Star? To Wolf Blitzer, Mr. Speaker.

We need to know the name of that defense official who told Wolf Blitzer who told my staff, and he is not the only one. I have other media people who will come forward in this grand effort to destroy the reputation of a uniformed military officer, to create scandalous accusations. He does not even know my staff, to accuse him of stealing pens when he was 15, to take away his health care benefits for his two kids because he is telling the truth.

What do we stand for if not the truth? Is it more important that we be politically correct? Is it more important that I not rock the boat because my party is in the White House, because I campaigned for Bush, and support Don Rumsfeld. Is that more important? If that is more important, I do not want to be here. I will leave. I will leave my post, but I will not do it until we get justice for this man and for these people who the 9/11 Commission called historically insignificant.

Mr. Speaker, there is something wrong inside the Beltway.

Mr. Speaker, there is something desperately wrong when a military officer risks his life in Afghanistan time and again, embedded with our troops under

an assumed name with a false beard and a false identity, forward deployed with our troops, gets castigated, gets ridiculed, gets some low life scum at the Pentagon spreading malicious lies about this individual, and then say to his lawyer, we are going to take away his health care benefits, we are going to take away his salary.

Mr. Speaker, if we allow this to stand as Democrats and Republicans, then none of us deserve to be here. When we all go overseas and meet the troops, we tell them how proud we are of them. We provide funding for them. We give them training and take care of their families. What we are allowing to happen right now is the Defense Intelligence Agency to ruin the career and the life of a man who spent 23 years protecting his Nation. If Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer was telling this story alone in a vacuum, that would be one thing. But he has been corroborated over and over again. I have met with at least 10 people who fully corroborate what Tony Shaffer says. Those meetings with the FBI, the FBI employee still works there and she told the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, I set those meetings up with the FBI to transfer information about al Qaeda and Able Danger. So she is still there and she testified.

What we have here, I am convinced of this now, is an aggressive attempt by CIA management to cover up their own shortcomings in not being able to do what the Able Danger team did: They identified Mohammed Atta and the al Qaeda cell of Brooklyn 1 year before 9/11. But even before that, as the story unfolds, you are going to hear the story that they also identified the threat to the USS Cole 2 weeks before the attack, and 2 days before the attack were screaming not to let the USS Cole come into the harbor at Yemen because they knew something was about to happen.

Mr. Speaker, bad news never comes easy; but in a democracy, the bad news has to come out so we can make sure it does not happen again.

Mr. Speaker, this whole thing started, not to embarrass anyone, this whole thing started because none of us knew that Mohammed Atta was identified before 9/11. It started because this Congress, this body in particular, tried to establish what is now in place back in 1999, a national collaborative center, but the CIA said we did not need it. The American people deserve to have the answers here. They deserve to know why 3,000 people died. They deserve to know what we could have done and should have done to better prepare ourselves and to work to prepare for the next incident. The American people need to know where those multiple terabytes of data is. Is it still being used? We know in January of 2001, General Shelton was given a 3-hour briefing on Able Danger. So even if they destroyed the data back in the summer of 2000, in January of 2001 there was enough material to give General Shelton, Commander of the Joint Chiefs, a 3-hour briefing.

Mr. Speaker, there is something here. I am not a conspiracy theorist, but there is something desperately wrong, Mr. Speaker. There is something outrageous at work here. This is not a third-rate burglary of a political campaign headquarters. This involved what is right now the covering up of information that led to the deaths of 3,000 people, changed the course of history, led to the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, and has disrupted our country, our economy and people's lives.

Mr. Speaker, we could ignore this. I cannot. If it means I have to resign from this body, I will resign. I will not allow, after 19 years in this body and as a vice chairman of the Committee on Armed Services, bureaucrats in the Defense Intelligence Agency to concoct stories, to talk about the theft of pens when this lieutenant colonel was 15 years old, to talk about this man's personal debt of $2,000. I would hate to check the indebtedness of Members of Congress. I know mine is more than $2,000.

Mr. Speaker, this is not America. I had a group of college students down from Drexel University. There were about 20 of them, including representative students from eight other nations. We talked about this. Of course we have talked about all of the problem countries in the world. We talk about our values as a Nation, the need for a democracy to have people involved, to have transparency, to have people who respect the rule of law and the Constitution.

How do I tell them that is what is working here, Mr. Speaker, when the Pentagon says that these people who simply want to tell the truth are not allowed? They are saying it is for classified purposes, yet the DOD lawyer on the Senate side there is nothing classified about any of the information. It is not about classified programs. I would be the last to want to see anything classified revealed. I have seen many, many instances where I have been given sensitive information that only a few people in the Congress and the country had. I would never reveal it. It is not about that. This is not about the DIA, this is not about the CIA, this is about CYA. It is about CYA by bureaucrats in the Defense Intelligence Agency and possibly some political operatives that do not want the facts to come out about Able Danger and the information that the Able Danger team put together. And in the process, they are going to destroy a man, a man who has been recognized by his country, who has a family, and who simply wants to do the right thing.

Mr. Speaker, I hated to take the floor tonight, but I did not know what else to do. We have committees of Congress working on this. I want to thank the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf), chairman of the FBI Appropriation Committee on Oversight. He is as outraged as I am. I want to thank the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner), who is looking at this, and the gentleman from California (Chairman Hunter). The Committee on Armed Services has a full-time staffer assigned to get to the facts of this. I want to thank the gentleman from New York (Mr. King), chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security, because he is looking at this. I want to thank the gentleman from Michigan (Chairman Hoekstra) and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. He has met with Tony Shaffer and has offered to get more information. I want to thank my colleagues on the other side of the aisle for standing up and beginning to ask questions, and I want to thank Senator Specter and Senator Biden, who attended a Committee on the Judiciary hearing and expressed their outrage. I want to thank Senator Sessions, Senator Kyl, and Senator Grassley, who were all there. In fact, Senator Grassley called it a coverup.

Mr. Speaker, I cannot tell you the number of Members who have come to me and said this is unacceptable. I would hope that as a result of what we have heard tonight every Member of Congress will ask for an inquiry. The gentlewoman from Georgia (Ms. McKinney) wrote a letter to the chairman of the Committee on Armed Services asking for an investigation. We have from Republicans to Democrats, left to right, conservatives to liberals. What is happening here is unacceptable. It is unimaginable. It is un-American. All over the world tonight, young Americans are wearing our uniforms. They are doing a great job. They make us all proud when we travel overseas. They make us proud because of the pride they have. When I talk to them, they say I am glad to be doing what I am doing. I am doing the right thing for our country. I will go any place the Commander in Chief sends me. Whether I am in Afghanistan or Iraq, they will tell me that.

Whether we are in Kosovo or Somalia, they will tell us that. Whether we are at Hurricane Katrina, whether we are at Hurricane Andrew, or whether we are out in California, the earthquake, or the Midwestern floods, our troops are all the same. They respect our country. They respect our Constitution. If we allow this travesty to continue, Mr. Speaker, then we have let all of those people down for some nameless, faceless bureaucrat who is fearful that the information will finally come to light, that the DIA just did not get it.

Back in 1999 and 2000, they did not have a clue. They had millions of dollars, hundreds of millions of dollars, and could not do what a 20- member team did in being able to identify Mohammed Atta before the 9/11 attacks. DIA does not want that to come out, Mr. Speaker. They do not want that to come out. Heaven forbid the Defense Intelligence Agency, with hundreds of millions of dollars, would have a 20-member team do what they could not

do because they were using new technology and new software. They do not want that to come out. That is why that Deputy Director, when he was at that meeting, said, I do not want to see this. Do not show it to me. And that is why today that Deputy Director is trying to ruin the career of Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer.

The only way to resolve this, Mr. Speaker, is to have a full independent investigation by the Inspector General of the Pentagon. I have asked Secretary Rumsfeld today to do that. I would ask my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to join me in that request. Let the independent inspector for the Pentagon go in, not DIA. DIA cannot investigate itself. It does not have the capability to do that. It does not have the integrity to do that. Let the Inspector General do the investigation and while that is being done, protect Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer. He does not deserve to have his career ruined or destroyed for telling the truth.

And while we are at it, Mr. Speaker, if DIA is going to continue to press this ridiculous set of facts, then as I said earlier, I want DIA prosecuted for the five felonies they committed in sending classified documents to a person that 2 weeks earlier they said was incapable of receiving classified information. And if this continues, I want DIA held responsible for illegally transferring $500 of public assets to a person, that in the process of sending that stuff to him, DIA committed fraud against the taxpayers. I want them held accountable: DIA's stupidity; DIA's incompetence.

We have a new nominee for the head of DIA, and I am going to ask every Senator to fully explore each of these issues before that person is confirmed. I will meet with every Senator personally and go over all of this information. And I would encourage the Senators and the House Members to interview the other people who worked with Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer and to get their assessments of what is going on there. They will all tell them the same thing: Shaffer is being abused and used as a scapegoat. If they can ruin Shaffer, they can silence the story.

It cannot happen, Mr. Speaker. We cannot let it. That is not what America is about. That is not what we say to our enlisted personnel when they sign up for duty. That is not what we say when we pass our defense bills every year.

This man is being maligned and mistreated. He is being harassed. The most scurrilous accusations, totally unfounded, have been given to the American media; and I will name names, and I will ask for an investigation of the people who made those statements to these media people because it all needs to be put on the record.

And as someone tomorrow who will chair another hearing on our defense oversight to try to get the best value for the dollars for our military, I ask all of our colleagues, Mr. Speaker, on both sides of the aisle to join us. This is not Republicans or Democrats. It is about what is fundamental to this country. I would ask our constituents across America we represent to join us, to express their outrage, to e- mail, make phone calls, write letters to the Secretary of Defense, the President of the United States, to Members of Congress to simply let the story be told. Let the Able Danger story finally come out to the American people. Let them understand what really happened. Let Scott Philpott talk. Let Tony Shaffer talk. Let the others who have been silenced have a chance to tell their story to Congress and openly to the American people. In the end, the country will be stronger.

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

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 9 o'clock and 5 minutes p.m.), the House adjourned until tomorrow, Thursday, October 20, 2005, at 10 a.m.