Floor Statements

Mr. Chairman, the committee accepts the amendment. It is a good amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

I move to strike the requisite number of words.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

The committee shares the gentleman's support of NextGen programs. However, this amendment increases one activity in the operations account and makes no other further adjustments. The result is individual program levels that exceed the account level, which one cannot do.

To meet our allocation, the subcommittee looked closely at all accounts and at all programs. The subcommittee placed a high priority on FAA operations with just a 2 percent cut below the budget request. Within the operations account, the subcommittee balanced the number of high priority areas, including NextGen, aviation safety and air traffic control. This amendment throws this account off balance. The programs within the account would no longer add up to the top line, and the FAA could simply ignore the subcommittee's direction on other program levels in the account. So, therefore, we urge a ``no'' vote.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words.

I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, we share the gentleman's support of the NextGen programs. However, fencing off this amount for NextGen could have the unintended consequences of forcing cuts to other priorities, such as to aviation safety research and programs to improve air traffic control in the near term, including programs to reduce noise and carbon emissions.

I, therefore, urge a ``no'' vote, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Per an agreement with the authorizing committee, this amendment strikes section 123 under the administrative provision of the Federal Highway Administration. This section made certain unobligated balances of contract authority available in 2014.

This amendment is noncontroversial and will have no budgetary scoring effect.

I respectfully ask for a ``yes'' vote, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words.

I just want to speak briefly in support of what Mr. Moran said.

Mr. Chairman, this law that we are drastically changing was really the result of a bipartisan agreement with regard to the Congress, and it was authored by former Congressman Tom Davis from northern Virginia. We voted on this one other time. A similar amendment was offered by Mr. Garrett last year. It failed by a vote of 160-243.

In 2008, the Congress made a 10-year commitment as the Federal partner to provide capital funds for the needs of the Metro system. It was a commitment. It's in the law. We voted on it. We worked on it. It was bipartisan. Now we come up with the Garrett amendment. These funds are matched, as said by the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran), by WMATA's regional partners--Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C. Again, it was voted on before, in the last Congress, and it failed overwhelmingly by a vote of 160-243.

Eliminating this funding means that Congress would be choosing to go back on its commitment to provide the money needed to maintain a safe and reliable system used by many of your constituents--the people who visit. Metro is currently using Federal funds to improve a 30-year-old system to address the critical safety recommendations made by the National Transportation Safety Board. People died on the Metro. This money is being used to make the Metro safe. As the other Member said, many Members have constituents who come from all over the country to use it. More than half of the Metro rail system serves Federal facilities like the Pentagon, the Department of Homeland Security and many others.

I would ask Members to keep the commitment that was made in a bipartisan way and to vote down the Garrett amendment.

I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.

I thank the gentleman.

I also want to thank Mr. Latham and Mr. Pastor for their opposition to this amendment.

With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

THUD Appropriations

In 2008, the Congress made a 10-year commitment, as the federal partner, to provide capital funds for the needs of the Metro system.

These funds are matched by WMATA's regional partners, Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C.

This amendment would eliminate $125 million in capital funds for Metro, which has already been cut from $150 million last year.

A similar amendment offered to last year's THUD bill failed by a vote of 160-243.

Eliminating this funding means Congress is choosing to go back on its commitment to provide money needed to maintain a safe and reliable system used by many of your constituents.

Metro is currently using federal funds to improve its 30-year-old system to address the critical safety recommendations made by the National Transportation Safety Board, which Metro has made its highest priority.

WMATA operates the second largest rail system and sixth largest bus system in the U.S.

It provides 1.3 million trips a day--many of these trips carry employees to and from work every day.

More than half of the Metrorail stations serve federal facilities, like the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security.

Metro is critical to the economic growth of this region.

It has spurred $37 billion in economic development at or near to Metro's property.

I represent the Dulles airport and Loudoun County and since 1999, I have supported extending metro rail to Dulles.

The funding provided in this bill for Metro is critical to the success and safety of the rail project along the Dulles Corridor, which is the single greatest economic engine for Northern Virginia.

Congress must continue to uphold its commitment to provide a safe and reliable metro experience for the American people that we serve.

Mr. Speaker, today I am raising the eighth in a series of critical, but unanswered, questions about the terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate and annex in Benghazi last September 11.

My previous seven questions have focused on what happened in Benghazi that night.

Today, I would like to focus on what happened in Washington.

It has been well documented that official Washington started to get reports of the attack around 4 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. It also has been well documented that then-Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, made the decision to brief President Obama about what was happening at a previously scheduled 5 p.m. meeting, which is 11 p.m. in Libya.

Former AFRICOM commander General Carter Ham (ret.) told a paying audience at the Aspen Security Forum in Aspen, Colorado--where tickets started at $1,200--last weekend that by the time a U.S drone appeared over the consulate shortly after 11 p.m. the attack on the consulate was winding down. He also said it was clear this wasn't a protest and he understood it to be a terrorist attack--a direct conflict with repeated statements by the Obama Administration.

If the Pentagon immediately knew this to be a terrorist attack, why did the president go to the United Nations nearly two weeks later and blame the attack on protest in response to a controversial video? Why did then-UN Ambassador Susan Rice go on five Sunday shows and attribute the attack to the video? Why did former Secretary Clinton continue to reference the video as the cause of the protest when the Pentagon immediately attributed the attack to terrorism?

It is also worth asking what Gen. Ham thought of the waves of attacks against the CIA annex later that night. Trusted sources have told my office that in the weeks leading up to the attack, the annex had a notice on its bulletin board warning about imminent attacks on U.S. facilities and other foreign consulates in Benghazi. How does Gen. Ham reconcile his position that there was to send assistance after the consulate firefight ended when there was so many more attacks against Americans that night?

A U.S. consulate is under attack. A U.S. Ambassador is missing. A State Department Diplomatic Security Agent is dead. Are the American people to believe the president is briefed only once that entire night, at 5 p.m. Eastern Standard Time?

My question(s) today: Where was the president the rest of the night?

Did his national security team, including John Brennan, Sec. Panetta and Gen. Dempsey, ever go back and brief the president when the annex came under attack? If so, what steps did he direct at that time?

Did the president ever step foot in the White House Situation Room that night?

Did he ever see the footage from the unarmed drone stationed over Benghazi monitoring the attacks?

I field many of these questions from my constituents on a regular basis and I believe they are fair to ask, especially when the White House carefully orchestrates photo-ops and leaks of the president and other senior administration officials when the news is favorable, like the now-famous picture of the president and his national security team watching a live video feed of the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound in 2011.

Last evening, Fox News' Catherine Herridge reported how Diplomatic Security Agent David Ubben is still recovering at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center--more than 10 months after the attack--for injuries he sustained while repeatedly risking his life to save others that night. Fox reported that it was Ubben who ran into the burning consulate building to retrieve Sean Smith's body. Fox reported it was Ubben who later that night climbed the roof of the annex compound with Ty Woods and Glen Doherty to try to defend the annex during the morter rounds, where he sustained a very serious injury that is still being treated at Walter Reed.

Contrast David Ubben's valiant efforts--repeatedly putting his life on the line to try to save the lives of the other Americans at the consulate and annex--with what is currently known about what the White House national security team did to support him and the others in Benghazi.

As far as the American people know, after nearly a year of investigations, the White House took no additional efforts to come to the aid of those in Benghazi, nor, apparently, did the president take another briefing on what was happening.

Has the president ever called or met with David Ubben to thank him for his sacrifice? Has he ever called the others who were seriously wounded that night, including the former Navy SEAL on the security team who sustained significant injuries?

To Secretary Kerry's credit, I know that he has visited with Mr. Ubben at Walter Reed. But did former Secretary Clinton ever meet with him during the six months she was still in office after the attack?

Either way, the families of the four Americans--including a U.S. Ambassador--who lost their lives in Benghazi have a right to know where the Commander-in-Chief was on September 11, 2012 and what role he and his national security team played to provide support to those in Benghazi that night.

The State Department's own Web site asserts, ``International rules do not allow representatives of the host country to enter an embassy without permission--even to put out a fire--and designate an attack on an embassy as an attack on the country it represents.

In this context, with an attack against America underway, it's fair to ask, did the president and his team ever even consider cancelling

his political fundraiser in Las Vegas the next day to monitor the situation in Benghazi?

That night, when the ambassador was considered a potential hostage and nearly 30 Americans were under sustained attacks at the CIA annex, did the president's staff ever notify the campaign that he might not be leaving the White House the next day?

When he boarded Air Force One for Las Vegas, did the president know about the serious injuries that some of the survivors had sustained? Did he know what hospitals they were being taken to?

Is there a parallel in American history when the U.S. was under attack, Americans were killed and a sitting U.S. ambassador was considered a potential terrorist hostage, but the president was not engaged with his national security team?

I think most Americans would agree that they are legitimate questions that deserve a straightforward and truthful answer.

With only four legislative days remaining before the Congress departs for August recess, I am increasingly concerned that this question, as well as the other questions I have raised in the last two weeks, will not be answered by the one-year anniversary of the Benghazi attacks.

That is deeply disappointing. Congress can--and should--do better.

I continue to believe the only way to get answers through a House Select Committee. H.R. Res 36 has 162 cosponsors, a majority of the Majority. Two new cosponsors joined in the past week alone. This is the way to go so the Congress and the American people know the truth, whatever it may be.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to personally thank and honor the civilians who faithfully serve in war zones and high threat security environments alongside our military in so doing further our national security and peacefully advance American interests.

I am especially grateful to those civilians who served side-by-side with members of our armed forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

These civilians, as well as contractors and former military who return as civilians work for and with the U.S. military and varied U.S. government agencies, deploy into conflict zones such as Iraq and Afghanistan and into high threat security posts.

Dr. Peter R. Mansoor, the Raymond E. Mason Jr. Chair in Military History and the

former Executive Officer to Gen. David Petraeus, when he was commander of the multinational forces in Iraq had this to say about civilian service: ``The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been difficult ventures, but the nation could not have achieved its objectives in either conflict without the support of American civilians, who came to the fight with a number of critical specialties and who shouldered more of the load than their numbers would suggest. The Nation owes our civilian veterans a great deal of gratitude for their service in the nation's wars since 9/11.''

In September 2007 there were actually more contractors in Iraq than combat troops. According to a 2013 report of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR): ``In September 2007, the United States had more than 170,000 combat personnel in Iraq as part of the counterinsurgency operation, with more than 171,000 contractors supporting the mission.'' These contractors are credited in the report for supporting ``the counterinsurgency mission in unstable, yet strategically significant, areas such as Baghdad, Anbar, and Babylon provinces.''

More and more civilians are serving in conflict zone jobs traditionally held by the military. This proximity to dangerous and unstable security situations has come with a cost. The New York Times reported on February 11, 2012 that, ``More civilian contractors working for American companies than American soldiers died in Afghanistan last year for the first time during the war,'' reporting that ``at least 430 employees of American contractors were reported killed in Afghanistan: 386 working for the Defense Department, 43 for the United States Agency for International Development and one for the State Department.''

More recently, just last year four of these civilians became household names--U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens, information officer Sean Smith, and CIA security contractors Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty--when they were killed in Benghazi, Libya. Other civilian contractors were seriously wounded.

As with the military, casualties and serious injuries only tell part of the story. There are other costs associated with prolonged wars, including PTSD, depression and traumatic bereavement.

I was pleased to learn of the recent formation of an organization called We Served Too--a group dedicated to honoring and supporting American and international civilian service in conflict zones and high threat security environments.

Writing in the Huffington Post, author and professor Anne Speckhard reported that when Major General Arnie Fields was asked to comment on the founding of We Serve Too, he remarked on how the shift to asymmetrical warfare now places civilian workers in the same danger that front line soldiers traditionally faced:

The dynamics of war have considerably changed in recent

years. The past ten years have been most significant. The

parameters that have heretofore defined the battlefield or

battle space have been dramatically altered. Military

commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan have learned early on that

the conventional `front' and `rear'', which in earlier wars

defined the most dangerous areas of the battlefield and the

safest, respectively, do not exist. The enemy's threat is

virtually omnipresent. Soldiers not in direct pursuit of the

enemy are in almost as much danger as those who are. This new

paradigm, often referred to as asymmetrical warfare, places

civilians assisting in the war effort in about as much

imminent danger as the traditional uniformed warrior . . .

For. example, as a civilian department of State employee in

Iraq and as the U.S. Special Inspector General for

Afghanistan Reconstruction, I wore my military flak jacket

and helmet with more consistency while conducting my work

than I did on active military duty in the Marine Corps.

Unlike soldiers who are trained and prepared to face armed conflict, civilians who serve alongside them are often ill-equipped for what they experience. This can have lasting implications even after their return home.

I am pleased to recognize We Served Too and commend their aim of supporting and honoring the civilians who served alongside their military counterparts.

While we don't often remember the sacrifices of civilian workers in conflict zones, we have an obligation to recognize that they too sacrificially served this country and their service is worthy of our gratitude.

Mr. Speaker, today I've come to the floor to raise the seventh in a series of critical but unanswered questions about the terrorist attacks on the U.S. consulate and annex in Benghazi last September 11.

Despite a year of investigation in a number of committees, the American people still do not know the answers to these questions, nor do they know if they have even been asked.

With only 5 legislative days remaining before the Congress departs for August recess, I'm increasingly concerned that none of these questions will be answered by the one-year anniversary of the Benghazi attack.

According to a recent excerpt in the forthcoming book, ``Under Fire: The Untold Story of the Attack in Benghazi,'' which was published in this month's Vanity Fair magazine, Ambassador Stevens made several calls for help after reaching what he believed was a safe room on the consulate compound.

As we well know now, one call was placed to his Deputy Chief of Mission, Gregory Hicks, who was at the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli. In May, Hicks provided powerful testimony about that final conversation with Stevens.

He also called ``local militia and public-security commanders in Benghazi, pleading for help.''

What I found interesting in the Vanity Fair excerpt is that Stevens also made calls to ``nearby consulates'' on the BlackBerry of someone on his security detail. Assuming the authors are correct, the government must have the phone records from Stevens' calls to the militia and foreign consulates that night.

This raises the important question of what foreign consulates did he call, and how did these consulates respond?

If Stevens was calling foreign consulates, it also begs the question, did U.S. officials in Tripoli or Washington call any allies with assets in Libya to help respond to the attack?

Furthermore, did the Pentagon connect any NATO allies with military assets in the region that could have provided assistance that night?

Given how close many of the European allies are to the Mediterranean, wouldn't they have planes or response teams stationed in locations in or nearby the region that could have mobilized upon a request from Washington?

After speaking of force posture, what have we done to ensure that if another incident were to happen this September 11 that we're prepared to respond?

We're less than 2 months away from the 9/11 anniversary, but the American people don't know whether we're any more capable of responding to an incident in North Africa or the Middle East.

The American people have lost confidence in this investigation. We can help restore it with a bipartisan select committee.

Mr. Speaker, with only six legislative days left before the Congress departs for August recess, I am increasingly concerned that we will not learn the answers to any of the questions I have raised over the past week before the one year anniversary of the attack on Benghazi, if ever. This is due, in large part, to the secretive nature of the investigation to date. Most of the key hearings into what happened that night in Benghazi have happened behind closed doors and in classified settings, including a June hearing with General Carter Ham, who was the head of the U.S. Forces in Africa the night of the attack.

That is why I was surprised to hear comments made by General Ham at the Aspen Security Forum last week where he spoke freely about the U.S. response to the attack.

Does it bother any of my colleagues that General Ham can publicly speak about the military's response at a forum in Aspen, Colorado, where the tickets were $1,200? The American people should not have to pay $1,200, and yet, his testimony before Congress was behind closed doors.

According to a CNN report, General Ham told the Aspen audience that by the time an American drone arrived above the U.S. consulate ``the attack on the mission was winding down.'' By that time Ham knew Ambassador Stevens was missing and believed he could have been possibly kidnapped.

General Ham was then quoted as saying:

In my mind, at that point we were no longer in a response

to an attack. We were in a recovery. And, frankly, I thought

we were in a potential hostage rescue situation.

The article continued:

Ham said although he had authority to scramble a jet to the

scene, he decided there was ``not necessity and there was not

a clear purpose in doing so.''

``To do what?'' Ham asked. ``It was a very, very uncertain

situation.''

It was a very uncertain situation, indeed.

Uncertain as to whether the terrorists held our ambassador as hostage? Uncertain as to whether the terrorists would target the annex, as they did? Uncertain as to whether this situation would last hours, days, weeks, or months? Or years?

Which raises the question: If his command required no additional authority to respond to what he then believed to be a hostage rescue situation, why did it take another 7 hours before AFRICOM ordered a C- 17 aircraft in Germany to deploy to Libya to evacuate Americans? And why did that plane not leave Germany for another 8 hours after that?

If the situation appeared to be deteriorating throughout the night at the annex, why wasn't there any additional effort to accelerate air support or even planes to evacuate American personnel directly from Benghazi?

And given the betrayal of our supposed allied Libyan militia forces when calls to defend the consulate went unheeded, why would the Pentagon not move even faster to ensure there was a reliable evacuation and hostage response force to assist the Americans in Benghazi?

And given that no American plane arrived in Benghazi to support the evacuation, just what planes were used to evacuate the Americans on the morning of September 12?

The State Department's Accountability Review Board said two planes were used to transport Americans from Benghazi to Tripoli. We know that one was a Libyan Air Force C-130 that brought back the bodies of Ambassador Stevens, Sean Smith, Ty Woods, and Glen Doherty. But the first to depart was a private chartered jet that took off at 7:40 a.m. with evacuees, including all wounded personnel, according to an unclassified version of the report. But just who owned that jet? Was it the same jet that brought in the seven-person response team from Tripoli earlier that night? Was it really chartered or was it commandeered? How many wounded were evacuated on that jet? Of the wounded, how many were State Department employees, CIA employees, or security contractors?

The ARB said when the first plane arrived in Tripoli, wounded personnel were transferred to a local hospital, in exemplary coordination that helped save the lives of two severely injured Americans.

Despite my letter I sent to Secretary Kerry, I have never received a full accounting of how many Americans were injured in the attack. Are any of the wounded still receiving care in military hospitals or other medical facilities? Will we ever officially learn their names and the heroic actions that night that resulted in their serious injuries?

I think we can all agree that it would be constructive for those that were in the chain of command that night to publicly testify and answer these questions.

The American people are losing confidence in their government. How will history judge the actions or inaction of the Obama administration and the response of the Congress to the Benghazi attack?

Mr. Speaker, today I ask my fifth question about the terrorist attack in Benghazi that remains unanswered: Why was the CIA security team repeatedly ordered to stand down for more than 30 minutes after the attack began? Where did the order to stop the team from responding originate? Was it directed by the CIA or someone else in Washington? If the team had been allowed to respond immediately, could the lives of Ambassador Stevens and Sean Smith been saved?

Last year, news reports indicated that the CIA security team in Benghazi was repeatedly ordered to stand down or not respond to the attack at the consulate by agency chain of command. Trusted sources have confirmed this report, saying that the security team was ready to respond within minutes after receiving the initial call for help, but the CIA repeatedly blocked their departure for more than 30 minutes. The team ultimately disobeyed, but by then it was too late to save Stevens and Smith.

Will we ever, ever find the truth? We need a select committee.

Mr. Speaker, today I ask my fourth question in a series of unresolved issues surrounding the Benghazi terrorist attacks. With only eight more legislative days before the Congress departs for August recess, I'm increasingly concerned that these questions will remain unanswered by the time we mark the 1-year anniversary of the Benghazi attacks the week we return from recess in September.

That is why I continue to raise these questions to provide the American people with a better understanding of how little we really know about this incident, despite nearly a year of investigations in multiple committees. Unless these questions are answered by the committees, or rather by a select committee focused on Benghazi as I have advocated for more than 8 months, the American people will never learn the complete truth.

Today I am pleased to share one piece of good news before I raise the fourth critical unanswered question. At my request today, the House State and Foreign Operations Appropriations Subcommittee reported out a bill that prohibits funding from the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) from going to the country of Tunisia.

Last year, Tunisia detained the first suspect in the Benghazi terror attacks, Ali Harzi, after he was deported from Turkey in the weeks following the attack.

Tunisia, despite being a beneficiary of more than $300 million in U.S. foreign aid by the American people, refused to allow the FBI access to this suspect for nearly 5 weeks. It was only after congressional threats to cut off the aid that the Government of Tunisia reconsidered its position.

Ultimately, the FBI interrogation team returned to Tunisia and was allowed just 3 hours to interview Harzi,

with his lawyer and a Tunisian judge present. Not long after the FBI interview, Harzi was inexplicably released by the Tunisian authorities, and his release was celebrated by the terrorist group Ansar al Sharia.

Consider that for a moment the Tunisian Government kept the FBI interrogation team waiting on the ground for 5 weeks before they ultimately left the country. Only under the threat from certain Members of the U.S. Congress did Tunisia relent and allow the FBI team to return to interview this suspect for a mere 3 hours. Then, when the terrorist is released, there is a celebration. That's shameful. We lost four Americans in the attack on Benghazi and a number were wounded and two were wounded very seriously.

Because of Tunisian's obstruction of the FBI's investigation, the House has taken the first step today to send a signal to Tunisia and other countries harboring the terrorists responsible for the death of four Americans in Benghazi. This is an important and overdue step-- overdue because the Obama administration could have long ago suspended or terminated its payments to Tunisia or other countries that failed to cooperate with the FBI in this investigation.

This brings me to today's question, the fourth in a series of critical unanswered question: Why has the Obama administration not taken any steps to apply pressure to countries that have refused to allow the FBI access to terrorists responsible for the Benghazi attack?

After nearly a year of investigation, has the FBI had access to any other suspects in any other country other than their brief interview with Harzi?

Even more importantly, nearly a year after the Benghazi attacks, why has no Benghazi terrorist faced any form of justice for the killing of four Americans, including a sitting U.S. Ambassador?

Reports indicate that upwards of 100 terrorists may have attacked the consulate and annex. We can't even bring one of those 100 to justice after a year? How is it that after nearly a year of investigation, and despite the full resources of the U.S. intelligence, defense, and law enforcement agencies, we are still unable to locate, apprehend, and bring to justice any of the suspected terrorists?

One can't help but ask whether the administration really wants a full and transparent accounting of what transpired on that fateful night. The administration's record certainly does not reflect it.

The American people may wonder if the government really wants progress made in this investigation for fear that it will no longer be able to hide behind the FBI investigation as its excuse not to comment on what happened in Benghazi.

Consider that in May, the Associated Press reported, and I quote from the Associated Press:

The U.S. has identified five men who might be responsible

for the attack on the diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya,

last year, and has enough evidence to justify seizing them by

military force as suspected terrorists, officials say. But

there isn't enough proof to try them in a U.S. civilian court

as the Obama administration prefers. The men remain at large

while the FBI gathers evidence.

If this report is accurate, it recommends a stunning abdication of responsibility on the part of this administration to allow known Benghazi terrorists to continue to walk free because the President refuses to use military force to capture or eliminate them.

When will the FBI be able to gather enough evidence to use in a civilian trial against them if they're denied access by countries because the administration refuses to use the tools of American diplomacy to bring pressure to bear on those countries?

Additionally, there's a larger question of whether it is even appropriate, if enough evidence is gathered, to bring the terrorists to the U.S. for a civilian trial. Benghazi was a battlefield, not a crime scene. Those responsible should face justice as enemy combatants, not as common criminals.

As we mark the 1-year anniversary of the Benghazi attacks, how can any of us really say to the families of the victims, or the wounded survivors--and we should know who the survivors are, because they are heroes--that the U.S. has done everything they can to locate, capture, and hold accountable those responsible?

I want to credit Representative Kay Granger, the chair of the Appropriations Subcommittee that blocked additional funding for Tunisia. I hope this Congress will similarly hold accountable the other countries that obstruct the FBI's efforts to arrest or interview other suspects. It is increasingly clear the Obama administration will not.

How many years will it take until any, if not all, of the Benghazi terrorists face justice for killing four Americans and seriously wounding several others?

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

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

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 1 o'clock and 18 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until Monday, July 22, 2013, at noon for morning-hour debate.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to ask another question that has not yet been answered by the House. This question will be the third in a series of critical issues that have not yet been resolved. I will continue to raise additional questions for the next 9 legislative days until we depart for August recess, keeping in mind that the 1-year anniversary of the Benghazi attacks will be upon us when the Congress returns in September.

It is also noteworthy that there does not appear to be a single hearing on Benghazi scheduled in any committee between now and the 1- year anniversary. That is why, in the absence of public hearings to address these questions, I am raising them on the House floor this month.

On Tuesday, I raised the question on why none of the Benghazi survivors--whether the State Department, CIA, or private security contractor employee--have testified publicly before Congress.

Yesterday, I asked about whether there had been any intelligence failures in the vetting of the Libyan militias who abandoned the Americans at the consulate as the assault began. I also asked who provided the terrorists with a detailed understanding of the consulate property.

Today, I return again to the Benghazi survivors and other career employees and contractors working for the CIA, Defense Department, and the

State Department who were involved in the response, or the lack thereof, to the Benghazi attacks.

According to trusted sources that have contacted my office, many, if not all, of the survivors of the Benghazi attacks, along with others at the Department of Defense and CIA, have been asked or directed to sign additional nondisclosure agreements about their involvement in the Benghazi attacks. Some of these new NDAs, as they call them, I have been told, were signed as recently as this summer.

It is worth noting that the Marine Corps Times yesterday reported that the marine colonel whose task force was responsible for special operations in northern and western Africa at the time of the attack is still on Active Duty despite claims that he retired and, therefore, could not be forced to testify before Congress.

If these reports are accurate, this would be a stunning revelation to any Member of Congress--any Member of Congress that finds this out--and also, more importantly, to the American people. It also raises serious concerns about the propriety of the administration's efforts to silence those with knowledge of the Benghazi attack and response.

So today I ask: How many Federal employees, military personnel, or contractors have been asked to sign additional nondisclosure agreements by each agency? Do these nondisclosure agreements apply only to those under cover, or have noncovert State Department and Defense Department employees been directed to sign them, too?

Later today, I will be writing the CIA, Defense Department, and State Department to ask for a list of all of their personnel or contractors who have been required to sign original or additional NDAs relating to Benghazi. Perhaps, through a list of all the employees that have signed the NDAs relating to Benghazi, we may finally develop a witness list to subpoena for eyewitness testimony to learn what happened that night where we lost four American lives.

I do not expect the Obama administration to be forthcoming with answers, but if this Congress--if this Congress--does not ask for the information and compel delivery, the American people will never learn the truth. Any Federal employee or contractor who has been coerced into silence through a nondisclosure agreement should expect Congress to speak out on their behalf and compel their voice to be heard.

That is why I, along with 159 of my colleagues, support a select committee to hold public hearings to learn the truth about what happened that night in Benghazi. I say to any colleague who is not on our resolution, if you are not on our resolution, please get on so we can find the truth for the American people.

Mr. Speaker, today the House Republican Conference and House Foreign Affairs Committee welcomed roughly 400 Korean American community leaders from across the country to Capitol Hill for the first-ever Korean American Meetup. Participants had the opportunity to meet with key congressional leaders to discuss legislative and policy priorities for the community.

Given my own interactions over the years with the vibrant Korean American community in my district, I think it is safe to say that the abysmal human rights situation in North Korea will feature prominently among these policy priorities.

Sadly, given the amount of time and focus that the Obama Administration has dedicated to shining a bright light on this dark corner of the globe you would never know that up to 200,000 people languish in a sophisticated and horrific prison camp system in North Korea reminiscent of the most brutal regimes throughout history.

On May 21 Christianity Today featured an interview with former Washington Post reporter Blaine Harden, author of ``Escape from Camp 14.'' Harden's book features the story of Shin Dong-hyuk, the only known prisoner who was actually born in one of regime's notorious camps and escaped alive.

Mr. Shin's personal story is remarkable. He grew up knowing nothing of life outside the camp. He turned in his mother and brother--which led to their eventual execution--based on the promise of a meal of rice. In fact it was the pursuit of food that led him to attempt a harrowing escape.

Harden spoke of the camps as analogous to ``Stalin's Gulag.'' He continued, ``The camps were set up under Kim Il-sung, an acolyte of Stalin, as a mirror of the Soviet Gulag. What is different in the North Korean case is that they seem to be crueler and have lasted twice as long.''

Indeed, the longevity of these camps is striking as is the fact that some South Korean POWs are still trapped in North Korea 60 years after the armistice. The Washington Post ran a story last weekend, which I submit for the Record, on this rarely discussed human rights tragedy.

We have known for some time about the true nature of the cruel and inhuman system of labor camps maintained by the regime. In fact satellite images confirmed their existence more than a decade ago. And yet somehow, almost inexplicably, these horrific camps have failed to inspire collective outrage on the part of the West, and have been sidelined to the point of irrelevance in successive U.S. administrations' dealings with North Korea, including the Obama Administration.

The U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea published a report 10 years ago called The Hidden Gulag: Exposing North Korea's Prison Camps. It contained a full description of the camps, the worst of which are called kwan-li-so, which is translated as ``political penal-labor colonies,'' and where, according to the Committee's report, scores of thousands of political prisoners--along with up to three generations of their family members--are banished without any judicial process and imprisoned, typically for lifetime sentences of slave labor.

The report also contained prisoners' testimonies and satellite photographs of the camps, whose very existence continues to be denied by the North Korean government, which is why the committee described the gulags as ``hidden.''

Defector testimony, like that of Mr. Shin, satellite images and in- depth reporting have left no doubt about the camps' existence and

the horrors of life there. What remains to be seen is how the U.S. will respond.

What has this administration done about this abomination?

What has this administration done about a regime that sustains and perpetuates this evil?

In March, after sustained pressure from human rights organizations, the United Nations Human Rights Council agreed to set up a commission of inquiry to examine systematic ``crimes against humanity'' in North Korea. The commission is slated to begin its work this month and could represent a sliver of hope for the long suffering people of North Korea.

However, it is striking that just one month after the decision to pursue a commission of inquiry, President Obama met with UN General Secretary Ban Ki-moon, and despite the fact that North Korea featured prominently on the agenda, their lengthy public remarks after meeting did not include a single mention of the human rights atrocities in North Korea instead focusing exclusively on the nuclear issue and diffusing tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

Because North Korea possesses nuclear weapons and regularly threatens to use them as well as share nuclear weapons technology with other rogue states like Iran, the international community, the U.S. included, has tended to ignore or seriously downplay the horrendous human rights abuses in North Korea in the interest of trying to negotiate an end to its nuclear program.

But next to nothing has been achieved by these negotiations over the years. In fact, recent months have been marked by a series of provocations by the North Korean government. Meanwhile, America--the world's leading democracy which has historically championed fundamental freedoms--has been shamefully silent about grave human rights abuses and atrocities.

On a host of levels this approach is deeply flawed and I do not believe it will yield the desired results on either the nuclear front or the human rights front. The possession of nuclear weapons is simply too important to the North Korean regime, if only to deflect attention from its cruel and oppressive system of camps and the famine that it has brought upon its people at an estimated cost of anywhere from one to three million lives. Any future talks with the North Koreans, be it the six-party process, which stalled in 2008, or some other forum, must include human rights on the agenda. For years, nuclear talks alone have produced next to nothing.

A new North Korea framework is long overdue. Ignoring or downplaying the human rights situation for one more day is unconscionable.

Ronald Reagan negotiated with the Soviet Union to reduce nuclear weapons throughout the 1980s, but that did not stop him from speaking about human rights, calling upon the Soviets to tear down the Berlin Wall, and predicting that communism would end up on the ash heap of history. His outspoken support for human rights had an effect, accelerating the demise of communism and, in the process, making it easier to resolve nuclear and security issues, since the main cause of Soviet aggressiveness was the communist system it was intended to defend and extend. Further it reminded those living behind the Iron Curtain that America was a friend, not an enemy, despite Soviet propaganda to the contrary.

We should be doing the same thing with North Korea today.

My friend Carl Gershman, president of the National Endowment for Democracy, has pointed out that the North Korean totalitarian system is undergoing an inexorable process of erosion, marked by a sharply reduced ability to impose a complete information blockade on its population.

He notes that what makes the North Korean system especially vulnerable is the existence just across the southern border of a free, successful and affluent South Korean society. For decades now the regime in Pyongyang has told its population that the people of South Korea live in hell while they live in a communist paradise. He's concluded that as the population learns that the truth is exactly the opposite, they will become increasingly restive, resentful, and rebellious.

With these fissures in the information blockade comes an opportunity.

In the words of the tireless North Korean human rights activist and champion Suzanne Scholte, ``There is so much that we can do to help the North Korean people. First, because they can hear us: our government must make our human rights concerns the most important policy regarding North Korea, so that North Koreans know the truth; that we are not the yankee imperialist wolves trying to destroy them, but the United States and other countries have spent billions of dollars trying to feed them and save them from starvation.''

Additionally, the Obama Administration ought to be pursuing a policy which places a high priority on working with other countries in the region to champion the rights of North Korean refugees. China is among the biggest obstacles. Its current policy of repatriating North Korean refugees violates China's international treaty obligations. A grim fate awaits those who are returned to North Korea.

According to Human Rights Watch, ``Beijing categorically labels North Koreans in China `illegal' economic migrants and routinely repatriates them, despite its obligation to offer protection to refugees under customary international law and the Refugee Convention of 1951 and its 1967 protocol, to which China is a state party. Former North Korean security officials who have defected told Human Rights Watch that North Koreans handed back by China face interrogation, torture, and referral to political prisoner or forced labor camps. In a high profile case, China forced back at least 30 North Koreans in February and March 2012, defying a formal request from South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak to desist from doing so, and despite protests in front of the Chinese Embassy in Seoul.''

When was the last time this issue was raised with the Chinese government?

Did it even garner a cursory mention during the recent U.S.-China Economic and Strategic Dialogue?

Is there any sense that China will have to pay a price for disregarding its international obligations?

The human rights travesty in North Korea is perhaps most acute when we consider the vulnerable children of that nation. There are those living under the regime and those referred to as ``stateless orphans,'' having been born out of relationships between North Korean women defectors, many of whom are trafficked once they escape to China, and Chinese men. According to a September 2012 Radio Free Asia story, ``Aid workers estimate that there are some 2,000 `defector orphans' in China . . .''

Last September, the House passed the North Korean Child Welfare Act of 2012, which I cosponsored. It was signed into law by the president in January. The legislation directs the State Department to ``advocate for the best interests'' of North Korean children and to when possible, facilitate immediate protection for those living outside North Korea through family reunification or, ``if appropriate and eligible in individual cases, domestic or international adoption.''

This legislation enjoyed broad bipartisan support in the Congress. What steps has the State Department taken to fulfill its obligation in this regard?

Ultimately, this administration needs to look forward. It needs vision, creativity and boldness.

The North Korean regime will not be there forever to oppress its people.

Writing in the Wall Street Journal on the eve of South Korean President Park Geun-hye's first summit with US President Barack Obama, Nicholas Eberstadt suggested that, ``A robust international human- rights campaign in support of the world's most hideously abused subject population would restrict the regime's international freedom of maneuver, just as the anti-apartheid campaign did against South Africa in the 1980s. A serious public-communications effort--propaganda, if you like--aimed at encouraging any glimmers of decline in the cohesion of Pyongyang's elite could also constrain the leadership.''

Such imagination has been utterly lacking in the Obama administration.

Fortunately, we take some solace in knowing that just like the regimes in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union that preceded it, this evil empire, too, will fall.

In the meantime we must champion the rights of the people who wither under its oppression.

I'll close with the words of columnist and author, Anne Applebaum in the hope that they inspire the administration's approach to North Korea moving forward. She writes in the introduction of The Hidden Gulag, ``This is not to say that words can make a dictatorship collapse overnight. But words can certainly make a dictatorship collapse over time, as experience during the last two decades has shown. Totalitarian regimes are built on lies and can be damaged, even destroyed, when those lies are exposed.''

[From the Washington Post, July 13, 2013]

Some South Korean POWs Still Trapped in the North, 60 Years After

Armistice

(By Chico Har1an)

Seoul.--Sixty years ago this month, a 21-year-old South

Korean soldier named Lee Jae-won wrote a letter to his

mother. He was somewhere in the middle of the peninsula, he

wrote, and bullets were coming down like ``raindrops.'' He

said he was scared.

The next letter to arrive came days later from the South

Korean military. It described a firefight in Paju, near the

modern-day border between the North and South, and said Lee

had been killed there in battle. His body had not been

recovered.

``We never doubted his death,'' said Lee's younger brother,

Lee Jae-seong. ``It was the chaos of war, and you couldn't

expect to recover a body.''

But Lee was not dead. Rather, he had been captured by

Chinese Communists and handed to the North Koreans, who

detained him as a lifetime prisoner, part of a secretive

program that continues 60 years after the end of the

Korean War, according to South Korean officials and escapees

from the North.

Tens of thousands of South Korean POWs were held captive in

the North under the program, penned in remote areas and kept

incommunicado in one of the most scarring legacies of the

three-year war. South Korean officials say that about 500 of

those POWs--now in their 80s and 90s--might still be alive,

still waiting to return home. In part because they're so old,

South Korea says it's a government priority, though a

difficult one, to get them out.

Almost nothing was known about the lives of these prisoners

until 20 years ago, when a few elderly soldiers escaped,

sneaking from the northern tip of North Korea into China and

making their way back to South Korea. A few dozen more

followed, and they described years of forced labor in coal

mines. They said they were encouraged to marry North Korean

wives, a means of assimilation. But under the North's family-

run police state, they were designated as members of the

``hostile'' social class--denied education and Workers' Party

membership, and sent to gulags for even minor slip-ups, such

as talking favorably about the quality of South Korean rice.

When the war ended with a July 27, 1953, armistice

agreement that divided the peninsula along the 38th parallel,

about 80,000 South Korean soldiers were unaccounted for. A

few, like Lee Jae-won, were presumed dead. Most were thought

to be POWs. The two Koreas, as part of the armistice, agreed

to swap those prisoners, but the North returned only 8,300.

The others became part of an intractable Cold War standoff,

and the few POWs who have escaped say both Koreas are to

blame. The South pressed the North about the POWs for several

years after the war, but the issue faded from public

consciousness--until the first successful escape of a POW, in

1994. The North, meanwhile, has said that anybody living in

the country is there voluntarily.

South Korea took up the POW issue with greater force six

years ago, as it became clear that a lengthy charm

offensive--known as the Sunshine Policy--wasn't leading the

North to change its economic or humanitarian policies. During

a 2000 summit with Kim Jong Il, South Korean President Kim

Dae-jung didn't even bring up the issue. But by 2007, the

South was talking about the POWs in defense talks. And by

2008, under conservative President Lee Myung-bak, South Korea

offered aid to win the prisoners' release.

But with relations between the two governments badly

frayed, the countries haven't discussed the issue since

military-to-military talks in February 2011.

``Time is chasing us,'' said Lee Sang-chul, a one-star

general at the South Korean Ministry of National Defense who

is in charge of the POW issue.

But without North Korea's cooperation, Lee said, the South

has little recourse to retrieve its soldiers. Lee said that,

realistically, the POWs have only one way to return home:

They have to escape.

hopes that withered

So far, about 80 have.

They gather for annual dinners in the South, and some meet

for regular card games. They've been given overdue medals and

overdue apologies. They've testified about the POWs they know

who are still in the North. They've shaken hands with the

president. They've received major compensation payments--

about $10,000 per month, over five years.

The returnees have encountered all varieties of surprise,

both bitter and grand, as a half-dozen of them described in

recent interviews. One escapee, Lee Won-sam, was married just

before the war and reunited with his wife 55 years later. But

many left families in the North only to find alienation in

the South. The POWs, like others in the North, were told for

decades that the South was impoverished and decrepit--and

their arrival in the South revealed the extent of that

deception while also dropping them into incomprehensible

prosperity. A handful lost money in frauds, South Korean

officials say.

``I thought South Korea had lots of beggars under the

bridge and everybody lived in shacks,'' said Lee Gyu-il, 80,

who escaped in 2008.

Many escapees say that after the war, they were initially

hopeful that the South would secure their return. That hope

withered in 1956, when the North assembled the prisoners and

told them about Cabinet Order 143, which turned them into

North Korean citizens--albeit those of the lowest rank. They

were told to be thankful that they had been welcomed into a

virtuous society.

``Sadly, there was no real change in our daily lives,'' Yoo

Young-bok, who escaped in 2000, wrote in his memoir, which

has been translated into English. ``We went right on

toiling'' in the mines.

`He lived a false life'

Those who have escaped acknowledge their luck. It wasn't

easy for them to flee. Some had to travel for days through

the North and then dart across a river forming the border

with China--at an age when some had trouble running. Brokers

helped guide them but also charged them more than the going

rate for defectors, knowing that the escapees would receive

large payments after settling in the South.

They know a few who are still stranded in the North. Most

of the former prisoners have died from mining accidents,

disease, execution, famine and old age.

In Lee Jae-won's case, it was liver cancer. It was 1994,

and he was 63. After being captured by the Chinese and handed

to the North, he had worked for four decades in a mine at the

northernmost point of the peninsula, near the Russian border.

He'd married a woman with one eye--a fellow member of the

hostile class--and had four children, all of whom were

ridiculed by teachers and classmates for their family

background.

But only as Lee's health deteriorated in his final months

did he tell his children, for the first time, the details of

his earlier life. He gave one son, Lee Ju-won, the names of

family members in the South, as well as an address: the home

in which he was raised.

``So after I buried him, I decided to go there,'' Lee Ju-

won said.

It took him 15 years to defect. Two days after Lee Ju-won

was given his South Korean citizenship, he traveled to his

family's home town, Boeun. His relatives still owned the

original property, though the home had been demolished and

rebuilt.

During that visit, Lee Ju-won learned that his family had

celebrated his father's birthday every year and always set

aside a rice ball for him at the New Year's feast. He also

discovered his father's letter from Paju, written weeks

before the armistice, which a relative had saved.

Lee Ju-won learned that his father, before the war, had

been rebellious and talkative--characteristics he stifled in

the North, though he passed them on to his son.

``It turns out my dad was a lot like me, though he didn't

show it,'' Lee Ju-won said. ``He was admired in North Korea,

because he worked hard and didn't do anything wrong. But he

lived a false life. He knew one slip of the tongue could harm

our whole family. So he never talked about South Korea.''

Yoonjung Seo contributed to this report.

Mr. Speaker, yesterday I came to the floor to announce that in the remaining legislative days before the August recess, I will be speaking out daily to remind the American people about the key questions that remain to be answered. I will also be sending a series of letters to a number of agencies responsible for the failures leading up to, during and in the aftermath of the Benghazi attacks.

Yesterday, I raised the question of why no survivors, whether State Department, CIA or private security contractor employees--have been asked to testify publicly before Congress. Today, I am raising questions about whether there were intelligence failures in the vetting of the Libyan militias hired to provide security for the consulate, which agency official was responsible for vetting these militias and which insider source provided the terrorists with details about the U.S. compound in advance of the attack.

These are serious questions that deserve clear answers. After nearly a year of committee investigations, I believe the House should be able to provide this information to the American people. Additionally, to the best of my knowledge, no official has been held accountable for any intelligence failures with regard to vetting the loyalty of the Libyan militias.

I raise these questions today in the context of the piece recently published by Vanity Fair, which is an excerpt from one of the books being written by the Benghazi survivors who have yet to appear before Congress. The book, Under Fire: The Untold Story of the Attack in Benghazi, provides a blow-by-blow account as seen from the eyes of the Diplomatic Security Service agents on the ground that night. The take away: this was a well-planned attack by terrorists who knew what they were doing and who clearly had help from the local militias contracted to provide ``security.''

How else, as the piece points out, would the attackers seem ``to know there were new, uninstalled generators behind the February 17 Martyrs Brigade command post, nestled between the building and the overhand of foliage from the western wall, as well as a dozen jerry cans full of gasoline to power them.'' This gas was used to set the fires in the compound.

There are additional concerns about the security guards outside the consulate who left in a car moments before the assault on the consulate began. According to the Vanity Fair piece:

The feeling of security was enhanced at 2102 hours when an

SSC (Supreme Security Council--a coalition of individual and

divergently minded Libyan militias) patrol vehicle arrived.

The tan Toyota Hilux pickup, with an extended cargo hold,

decorated in the colors and emblem of the SSC, pulled off to

the side of the road in front of Charlie-1. The driver shut

off the engine. He wasn't alone--the darkened silhouette of

another man was seen to his right. The pickup sported twin

Soviet-produced 23-mm. anti-aircraft guns--the twin-barreled

cannons were lethal against Mach 2.0 fighter aircraft and

devastating beyond belief against buildings, vehicles, and

humans. The two men inside didn't come out to engage in the

usual small talk or to bum some cigarettes from the guards or

even to rob them. The Libyan guards, after all, were not

armed.

``Suddenly the SSC militiaman behind the steering wheel

fired up his engine and headed west, the vehicle crunching

the gravel with the weight of its tires.

``Later, following the attack, according to the

(unclassified) Accountability Review Board report, an SSC

official said that ``he ordered the removal of the car 'to

prevent civilian casualties.' This hints that the SSC knew an

attack was imminent; that it did not warn the security assets

in the Special Mission Compound implies that it and elements

of the new Libyan government were complicit in the events

that transpired.''

Why, indeed, did the SSC guards not notify the consulate that an attack was imminent? And why were they allowed to leave as the terrorists gathered outside the compound? Again, these questions are essential to learning exactly who was responsible for the attack on the consulate.

According to an article by Eli Lake published in The Daily Beast earlier this year, the CIA was ``responsible in part for one major failure the night of the Benghazi attack: his officers were responsible for vetting the February 17 Martyr's Brigade, the militia that was supposed to be the first responder on the night of the attack, but melted away when the diplomatic mission was attacked.''

The article continued, ``Another U.S. intelligence official . . . said the failure for the CIA at Benghazi was the mistaken assumption that the Zintan tribe in Benghazi--that provided many of the fighters for the February 17 Martyr's Brigade--would have the same loyalties as the Zintan tribe in Tripoli, which had protected several senior U.S. officials including Hillary Clinton in her visit last year to Libya. `The CIA failed at mapping the human terrain,'' this official said. ``They did not understand the politics in Benghazi and we paid the price.''

These are important issues for the Congress to address and we have an obligation to ensure that reforms are made to prevent similar failures in the future. However, to the best of my knowledge, neither the State Department nor the CIA have disclosed who was responsible for vetting the militias, whether there was an intelligence failure or what reforms may have been implemented in the way of the militia's betrayal last September.

To summarize, I ask my colleagues if the Congress can answer these questions and, if not, why?

Was there an intelligence failure in vetting the true loyalty of the Libyan security guards for the U.S. consulate? Which agency was responsible for vetting the militias?

Who provided the terrorists with details of the consulate property? Was it the security guards or someone in the Libyan government who was notified about the ambassador's visit?

Why did the guards in the car outside the consulate not warn the U.S. staff of the gathering terrorists as they drove away a minute before the assault began? Were they complicit in the plot?

When the Congress departs for the August recess in two and a half weeks, will the American people know why, after a year of investigations, who provided the terrorists with insider information about the consulate property and the ambassador's location?

Again, this is why I believe a House Select Committee is the best way forward to ensure that these and other unanswered questions are resolved. To date, 160 House Republicans--nearly three quarters of the entire Republican Conference--have cosponsored H. Res. 36 to create a Select Committee on Benghazi to ensure the American people learn the truth.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize and honor Elizabeth McClung, the executive director of Belle Grove Plantation in Middletown, Virginia, who will retire at the end of this month.

Elizabeth has led Belle Grove for 17 years and I have had the privilege of working with her many times over the years. We both worked to establish Cedar Creek and Belle Grove National Park, which would not have been successful without her hard work and dedication. She has also made extraordinary improvements to the manor through her passion for restoration and historic preservation.

I want to commend Elizabeth on an outstanding job. I wish her all the best in her retirement in Highland County.

I submit a recent news article from the Winchester Star on Elizabeth's remarkable career.

[From the Winchester Star, July 9, 2013]

Exiting Belle Grove Director Receives Praise

(By Laura McFarland)

Middletown.--Belle Grove Plantation Executive Director

Elizabeth McClung is going out on a high note. With the house

in good shape, visitation up, and a ``great board in place,''

she said she is leaving Belle Grove in good hands.

She will retire July 31 after almost 17 years with the

historic house in Middletown.

Although there are plenty of new milestones ahead for the

historic manor, McClung said she doesn't have any regrets in

leaving them to her successor. She is proud of what she

accomplished at Belle Grove during her time and will remain

an ``enthusiastic supporter and continue cheering from the

grandstands.''

``I wanted to leave on an upswing, and I also didn't want

to stay long enough to become an antique,'' she said with a

laugh. McClung gave her notice to Belle Grove's board of

directors in March and a search committee was formed to fill

the position, said John Adamson, chairman of the board.

An announcement about her replacement could be made as early

as this week.

During McClung's time at Belle Grove, she demonstrated that

running the house was as much about helping it become part of

the community as ``preserving limestone walls and beautiful

grounds,'' Adamson said. He praised her for doing the latter

as well.

Tripled holdings

Under McClung, Belle Grove has tripled its property

holdings with the acquisition of 183 adjacent acres and of

Bowman's Fort near Strasburg, Adamson said.

Both of these historic sites are within the boundaries of

the Cedar Creek and Belle Grove National Historical Park, he

said.

McClung championed the need for the park, was part of the

team that wrote the original legislation to establish it, and

helped create a general management plan to act as a road map

for its future.

Adamson says the ``active partnerships'' McClung built with

a number of organizations in the community are a big part of

what made the park possible.

``I think Elizabeth has been the glue that pulled all of

these together and made Belle Grove something personal to

each of these organizations,'' said Adamson, of Strasburg.

Manor house improvements

That energy was also focused on Belle Grove, whether it was

creating or putting together an event or working to improve

the house itself, said Nancy Lee Corner, lead volunteer.

McClung approached the projects with a passion and

organization that simply makes people ``feel at ease as soon

as they meet her.''

The 1797 Manor House's interior was restored to its

historically accurate appearance and the structure and its

outbuildings were repaired using historic preservation

practices, she said.

``All the things she has done to bring that about on the

decorative part of the house--the carpet, the painting, the

furniture--all of that has contributed greatly to the house

and interpreting it,'' said Comer, of Stephens City.

Those kind of changes take money, so McClung constantly was

looking for new fundraising ideas, ways to improve upon

existing ones, or grant writing opportunities, said Sandy

Dunkle, chair-elect of the board. She is a ``forward thinking

person'' who is cheerful and knows how to handle herself

regardless of the situation, she said.

Dunkle praised the Hite of Excellence Dinner Series--now in

its 16th year--that McClung created as a fundraiser.

``It has been one of our biggest sources of income and that

is all because Elizabeth McClung brought that to us. Still

today, it is a strong part of our financial picture,'' said

Dunkle, of Frederick County.

Making changes

McClung had a tough road ahead of her when she took over

Belle Grove in 1997, said Fred Andreae, who has been chairman

of the board twice and served on the search committee when

she was hired as well as the current one that will seek her

successor.

Before she came, Belle Grove was run in a ``more casual

way, a little less businesslike way,'' Andreae said. When

McClung was hired, she put a more professional atmosphere in

place and didn't balk when it became apparent that the manor

house's finances were not as good as originally believed, he

said.

The first three years were the most challenging for her

because they were all about bringing the house into the 21st

century ``while still keeping the important historic

structures true to their period,'' McClung said.

``There were no computers. There were no financial systems

in place. We were the mule train on the information

highway,'' she said. ``We had no Internet or hadn't dreamed

of getting email because we didn't have any computers.''

In more recent years, she faced the same problem as other

nonprofit groups in struggling to fund operating costs, she

said.

There were cuts in funding from the state and federal

levels and private foundations, who were no longer providing

unrestricted funds, she said. They began focusing instead on

fundraising for special projects.

``When you have a house that was built in 1797 and a lot of

property with cattle, fences and other structures, there is

always something falling apart that you have to manage,'' she

said.

Over the years, McClung has maintained a small, capable

staff and an active and energetic group of volunteers that

run the house's day-to-day operations and special events,

Andreae said.

``When we go through tough economic times, it is a

difficult operation to run,'' he said. ``You have to be on

your toes and be out raising money and keeping your staff and

volunteers happy. They are the people the public sees.''

Other highlights from her time at Belle Grove that McClung

looks back on proudly are restoring the historic landscape

around the house and gardens, beginning a junior docent

program to engage young people to ``maintain and preserve

important touchstones,'' and creating the Belle Grove 1797

Whiskey and Belle Grove 1797 Whiskey Chocolates.

Future plans

After working at Belle Grove for almost 17 years and in the

nonprofit sector overall for more than 40 years, McClung, who

declined to share her age, said she is eager for unstructured

time.

She earned a bachelor's degree in 1969 at the Tyler School

of Art of Temple University in Philadelphia.

Before coming to Belle Grove, she was the director of

development for four years at the Museum of American Frontier

Culture in Staunton.

McClung and her husband, Kent, will move to their home in

Highland County, which they have owned for more than 30

years. The move will allow her to spend time on her artwork,

which she hasn't had time to pursue in recent years.

``When you are the director of a nonprofit of any kind, it

is fairly strenuous. It involves a lot of weekends, evenings

and holidays,'' McClung said. ``It will be wonderful to have

time off.''

Mr. Speaker, Deuteronomy 16:20 tells us:

Justice, justice shalt thou pursue.

As we quietly mark the 10-month anniversary of the Benghazi terrorist attacks last week, I know many people wondered if there will ever be any clear resolution to this investigation, let alone justice.

There are less than 3 weeks remaining before the Congress departs for the August recess. When we return in September, we will be only 2 days away from the 1-year anniversary of the Benghazi attacks. This looming anniversary should stand as a stark reminder of the many unanswered questions that remain about what actually happened that night and how the administration chose to respond or not respond to the Americans under assault during that 8-hour period.

That is why, over the next 3 weeks, I will be coming to the floor regularly to remind the American people about the key questions that remain to be answered. I will also be sending a series of letters to the State Department, the Defense Department, and the CIA formally requesting responses to some of these questions. While I am skeptical the administration will be forthcoming with answers, I do hope that these questions will underscore, for the Congress and the American people, the woefully incomplete status of the Benghazi investigation.

I have long been concerned that the current investigative strategy would not yield the necessary answers. That is why, for the last 8 months, I have advocated creating a bipartisan select committee to thoroughly investigate the Benghazi attacks. My bill, H. Res. 36, has 160 cosponsors, as well as the support of many family members of the Benghazi victims, the Special Operations community, and the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, which represent the Diplomatic Security agents who were at the consulate in Benghazi.

Perhaps the most telling sign of the incomplete state of the Benghazi investigation is the fact that not one of the survivors of the Benghazi attack from the consulate or the annex has publicly testified before Congress. Despite nearly a full year of multiple committee investigations, not one witness has been brought before a committee to publicly testify under oath about what happened that night.

Instead of learning the details of the attack and the U.S. response in public hearings, the American people may instead read about it in one of the books that have been announced in recent weeks. It is clear that the survivors from the consulate and the annex have worked with authors on two separate books that are scheduled to be published over the next year.

The first, ``Under Fire: The Untold Story of the Attack in Benghazi,'' describes in vivid, minute-by-minute detail the assault on the U.S. consulate, according to an excerpt that was published in Vanity Fair magazine this month. This excerpt contains important new information about the level of sophistication of the attack and how the terrorists apparently had detailed inside knowledge of the American consulate. It also noted that each of the terrorists' vehicles flew the ``black flag of jihad.'' The report makes clear this attack was the result of careful planning and intelligence-gathering by the terrorists, not some spontaneous attack on a target of opportunity.

A second, $3 million book deal, scheduled for publication in 2014, was announced last month with four unnamed U.S. security contractors who were based at the annex and responded to the attacks that night. I suspect, given the critical role played by the contractors in responding to the consulate attack and later in defending the annex, that these individuals have important information that deserves to be heard by the Congress and by the American people. I also wonder, Mr. Speaker, whether any of the $3 million they're earning from the book deal will be shared with Ty Woods' widow and child or the parents of Glen Doherty, who did so much to save our Americans.

I can't help but ask why the Congress has not asked--or subpoenaed-- these individuals to testify before the House committees that have been investigating this over the past year. If

these questions are not answered, the American people will never know what took place in Benghazi.

Mr. Speaker, Friday marks three years since the International Criminal Court (ICC) released an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar Bashir on charges of genocide in Darfur including overseeing acts of torture, the rape of thousands of women, and forced displacement of hundreds of thousands.

And yet, almost inexplicably, Bashir continues to travel the globe with virtual impunity thanks in no small part to the Obama administration's morally bankrupt posture when it comes to the regime in Khartoum.

For four months now the position of Sudan Special Envoy has been vacant. This vacancy is symptomatic of a president that has all but forsaken the people of Sudan.

Last December a group of prominent Sudan activists and advocates wrote a letter to the administration, which I submit for the Record, expressing their ``grave concerns that the current U.S. policy is ineffective at stopping mass atrocities in Sudan.'' They urged President Obama, in his second term, to embrace ``an urgent shift in the U.S. policy to finally end the humanitarian crises and bring about a just and lasting peace in Sudan.''

The letter cited the president's own words from 2007 when he rightly called the genocide in Darfur a ``stain on our souls'' and said that ``as a president of the United States I don't intend to abandon people or turn a blind eye to slaughter.''

And yet, I can't help but wonder if the people of Darfur, who have been displaced from their homes and brutalized by violence for ten years now, do in fact feel abandoned by this president and this administration.

The United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator in Sudan, Ali Al-Za'tari, released a statement on July 7, prompted by the recent tragic death of two World Vision humanitarian workers caught in a shootout between government forces and rebels in Darfur, in which he commented on the ``continuing unstable security'' in the region which threatens to disrupt the flow of vital aid to an already desperate populace.

Not only is Darfur's nightmare ongoing, but Khartoum's brutality has only spread, consistent with its decades' long effort to systematically and ruthlessly consolidate power resulting in the death and displacement of untold thousands. More recently the Nuban people have been driven from their homes, targeted for killing and terrorized because of the color of their skin. Khartoum has indiscriminately bombed civilian populations--disrupting an entire way of life for this largely farming population. Starvation, death and despair have followed.

According to the UN Humanitarian Affairs office approximately half a million people have been displaced because of the conflict in Nuba. Last week a Sudanese jet reportedly attacked the routes typically taken by refugees from the Nuba region to the Yida refugee camp in South Sudan killing an unknown number of civilians.

I have visited Yida and talked with the people personally. I have heard their pleas for help and I have conveyed their message to this administration--a message which fell on largely deaf ears.

On March 19, USA Today featured a joint op-ed by actor and co-founder of the anti-genocide organization Not On Our Watch, Don Cheadle, and John Prendergast the co-founder of the Enough Project, in the op-ed wrote, ``By excluding all but a narrow clique of Sudanese from access to the power and wealth of the country, marginalized groups from the west (Darfur), south (Blue Nile and the Nuba Mountains) and east have all taken up arms against that regime. . . . Any peace effort should deal comprehensively with all the rebel movements, the unarmed opposition, and civil society, in search of a solution for the whole of Sudan. Until the abusive governing system in Sudan is radically reformed, there will be blood.''

Indeed, much blood has been shed, and yet inexplicably this administration has embraced a policy of engagement marked by conciliatory outreach to Khartoum, including the prospect of debt relief for a genocidal government.

While there has been criticism of two successive special envoys, ultimately they were merely the implementers of a policy that is inherently flawed and ultimately ineffective.

In a February 12 letter to Secretary of State Kerry I wrote, ``Our approach to Sudan and South Sudan needs reinvigorating. It demands a renewed sense of moral clarity about who we are dealing with in Khartoum--namely genocidaires. It necessitates someone who can speak candidly with our friends in South

Sudan about their own internal challenges, including corruption, and shortcomings as a new nation. While an envoy alone does not a policy make, a high-profile special envoy, from outside the department, with the knowledge and mandate to aggressively pursue peace, security and justice for the people of Sudan and South Sudan, is an important step in the right direction.''

The model of an effective special envoy that I often refer to is that of Senator John Danforth. In 2001, I was at the Rose Garden ceremony when Senator Danforth, standing between President Bush and Secretary of State Powell, was appointed as Sudan Special Envoy. President Bush's leadership in appointing Danforth and giving him this charge was instrumental in securing, after two and a half years of negotiations, the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), thereby bringing about an end to the war and ultimately paving the way for South Sudan's independence. Danforth was a high-profile envoy. He had the ear of the president and the secretary and didn't get bogged down in the department's bureaucracy. He was uniquely positioned to negotiate and his stature, prior to taking the job, communicated a clear sense of urgency and priority on the part of the U.S. He didn't require a sizeable staff, or even a full-time State Department post, but the diplomatic feat he accomplished, with President Bush's blessing and support, was nothing short of remarkable.

Meanwhile, not only has the Obama administration failed to fill the Sudan Special Envoy post, it has actively sought to block efforts in Congress, which I initiated, to isolate Bashir. Last year I offered an amendment to the State and Foreign Operations appropriations bill which would have cut non-humanitarian foreign assistance to any nation that allowed him into their country without arresting him. The amendment was adopted with bipartisan support by voice vote despite the department's opposition.

This approach of using our increasingly scarce aid dollars to effectuate change and further our foreign policy objectives is a tried and true method. When Malawi allowed Bashir to enter the country to attend a regional trade summit I pressed the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) to end Malawi's compact. The MCC was initially opposed to this course of action but ultimately, in the face of a deteriorating human rights situation internally, reversed course and suspended Malawi's compact, citing Bashir's visit as one of the reasons.

Fortunately Malawi's new president, Joyce Banda, hoping to reinvigorate her country's relationship with donor countries, last year took a firm stand in refusing to allow Bashir to visit her country for the African Union (AU) summit. President Banda went so far as to decline to host the summit lest her country and her government be placed in the position of being forced to host a war criminal. Given her principled stand I made clear to the MCC Board that I supported Malawi's compact being reinstated which it ultimately was.

However, other countries, including large recipients of U.S. foreign assistance, have not followed suit and the administration has failed to embrace this approach to spur such action. As recently as yesterday, reports surfaced that Bashir would soon travel to Nigeria--yet another country which has signed up to the Rome Statute--the founding treaty of the ICC.

The amendment I proposed would effectively isolate Bashir and make him an international pariah as is befitting a man with blood on his hands. It is noteworthy that the amendment garnered the support of 70 prominent Holocaust and genocide scholars. Dr. Rafael Medoff, director of the Wyman Institute, which initiated a letter of support to the administration from these scholars, said: ``Halting aid to those who host Bashir would be the first concrete step the U.S. has taken to isolate the Butcher of Darfur and pave the way for his arrest. If the Obama administration is serious about punishing perpetrators of genocide, it should support the Wolf Amendment.''

Sadly that support never materialized.

When it wasn't busy opposing Congressional efforts to isolate Bashir the administration was cozying up to elements of the regime in Khartoum and granting them an air of legitimacy. On April 23 the Associated Press reported that ``The Obama administration is preparing to welcome a senior Sudanese delegation to the United States for some rare highest-level diplomacy between the countries.'' The delegation was to include Sudanese presidential adviser Nafie Ali Nafie.

Upon learning of this invitation I immediately wrote the president and expressed my strong opposition citing an October 2008 Los Angeles Times profile piece on Nafie which opened with the following, ``He's accused of torturing enemies, cozying up to Osama bin Laden in the 1990s and plotting to assassinate Egypt's president.'' The Times piece continued, describing him as, ``the leader of the hardline faction in the ruling National Congress Party,'' and the one who ``opposed allowing U.N. peacekeepers into Darfur and believed that the ruling party gave up too much power in signing a 2005 U.S.-brokered peace treaty that ended a 21-year civil war with southern rebels.''

The article quoted a former University of Khartoum science professor and critic of the Khartoum government who was arrested in 1989 as saying that Nafie was his interrogator. Specifically he said, ``I was tortured, beaten and flogged in his presence . . . He was administering the whole thing. He did it all in such a cool manner, as if he were sipping coffee.''

I am not opposed to diplomacy. But there are plenty of locations, including through our embassy in Khartoum, to engage in these talks. Why the administration would choose now to reward Khartoum, specifically the likes of Nafie Ali Nafie, with an invitation to Washington is beyond me. It is further worth noting that the invitation is utterly at odds with Obama's own 2011 Presidential Proclamation refusing entry into the United States of anyone who has ``planned, ordered, assisted, aided and abetted, committed or otherwise participated in, including through command responsibility, war crimes, crimes against humanity or other serious violations of human rights, or who attempted or conspired to do so.''

The administration's misstep in inviting Nafie was met with grave expressions of concern from many in the Sudan advocacy community. Eventually, at a Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission hearing focused on Sudan just last month the administration indicated the invitation was now off the table--although they did not rule out another change of course in the future.

Candidate Obama purported to be deeply concerned by the crisis in Sudan and committed to bold actions.

Have we seen a fraction of that concern or anything close to bold action since he became president?

Candidate Obama was sharp in his criticism of President Bush's handling of Sudan.

Have we seen President Obama take even fleeting interest, beyond the occasional talking point, in the deteriorating situation in Sudan marked in part by a growing humanitarian crisis in the Nuba Mountains?

In a piece in the August 4, 2011 Christian Science Monitor noted Sudan researcher and activist Eric Reeves, wrote, ``If the world refuses to see what is occurring in South Kordofan, and refuses to respond to evidence that the destruction of the Nuba people, as such, is a primary goal of present military and security actions by Sudan, then this moment will represent definitive failure of the `responsibility to protect.' ''

Meanwhile in an April 23, 2012 speech at the U.S. Holocaust Museum President Obama lauded his commitment in the realm of genocide and mass-atrocities prevention, saying, without a hint of irony, ``We're making sure that the United States government has the structures, the mechanisms to better prevent and respond to mass atrocities. So I created the first-ever White House position dedicated to this task. It's why I created a new Atrocities Prevention Board, to bring together senior officials from across our government to focus on this critical mission. This is not an afterthought.''

He continued, ``. . . we need to be doing everything we can to prevent and respond to these kinds of atrocities--because national sovereignty is never a license to slaughter your people.''

I couldn't agree more. And yet, I think most in the Sudan watchers would hardly be able to claim that this administration has done everything it can to prevent and respond to Khartoum's assault on its own people.

Arguably, the Obama administration's moral equivalency and silence in the face of atrocities in Sudan has only, in the words of famed Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, helped the oppressor and encouraged the tormentor.

With tensions between Sudan and South Sudan on the rise and nearing a tipping point, thousands starving in the Nuba Mountains, refugees fleeing aerial bombardment and pouring over the border into South Sudan, violence persisting in Darfur and an internationally indicted war criminal at the helm in Khartoum who travels the globe with seeming impunity, it is time for a fresh policy and a renewed commitment to peace and justice in Sudan.

To date, this president has offered nothing more than an abdication of leadership and a failure of vision, which has culminated in human suffering and misery.

Obama has failed the people of Sudan who yearn for peace, justice and basic human rights.

Mr. Speaker, as one of four bipartisan co-chairs of the Congressional Vietnam Caucus I have witnessed a deteriorating human rights situation in Vietnam in recent years which has been met with a complete lack of urgency and priority on the part of the Obama administration.

In fairness this posture is not unlike that of the previous administration which also preferred a bilateral relationship defined almost exclusively by trade--unmarred by thorny matters such as human rights and religious freedom abuses.

I was critical then, too. I submit for the Record an April 2007 letter I sent to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, citing several recent arrests and assaults carried out by the government of Vietnam against the Vietnamese people in which I urged the State Department, a request which fell on deaf ears, to consider cancelling the planned visit to the United States of the Vietnamese president and prime minister if the situation did not improve.

Sadly the situation in Vietnam has only worsened since that time. A July 8 ABC News story reported, ``Since the start of this year more than 50 people have been convicted and jailed in political trials.''

The government of Vietnam, which our own State Department describes as an ``authoritarian state ruled by a single party,'' continues to suppress political dissent and severely limit freedom of expression, association, and public assembly. Religious activists are subject to arbitrary arrest.

On May 5th, police violently broke up peaceful ``human rights picnics'' in several different cities in Vietnam where young bloggers and activists were disseminating and discussing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other human rights documents. Human Rights Watch reported that, ``The police also employed other methods to prevent the human rights picnics from occurring. In Hanoi, youth delegations were sent to intimidate picnickers at Nghia Do Park, chanting slogans such as `Long Live the Glorious Communist Party of Vietnam' and `Long Live Ho Chi Minh.' ''

On May 16, 2013, Nguyen Phuong Uyen, 21, and Dinh Nguyen Kha, 25, were sentenced to 6 years and 8 years in prison respectively simply for handing out pamphlets that were characterized by the court as ``propaganda against the state.'' Radio Free Asia reported that the pair were ``convicted under Article 88 of the penal code, a provision rights groups say the government has used to muzzle dissent, and both will serve three years of house arrest following their prison terms.''

Police also violently broke up anti-China protests in Hanoi on June 2, 2013 and arrested more than twenty people en masse.

Last year, the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, which I co-chair, convened a hearing focused on human rights abuses in Vietnam. During the hearing Members of Congress heard testimony from Mrs. Mai Huong Ngo, the wife of Dr. Nguyen Quoc Quan, a Vietnamese-American democracy activist and U.S. citizen. Upon his arrival in Vietnam on April 17, 2012 he was arbitrarily detained and imprisoned. Then Assistant Secretary for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, Michael Posner testified at the Lantos Commission hearing and revealed that no one from the State Department had been in touch with Dr. Quan's wife since his detention. Only at my urging did U.S. ambassador to Vietnam David Shear initiate contact with Mrs. Ngo to update her on her husband's situation.

This is but one of many examples of the U.S. embassy, under the leadership of Ambassador Shear, failing to serve as an island of freedom in a sea of repression. This was all the more troubling given that Dr. Quan is an American citizen. The lack of urgency in securing Dr. Quan's release was stunning.

I spoke by phone multiple times with Ambassador Shear and expressed my deep concerns about the case broadly and the State Department's failure to bring about a swift resolution. I further urged the ambassador to host a July 4th celebration at the embassy and to invite prominent religious freedom and democracy activists in the country--as was frequently done under President Reagan during the dark days of the Cold War--thereby sending a strong message that America stands with those who stand for basic human rights. Ambassador Shear indicated his willingness to do so and the State Department confirmed this intention in subsequent correspondence.

Shockingly, I learned weeks later that many of the most prominent democracy and human rights activists in Vietnam had never received an invitation. When confronted with the seeming inconsistency, Ambassador Shear claimed that he had invited a few civil society activists but that he needed to maintain a ``balance.'' When I repeatedly requested a copy of the guest list, to ascertain who specifically had been invited and if the members of Vietnamese civil society were mere token representatives the State Department repeatedly refused to provide it.

Ultimately several other Members of Congress, upon learning of Ambassador Shear's posture and handling of the situation, joined me in calling for his removal and urged that an individual ``who will embrace the struggle of the Vietnamese people and advocate on their behalf' fill his spot.

A July 2012 Wall Street Journal editorial headlined, ``State Fumbles in Hanoi,'' echoed this call. The Journal described the State Department's posture in Vietnam and throughout the region in this way: ``This is a classic State Department maneuver, practiced throughout Asia-Pacific but especially in repressive countries in which the U.S. has economic interests. Diplomats say they care about human rights, but not so much that it creates a political uproar that they'd have to work to resolve. Thus when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton went to Vietnam this week, she made a generic statement about human rights and a `Senior State Department Official' gave journalists a briefing. Vietnam's Party bosses must be shaking in their boots.''

After languishing for nine months in a Vietnamese prison, Dr. Quan once again breathed the fresh air of freedom. A local CBS affiliate in California interviewed him after his return home and he attributed his release to Congressional pressure. Pressing authoritarian regimes and repressive governments to respect basic human rights can yield positive results, but inexplicably that is almost never the instinct of the State Department or this administration.

Fast-forward to today. This week it had been expected that prominent Vietnamese dissident and lawyer Le Quoc Quan would face trial. A July 8 Wall Street Journal editorial highlighted that, ``Mr. Le was arrested after he wrote a column for the BBC's website in which he argued for a new constitution without a guarantee of a Communist Party monopoly on power . . . The supposed crime for which Mr. Le is being charged is tax evasion, an alibi Hanoi has used in the past to incarcerate dissidents. A tax-law conviction would allow Hanoi to jail this inconvenient man for up to seven years while claiming he is not a political prisoner. Hanoi may be particularly sensitive about preserving that fiction because Mr. Le also has a connection to Washington.''

That connection came in the form of a National Endowment for Democracy fellowship in 2006-07. Mr. Le was arrested just four days

after he returned to Vietnam and released only after intense U.S. pressure. He was rearrested late last year while taking one of his three children to school and has been jailed ever since.

Tuesday afternoon, Radio Free Asia reported that his trial had been abruptly postponed less than 24 hours before it was to get underway. RFA further reported that, ``According to Quan's relatives and fellow dissidents, hundreds of supporters--including Catholics--had planned to gather outside the court at the trial, which comes amid a wave of jailings in recent weeks of bloggers and activists speaking critically of Vietnam's one-party government.''

Indeed, amidst this wave of political repression, in the face of growing popular dissent is Vietnam, rather than being buoyed by strong statements of support and solidarity from Washington, and the U.S. embassy, has been met with virtual silence.

In the realm of religious freedom, the situation also remains dire. In its recently released report, the bipartisan U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) found that, ``The government of Vietnam continues to expand control over all religious activities, severely restrict independent religious practice, and repress individuals and religious groups it views as challenging its authority.''

Later in the report the Commission characterized the government's repression in the following way: ``The Vietnamese government continues to imprison individuals for religious activity or religious freedom advocacy. It uses a specialized religious police force (cong an ton giao) and vague national security laws to suppress independent Buddhist, Protestant, Hoa Hao, and Cao Dai activities, and seeks to stop the growth of ethnic minority Protestantism and Catholicism via discrimination, violence and forced renunciations of their faith.''

Despite repeated congressional calls, including in House-passed legislation, and the recommendation of USCIRF to place Vietnam on the Countries of Particular Concern (CPC) list for ongoing, egregious violations of religious freedom, this administration has failed to do so. In fact the administration has not designated any CPC countries since August 2011--nearly two years ago--despite the Congressional mandate included in the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 to annually make such designations.

This is but a snap shot of a deteriorating human rights situation in Vietnam--a situation which merits bold U.S. leadership, not mere lip- service.

I have repeatedly said that it would be fitting for a Vietnamese- American to serve as U.S. ambassador to Vietnam--someone who understands the country, the language and the oppressive nature of the government having experienced it themselves before coming to the U.S. Such an individual would not be tempted to maintain smooth bilateral relations at all costs. Such an individual would embrace, without apology, the cause of freedom.

The Vietnamese people and frankly millions of Vietnamese-Americans deserve better than what Ambassador Shear and this administration have given them. The Obama administration has failed every citizen of Vietnam and every Vietnamese-American who cares about human rights and religious freedom.

April 18, 2007.

Hon. Condoleezza Rice,

Secretary of State, U.S. Department of State,

Washington DC.

Dear Secretary Rice: I am writing to express my deep

concern regarding the worsening human rights situation in

Vietnam in recent months. After joining the World Trade

Organization in January 2007, the politburo of the Vietnamese

Communist Party (VCP) has carried out a large-scale brutal

campaign of arrest against the nascent movement for democracy

in Vietnam. Ignoring all international criticism and

strenuous protests of the Vietnamese people, inside Vietnam

and abroad, the communist regime in Hanoi has shamefully

pushed ahead with its crackdown. The following events were

particularly disconcerting to me:

On February 18, 2007, the second day of the Lunar New Year,

which is the most sacred time in Vietnamese culture, the

communist security forces raided Father Nguyen Van Ly's

office within the Communal Residence of the Hue Archdiocese.

Father Ly was later banished to a remote, secluded area in

Hue.

On March 5, 2007, security forces in Saigon told Mrs. Bui

Ngoc Yen that they had an order to arrest her husband,

Professor Nguyen Chinh Kiet, who is a leading member of the

Alliance for Democracy and Human Rights in Vietnam. Professor

Kiet was in Europe at the time campaigning for democracy and

human rights in Vietnam.

On March 8, 2007, Reverend Nguyen Cong Chinch and his wife

were brutally assaulted by security forces of Gia Lai

Province in the Central Highlands, who then arrested Reverend

Chinch on undisclosed charges.

Also on March 8, 2007, two prominent human rights activists

and lawyers, Mr. Nguyen Van Dai and Ms. Le Thi Cong Nhan,

were arrested in Hanoi and were told that they would be

detained for four months as part of an undisclosed

investigation.

On March 9, 2007, Mr. Tran Van Hoa, a member of the

People's Democracy Party in Quang Ninh Province, and Mr. Pham

Van Troi, a member of the Committee for Human Rights in Ha

Tay, were summoned by security forces and threatened with

``immeasurable consequences'' if they do not stop their

advocacy for human rights in Vietnam.

On March 10, 2007, Do Nam Hai, an engineer writing under

the pen name Phuong Nam and one of the leading members of the

Alliance for Democracy and Human Rights in Vietnam, was told

by security forces that he could be indicted at any time for

activity against the State.

Also on March 10, 2007, state security forces also raided

the home of Ms. Tran Khai Thanh Thuy, a writer, on the

grounds that she advocated for ``people with grievances''

against the government. They took away two computers, two

cell phones, and hundreds of appeals that she had prepared

for victims of the government's abuses.

On March 12, 2007, lawyer Le Quoc Quan, a consultant on

local governance for the World Bank, Asian Development Bank,

UNDP, and Swedish International Development Agency, was

arrested in his hometown, Nghe An, less than a week after he

returned from a fellowship at the National Endowment for

Democracy in Washington, D.C. His whereabouts are unknown at

this time.

On April 5, 2007, the Vietnamese authorities in Hanoi

rudely prevented Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez (D-CA) from

meeting with several dissidents' wives at a gathering

organized at the U.S. Ambassador's home. The police

reportedly used very hostile and undignified manners to

intervene in the meeting.

Furthermore, the Hanoi communist regime is still

imprisoning many political dissidents and labor advocates

such as Nguyen Vu Binh, Huynh Nguyen Dao, Truong Quoc Huy,

Nguyen Hoang Long, Nguyen Tan Hoanh, Doan Huy Chuong, the

religious leaders of the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam,

Cao Dai, Hoa Hao, and more than 350 lay people of the

Protestant churches in the Central Highland.

The Vietnamese-Americans in my district, as well as all

across the country, are very angered and distressed by what

they perceive as a new and aggressive plan of the Hanoi

government to reverse the progress of human rights in

Vietnam. They believe that Ambassador Marine and his staff

are not doing enough to stop these blatant violations of

human rights.

It seems to me that the Vietnamese government is conducting

this crackdown on advocates of human rights and religious

freedom because it believes that the U.S. has no further

leverage in the region. Now that Vietnam has been admitted to

the WTO, and met with the Holy See, they believe they can

respond in this brutal fashion to supporters of democracy and

freedom and we will not respond.

I hope that you will make clear to the Vietnamese

authorities that we will not stand by while this violence and

intimidation continues. I believe the State Department should

consider putting Vietnam back on the list of Countries of

Particular Concern, and perhaps also consider canceling the

planned visit of the Vietnamese president and prime minister

later this year if the human rights situation in Vietnam has

not improved.

I appreciate the recent comments by Sean McCormack at Voice

of America expressing deep concern about the March 30 trial

and sentencing of Father Ly. I ask that you continue pressing

these issues with the Vietnamese government, including the

need to respect the basic human rights of all Vietnamese

citizens, especially the freedom of information, freedom of

expression, and freedom of religion. The Vietnamese people

should be able to choose their own leaders through free and

fair elections and to use the Internet freely without any

censures or restrictions.

I also ask that you encourage the Vietnamese authorities to

release all political prisoners and religious leaders who are

currently imprisoned because of their peaceful expression of

their ideas or to fight for their religious beliefs. Among

these prisoners are Father Nguyen Van Ly, Pastors Nguyen Cong

Chinh and Hong Trung, lawyers Nguyen Van Dai, Le thi Cong

Nhan, Le Quoc Quan, Messiers Truong Quoc Huy, and Nguyen

Hoang Lon.

Lastly, I believe the Vietnamese-American community, a

young but energetic group comprised of more than one million

citizens, should be included in future dialogues with U.S.

government officials. They know the history, culture and

values of Vietnam. They also have scrutinized the history and

tactics of communism and the communist government's habits at

the negotiating table. I sincerely believe that the history

of Vietnam must inform our approach to this and all other

aspects of foreign policy, and the Vietnamese-American

community is a tremendous asset in this regard. I

respectfully request that you invite a small representation

of the Vietnamese-American community to join the U.S.

delegation in next month's human rights dialogue.

Best wishes.

Sincerely,

Frank R. Wolf,

Member of Congress.