Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize Luna Odland, a volunteer who will be receiving the President's Award of the Alzheimer's Association for her work and tireless effort on behalf of those suffering from Alzheimer's disease. The non-profit Alzheimer's Association currently has 81 local chapters throughout the Nation. For the past 25 years as a volunteer of the San Diego Chapter of the Alzheimer's Association, Luna Odland has been leading a support group for caregivers and professionals dealing with the challenges of Alzheimer's disease. She has served as a volunteer for the Alzheimer's Association longer than anyone else in the Nation, and her group in Escondido, CA, is the Nation's longest running Alzheimer's support group.

Luna began her group unofficially in August of 1978 from her home before the San Diego Chapter was incorporated. She went on to become one of the founding members of the Chapter, serving on its Board of Directors from 1980 until 1990, and chairing the Patient and Family Services Committee.

Little was known about Alzheimer's disease back in the late 1970's, and Luna 's group quickly began drawing large numbers of people from as far away as Santa Barbara, CA. When her group moved to the Joslyn Senior Center in 1980, where it still meets today, the second meeting was so large it had to be relocated to the auditorium.

Luna does not limit her involvement with caregivers to simply facilitating her group every month. She phones group members in between meetings to inquire how they are doing or remind them of the next meeting. She also assists them in locating resources and contacting the Association to help with whatever current issues that need attention.

Luna was also instrumental in the development of the ``Morning Out Club'', which was the first early-stage daycare program in the country for Alzheimer's patients. The ``Morning Out Club'' model is still in operation today and has been replicated in many sites.

Mr. Speaker, people who take the time to care for others in need are the best example of being an American. It is the dedication and selfless efforts of people like Luna Odland that make our country great and I ask that you join me in congratulating her for receiving this award, an honor which is well deserved.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the life of my friend, Leo March, who passed away last October. Leo was a successful entrepreneur, a devoted family man and a solid public servant.

Born in September of 1932, Leo suffered many hardships through his youth, including being stricken with polio and having to leave school after the tenth grade in order to support his family. Despite these setbacks, Leo was determined to succeed.

In 1982, Leo began his own company, Integrated Sign Associates, in La Mesa, CA. Starting in a small office, his business grew to include up to 40 employees, a satellite office in Van Nuys, CA, and a complete fabrication and installation facility of 18,000 square feet located in El Cajon, CA.

Leo was very active in his community and loved San Diego. He was involved in local politics working several campaigns. Leo served on the Mayor's Sign Force Committee for the City of San Diego, was an expert witness for sign design and planning for the California Supreme Court and served as President of the California Electric Sign Association. He was a member of an advisory board to the California State Senate Select Committee on Small Business Enterprises for ten years as well as a Panel Moderator for the White House Conference on Small Business and the director of the Boys and Girls Mental Health Centers. For over a decade, Leo was the Vice Chairman of the Small Business Advisory Board in San Diego and he sat on the Selective Service System Board Member as a Presidential Appointment for seven years.

Leo's efforts did not go unnoticed. Leo received a Commendation Service to Community Award from San Diego Congressman Bill Lowery. He also gained a California State Assembly Resolution touting his Community Service in 1991 and in the year 2000, he received the same award from the California State Senate. Due to his community service, the City of San Diego proclaimed December 6, 1999, as Leo March Day and the County of San Diego made May 16, 2000, Leo March Day for the entire county.

Leo's family was an important part of his life as well. He married his wife, Donna Jean, on November 27, 1953, and they had two children, Ronald James and Linda Ann. He enjoyed spending time with his four grandchildren, Lisa, Lori, Chanda, and Ryan, as well as his great granddaughter Nicole. Leo enjoyed flying and owned an airplane, a Piper Dakota. He was a member of the Gillespie Pilots Association and was appointed to the Gillespie Field Development Council in January 2001. Leo also enjoyed playing golf and other recreational activities, but cherished taking part in activities involving his family most of all.

Throughout his life, Leo March faced challenges with a positive attitude and a determined spirit. Leo accomplished many of the goals he set for himself and leaves behind a group of loved ones that admired his dedication to community, business and family. I ask you to join me in honoring the life of Mr. Leo March.

Madam Speaker, I think it is time to tell the American people, ``steady on.'' This operation in Iraq is proceeding according to plan. Our troops are well equipped, well trained, well led. Don Rumsfeld, our Secretary of Defense, is doing a great job. General Tommy Franks, who is the CINC commander and in charge of the operation, is doing a great job.

This plan was well thought out, and it is being well executed. And as I looked at the map and looked at the bridges which we overran so quickly with a fast armor attack in which the defenders, the Iraqi defenders, did not have a chance to blow, I look at the oil wells that they did not have a chance to fire up, to put aflame as they did in 1991 when we came into an Iraq that was literally carpeted with fires because the Iraqi defenders had a chance to ignite their oil fields, when I look at the other key infrastructure that has not been destroyed and was not laid down in the wake of the retreating Iraqis as a barrier to the American forces, one thing comes to mind, a lightning armor strike as fast as we moved it up those narrow causeways coming up through the center of Iraq has paid off.

And if we had waited, if we had held back, if we had choked those roads with more men and material and we had given them time to blow key bridges, we would have had engineers working in an exposed manner, being subjected to sniping, to potshotting; and we would have taken, in my judgment, Madam Speaker, more casualties. This operation is being conducted very effectively right now, and the Iraqi military is feeling that effectiveness.

Beyond that as we are ringing now the Baghdad area and hammering the remaining Iraqi divisions with heavy air power, it is very clear that even if we had heavy units ringing Baghdad, if we had another two, three, four, five divisions, we still would not have gone in until we attrited or brought down the strength of the Iraqi divisions with air power. So the number of heavy divisions that we had in that staging area at this time would not have been relevant. So once again in reflecting on that and going through the many hearings and briefings that we have had on the facts as they emerge on a day-by-day basis, Madam Speaker, I once again am impressed with the great leadership of our Secretary of Defense, Don Rumsfeld; the leadership of the President of the United States, George Bush; and the great operational leadership in theater of General Tommy Franks.

Madam Speaker, it is clear now that there is another war being fought, and that is the war for hearts and minds; and incidentally I am proud that the gentlewoman of New Mexico (Mrs. Wilson), a member of the Committee on Armed Services and a veteran of the U.S. Armed Forces, has put together this Special Order because this is kind of a time to talk about that other effort that is being undertaken, and that is what I would call the ambassadorial effort, the effort that is undertaken by all men and women who wear the uniform of the United States, and those people are proving to Iraqis who may have been subjected to lots of propaganda coming from Baghdad about how Americans were going to rough them up and be mean to them and ill treat them and they now have American GIs doing what American GIs have always done, and that is hand out candy to kids, be kinder than usual, giving away their rations and doing all those other things that young Americans are taught to do because of their moms and their dads and the communities that they are brought up in.

And, Madam Speaker, I think this is a historic time. I think it is a little bit like the days right after the close of World War II when all of Japan lay prostrate before the American military machine; and Japan's military leaders, because they were brutal and because they were cruel and because they were inhumane and especially looking at the things that they did to Chinese civilians when they took Nanking and looking to the beheadings and the mutilations that they undertook against American forces and the executions, they told their people to expect the same thing from the Americans.

And yet when those GIs walked down the streets of Tokyo, completely unopposed, in total power, they handed out candy bars to the kids; and we had almost no incidents, Madam Speaker, of brutality, of GIs acting out bad behavior. They were good ambassadors for this country and for our values. And they are doing the same thing right now, those grandchildren of those great GIs who persevered and won us our freedom in World War II. They are doing the same thing in Iraq because they are great people, and we are seeing now incident after incident of Americans proving that they have great values and that this thing that we call democracy over here is a good way to foster those values and maybe, when we get this country stitched back together, a good thing for the Iraqis to emulate.

I yield now to the gentlewoman from New Mexico (Mrs. Wilson), my great colleague on the Committee on Armed Services, who has some very good evidence of those good ambassadors; and I yield to the gentlewoman.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for that wonderful story, and I think that really reinforces the idea that the best ambassadors we have are not folks that stay in consulates and embassies. Of course we have Marines in consulates and embassies also, but they are the folks in uniform. And the gentlewoman mentioned Kosovo and of course the Bosnia operation preceded Kosovo, but I am reminded of a story that is another true story about another Marine, and that is General Randy West, now retired, who was undertaking a recon operation in Bosnia and came with his unit, with his force, to a bridge where a massacre had taken place, and Randy noticed among all the bodies there was a blanket laying on the frozen ground. It was the dead of wintertime. There was a little lump under that blanket, and he peeled it back, and it was a little baby boy. And he wrapped the baby up and sent it back to a hospital in the rear, and a couple of months later Randy was asking the governmental officials what had happened to this little boy that his recon element had shipped back to the hospital, and the official told him that the baby was still in the hospital, that he had not been claimed because the mom was Bosnian and the dad was Serbian and that the baby was still there but without anybody to come and claim the baby.

So Randy was telling me this story as we were walking up to his house in the Blue Ridge Mountains a couple of months ago, and as we got to the door, I said well, Randy, what happened to that little baby boy? And Randy opened the door, and there stood a young man, a couple of years old, and Randy said, ``I want you to meet Randy West, Jr.,'' now his son. And that kind of heart and those types of values is something that permeates the United States military.

Madam Speaker, interestingly, and I would say to my colleague, the Vietnam experience was largely reflected, and I would say in an aberrational way, to the American public through the prism of some folks who probably would have to work hard to qualify for the title of drug-crazed hippies. Of course I am referring to some of the folks in Hollywood who saw Vietnam through the prism of their own experience. And generally, that experience was one of not participating in the Armed Forces and not having any idea of what went on in Vietnam.

So we had these nitwit movies like Full Metal Jacket and Platoon and all of these other things where every other GI was setting fire to a hut or madly spraying the countryside with his M-16, which, of course, were totally false and erroneous images. And in reality, most of the GIs, a great, great majority of GIs who were in Vietnam were also wonderful ambassadors. They were good people. They treated the people well. That is why after we left that country, half the nation tried to swim after us.

Now, they did not try to rush to the North where they could consolidate with the North Vietnamese Communists who offered them, of course, a worker's paradise, and they did not try to rush out to join up with the Hollywood directors who felt this great kinship for the folks from the North, but

they tried to follow the GIs, because they knew the GIs were basically really good people.

That has been the story of this country. We see it in every town, every city of any size. We see the Korean community, much of which came over to the United States after getting to know the American military community, and we see the German community, and many other communities that got to know Americans and, because of that, wanted to be in our home within the boundaries of this great country.

So these folks are making relationships right now. They are meeting people. They are working with people. They are smiling, they are just being GIs. You cannot fake it. You cannot fake that sense of humor.

I know when I was in Afghanistan here a few months ago with a good CODEL of folks, Pete Geren, our great former colleague from Texas was with us, and Pete pulled me off to the side as we were going down through the row of tents and he said, we have to take a picture over here. I said, what is it? He said, I have to show you a picture. And this was in the middle of a windstorm and stuff was blowing all over the place. There was not a speck of grass. One of the tents had a sign in front of it that said ``yard of the month,'' and Pete had to get a picture of that sign, ``yard of the month,'' and that little windswept front of that tent that I think had a couple of cactus in a tin can prominently displayed.

So GIs still have that great sense of humor. They also have a sense of goodness about them.

Madam Speaker, Tom Brokaw wrote the book about the greatest generation, and since 50 years or so have passed since we won World War II, I think he felt he could now feel close to the people who probably had a lot of values that he probably would not agree with. But I think this generation that is over in Iraq right now in that theater is every bit as great a generation as the generation of World War II, the generation of Korea, and the generation of Vietnam.

I yield to the gentlewoman.

Madam Speaker, if the gentlewoman would yield on that point, if we go back to precision munitions, it is important for the American people to understand what that means. That means that instead of having to carpet bomb a bridge to knock it down, we can hit one strut on that bridge, if you hit the right one and you know where you have to go, with one precision munition that goes in and hits that particular strut and brings that entire bridge down. Now, that not only gives you your military goal, which was to knock the bridge down with only one bomb instead of maybe hundreds of bombs, but it also means that the village nearby is not going to be damaged, it means that the car halfway up the road is not going to be damaged, although I remember Norman Schwarzkopf talking about the world's luckiest taxicab driver. When that one precision munition went into a bridge in 1991, just about a split second after the taxicab had gotten on to firm footing, that bridge went down. But those precision munitions give us a chance to be more humane and not to hurt people, and that is what we strive for in these operations, and we have done it very successfully.

As the gentlewoman said, most of our munitions now are precision munitions, and that enables us to use these big platforms, whether they are the fast-movers, the F-15s, F-15Es, F-16, our stealth aircraft, 117s or even the large heavy bombers, we are able to use those platforms to bring an enormous amount of firepower into a very tight area.

Madam Speaker, I saw the after-action photos that were taken after the Kosovo operation where we were trying to destroy the revetments for the Serbian Air Force. We did not want their planes to escape and come up and challenge ours. And B-2 bombers had flown all the way from Whiteman Air Base in Missouri to those targets; it hit the targets and returned home, and those craters and those revetments were as precisely placed as if somebody had walked out on the tarmac with an explosive and placed it by hand and then finally detonated it. That is the American technology that allows us to use less assets and to turn these platforms really into very precise military equipment that spare civilians and do not cause collateral damage.

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Kingston).

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman. Let me say that we definitely have some thoughts about countries which heretofore the United States had relied on very strongly. I am thinking of France, a country that we saved twice, actually three times in this last century, in World War I, World War II, and of course the Cold War; and also Germany.

I am reminded of that Berlin airlift which was a lifeline for free Germany, that enabled them to stand up to the Soviet Union with the help of 300,000 American troops over a long period of time, and finally marry up with the captive portion of Germany, East Germany, and become a community again. That was all done because of the strength and the friendship of the United States.

So, of course, I think lots of Americans have thoughts about those countries. But I would ask the gentleman if we could shift back just briefly. I was thinking about the operation taking place right now in Iraq.

In fact, I had my old company commander, Jim Yarrison, a great gentleman, a wise officer, here.

Yes. I think I introduced him to the gentleman.

I did not do anything special in the military, in the 173rd Airborne, but I served with some great guys; and Jimmy Yarrison was one of them. The day he came up, unbeknownst to him the 173rd Airborne, reconstituted in Italy, had jumped into Iraq.

We were with another great former trooper from Vietnam, Tom Carhart, with the 101st Airborne. It was awfully good to see a great comrade of the 173rd Airborne when the Sky soldiers have gone into northern Iraq, they are stabilizing that front, they are giving some American spine to that community, the Kurdish community, and acting as a great stabilizing force in northern Iraq right now. So the Sky soldiers were famous folks in Vietnam, and they are proving their mettle in Iraq.

That takes us to the point that the gentlewoman made when she went over the units that are in Iraq. When we look at the enormous firepower arrayed there, when we combine that with the great leadership they are moving under right now, and the fact that the 4th is now moving into place, it is clear to Saddam Hussein's forces, now isolated in a number of very poorly defended areas, that time is drawing short.

I would ask the gentlewoman to give us a little description of her thoughts of that, of the present situation in Iraq.

Madam Speaker, I am looking at the picture behind the gentlewoman from New Mexico (Mrs. Wilson) of the G.I. with the baby. Before this campaign is over, we will have passed out lots of vitamins; given lots of inoculations; lots of milk, probably in powdered form; and lots of food for the people of Iraq. They are going to know the friendship of the American people.

That takes us back to our contribution as Members of Congress. What we can do now is get our folks in uniform the tools they need to get the job done. I looked at the supplemental appropriations bill coming up and the $62 billion for DOD, for the Armed Forces. We have to replenish that ammunition, those spare parts, all those things.

I looked at that fairly carefully and looked at what the gentleman from California (Mr. Lewis), our chairman of the Subcommittee on Defense of the Committee on Appropriations, has done; and what the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young), the chairman of the full committee, and all the members have done, Democrat and Republican. They have put in a good supply of what it is going to take to get the job done.

Of course, along with that there is going to be lots of humanitarian aid. There is going to be, after this operation, water systems to maintain, transportation systems to maintain. We are going to have to be able to keep the wheels turning and get this country with a new birth of freedom rolling again. Of course, that will be the Americans.

I am reminded, somebody said, war is terrible. I thought, yes, war is terrible. It is what gave us our independence, and it is what got rid of Nazism and fascism. War is terrible. But in the wake of war, only the Americans are generous and good and kind to the folks, even to the folks who ran the operations, the military operations against them.

Once again, I am reminded of the country of Japan, which after it had engaged in a sneak attack at Pearl Harbor and killed 5,000 American service people in that surprise attack, mutilated people, executed people in World War II, killed 30 percent of our POWs while they were incarcerated, we took that country, and they expected us to be as brutal to them as they had been to us.

America said, here is a Constitution. We have one requirement of you, you conquered people. They said, what is that? We said, be free, have access to our markets, sell anything you want in America. You do not have to buy anything from us; we will give you money. We will help you out when you need it, and we will provide for the next 50 years a defense umbrella to make sure that nobody engages in violence against this great nation of violence in World War II, the country of Japan.

We did the same thing to Germany; and after the two Germanys came together, a united Germany.

And that is the mission of this country, and people know that, too. And one of the great stories that represents, I think, is one that my mom and dad told me is when they had been ON a trip to the Philippines. They related being in Manila at the American Embassy when an anti- American demonstration was taking place and there were some organizers in this demonstration and they had some very carefully worded placards all with anti-American slogans on them. And they were paying people to march around with these slogans, ``Down with America.''

Well, my mom and dad looked at this long line of people at the embassy waiting to get their visas to come to the United States, and they noticed that the anti-American demonstration organizers would regularly go over to

the line of visa seekers, pay them money. The visa seekers would ask the person in front of them in line to hold their place, and they would then go out and take their placard that said ``Down with America,'' and they would march around for half an hour or an hour or so, and they would go back, give the placard back to the organizer, receive their money in payment and go back and get in line to get a visa to go to the good old United States of America.

Do people know what we are all about? Absolutely. And a little propaganda television from Saddam Hussein or any of the other people who want to paint us as evil folks cannot erase that and they cannot take that away. People are smart. And the people OF Iraq, when they do not have a gun to their head and when they know their families are safe, are going to turn in the right direction. That direction will be towards the United States of America.

On that point, it is interesting that since the days of World War II people have asked in schools and colleges and in family settings, how could the world stand by while Adolf Hitler gassed people to death in these gas chambers in places like Dachau and Auschwitz, and literally killed millions of people in such a horrible way, gassed them to death? How could the world stand by?

Well, the answer is, if you look at what happened to these Kurdish villages and you see the pictures, which we have all seen, of little Kurdish babies and their mothers lying on the ground after a heavy dose of poison gas by Chemical Ali, the gas-dispensing Minister of the Department of Defense of Iraq under Saddam Hussein, we see the answer.

You know what is interesting, after those Kurdish villages were gassed and those people were killed in that despicable manner, there were no demonstrations in Berlin or London or in liberal places throughout the United States. In fact, nobody, nobody in the world did anything except one country, the United States of America.

Now, we have missed some of these and one thing that I have regretted is seeing those bodies float down the Rwanda River after the massive massacres that took place in Africa where innocent people were killed in huge numbers and the United States, with all of our power, did nothing. And as a Member of Congress, I wish and I regret that I had done more, that I had taken an effort.

There are massacres that take place around this world and there are evil deeds that are done to people by dictators. And sometimes those dictators are beyond the means and the reach of the United States of America. We saw that, I think by British estimate, some 20 million people were executed by the Communist Chinese and actions were not taken by this country.

But in many cases we do act. This is one of those cases. So when those people asked the question about how you could stand by and watch Mr. Hitler commit the atrocities that he committed before and during World War II without taking action, the answer is that just recently thousands of people were gassed to death by an evil dictator, and no one in the world took action except the Americans and our allies.

And I want to mention the British and those folks that sided with this coalition, and there were lots of them. But the real message for us is if the United States does not lead the free world, the free world will not have a leader.

President Bush is manifesting that leadership right now in a very effective

way. And right by his side is Donald Rumsfeld and, of course, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs who has been mentioned, General Myers. And of course we have that great American, very sharp, very smart, very effective in strategy and tactics, General Tommy Franks, leading this operation in the theater. With that team and with the team of all of the folks that wear the uniform of the United States, we are going to win this contest.

Once again, I want to thank this gentlewoman for bringing out not only the military operational effectiveness of this present campaign in Iraq, but also the campaign of goodwill that people in uniform are bringing to the people of that country, the good old GIs who by their values and by their demonstrations of kindness are winning a lot of folks over even as we speak.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman. The USA will prevail.

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Mr. Speaker, based on the misleading and erroneous statement made by the gentleman from Maryland, Mr. Hoyer, I feel compelled to correct the record. In an effort to suggest inconsistencies in my historical support and commendation of the troops, Mr. Hoyer stated that on December 13, 1995, I voted against a resolution regarding Armed Forces deployment to Bosnia that resolved, ``That the House of Representatives unequivocally supports the men and women of the United States Armed Forces who are carrying out their mission in support of peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina with professional excellence, dedicated patriotism, and exemplary bravery.'' However, a simple examination of the record tells a different story.

What the gentleman from Maryland failed to note, is that on December 13, 1995, the House considered two competing resolutions on the deployment of the United States Armed Forces to Bosnia--House Resolution 302 sponsored by Mr. Buyer and House Resolution 306 sponsored by Mr. Hamilton. If the Hamilton resolution had consisted of only the resolved clause, which my colleague quoted, I would have supported it. However, H. Res. 306 was compiled mostly of whereas clauses that justified the deployment of our Armed Forces to the former Yugoslavia. Had my colleague thoroughly researched this, he might have noticed that, also on December 13, 1995, I opposed this deployment by voting for Mr. Dornan's bill, H.R. 2770, which would have prohibited federal funds from being used for peacekeeping operations or any implementation force in the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

I, instead, voted for the Buyer resolution, which expressed dissatisfaction with the President's policy of deployment and his disregard of the action taken by the House on two separate occasions to disallow the use of United States Armed Forces for these purposes. Nonetheless, this resolution also declared that the House of Representatives, ``. . . is confident that the members of the United States Armed Forces, in whom it has the greatest pride and admiration, will perform their responsibilities with professional excellence, dedicated patriotism, and exemplary courage. . . .''

Incidentally, the Buyer resolution passed the House by a vote of 287 to 141, with one voting present. The resolution Mr. Hoyer criticized me for voting against, the Hamilton resolution, failed by a vote of 190 to 237, also with one voting present.

It is truly unfortunate that Mr. Hoyer made such a misleading statement and questioned my unfailing dedication to the young men and women of our Armed Forces.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Kingston) for his great work in bringing this to the floor and the gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos) and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Reyes) and the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Bereuter) for accommodating and working this resolution and, of course, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton), my partner on the Committee on Armed Services.

Mr. Speaker, Iraqi officers today must consider one thing, the United States will win this conflict. Iraq may have the ability to delay that victory for a short period of time, but they cannot stop it.

Secondly, after we win this war, and we will win it, all Iraqi officers will be held accountable for their actions with respect to POWs and the Geneva Conventions. So if prisoners of war are abused in any way, if bodies are displayed, if POWs are displayed or humiliated, or if you abuse women POWs in any way, as they have been abused in the past by Iraqi service personnel, you will be held accountable. That means that those Iraqi officers will be identified, the people who are in charge of that particular operation, and if you go to the far corners of the globe, you will be found by Americans. Just as we have found dozens of terrorists in very remote niches of the world, we will find you; and at that point you will be brought to justice.

So the message for Iraqi military officers right now is a very clear one. If you want to protect your own future after this war is over, you had better protect POWs today.

Mr. Chairman, I move that the Committee do now rise.

Mr. Speaker, I offer a concurrent resolution (H. Con. Res. 104) expressing the support and appreciation of the Nation for the President and the members of the Armed Forces who are participating in Operation Iraqi Freedom, and ask unanimous consent for its immediate consideration pursuant to the following order:

Debate on the concurrent resolution shall be limited to 2 hours, equally divided and controlled by myself and the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton), and the previous question shall be considered as ordered on the concurrent resolution to final adoption, without intervening motion or demand for a division of the question.

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Speaker, is the gentleman asking me if I am aware that the other body passed a resolution?

Yes.

That is true.

If the gentleman will yield further, yes, we would be open to including it.

Mr. Speaker, I would retract that and tell the gentleman that I would not be open to that. Would the gentleman yield further?

If the gentleman will continue to yield, Mr. Speaker, I just want to advise the gentleman that I read not only the resolution that was offered by the other body in 1991, but

also our resolution. We had a different resolution at that point, also.

I would just say to the gentleman that I think that the Members of this body have made a very fine statement, a very heartfelt statement commending our troops. I think it says the right thing. I applaud the gentleman for other things that he would like to see in a resolution. I think reasonable minds can differ.

I would hope that the gentleman would, in the spirit of bipartisan support for people that wear the uniform of the United States, not ask us to have precisely the same words as the other body, and simply spend a few minutes and go home. I would hope the gentleman would allow us to have our own resolution to express our own heartfelt support for those people, and let this body work its will.

No.

If the gentleman will continue to yield, Mr. Speaker, let me just say to the gentleman that we have some excellent commendations in this particular resolution.

Let me finish my statement, if I might.

We commend the President as Commander in Chief. That is something we did in 1991. Under the Constitution, he leads this military force. We commend the Members of the United States Armed Forces. We commend the families. We give them our sincere gratitude and appreciation.

I would think that any Member reading this resolution, and I would ask all Members to read it since the gentleman has called it into question, would agree that this resolution is an excellent resolution, and that it does all the things that we want to do. It would lead us all to wonder why the gentleman somehow wants it to say something else or follow some other example. It does not make a lot of sense.

I will look forward to that.

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Speaker, I just want to say to the gentleman and to the gentleman who just spoke, there are hundreds of thousands of Americans in uniform putting themselves in very difficult positions for our freedom tonight. If they are watching this procedure, they are probably wondering, what in the heck are those guys doing? We have a commending vehicle.

I guess what I am saying is the answer is no to the gentleman from Ohio.

If the gentleman will continue to yield, Mr. Speaker, first, that restates the President's letter.

Second, a second point I would make to the gentleman is that we have been working, Democrats and Republicans, to put this resolution together. My colleague, the ranking member of the Committee on Armed Services, has been working on it. The gentleman's leadership has been working on it. The product that we have before us is a product of both sides.

I would just say to the gentleman if he has a disagreement with it and he thinks that it does not state his position, I would urge the gentleman to take time in this debate in the next several hours and explain his position; but nonetheless, let the rest of us in this House work our will and give our commendation to the troops. Obviously, we would all write it differently.

I look forward to the gentleman's statement.

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

As I rise today, this country is embarked on a very noble endeavor. Last evening, military forces of the United States and our coalition allies commenced military operations to liberate the country of Iraq.

This is indeed a historic moment. Operation Iraqi Freedom marks the culmination of nearly 13 years of U.S. action in Iraq. Commencing with Iraq's invasion of Kuwait on August 2, 1990, through Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, through the coalition enforcement of the northern and southern no-fly zones, to Operation Desert Fox and beyond, the United States and our allies have for over a decade been required to deal with the deceit, brutality and duplicity of Saddam Hussein, both diplomatically and militarily.

Today Saddam's moment of truth has arrived. The path to his downfall began

when the Congress passed and President Clinton signed the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998, making it the policy of this Nation to support efforts to remove Saddam's regime from power and to promote a democratic government in Iraq. It continued last fall when Congress passed and President Bush signed House Joint Resolution 114 authorizing the use of military force in Iraq should it become necessary.

Since the passage of that resolution, President Bush has undertaken herculean efforts to avoid a conflict. The President aggressively pursued the unanimous passage of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441, calling for Iraq to disarm or face grave consequences. Subsequently, the President has exhausted every diplomatic means available to make the United Nations Security Council enforce 1441 to no avail.

Today, the time for diplomacy has passed.

Mr. Speaker, the resolution before us today does three things. First, it expresses the support and appreciation of our Nation to the President for his firm leadership and decisive action in the conduct of the military operations currently underway in Iraq. It is because of his wisdom and judgment that Iraq will soon be a free Nation, a Nation without weapons of mass destruction, a Nation that will become a full and peaceful participant in the international community.

Second, this resolution expresses the support and appreciation of a Nation to our men and women in uniform. A few short weeks ago, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton) and I brought forward H.J. Res. 27 commending the members of our Armed Forces and their families for the dedication to duty and service to country that they demonstrate each and every day around the world. Today we bring forward this resolution to show our support, admiration and thanks for the nearly 230,000 soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines and coast guardsmen who are participating in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Because of their dedication and devotion to duty, Operation Iraqi Freedom will be a success.

Finally, this resolution expresses support for the families who wait at home for their loved ones who have undertaken this mission. Without the love and support of the families, our military personnel could not focus on the serious task at hand in Iraq, and I want to express a special thanks to the families of those serving in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Their sacrifice will not be in vain.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to show our support for our men and women in uniform by supporting this resolution.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes to respond to my friend from Missouri.

Mr. Speaker, I want to commend the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton) and all the members of our Committee on Armed Services, Republican and Democrat, who work every day to support the people in uniform who are protecting American freedom around the world.

Mr. Speaker, this great instrument of freedom, our Armed Forces, have saved the world and liberated hundreds of millions of people in three major conflicts, World War I, World War II and, of course, the Cold War that involved several smaller wars, smaller battles, that I call Vietnam and Korea, and we have liberated hundreds of millions of people.

The real product of our Army and our Navy and our Marine Corps and our Air Force is freedom, and shortly we are going to be liberating 23 million more people, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, in that great book about Korea, it was called the Bridges of Toko-Ri, by James Michener, if my colleagues have read that book, watched that movie, they may recall that the hero was a carrier pilot, flew out and hit a set of bridges in Toko-Ri that they had gone after day after day and lost a lot of people, and in the end that pilot did not come back. The commander of that carrier air group stood on the deck of the carrier when it was clear he would not return and neither would those people who were sent out to rescue him, and he asked, where does America get these people who will join the U.S. Armed Forces and put themselves in a very dangerous position, in this case go off on a mission, fly into enemy territory, hit a very heavily defended target and come back and try to find that little postage stamp called an American aircraft carrier? Then he answered his own question: They come from the cities and the towns and the villages of this country, and they always have, and as long as they continue to come, we are going to be a free Nation.

Mr. Speaker, one of those people comes from Shelbina, Missouri.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Cunningham), who was the top gun in Vietnam, nominated for the Congressional Medal of Honor, and a guy whose heart always travels with people that wear the uniform of the United States.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay), the majority leader.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Lewis), chairman of the appropriations Subcommittee on Defense and a guy who works every day on behalf of folks in uniform.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Bartlett), who is the chairman of the Subcommittee on Projection Forces.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Wilson).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Wamp).

(Mr. WAMP asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Nevada (Mr. Gibbons), who was a fighter pilot in the Persian Gulf and in Vietnam.

(Mr. GIBBONS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Langevin) for his great service to the Committee on Armed Services.

I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Schrock), another gentleman with great military expertise.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Isakson).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Kline), a gentleman with great experience in the U.S. Marine Corps.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Collins).

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews) for his great work on the committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Gilchrest), who was a distinguished Marine rifleman in Vietnam.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Pearce).

(Mr. PEARCE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Colorado (Mrs. Musgrave), who has a son in the United States Navy.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Burgess).

(Mr. BURGESS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

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

Mr. Speaker, I just say to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton) and ranking member on the Committee on Armed Services, that I would hope that the gentleman would discourage Members like the Member who just spoke from using this time when we are supposed to be commending our troops from demeaning other Members of this House.

I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Burns).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Beauprez).

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

Mr. Speaker, I am disappointed. I had hoped that this time, that this resolution which was brought forward this evening would bring us together as a House, and perhaps after having some partisan work and working on a policy, budget policy, which often divides us, we would come together and find some common ground in commending our troops and commending our President.

I think anybody who must be watching this from overseas must be wondering at this point, what is in this resolution that so many Members have come out from the Democrat side to condemn? I thought it might be good to go through the resolution, because this resolution is extremely similar to the resolution that we passed in 1991 after we took our first action in Iraq.

What did we do here? The whereas clauses talk about the fact that there was an Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 in which we stated it would be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein and to promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime. That vote passed, Mr. Speaker, overwhelmingly, Democrat and Republican. It also states that on October 16, 2002, the President signed into law House Joint Resolution 114 of the 107th Congress, the authorization, and I would say this clearly for my colleagues, many of whom probably voted against this, but nonetheless it was the authorization for the use of military force against Iraq. Incidentally, Mr. Speaker, that vote passed 296-133. It passed overwhelmingly. It passed more overwhelmingly than the vote that we passed in 1991.

So what was so wrong with this resolution? This resolution followed the law, the steps that we took under the law, under United Nations resolution and under our own law that brought us to the culmination of this event in which it was necessary for the United States to interject force into the Iraq theater. We talked about Security Council Resolution 1441, now well known to most Members of this body that voted unanimously that Iraq will face serious consequences as a result of its continued violations of its obligations to disarm in accordance with all relevant United Nations resolutions.

It also said that Iraq remained in material breach of the relevant United Nations resolutions. That was clearly stated by the reports that were adopted by the United Nations. It was in material breach, and Saddam Hussein is in material breach of his obligations.

So just like the resolution in 1991, we followed the law. We followed this trail of steps, very patient steps that the United States took, including acts that were signed by a Democrat President, stating that it was our policy to bring about a free Iraq. That is what we state in this resolution that you think is so poorly worded.

What else did we do? When you get down to the meat of the resolution, and we talk about what it actually says, let us go to the resolved clause. First I want to go to the resolved clause that we passed in 1991 regarding the President and the troops and their families. We said in 1991 that we acclaim the President for his decisive leadership, unerring judgment and sound decisions. We say in this resolution, Mr. Speaker, that we express our support and appreciation to the President as Commander in Chief for his firm leadership and decisive action in the conduct of military operations in Iraq as part of the ongoing global war on terrorism.

Now, many of the faces that I see here who are condemning this resolution were thanking Mr. Rumsfeld a few hours ago for the clear judgment that is being shown by this administration in prosecuting this war. I had many Members come up to me from the Democrat side who said he was doing the right thing. They said we were lucky to have a person of that capability. We are lucky to have a team like this team that President George Bush has put together. So we commended our President because he is the Commander in Chief. We commended him in 1991. We commend him tonight.

What else did we do? In 1991 we expressed our highest commendation and sincerest appreciation to the members of the United States Armed Forces and other members of the international coalition who participated in Operation Desert Storm and have demonstrated exceptional bravery, dedication and professionalism.

Where is the trick language in this that you object to so much?

And what did we do in this resolution? We said that we express our appreciation ``to the members of the United States Armed Forces serving in Operation Iraqi Freedom,'' the present operation, ``who are carrying out their missions with excellence, patriotism, and bravery.'' Where is the trick language there? Where is the double meaning?

Now we go to the families, and we say in this resolution ``to the families of the United States military personnel

serving in Operation Iraqi Freedom, who are providing support and prayers for their loved ones currently engaged in military operations in Iraq.'' We give the unequivocal support and appreciation of the Nation. That is what we do in this.

What did we do in 1991? We said almost the same thing, and we conveyed our deepest sympathy and condolences to the families and friends of the United States and coalition forces who had been injured or killed during that operation.

So, Mr. Speaker, this resolution is extremely similar to the resolution that we passed in 1991, I might add, with a Democrat Congress, those words that I read to you about the President exercising unerring judgment even though many of the Democratic leadership had voted against this operation in a much closer vote, incidentally, than the vote to allow force that we took this fall. So they talked about his judgment, and many of them have talked privately about his good judgment in the present operation when we are referring to the present President.

The President and his team have done an excellent job. So maybe what we are really talking about is the cause. The many Members who I think did not represent a majority of the Democrat Party who came out here could have worked this resolution if they wanted it to say we do not really believe in the cause, but I do not think a majority of the Democrat Party wanted to say that because I do not think they believe it. I think they do believe in the cause. Do the Members know something else, Mr. Speaker? I think the people we are commending that we have been talking about all night believe in this cause, and maybe that is the difference between those people, those people wearing the uniform of the United States, and the people who wanted to use this forum to continue to debate this policy.

The facts are this body believes in this cause. We have given permission to the President to use our most valuable asset, our most precious resource, our Armed Forces, to ensure that this just cause is carried out. And, Mr. Speaker, since we have all given our foreign policy statements here tonight, maybe we should listen to the foreign policy statement of a Marine leader just before he took his people across that line, and I want to read a statement that was issued to every member of the First Marine Division before they went into operation today. It comes from the commanding general, J.N. Mattis, and this is what he states. Even though I am sure some Members of the other side could take exception to his language, this is his position:

``For decades Saddam Hussein has tortured, imprisoned, raped, and murdered the Iraqi people, invaded neighboring countries without provocation, and threatened the world with weapons of mass destruction. The time has come to end his reign of terror. On your young shoulders rest the hopes of mankind.

``When I give you the word, together we will cross the line of departure close with those forces that choose to fight and destroy them. Our fight is not with the Iraqi people nor is it with members of the Iraqi Army who choose to surrender. While we move swiftly and aggressively against those who resist, we will treat all others with decency, demonstrating chivalry and soldierly compassion for people who have endured a lifetime under Saddam's oppression.

``Chemical attack, treachery, and the use of the innocent as human shields can be expected as can other unethical tactics. Take it all in stride. Be the hunter, not the hunted. Never allow your unit to be caught with its guard down. Use good judgment and act in the best interests of our Nation.

``You are part of the world's most feared and trusted force. Engage your brain before you engage your weapon. Share your courage with each other as we enter the uncertain terrain north of the Line of Departure. Keep faith in your comrades on your left and right and Marine air overhead. Fight with a happy heart and a strong spirit.

``For the mission's sake, our country's sake, and the sake of the men who carried the Division's colors in past battles, who fought for life and never lost their nerve, carry out your mission and keep your honor clean. Demonstrate to the world that there is `No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy' than a United States Marine.''

Ladies and gentlemen, those people that wear the uniform do not have the disagreement with this resolution that so many Members from the other side had tonight. They know this is a good cause. They believe in this cause. They share this cause. They also believe that they have a great President leading them.

May God bless them. May God bless America.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, our troops are well-equipped, well-trained and well-led. They are well-led all the way from their noncommissioned officers and officers at the small unit and company and battalion and brigade and division level all the way up to their leader at the top, the Commander in Chief of America's Armed Forces, President George Bush.

They have everything they need for victory except for one ingredient, Mr. Speaker. They need a Congress which quits berating their President, who is their leader, and their mission and closes ranks behind that mission and our President for victory.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time, and I just wanted to say, Mr. Speaker, first, I wanted to give my thanks to the gentleman from California (Mr. Pombo), the chairman of the Committee on Resources, for his leadership and for understanding how important this bill that deals with a fairly small parcel of land, how important this is to working folks in southern California who need a place to get away from the boss and be with the family and enjoy rock hounding and fishing and canoeing and all the neat things one does on the Colorado River. The chairman, in his usual, very plain-spoken and straightforward style, has explained this very well.

This is 140 acres of land, known as Walters Camp, and that is probably named after a gentleman who was a gold miner on the Colorado River at one time. It was a concession that was operated for average folks who could come in and have a great time and rock hound and canoe and fish.

Unfortunately, in the land withdrawal for the Cibola Refuge in 1964, it was mistakenly added into the withdrawal.

Fish and Wildlife have testified on several occasions that it does not have a significant value in terms of wildlife, and so they have no problem with righting this wrong and correcting this mistake.

Mr. Speaker, once again, I thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Pombo), who is doing a superb job of chairing this committee and allowing me to move this bill, bringing it forward; and hopefully we can get the other body to act on it and restore a good measure of outdoor enjoyment to working families in Southern California. I thank the chairman, and I hope that we can pass this with an overwhelming vote.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank you for allowing a vote on H.R. 417, necessary to right a past error by the Department of Interior in designating the Cibola National Wildlife Refuge. Mr. Frank Dokter, a former constituent whose family business depends on the outcome of this legislation, testified before this panel last year on a similar bill. Although it passed the House, the Senate unfortunately could not act before the end of the 107th Congress.

Mr. Dokter and his family operate Walter's Camp, a Bureau of Land Management (BLM) concession on land near the lower Colorado River in Imperial County, California, near and within the Cibola Refuge. The facility provides visitors with a family-friendly outdoors experience, which includes camping, hiking, canoeing, fishing, birdwatching and rock-hounding. In an increasingly crowded Southern California, Mr. Dokter and his family have provided a welcome diversion from city life to many of the region's outdoors enthusiasts.

Walter's Camp was first authorized in 1962, and in August 1964, Public Land Order 3442 withdrew 16,627 acres along the Colorado River to create the Refuge. The withdrawal erroneously included the 140.32 acre Walter's Camp, but neither the BLM or the Fish and Wildlife Service immediately recognized the mistake. The BLM continued to renew the original permit, allowing the recreational concession use to continue unbroken until the present time. However, given the discovery of the past mistake, the BLM does not have the authority to continue issuing the concession contracts to Walter's Camp.

The Fish and Wildlife Service and the BLM agree that the land has ``insignificant, if any, existing . . . or potential . . . wildlife habitat value,'' as stated in a Department of Interior memo. Therefor, I have introduced H.R. 417 to correct this mistake and allow the BLM to continue to issue contracts to Walter's Camp.

Mr. Speaker, I offer my sincere recommendation that this land to taken out of the Cibola National Wildlife Refuge, and that Mr. Dokter's family be allowed to continue such a valuable and productive service to our region. Respectfully, I urge my colleagues' support on final passage.

If the gentleman would yield on that point, I agree with the gentleman that the folks who express their dissent and have been expressing their dissent in government, basically giving the other side of the debate, are providing a public service by doing that. But I think there are a few observations that are important here.

There have been people demonstrating worldwide in large numbers, hundreds of thousands of people, against the prospect of war with Iraq. I do not think any of those people demonstrated when the Kurdish babies were laid low by the gas attacks with poison gas that Saddam Hussein spread over their villages.

I do not think any of those folks demonstrated when he gassed Iranians by the tens of thousands, or when he executed his own people, cut off their ears and did the myriad of reprehensible acts that have now been ascribed to him, both in closed-door sessions by our intelligence officers and in open sessions by various human rights agencies.

So I think it is always important to set the record straight, or to come into these debates with a full understanding of where they come from. And I think one of the most honest talk shows that was ever devised for television was ``Crossfire,'' where the conservative would say ``from the right,'' and the liberal would say ``from the left.''

But it is obvious that the people who are demonstrating by the hundreds of thousands, some of them well-meaning people, also include lots of people who are not necessarily demonstrating because they have a great love of mankind, or that they are special peace people or have a special care about humanity, because, if they did, they would have been demonstrating when Saddam Hussein gassed those Kurdish babies by the hundreds. They were not demonstrating there, so that did not bother them.

It did not bother them because it was not destabilizing. I think a lot of folks do not like the idea that war in itself is something unsure, it is destabilizing, that it potentially affects the cost of gasoline in your automobile, it potentially affects your community, it may affect relatives who may have to go off to war. So it is something that brings about a feeling of unsettlement.

But let us answer that question the gentleman brought up, why are we entering into this confrontation, it appears? I think one question that could be well thrown back is this: in 1991, when we had not only lots of folks in this country and around the world against us taking action against Iraq when they invaded Kuwait, we not only had lots of folks on the streets around the world, but we also had a majority of the Democrat leadership. I do not fault that Democrat leadership for having taken their position, which they have a political right to do, and taking that side of the debate. But we found afterwards, to answer those people who said give peace some time, give it a chance, give us another 10 months, 18 months, whatever, we found out that according to United Nations estimates, Saddam Hussein at the time that we defeated him in battle was 6 months away from having a nuclear weapon.

So certainly those well-meaning folks who thought that time was on our side discovered afterward, and to the surprise of everyone, conservatives, liberals, Democrats, Republicans, none of us knew how close he was to having that system. So time is not always on our side.

It is my estimate, after having conducted some closed hearings and some open hearings, eight hearings in total, it is my judgment that this country is going to have a nuclear device in about 3 years, and, along with that capability, possessing that capability, because we have allies who have nuclear devices, Britain has nuclear devices and we are not worried about them,

that country has with its present leadership, I think, the intent to use that capability against Americans, either in theater or in the American homeland.

Mr. Speaker, when you add up capability plus intent, you have a national interest; and our national interest now is to take that away from him before he has the full capability. So I think that reasonable people can differ on this subject. But the lesson of Desert Storm I was that time is not always on our side.

If the gentleman would yield on that point, the facts that the gentleman is putting out are especially important because those are not guesses on our part. In fact, they are not even guesses on the part of the United Nations or on the part of the arms inspectors. Those come from documents from the Iraqis themselves, from their own declarations and their own documents. So the 6,500 liters of anthrax, for example, which is enough anthrax to kill around 1 million folks, is something that came from their documentation, not ours. That is something that they have not turned over.

The thousands of chemical munitions that the gentleman has gone through, that comes from their documentation, not ours. So this is like the storekeeper who says here is my inventory list, and then later on he wants you to expect that somehow, without any outward manifestation or anything that could be picked up or anything that was shown to the rest of the world, all of those weapons have disappeared.

Let me just say, and this might be the time to comment on this, the easiest bet in show business is that this tiny little handful of so- called inspectors, and there are less inspectors than there are policemen in the average small town in America, the idea they are somehow going to be able to go through this massive state and discover weapons of mass destruction in these vast empty buildings that the inspectors are being shown by the Iraqi bureaucrats, the idea that that is in some way going to happen is an absolute fantasy.

So I predicted early on, before this thing ever started, on the record, that they were not going to find anything of import. These folks have had a long time to bury it. And the Iraqi bureaucrat who actually leads arms inspectors into these places, and 90 percent of them are places where they have been before, time and again, big empty buildings, and lo and behold, there is a weapon of mass destruction that somehow the maid forgot to clean up from the night before, that bureaucrat is going to be considered two things: one, the dumbest bureaucrat in Iraqi history, and, secondly, shortly thereafter, the deadest bureaucrat in Iraqi history.

So this is a state that has had an entire agency devoted to hiding things very effectively, and the idea that this little bitty corporal's guard of so-called inspectors is somehow going to find them, is like saying that this massive police force in Washington, DC., and the police force in D.C. is 10 times as big as the inspectors for all of Iraq, it is like saying that the drug lords of Washington, DC. are expected to pile all of their cocaine at an intersection on Pennsylvania Avenue at a given time. When they do not pile it up, and the Washington Post thereby concludes that there is not any cocaine in Washington, DC., you will have the equivalency to what some of the media is doing today with these reports of negative findings with respect to Iraq.

Of course, they are not going to turn over this stuff that they have spent millions of dollars hiding to this little bitty force which does not have the ability to go in and which is having absolutely no success in terms of finding it.

Remember this great idea where we were going to isolate or bring out for interrogation these people in the Iraqi technical establishment, the scientists, the engineers who build this stuff? Somehow we were going to get them and the families alone outside of the country, and then they were going to tell us things, just like the ones that have come out have told us.

Now, that has not happened; and not surprisingly, while these people are under the control of Saddam Hussein, while the Iraqi guard stands there and looks them in the eye, they say, I would rather not talk unless I am accompanied by one of Mr. Hussein's officials.

Well, of course they say that. The safety of their lives and the lives of their children depend on them saying that.

This country has to act in the security interests of the United States. I recall, with respect to these other countries that have not come on board, that when Menachem Begin hit the Iraqi nuclear reactor site in Osirak in the 1980s, lots of countries in the world publicly deplored the act, and said this was a terrible intrusion on the Iraqi airspace. They then walked quietly into the security of their own offices and they breathed sighs of relief because that capability had been taken way.

Yes. I think one French engineer was killed that way. There was one engineer working on a Saturday or Sunday at the Iraqi site. As I recall, there was one engineer killed.

My point is, the world has two faces; one face in which they, too, are deathly afraid of an emerging nuclear capability on the part of Saddam Hussein, and terrified with the present-day chemical and biological weapons capability. They do not want him to hurt them, they want us to protect them. On the other hand, those people, especially the people that Don Rumsfeld describes as those who live in the neighborhood, who have to deal with them, are going to be very reluctant to publicly say that the bully should be taken on, because the bully is going to remember what they said.

I think the gentleman has given an excellent representation of what this dictator does, Mr. Speaker, and what he stands for. I think that builds an excellent context in which we can try to evaluate whether or not peace would work, given a chance.

First, he is deceptive. Secondly, I think he believes his future depends on manufacturing weapons of mass destruction. Third, he is willing to take his own people through enormous discomfort and inconvenience and danger in order to achieve his own political ends.

But I would say to the gentleman that there are pieces of Saddam Hussein's activities, although maybe not the composite, but it can be fairly said, and it has been said by lots of people, are there not other dictators in the world who do the same thing, and we are not attacking them?

I would say that that is true. I would say the reason that I think we should move forward, and I think is the major justification for this massive operation, is American security. This guy is the leader who has used ballistic missiles against American troops and killed them with it. He has used poison gas against his own people in recent times. He has exhibited a willingness to kill Americans.

As a result of the background that I have seen and the facts that I have seen, it is my conclusion that if he can achieve the production of a nuclear device, that at some point he will use it on our troops in theater or on Americans. I think it is a wise decision to keep him from being able to do that.

That takes us to, I think, what I think is a very important point for policy debate. It has been a point for policy debate. We now have what I call the Pearl Harbor school emerging from the other side of this debate. Those are the people who say, by golly, we are America. We wait for our Pearl Harbors before we respond. When the enemy inflicts a heavy blow on us, that is when we rally; that is when we talk about the day of infamy; and that is when we go out and strike back and overwhelm the enemy, and justice prevails.

The problem with the Pearl Harbor school is that these weapons are so severe today and so dangerous and so destructive that we cannot afford to wait to have a Pearl Harbor occur before we eliminate the source. To some degree, we are carrying that out right now. September 11 killed a lot of Americans; but, arguably, the new tightening of our borders, the new security efforts we have undertaken in the American homeland should prevent some of those things from being able to happen again.

Therefore, it could be argued that there is no reason for us to be in Afghanistan going after people and disrupting terrorist groups; in fact, in some cases taking on people who personally were not involved in the event of 1995.

But what we have discovered is that we do have to do some preemption. I think this question is going to be facing us again and again in this century: Are we going to stand by and watch somebody who has demonstrated an intent to kill Americans develop high technology with which he can kill lots of Americans, and stand by and wait for him to gain that weapon and use it on us before we respond; or are we going to try to eliminate that danger before the Pearl Harbor occurs?

That is a tough thing, because Americans do not like to be the first ones to strike out. When we watch the speech of FDR after Pearl Harbor, there was no dissent in the House Chamber. That was an easy vote, that vote for war. We were all together, we had that common ground, and had that feeling that we were in the right. As Joe Lewis said, we felt that God was on our side.

Now we are faced with these terrible weapons, and we cannot afford to take the blow that will come from those systems. In a way, we are a little bit like little tiny postage stamp Israel that stood there and watched this nuclear reactor being built in Iraq. They had seen the speeches by Saddam Hussein where he made thinly veiled threats to the effect that the final recipient of the output of those nuclear reactor plants would be weapons detonating in Israel. Israel realized they were too small, too flimsy, too frail to take that massive blow, so they went out and destroyed that plant.

Unfortunately, one person was killed. He was an engineer from France who was working there over the weekend. But because of that, they saved thousands of people from being killed.

So whether we embark on this policy of preemption or not is a valid subject for a major policy debate, but I think, in many cases, the answer must be yes; and certainly in this case this person is a person who has already killed Americans with ballistic missiles as well as with conventional capability, and has tried to acquire these other capabilities.

Because of that, I think we see the intent, and when the intent is married up with the ability to do it, we are going to rue the day that we, for convenience' sake and for stability's sake and for safety's sake, we gave up an opportunity to disarm him when we had the opportunity.

Mr. Speaker, I would just say, and I hope my colleague will excuse me, because I have to go try to do something we have both been working on, and that is talk to some folks from our Committee on the Budget and convince them we need more for defense.

But I would say, Mr. Speaker, that I think the gentleman has laid out a very well-documented case for taking action. I notice also that the gentleman is a veteran of the Gulf War. He told me about the apprehension that he and other Americans had when they heard those missiles coming in.

This is a very dangerous situation we are in. I think we have to acknowledge it every time we debate this issue. Is this dangerous? Yes, it is dangerous. The policies of doing nothing are also extremely dangerous. This is not going to be the easy century following the disassembly of the Soviet empire that we once thought it was going to be.

I think we need to have a broad military capability, the ability to make a surgical strike, to fight guerilla warfare, to take on conventional attack and armored attack, and also the ability to stop a missile attack. We live in an age of missiles, and we have to be able to stop that.

In this case, we have to have the ability to preempt and disarm an adversary whose intended goal is to destroy Americans. I know it is a difficult,

tough thing to do, and I would just ask the gentleman to comment on this a little in his remarks after I leave.

I have been impressed with this President, because if he had wavered slightly through this last process of the last 6 months or so, we would be faltering right now. But he understands his role, which is as President of the United States, and his duty to the security of the United States.

That is not a role which is to be subverted by a vote by Cameroon, for example, or some other country whose name Americans have difficulty remembering. It is an American obligation to defend Americans. He is our Commander in Chief. He staged the forces very effectively for this operation. He is willing to account for the success or failure of any military operation. He is a good commander in chief. I think he has done the right things.

I think some of the allies falling by the wayside was entirely predictable, because when good old Americans can carry the load, other countries are often willing to let us do that. That is why, when we bring 90 percent of the funding to a military operation that they ask us to do, like Bosnia, we sometimes choke a little bit but we usually do it; and usually they are willing to stand back and let us bear the brunt of those operations, because it is practical for them for their politics and economy.

But this President has kept his eye on the ball, which is to disarm Saddam Hussein. I think he is moving this mission forward in a very effective manner.

I want to thank the gentleman. I would like him to talk a little bit about Desert Storm. I have to take off, but I would like the gentleman to share with folks about Desert Storm, that the gentleman is a veteran of, and the quality and capability of the folks we have in the Armed Forces.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to the order of the House of Tuesday, March 4, 2003, I call up the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 27) recognizing and commending the continuing dedication, selfless service, and commitment of members of the Armed Forces and their families during the Global War on Terrorism and in defense of the United States, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on the joint resolution under consideration.

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

Mr. Speaker, since the start of the global war on terrorism, a saga has unfolded marked by the dedication, selfless service, and commitment of the members of the Armed Forces and their families. Now, on the eve of a potential war with Iraq, the Nation is about to ask our Armed Forces and their families for additional sacrifices.

For these reasons, my great colleague, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton), and I thought it was only fitting that we offer this joint resolution to send a message to our Armed Forces of our support and appreciation for their magnificent efforts.

Mr. Speaker, the U.S. Armed Forces, a total force of active National Guard and Reserve volunteers, have conducted more than 17 months of courageous and successful operations against terrorism, not only in Afghanistan, but also worldwide. Beyond that, they have secured the U.S. homeland by performing various missions, including patrolling the Nation's airports, protecting the public at special events, and flying combat air patrols in the Nation's skies.

Today, more than 200,000 active duty personnel are already deployed to the Persian Gulf, and thousands of Reservists and National Guard members are on alert for mobilization or are deploying for a possible war with Iraq.

All these missions are in addition to other regular military requirements and have significantly increased the pace of operations and the stress on our forces. There have been no permanent increases in the size of the Armed Forces to meet these new requirements. Instead, our military forces are being required to work longer, harder, and smarter.

One enduring mark of the sacrifices being made in this war on terrorism by our men and women in uniform is that 67 American servicemembers have died defending the Nation, and 212 have been wounded or injured.

Untold sacrifices are being asked of the nearly 225,000 members of the National Guard and Reserve who have been mobilized for active duty since the start of the global war on terrorism. More than 174,000 of them remain on active duty, with thousands facing a second year of active duty away from their families and civilian employment.

America is able to make a substantial commitment of its citizen soldiers to this war because many of the Nation's employers, in the spirit of patriotism, are maintaining job security for those mobilized personnel and their families. Whether the members of the Armed Forces are active, Guard, or Reserve, their ability to perform their missions requires the continuing support and sacrifice of their families.

Mr. Speaker, the Nation is engaged in a global conflict that presents many

new and dangerous challenges to the members of the Armed Forces. It is a conflict that will require the Nation's unflinching resolve and commitment to provide the Nation's soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines with the necessary resources required for victory.

In that context, this joint resolution commends and expresses the gratitude of our Nation to all members of the United States Armed Forces, whether on active duty, in the National Guard, or in the Reserves, who are fighting the global war on terrorism; also, Mr. Speaker, to the employers who maintain the job security of their mobilized National Guard and Reserve employees; and also, importantly, to the families of those servicemembers who have borne the burden of separation from their loved ones and who have staunchly supported them during this war.

The joint resolution also expresses our condolences to the families of the brave American servicemembers who have lost their lives defending our Nation in the global war on terrorism, and it reaffirms that the Congress stands united with the President in this ongoing effort to defeat terrorism.

Mr. Speaker, I strongly urge my colleagues to support this joint resolution.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for the sense of history and patriotism that he brings to this resolution.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Hayes), the vice-chairman of the Subcommittee on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare of the Committee on Armed Services.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Virginia (Mrs. Jo Ann Davis) who represents Quantico Marine Base, Dahlgren Air Force Base, Fort Eustis, many other military installations and thousands and thousands of great service personnel.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Kirk) who is a veteran of the Gulf War and presently a U.S. Naval reservist.

Mr. Speaker, in Vietnam, guys on the ground used to refer to the jets overhead as fast movers, and today we always wondered about the comfortable life that they lead. So I was talking to the gentleman from California (Mr. Cunningham) and the gentleman from Nevada (Mr. Gibbons) about that very thing recently.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Nevada (Mr. Gibbons) who piloted fast movers, that is, fighter aircraft in both Vietnam and the Gulf War, and who is a veteran of those two conflicts and a great leader in the Committee on Armed Services, and also a guy who represents Nellis Air Force Base and Also the Fallon Naval Air Station.

(Mr. GIBBONS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to, say, to the gentleman who just spoke, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Ortiz), that I remember the time when he and I and other members of the committee went down to Honduras when the 82nd Airborne jumped into Honduras to stiffen the spine of the Honduran government, which had seen an invasion of the Sandinistas along their border.

I will never forget, in a national press conference, with lots of cameras, when the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Ortiz) was asked the question, ``Don't you feel any sympathy with the Sandinistas, based on your ethnicity?'' The gentleman told them very simply that he was an American. And I remember him being in many, many inconvenient and difficult places to ensure that our troops were in good shape.

And let me also say, before I yield to the next speaker, and I know my great friend, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton) and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Ortiz) would agree with this strongly, that we are all very grateful to the employers. Part of this resolution is an expression of ``thank you'' and gratitude to all the employers in America, whether they are a six-man machine shop or a large corporation, with the accommodations that they give, that America's employers are giving to our reservists, to these citizen soldiers who drop that tool that they are using or get out from behind the wheel of that truck and put on the uniform of the United States and go off, in some cases, for an extended period of time to defend this Nation.

I can just tell my colleagues that there are lots and lots of examples of companies and small businesses which have bent over backwards to take care of those folks and make sure that that job is preserved for them, and going far beyond what is called for by the law and mandated by the law. So I just want to let them know that we really appreciate what they are doing. And I know the gentleman from Texas would agree with that, because there are lots of great employers in south Texas who have done the same thing. Are there not?

I yield to the gentleman from Texas.

Mr. Speaker, I greatly appreciate everything the gentleman is saying.

We will keep working.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Florida (Mr. Foley).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Buyer), a Gulf War veteran and former very distinguished subcommittee chairman on the House Committee on Armed Services.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Gingrey).

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

Mr. Speaker, this story of this massive mobilization which has been undertaken is a story of people. It is a story of families and a story of close-knit communities.

We have a group of folks in Operation Home Front in San Diego, California, which is a support group, lots of businesses, lots of great folks, community leaders and lots of community servants, who have gotten together to try to build a group that will be a support group for the families and all the folks who are still at home. They have done a wonderful job.

That model was started by, I believe, Roger Hedgecock, one of our radio talk show hosts, spread throughout San Diego County. I know that idea has spread throughout the country. It is representative of this great community that does find common ground in this very important first duty and first obligation of our government, which is to ensure the security of its people.

Mr. Speaker, I think there is nothing more descriptive of the support of our uniformed personnel than a letter which was written to a Marine sergeant, Benjamin Harris, by his wife. This letter could just as easily have been written to the battlefield at Gettysburg, sent to a base camp in Vietnam, the Chosin Reservoir during Korea, or the Guadalcanal beachhead during World War II:

``My Dearest Ben, I hope this letter finds you in good spirits. As I look into our son's eyes every day, I see you. I miss you every second we're apart, but there is a reason for our separation. You've been my hero for years, now it's time for the world to see you shine.

``Finally everyone will see all that you stand for, all that you're made of: pride, honor, strength, and a faith that shames most men. Though my heart aches without, I know what my duty as a Marine's wife calls for, and so I give you to our country, to our world, `to fight for right and freedom,' as a Marine's hymn states. I give you to the families who lost in the attacks on our country, and I give you to the rest of the world. Without men like you, people wouldn't have the freedom to sit down to dinner with their families, to tuck their children into bed at night knowing that they'll be safe. I understand the pain of separation is temporary. If I must give up the sound of your laughter for the sound of my tears, so be it. The sound of my tears then will give me strength as your laughter once did. They are tears of loneliness, anger and fear, but also of pride and love. You are the air I breathe, and while I am lost without you, I know you'll be home soon to find me. God speed, and God bless. Your loving wife, Erica.''

Mr. Speaker, that is the story of mobilizations that took place in the last century, that left 619,000 Americans dead on battlefields around the world. That is the story of the American mobilizations which have given freedom to hundreds of millions of people in this world, and which shortly may give freedom to millions more; and it cannot be done without the sacrifices that are manifested in thousands of letters, hundreds of thousands of letters like the one I just read.

To all my colleagues who contributed to this resolution, I want to thank them and thank my great partner in rebuilding our national defense, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton).

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask unanimous consent and with the consent of my great colleague the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton) that we might take one of his minutes and thereby be able to yield 2 minutes to our closing speaker, the chairman of the Subcommittee on Total Force, the gentleman from New York (Mr. McHugh).

What we might do if it is okay with the gentleman from Missouri, perhaps he can continue with his

speakers and then we will wrap up with the gentleman from New York as we get close to the end.

Mr. Speaker, with great thanks and respect for my colleague the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton), I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from New York (Mr. McHugh) who is the chairman of the Subcommittee on Total Force on Armed Services which has jurisdiction over all those important issues with respect to pay and bonuses and housing and the melding of our Reserve forces and our Guard forces and our active forces together, the guy who cares about over a million men and women in uniform.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for yielding, who is, in fact, one of those rare individuals himself, one of the great leaders in aviation in this last quarter century, as the only American ace from Vietnam and a nominee for the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Mr. Speaker, let me qualify that. The gentleman from California (Mr. Cunningham), along with Willy Driscoll, were the first aces in Vietnam, but actually the only Navy aces, and my colleague has had a great record there.

What I wanted to do tonight, and I know my colleague has a number of aviation leaders and I think it is appropriate at this time in our history, when we are on the verge of perhaps another conflict and we have lots of people deployed and lots of people defending liberty around the world for the United States, is to reflect on some of the great Americans who have stepped forward as citizen soldiers, so to speak, and led this Nation.

I am not a pilot and I am not a great friend of aircrafts, but one thing that I have always reflected on was that if we did not have these people who came from our villages, from our farms, from our cities and had a desire to fly and saw an intrigue in flying and interest in flying, and thereby became involved and ultimately became pilots in uniform for this country, we would not have this great country, because as Billy Mitchell said, and we are going to reflect on him a little bit, we entered the age of air power early in this century, and it was American air power that has helped us to retain our freedom.

What I thought I wanted to do, I know we have got a number of people to talk about: Billy Mitchell, Chuck Yeager, Joe Foss, and several others.

I thought we might start with General Bob Cardenas, who is a quiet man. He is a guy we do not see on a lot of magazine covers, but Bob Cardenas is a great test pilot, great bomber pilot who had his bomber blown apart in World War II, landed on one side of the lake, in fact German side of the lake, other side of the lake was Switzerland. He and his colleague, who also bailed out, swam that lake to get to freedom, and Bob later became one of the great test pilots of this country and he flew the B-29 and was a project manager and flew the B- 29 that dropped Chuck Yeager's X-1 out in October of 1947 and watched it break the speed of sound.

So Bob Cardenas was a remarkable individual, a guy who came up through San Diego, went to San Diego State. He used to build model airplanes as a kid. He got involved in flying, saw those. He helped local glider pilots with their construction of their planes. He bummed rides with folks who were flying guide gliders. He was a very bright student and went to San Diego State and ultimately joined the United States Air Force; and Robert Cardenas has been just a model of what I would call our first citizens, our best citizens.

Today, Bob is a guy who leads veterans groups in San Diego; and if a person has an important veterans issue, Bob Cardenas will be there, never for pay, never for reward, never with a kind of a pronouncement that is designed to attract attention, but the quiet man, with lots of wisdom.

One of my favorite pictures of Bob Cardenas is one that was taken by a tourist in, I believe it was 1953, when he flew the flying Wing right down Pennsylvania Avenue at the request of President Truman. In fact, it was not 1953. It was February 9, 1949. The flying Wing looks exactly like a B-2 bomber at a distance, and yet at 1949, when I was 1 year old, this great test pilot flew this flying Wing which is very difficult to control. In fact, he wrote a memo that went to President Truman saying it was not suitable to be a bomber aircraft at that time, but he flew it right down Pennsylvania Avenue and he flew it over this Capitol.

His boss said, Bob, fly down Pennsylvania Avenue and try not to hit a tree; and Bob was watching those trees so intently he said he just barely saw the Capitol in time and pulled up. It just so happened there was a photographer out here to the east of the Capitol, just a tourist, who took this incredible, dramatic picture in 1949 of that flying Wing coming right over the United States Capitol, and that autographed picture is one of my treasured mementoes because it reflects a guy who came from San Diego with an open demeanor, with a great character and with just a desire to fly and to help his country while he was doing it, just a very open and honest expression of patriotism and developed into one of the great fighter pilots or one of the great test pilots of all time and ended up being an important figure in the advancement of American aerospace.

Today, as we watch these B-1 bat-like airplanes, these B-2s, half a century later rolling out into action and being in theater now in the Gulf, and prepared for potential action against an adversary, every time I see one of those planes I think of this great Bob Cardenas, 1949, flying that plane at President Truman's request over the U.S. Capitol.

So Bob is obviously one of our mutual heroes, and I hope to see him soon and tell him that we have been talking about him today.

Mr. Speaker, I think the gentleman has led into one of our mutual friends and a great hero, Chuck Yeager, a great hero for this century who came out of, as my Dad calls him, the citizen soldiers; and my dad had written recently about how people from the outdoors often have a penchant for the military because they learn

how to shoot, they learn how to be vigilant, they learn how to be alert. And those qualities serve them well when they get into the military, and Chuck Yeager is one of those people.

Where would my colleague place Chuck Yeager as a great fighter pilot and a great test pilot? He was a guy with both qualities.

He is a man not without a sense of humor, also.

The second time I guess I had an engagement with General Yeager was the very first time I was able to join the American Fighter Aces Reunion. There had been no new fighter ace in almost 30 years, and we had our first reunion in San Antonio when Willy and I came back from Vietnam. And the press came up to me and said, ``Duke, how do you feel about joining Joe Foss and Pappy Boyington and Chuck Yeager and all these different guys?'' And General Yeager was there. And the press guy said, look, if you and General Yeager would get into a dog fight, who would win? He wanted me to put down General Yeager. My answer was, ``General Yeager is not only a test pilot and a fighter pilot and a combat pilot, but he has done a million things I have not ever done before.

So I would basically not answer his question. But after the press guy left, I looked at Chuck and said, ``General Yeager, I'll meet you at 15,000 feet and I'll have your donkey.'' And his immediate response was, ``Bring it on, Duke,'' which you would expect from General Yeager.

So this is one of the all-time greats that have contributed not just to combat aviation, but when you look at the first man to go supersonic, the first man in the X1 and the X1-A that set speed records of over 1600 miles an hour, he is right up there.

My father sent some commentary about these citizen soldiers, and Chuck Yeager is one of these guys, because dad always felt that people with this outdoor background had a special rapport with the military. He says, and I am quoting, ``Hardened by frontier life, Americans have always been able to use their woodsmanship and facilities with firearms to win any wars that were thrust upon us.

Organizations such as the Boy Scouts, citizen gun clubs, the American Rifle Association and veterans groups, have successfully resisted the efforts of those anti-gun forces that would like to disarm the average American. In the Spanish-American War and World Wars I and II, American forces have mobilized in short order and defeated their enemies. Our citizen soldiers are our greatest defense and are mobilized and used by those who make our Armed Forces their profession.''

And if you read the exploits of Chuck Yeager, a kid that grew up in West Virginia hunting and fishing and tracking, it is very clear, and he reflects many times about how he used these developments in his instincts and his capabilities and his reflexes, and certainly his shooting ability to our advantage when he was in combat. And when you go out among our troops that are deploying now for Desert Storm II, possibly, and for the war against terrorism, you talk to lots of people who have become proficient in firearms and in the outdoors, whether they are in infantry or in the Navy or in the aerial forces. There is a certain insight that that kind of a background gives you.

Maybe Chuck Yeager is one of the greatest examples of that. And when I saw him the other day, he said that he had walked away from his last test piloting at Edwards Air Force Base in California just a few weeks before his 80th birthday. And I know my friend visited him on his 80th birthday.

Let us move to another guy, whose picture my friend just gave me a couple of months ago, and who passed away. He was a great, great friend of ours, but what a great leader for America. Joe Foss.

Joe Foss shot down over 20 aircraft in World War II. He was a great marine fighter pilot. He went back and became the governor of South Dakota. He was the commissioner of the American football League between 1988 and 1990. In fact, I think you were one of the guys that urged him to run and he did and became the President of the National Rifle Association.

And that takes me back to my dad's treatise to the effect that a lot of country boys become great military leaders and great pilots because of this sixth sense that they develop in the woods. Joe Foss is one of those guys. And that autographed picture you gave me of Joe Foss, that I have still on my wall, is very treasured, because Joe Foss passed away just a few weeks ago.

What a great hero he was for this century. And that great story, the Bridges of Toko Ri that was about Korea, where James Michener talked about where Americans got these people that flew off these tiny carriers and went out and found the enemy and took them on, and then tried to find that little bitty postage stamp out there rocking in the middle of the ocean. And how extraordinary it was that at a time when the rest of us were living a life of comfort, people like that should come forward. That was Joe Foss, coming out of South Dakota. A great guy, bigger than life, a guy who had gotten in lots of rough and tumble situations, but a guy with an absolute heart of gold. Joe Foss. When did the gentleman first meet Joe?

Joe Foss, as the gentleman said, was inspirational to so many young people. He was born in 1915 in South Dakota and helped to run the family farm. In fact, he had to drop out of college to do that. But when he was 11 years old in South Dakota he got to meet Charles Lindbergh, and it was that inspiration and meeting the guy who had flown across the Atlantic and was such an American hero at that time that inspired him to himself become an aviator.

So this is a great family of aviators that we have, and Joe, again, won the Medal of Honor. He shot down some 24 aircraft.

Twenty-six aircraft. He was shot down himself on November 7, 1942, and he was rescued the next day. So what a great hero, Joe Foss.

But the gentleman that was a special guy, who has been to a number of events and community gatherings we have both been at, and that is Wally Schirra.

My favorite picture is a picture of you hunting pheasants with Wally Schirra. Tell us a little bit about that guy.

Well, Wally, that guy whose hat you blew up, was one of the original seven astronauts. And he was the only astronaut to have flown on all three space craft, Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo. And what is remarkable, and maybe this was caught to some degree in that movie The Right Stuff, which had a lot of Chuck Yeager in it, but also had some astronauts, was that a lot of Americans in aviation, who did not take themselves too seriously, and Wally Schirra was one of those guys and still is one of those guys, and who had a great sense of humor, did very serious things. Here is a guy who was a pilot, a naval officer, carrier-based fighter pilot and test pilot, and engaged in this very serious pursuit in which a lot of people were killed.

After they came back from war, people like Richard Bong, who shot down more planes in the Pacific theater than anyone, was killed on his first test flight trying to fly a new experimental aircraft. So these Americans, like Wally, like Chuck Yeager, like others, and I think we are reminded of this in the wake of the events with Columbia, live in a world which is very dangerous, and in which a lot of their friends and colleagues have died. And in doing that, they have pushed American capability and technology, and we are able to keep ourselves free to a much further height than we could have ever achieved if we did not have these great people.

So Wally Schirra is a great member of our San Diego community, and I think my colleague painted a great picture of Wally. He probably treasures that hat that you shot.

Mr. Speaker, there is another guy who preceded all these people that we have talked about. He is a guy who, in this city, was actually taken to court-martial at one point because he told the United States, when he was a U.S. officer, a General officer, he announced to the world and to the United States that we were not ready for war and that we needed to be doing more. And, of course, sometimes when you tell the truth, that gets you in trouble. But in the 1930s, we were not ready for war.

This guy's name was Billy Mitchell. In fact, one time I was carrying on about Billy Mitchell and how great he was at warning us to get ready for this new age of air power, and the gentleman from New Hampshire (Mr. Bass), one of our great colleagues, asked me to quit lecturing him on Billy Mitchell because, he said, Billy Mitchell was my uncle. And he knew a lot more about Billy Mitchell than I did.

But Billy Mitchell took a tour of the world in the 1920s and came back reported to the Coolidge administration about where he thought our vulnerabilities lay. He would go out and analyze scenarios in which he thought we might be attacked.

More than a decade before Pearl Harbor, he predicted at some point we would be attacked by a low-level, early-dawn attack by aircraft from Japan at Pearl Harbor. The only thing that he also, in predicting what they might try to do, part of the blueprint that they did not follow, luckily, was that they did not blow up the fuel depots which he predicted that any enemy that attacked Pearly Harbor, that they would try to blow up.

He warned this country that we lived in an age of air power. He came back from this tour of a very dangerous, and it is relevant for us to remember now that we stand on the ledge of this new century in what appears to be a very dangerous world. Billy Mitchell warned us that we had entered the age of air power, and that the United States had better become dominant in air power because if we did not, we would be losing future engagements.

I recently looked back at the aircraft that were flown in World War I, and apparently most of those aircraft were French and British aircraft. We were not really in the age of air power.

The French aircraft were unusual. Most of them were parked. We will talk about that later.

Billy Mitchell gave an extraordinary warning to this country. He was not received well at the White House. There were a lot of budget hawks that did not want to spend a bunch of money on military equipment. After all, the 1930s were supposed to be a very peaceful time. So they gave him short-shrift, and he became more and more insistent in his demands that the United States gear up for what he saw as a coming storm.

He made statements to the effect that we were unprepared for war, so they court martialed him. In the movie

Gary Cooper played Billy Mitchell. He sacrificed his own career to wake America up. I have often thought about if Billy Mitchell came back and told us we were entering the age of air power and we had better become proficient at it or we would be in dire straits.

Similarly, we have now entered the age of missiles, and now that we have seen North Korea shooting the TD-2 missile with the capability of reaching the west coast of the United States, when we look at their unstable leadership, I am reminded of the fact that we are deep in the age of missiles, and we need to be awakened, just as America needed to be awakened by Billy Mitchell in the 1920s and 1930s that we were in the age of air power; and we need to be awakened that we are deeply in the age of missiles, and we better have the ability to shoot down missiles.

Billy Mitchell had this extraordinary career in which he not only shot down enemy aircraft and was a leader in aviation, but he also spoke out. I think that is another trademark of these great aviators that we have talked about. Joe Foss spoke out. Bob Cardenas is still speaking out. Chuck Yeager spoke out very strongly and forcefully. And Billy Mitchell was also a guy that really spoke out.

That reminds me of something that President Reagan said, and I am thinking of all those troops wearing the Desert Storm camouflage in the Middle East, you can go to France, you can never become a Frenchman. You can go to Germany, and you can never become a German. You can go to Mexico, and you can never become a Mexican. But you come to the United States, and you become an American. All of us are united behind the American flag, and it has been the greatest mixer of people and the greatest set of common values and common ground that free people could rally around in the history of the world.

I think it is appropriate that you brought this story to us tonight because that is the story of our country. I think that there is no greater force to bring people together in this country than the U.S. military. It brings people together, whether they have titles behind their names or have gone to universities of renown or have lots of money or no money. It brings them all together for a common cause, and it provides a line of communication and touching and rapport with their colleague standing next to them, who may have come from the other side of the country.

I want to mention two other people, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sam Johnson), our great friend whom we honored the other day with a resolution. As a POW he was an Air Force guy who did a great job, and he is such a leader in Congress today.

No, but I think you are going to tell me.

We are going to have calls on that. There is another guy I want to mention and that is Duke Cunningham because you have come to this body with lots of stature that you won on the battlefield, and you went through a lot of the same feelings that a lot of those guys are feeling right now getting ready for action in what could be a very difficult theater.

Mr. Speaker, my colleague is a man who was heavily decorated with the Navy Cross and the Purple Heart and lots of Flying Crosses, and we appreciate the gentleman's great service to the country. Having the gentleman here to bring the common sense and practicality of operating aircraft to this body, which often just sees aircraft and services in terms of numbers and reflections on pages, has been a great service to our Congress. My colleague is the last hero that I want to point to today, but not least.

This is the picture of General Bob Cardenas in 1949 flying the flying Wing right over this Capitol. I thank the gentleman for letting me be part of this Special Order tonight.

Mr. Speaker, today, along with my colleague from Colorado, Mark Udall, I am reintroducing the Renewable Fuel Equity Act of 2003. The energy crises that struck California in 2001 and resonated across the country taught us many lessons--one of which is the need for our country to expand and diversify the production of energy from renewable resources.

Solar, wind, hydro power, biomass, and geothermal energy are each potentially enormous energy resources and every state has renewable resource potential. Unfortunately, existing renewable energy resources are not spread uniformly across the country. The current tax law creates regional and technological inequities by failing to provide uniform benefits for all renewable energy resources. For example, the Section 45 production tax credit, enacted in 1992, has spurred significant new investment, but it only applies to wind power facilities. Since its inception, the production tax credit has added thousands of megawatts of wind power to our electricity grid. Imagine the impact on our communities if the production tax credit was available to all renewable energy technology.

Clean power production provides greater reliability for our electricity system while promoting cleaner air and water. In addition, according to the Energy Information Agency, expanding renewable power production helps reduce the risk of future price increases for electricity.

Today, renewable power sources provide consumers reliable power that is cost-effective over the long run. Unfortunately, their high, initial capital costs discourages investment in renewables. Providing tax incentives for new renewable power production can make the difference.

The federal production tax credit has demonstrated its effectiveness in spurring investment in new wind power generation. The Renewable Fuel Equity Act would expand this proven incentive to all of the renewable energy resources--wind, biomass, incremental hydro power, solar and geothermal.

For smaller power systems, particularly those not connected to the grid, the production tax credit is not an effective stimulus. Under current law, it does not apply to off-grid systems, and it is too complex for small businesses to use. To address this situation, our bill would make a 20 percent investment tax credit available to all small renewable technologies as an alternative.

Investment in new renewable power is good for the economy and the environment, and providing these tax incentives will spur new investment without cutting Treasury revenues. Studies by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and others indicate that expanding tax incentives for new renewable power systems are likely to have negligible net costs for the Treasury. This is because renewable power plants are so capital intensive they already pay significantly higher federal income taxes on the power produced.

As the 108th Congress begins the debate over a national energy policy, I believe production and investment tax credits for renewable fuel sources are an important component of any comprehensive policy. Exploiting our renewable fuels is one of our safest, cleanest and most effective ways of ensuring our nations energy independence. I hope that my colleagues will join me in supporting renewable fuel development by cosponsoring this important bill.

Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the resolution (H. Res. 62) recognizing the courage and sacrifice of those members of the United States Armed Forces who were held as prisoners of war during the Vietnam conflict and calling for a full accounting of the 1,902 members of the Armed Forces who remain unaccounted for from the Vietnam conflict.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on H. Res. 62.

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

I rise in strong support of this resolution authored by the distinguished majority leader and gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay). It recognizes the courage and sacrifice of American military personnel held prisoner during the Vietnam conflict and especially highlights the courage and sacrifice of one of our own, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sam Johnson), a POW for 7 years.

Madam Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay).

Madam Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Granger), and this was at the request of the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sam Johnson), that we have the best-looking Texans go first. We made a mistake with the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay), but we are going to make up for it now.

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Crane).

Madam Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Wilson) in the wake of that eloquent statement by the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hall).

Madam Speaker, I yield 45 seconds to the distinguished gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Ballenger).

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hensarling).

Madam Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Snyder) for his bipartisan gesture and great work on this particular issue.

Madam Speaker, I yield 45 seconds to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Stearns).

(Mr. STEARNS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Madam Speaker, I yield 45 seconds to another gentleman from Texas (Mr. Barton).

Madam Speaker, in the wake of that eloquent statement by the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Barton), I yield 45 seconds to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Burgess).

Madam Speaker, I yield 45 seconds to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Kline).

Madam Speaker, I yield 45 seconds to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Carter), another one of Sam's Texas colleagues.

Madam Speaker, I yield 45 seconds to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Culberson), another one of Sam's Texas colleagues.

Madam Speaker, first, I thank my colleague for that gracious gesture. How much time do we have remaining?

Madam Speaker, I yield 45 seconds to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Pitts).

Madam Speaker, I yield 45 seconds to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton).

Madam Speaker, I yield myself 2\1/2\ minutes.

In that great book, ``The Bridges at Toko Ri,'' one of James Michener's main characters was the commander of an aircraft carrier. After the hero in the book had flown off against those bridges at Toko Ri in North Korea and been lost, he stood on the ship and he asked where does America find these men who are willing to go in the service, in this case in the U.S. Navy, who fly off these small pitching aircraft carriers, fly to a distant target, heavily defended, and if they are successful in penetrating all that flack and air cover they try to get back and find that little postage stamp out at sea and make a successful landing?

That book was set against the backdrop of a war that was not widely heralded in the United States: the Korean War. It was a time when a lot of folks were focusing on having a rush-back from World War II, having families and building lives and getting jobs and building businesses; and we were not concentrating on that area of the world, that conflict. Yet a lot of Americans gave their lives. That question that was asked, where does America get these men, could just as easily have been a question about those great people that flew off the tarmac in those TAC air bases and strategic air bases or long-range air bases that flew missions over North Vietnam. Sam Johnson is one of those guys, a guy from San Antonio, Texas.

Madam Speaker, it has been brought out in all this discussion of whether we should have a draft and who participates and who bears the burden and who does not bear the burden that there is a disparate burden of defending this country, and that is why I think it is important for all of us to look to Sam because he is a model of our finest citizens. And like the gentleman from California (Mr. Cunningham), the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Pitts), and others who have been pilots, like a lot of our great veterans who have been here in this body, he embodies that call to a higher duty, a duty that is most of the time inconvenient, and some of the times dangerous, but always the most important duty that one can fulfill on behalf of this country, and that is protecting us, giving us our security.

Madam Speaker, I yield 45 seconds to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Buyer).

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Castle).

Madam Speaker, how much time do we have remaining?

Madam Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute.

Madam Speaker, I would just like to say that the gentleman from California (Mr. Cunningham), I know if he possibly could he would be here speaking for his old buddy, Sam Johnson, another great pilot and the only Mig ace from Vietnam, and a guy who really, really loves Sam Johnson.

Madam Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sam Johnson), the man who is the subject of this resolution.

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

Mr. Speaker, there is a movie that I saw recently which depicted three actors who became troubleshooters and helped to save a small town in Mexico. The name of the movie was ``The Three Amigos.'' As I recall, they had a slogan that wherever there was injustice or poverty, they would be there. In reality, in real life, there are two amigos who have organized a small task force that is called Rescue Task Force and where there are problems in the world, where people are sick or need medical help or they are victims of a crossfire in a real shooting war, the two amigos are there.

In fact, they are with us today in these Chambers, Mr. Speaker. It is Gary Becks, who works on my staff, and Wendell Cutting, my chief of staff in my congressional district. Wendell is the cochairman of this task force and does it without any remuneration. They have gone to places like Albania. They were the first people into the Kosovo conflict. They went into the first refugee camp, a camp in which every single child had some type of an illness or a malady. They were the first people to distribute food and medicine. And they were the first people to go up into the very remote camps through what was basically a no-man's land where a number of nongovernmental organizations had taken rifle fire just a few days before.

If you look at the outline of what Rescue Task Force does, you can look at the pictures and see Gary Becks dressing wounds in Afghanistan. You can see Wendell in the slums of Thailand teaching sanitation. You can see them both distributing help in Kosovo. You can see them establishing the first-ever dental clinic in the area of the Nicaraguan-Honduran border.

Mr. Speaker, I am very proud of these two gentlemen and this organization, Rescue Task Force. They also started the program we call Hands Across the Border, where they have directed literally tons and millions of dollars' worth of medical supplies and food and toys for people who hurt, to quote the President, in Mexico. They have gone around the world.

Interestingly, Mr. Speaker, a lot of us in this city are listening to people who are explaining to us why other nations in the world may not like us right now in this particular phase of our foreign policy in the Middle East and explaining that the United States needs to reach out and to educate people as to what we do and what we stand for. I would say, Mr. Speaker, that nobody reaches out as effectively nor is as good an ambassador as these folks, not only in Rescue Task Force but hundreds of American charitable organizations who bring food and medical supplies to Africa, to Afghanistan, to other vast areas of the world, very distant areas where it is obvious that they are not going to receive anything in return. In fact, if you looked at the situation in Afghanistan and you looked at the roster of nations that were supplying humanitarian help in Afghanistan, before the military operations, before we had to go in and find the al Qaeda, you will find the Americans leading the list, supplying most of the food, most of the medicine, and that is reflective of what Rescue Task Force does.

I am very proud of Rescue Task Force, Mr. Speaker. I think it is representative of the goodness that this country has and the willingness of our people to reach out and give some of their resources to other people around the world with no intention to ever receive anything in return except the

good feelings that come from their values, that come to anyone who reaches out to help someone in need.