Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, only a few-months ago the world honored the tenth anniversary of the Rwandan genocide and promised never to tolerate genocide again. 10 years later we are witnessing another genocide, but this time in the Sudan. Since the conflict erupted in February 2003, thirty thousand have died and close to a quarter of a million will die, if we do not act.

Sudanese government troops and their allied militia, the Janjaweed, have raped, tortured, maimed, and burned entire villages to cleanse the area of African Muslims. An estimated 1.2 million have been forced from their homes and into camps, where they remain vulnerable to attacks and lack basic services.

We must stop what is happening. It is Genocide, and under the requirements of the 1948 UN Convention, the world is obligated to act to stop it.

We must insist that the Sudanese government cease support for and disarm the Janjaweed militias and if it cannot, the UN Security Council must be persuaded to authorize force to do so.

The U.S. and world must target sanctions such as travel bans and the freezing of assets of Khartoum government officials responsible to stop the atrocities. We must find out why humanitarian aid is not getting through and ensure that it does.

Lastly, we must establish a Darfur Resettlement, Rehabilitation, and Reconstruction Fund so that those driven off their land may return and begin to rebuild their communities.

We must act now, if we are to prevent another Rwanda.

Mr. Speaker, this week, the world marked the 30th anniversary of Turkey's invasion of Cyprus. And so began three decades of Turkey's illegal military occupation of Cyprus. Even as we speak, Turkey maintains 30,000 heavily armed troops in the occupied portions of Cyprus.

For 30 years, Cyprus has been divided by a green line--a 113 mile barbed wire barrier that runs across the width of the island.

For 30 years, Greek Cypriots have experienced 30 years of ethnic cleansing, forcible evictions, and missing persons. Cyprus has endured 30 years of the flouting of its territorial integrity. This includes the occupation authority's attempt to create an independent ``Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.''

The international community has witnessed 30 years of the flagrant violation of U.N. General Assembly resolutions and Security Council decisions calling for immediate withdrawal of all foreign forces from Cyprus, the return of refugees, and respect for the island's sovereignty.

Thirty years is a long time. The occupation of Cyprus has been going on too long. If left to their own wisdom and devices, with firm international support, Greek and Turkish Cypriots could find ways to live in peace and harmony.

The international community can and must play an indispensable role in settling the Cyprus dispute. But, to do this, it must draw the proper conclusions from results of the vote this past April on the reunification plan put forward by the United Nations.

Seventy six percent of the Greek Cypriot electorate opposed the ``Annan Plan'' because of concerns about security, property restitution, and the structure of the proposed central government, while 65 percent of Turkish Cypriot voters supported it. It is clear from this experience that a workable solution must take the interests and concerns of both the Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities fully into account.

It is instructive that the split vote has not led to greater tension between the two communities or between Greece and Turkey. During most of the 433 year history of Cyprus, Greek and Turkish Cypriots have coexisted peacefully.

With the notable exception of the period that immediately followed Turkish occupation of Cyprus, Greek and Turkish Cypriot relations have largely been free of inter-communal violence. The hotly debated referendum itself took place overwhelmingly with an absence of conflict. This shows that despite the differences between them, Greek and Turkish Cypriots overwhelmingly share a desire for peace.

The leadership of the Republic of Cyprus seeks a bizonal, bicommunal federation under a plan that promotes the genuine reunification of Cypriots and Cypriot society, while enabling each community to retain its own identity and culture.

Cyprus's admission to the European Union on May 1st of this year may have created a new opportunity for resolving the division and occupation with an inclusive democratic system in which human rights are fully respected and the fundamental freedoms on which the European Union is founded, are guaranteed.

Taking all of this into account, the U.N. needs to go back to the drawing board. The United States needs to remain an honest broker. It must not attempt to impose a solution that the overwhelming majority of Greek-Cypriots reject. To do so will make an ultimate solution and final reunification difficult, if not impossible, to achieve.

America must at all times remember that a united, peaceful, and prosperous Cyprus is in our national interest and the interest of world peace. After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Cyprus was one of the first nations to express its solidarity with the United States. Cyprus has also been a strong ally in the war against terrorism. We must continue to support our friends, who like us, only seek to live in peace.

Mr. Speaker, this week, the world marked the 30th anniversary of Turkey's invasion of Cyprus. And so began three decades of Turkey's illegal military occupation of Cyprus. Even as we speak, Turkey maintains 30,000 heavily armed troops in the occupied portions of Cyprus.

For 30 years, Cyprus has been divided by a green line--a 113 mile barbed wire barrier that runs across the width of the island.

For 30 years, Greek Cypriots have experienced 30 years of ethnic cleansing, forcible evictions, and missing persons. Cyprus has endured 30 years of the flouting of its territorial integrity. This includes the occupation authority's attempt to create an independent ``Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.''

The international community has witnessed 30 years of the flagrant violation of U.N. General Assembly resolutions and Security Council decisions calling for immediate withdrawal of all foreign forces from Cyprus, the return of refugees, and respect for the island's sovereignty.

Thirty years is a long time. The occupation of Cyprus has been going on too long. If left to their own wisdom and devices, with firm international support, Greek and Turkish Cypriots could find ways to live in peace and harmony.

The international community can and must play an indispensable role in settling the Cyprus dispute. But, to do this, it must draw the proper conclusions from results of the vote this past April on the reunification plan put forward by the United Nations.

Seventy six percent of the Greek Cypriot electorate opposed the ``Annan Plan'' because of concerns about security, property restitution, and the structure of the proposed central government, while 65 percent of Turkish Cypriot voters supported it. It is clear from this experience that a workable solution must take the interests and concerns of both the Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities fully into account.

It is instructive that the split vote has not led to greater tension between the two communities or between Greece and Turkey. During most of the 433 year history of Cyprus, Greek and Turkish Cypriots have coexisted peacefully.

With the notable exception of the period that immediately followed Turkish occupation of Cyprus, Greek and Turkish Cypriot relations have largely been free of inter-communal violence. The hotly debated referendum itself took place overwhelmingly with an absence of conflict. This shows that despite the differences between them, Greek and Turkish Cypriots overwhelmingly share a desire for peace.

The leadership of the Republic of Cyprus seeks a bizonal, bicommunal federation under a plan that promotes the genuine reunification of Cypriots and Cypriot society, while enabling each community to retain its own identity and culture.

Cyprus's admission to the European Union on May 1st of this year may have created a new opportunity for resolving the division and occupation with an inclusive democratic system in which human rights are fully respected and the fundamental freedoms on which the European Union is founded, are guaranteed.

Taking all of this into account, the U.N. needs to go back to the drawing board. The U.S. needs to remain an honest broker. It must not attempt to impose a solution that the overwhelming majority of Greek- Cypriots reject. To do so will make an ultimate solution and final reunification difficult, if not impossible, to achieve.

America must at all times remember that a united, peaceful, and prosperous Cyprus is in our national interest and the interest of world peace. After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Cyprus was one of the first nations to express its solidarity with the United States. Cyprus has also been a strong ally in the war against terrorism. We must continue to support our friends, who like us, only seek to live in peace.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.

Passage of this agreement stands to greatly benefit the United States of America, which enjoys a consistent yearly trade surplus with Morocco, totaling over $1.5 billion from 1992 to 2003. This agreement is a high-standard, comprehensive one that will eliminate tariff and nontariff barriers to trade.

In fact, the agreement represents the best industrial and consumer goods market access package of any U.S. FTA with a developing nation. The agreement also levels the playing field for U.S. businesses, farmers, and workers vis-a-vis European competitors, who have for far too long enjoyed a competitive advantage over the United States suppliers of goods, services, and agricultural products. The agreement will also serve as a key building block toward the establishment of a broader Middle East free trade area.

Through this FTA, Morocco also sets an important example throughout the developing world of the benefits of trade liberalization and strategic importance of high-standard rules that should govern trade. In this respect, the FTA includes the best of intellectual property rights protections negotiated to date by the United States.

In addition, the Moroccan government has used the FTA negotiating process to strengthen its own laws, particularly with respect to the status of women and labor rights, two measures which distinguish Morocco from many of its Arab neighbors.

Finally, this FTA is historic. It is a historic milestone in the United States and Morocco bilateral relationship, which began well over 200 years ago, where Morocco was the first country to recognize the newly independent United States of America. Morocco today remains one of the United States' closest political allies in the war against terror and a steadfast friend in advancing peace in the Middle East.

And it is for these reasons I urge all of my colleagues to support the U.S.-Morocco Free Trade Agreement. This is a solid agreement that promotes our commercial interests and contains important provisions on agriculture, labor, and intellectual property.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the rule and in support of the Stock Option Accounting Reform Act. This bipartisan legislation has widespread support on both sides of the aisle. This bill is all about maintaining the leadership role of the United States in emerging industries such as high technology and biotechnology and by recruiting and sustaining the best available workforce. This bill is about giving employees an incentive to be the best that they can be and encouraging small companies, not stifling them.

Mr. Speaker, this legislation ensures that the rank-and-file employees who have benefited from broad-based stock option plans in the past can continue to reap these benefits in the future. Broad-based employee stock option plans benefit middle-class and younger workers who have taken a chance on smaller companies right out of school with the opportunity and promise to grow with that company and share in its success professionally and financially.

In my congressional district, companies such as American Airlines, Verizon, Time Warner and Jet Blue are just a few of the companies that provide stock options as a benefit to their employees. And throughout this debate, some have claimed that stock option benefits only benefit senior corporate executives. The facts say otherwise; 14.6 million American workers held stock options in 2002, representing 13 percent of private sector workers nationwide. Eighty-five percent of stock options are held by nonmanagement workers, and one out of eight employee option-holders is either a union member or married to someone who is. And 39 percent of the employees earning stock options earn only $30,000 to $75,000 a year.

Meanwhile, this bill is also about combating abuse in executive compensation. The bill immediately requires the expensing of all stock options given to the top five executives of a company, but exempts small companies from this requirement for 3 years so that they do not get penalized disproportionately, a balanced and fair compromise.

There are undoubtedly reservations about having Congress enact accounting laws, and I share these reservations and counsel that we should be prudent in our approach. However, the granting of stock options to certain employees in the early and growth stages of a company, particularly in a technological industry, has been a critical component and the success of many technological companies and technological innovations that many Americans utilize, including the devices we carry around with us in the House.

Mr. Speaker, this is bipartisan legislation which reflects the kinds of issues that this Congress needs to address to jump-start our economy with quality jobs for all of American workers. I urge my colleagues to join me in voting for this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 4759, the U.S.-Australia FTA. This agreement is the most commercially significant bilateral trade agreement outside of North America that the United States has entered into. It also addresses several issues that we have concerns about dealing with labor, the environment, and human rights. Because of the strength and the size of Australia, we can deal and talk about rights that are respective for all.

Plus, for example, in the automotive sector, free trade between the United States and Australia will allow greater trade opportunities in auto products between our two countries. U.S. auto makers produce over 70 percent of all passenger vehicles made in Australia.

Other industries also benefit from this agreement: telecommunications, financial services, and our technological firms, with greater intellectual property protections.

Abroad, this agreement provides Australia with an opportunity to facilitate a higher quality of health care for its people. Though Australia has recognized the significant role played by innovative U.S. pharmaceutical companies in delivering high-quality health care, the problem of pharmaceutical price controls is still an issue. It is important that future trade negotiations more closely examine the possible impact of unfair trade practices that are shifting the cost of pharmaceutical research and development just simply to the American consumer.

Mr. Speaker, this is a momentous agreement and is worthy of strong support from this body, for this is not just a free trade agreement, it is indeed, in every sense of the word, a fair trade agreement.

Mr. Speaker, a description of the Bush administration record of the last 3\1/4\ years is something like this:

Not fully funding No Child Left Behind, unintelligent. Not providing a real benefit to seniors for prescription drug purposes, shameful. Not putting forth a real solution to significantly decrease the 44 million uninsured, bad medicine. Weapons of mass destruction, a lie. No-bid contracts for the Vice President's former company Halliburton, scandalous. Revealing the name of a covert CIA operative, traitorous. The Abu Ghraib fiasco, passing the buck. The management of the Iraq War, bumbling. The promise of no nation-building, forgotten. Being a uniter as opposed to a divider, hilarious.

The promise of a less arrogant foreign policy, you have got to be kidding me.

Mr. Speaker, I rise this morning wondering where is the Commander in Chief?

Our wartime President is missing in action. Our troops are being killed because of a lack of proper planning; and as one of the worst scandals involving our military is uncovered, George W. Bush is in Ohio flipping pancakes, and in Michigan, of all places, riding in a $1 million bus made in Canada.

Where is our leadership from our President? It is AWOL.

As the Bush campaign smear machine continues to attack and distort John Kerry's decorated Vietnam service record, which includes a Silver Star, a Bronze Star, and three Purple Hearts, George Bush wants the American people to believe that he actually has a military record to be proud of. That is as believable as when the Commander in Chief landed on the deck of an aircraft carrier pretending to be a soldier.

Perhaps the President's smear machine can explain where George Bush was the year he was missing during his military service, and his clear absence of leadership as a President, instead of cooking up phoney attacks on a decorated war hero like John Kerry.

I felt compelled to join. I wish I was part of the 30-Something Club. I just joined the 50-Something Club. But just sitting here listening, I want to compliment those who are members of the 30-Something Club because America really is dependent upon you. Therefore, it becomes important for those of us in Congress to make sure that life is better for our children than it was for us.

Now, I sit here as a Member of Congress, as the gentleman indicated. I have three daughters, two of whom are in college. As the gentleman said, they are going to be all right. But their father can relate to what you are talking about, because I come from a very poor home. I grew up in public housing, and my parents understood that in order for my family to be better that education was the key. But they could not afford it, so when it was time for me to go to college, the only solution for me was to take out school loans.

Guess what? Even that was not enough. So my parents, my father, took a second job, my mother went back to work, and they had to borrow personal money themselves.

Now, the point I am trying to make is that then when I graduated, I went on and was one of those guys that was ambitious. It was not only 4 years of undergraduate school, but, as some people know today, you do not stop simply with a BA necessarily. But if you want to go on to do other things, if you want to go to graduate school, in my case it was law school, there was an additional 3 years of student loans that I had to take and sacrifice that my parents had to make.

So when I was able to leave school and took a prominent job as an assistant district attorney, when you look at the salary that I was making, equal to my companion, one would think, but I had these tremendous school loans that I had to pay back. So while they could go on and live in a decent apartment, I had to go back to live with my parents, for two reasons: number one, I had to pay my loans; number two, I had to help them pay for their loans that they took out for my education.

So for the first almost 7 years of my adult life working as a prosecutor I was still living at home, simply because of economics, simply because I had to help myself and at the same time help my parents who made the kind of sacrifices they made.

We should do better than that in Congress. We should not want to continue that burden or give an extra burden to our young people. We are, in fact, the richest country on the planet; and then we give tax cuts just to the richest 1 or 2 percent of Americans and say to our young people, we are not going to think about you. Or we know, as the gentleman said, that we are $7.1 trillion in debt, and guess what? Those of us who are 50-something, we are not really going to have to pay it. We are going to leave those burdens to you guys who are 30- something and 20-something. So you are going to inherit the debt. But on top of the debt, you are going to inherit from this country, we are going to pile on school loans, so you can never get out of it.

Or are we trying to set up a system where you have an elitist class, where only the top 1 or 2 percent can afford to send their kids to college? Why? They will not have to take out any school loans, because their parents are able to afford it and pay for it all.

So this work becomes important, what you are doing. I take my hat off to our leader, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), for what she is doing; and I take my hat off to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan), the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek), and to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Linda T. Sanchez), who was here, because they are leading America, and America only changes when young people move.

That is why I hope people get into these Members' e-mail and start e- mailing and commenting and giving some comments, because to me the future of America lies only with the young people; and we need these people and their involvement and their ideas.

I will tell you as an older individual who just entered the 50- Something Club that you will have an ally in me and many others in this Democratic conference, particularly, that will push to make sure that your America is a better America for all than it is today.

Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield further, I will add to that, if I may, initially, you can go back to my time and before, we were competing with individuals within our State or individuals within our tri-state region or even just individuals within our Nation. But the gentleman is so right. Right now our students have to compete with other students all across this globe because of the global economy and how it is now all intersected and interconnected.

What we are really talking about here is the national defense of America, and the national defense of America depends upon the education of our young people. If we close that opportunity down by making it unaffordable to them, then we are really putting our country in a great, great danger of not being able to continue the greatness that we have thus far.

Mr. Speaker, that has a lot of residual effect, actually, just on that, particularly for somebody who may come from a very poor neighborhood. Because what happens with a lot of those summer jobs, I am again being one of them and I could talk about some of my constituents, et cetera, they get exposed to different things they may never be exposed to by

that summer job, and that summer job gives them the motivation to continue to go to school to do something.

But one of the other things I wanted to say that the gentleman from Ohio indicated which is very important, which I think that a lot of those of us who are, especially the 60-somethings and the 70-somethings now, should have institutional memory, because the gentleman from Ohio touched upon the fact that when they went to school on the GI Bill, et cetera, that they were able to become doctors and lawyers and accountants, et cetera.

Well, let us take New York State, for example. Many of them back then had nothing to pay for school. Because if you went to the City University of New York or the State University in New York, tuition was free. That is what made us progress so quickly from the 1940s to the 1960s, because we began and understood the importance in investing in education of our young people and we made higher education in public institutions free.

And now, the gentleman gave the statistics or the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Linda T. Sanchez) gave the statistics earlier on, how every year the percentage on tuition rates are going up in our public institutions, and we will not have any money to help subsidize our public institutions. Why? Because we are $7.1 trillion in debt. So, therefore, we cannot help anybody who cannot do anything, because there is not going to be any money.

Mr. Speaker, I would love to hear about the books, because I could tell my colleagues, I happen to be able to help my daughter, but I know what the cost of the books are, because I have to pay for them and I have to go into that billfold that the gentleman from Florida went into. Sometimes mine is empty, but it is empty because I have to pay for those books. I want to hear about the cost of books.

Mr. Speaker, it is interesting that the gentleman should say tax credit, very interesting, because this country, as we talked about earlier, about helping the rich, but showing the direction that we could move in.

I want my colleagues to listen to this. John Kerry has what he calls a ``college opportunity tax credit.'' What this simply says, it will make 4 years of college affordable for all Americans. We are talking about all Americans here. He will provide a credit for each and every year of college on the first $4,000 paid in tuition, and that is the typical tuition cost and fees at our public institutions and universities. Senator Kerry's tax credit will be refundable to our most economically-vulnerable students and for those who receive other credits. That is the direction that we should be moving in.

That is why the gentlewoman from California (Leader Pelosi) was here leading the 30-Something hour. That is why I think that we have the gentleman from Ohio here and the gentleman from Florida here and the gentlewoman from California who was here and others that are involved, that is the direction of continuing the greatness of America by investing in our young to make sure that their tomorrow is brighter than our today.

Just what we are talking about, showing that you have a plan and moving away, Senator Kerry talked about his College Opportunity Tax Credit, but he also understands the deficits that the universities are having. So he also has a plan. It is called the State Tax Relief and Education Fund where Senator Kerry will help States struggling to bridge deficits resulting from the Bush economic policies with $25 billion to stop educational cuts and tuition increases across the country.

So it seems to me we are moving in the right direction. He also is talking about service for college so that if, in fact, he will initiate an offer to Americans to earn the chance of the equivalent of the State's 4-year public college tuition in exchange for 2 years of service. Senator Kerry will set a goal within the next decade of enlisting 500,000 young people a year in service for college. Steps in the right direction. Educating our young people, making it affordable for them and strengthening our country. This is what America is all about.

Mr. Speaker, it is hard to decide where to start in expressing one's outrage about the revelations, including the graphic photographs, that our military personnel literally tortured Iraqi detainees at a prison near Baghdad. It is even harder to know where the responsibility ends for conduct that obviously violates the Geneva Convention on care for prisoners of war and Geneva Convention on the obligations of an occupation authority.

For any decent-minded American, whether he or she supports the war or opposes the war, to remain silent about this conduct is to be complicit with this conduct. To refuse to condemn it in the strongest terms possible, to be reluctant to hold accountable not only those who did this but also those who permitted it, those who ordered it, those who created an atmosphere that encouraged it, and those who sent the signals that everything and anything goes, no matter how far up the chain of command, it jeopardizes our relationship with the entire Arab and Muslim world. We should all fear for every American soldier and civilian in Iraq whose life has been placed in jeopardy by this irresponsible behavior and, frankly, the irresponsible conduct of this war.

Before these revelations, it was manifestly clear that our Iraq policy was in deep, deep trouble. It was already clear that we faced a widening and deepening resistance. It was already clear that the administration's characterizations of the resistance as ``dead- enders,'' ``remnants of Saddam's regime,'' and ``terrorists from the outside'' did not coincide with reality. These allegations, revealed first last week by 60 Minutes II, then detailed by investigator reporter Seymour Hersh of the New Yorker Magazine, and substantiated in a courageous report by Major General Antonio M. Taguba, may have made our situation irrevocably untenable.

Think of the predicament now facing U.S. occupation this way: What would anyone anywhere in the world want to do to someone who had done such despicable acts to a family member?

The President and other senior administration and Pentagon officials have been quick to say that only a few participated in these deeds. My question is who are the few? Over the weekend, the mistreatment was said to involve only six or seven military police. Now at mid week, we are told that 17 U.S. soldiers are under investigation for their role in the abuses, including seven supervising officers who will receive an official reprimand or admonishment, six enlisted personnel who are charged with criminal offenses in

March, and another four who are under criminal investigation.

Against this backdrop, General Richard Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said this past Sunday that he had not read the Taguba report. It has taken until today for Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to make a statement, and according to a Pentagon spokesman, as late as today, Mr. Rumsfeld had not read the report either.

National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice is the coordinator of our overall efforts in Iraq. She has been silent as well. Secretary of State Colin Powell says that the entire military should not be condemned for the actions of only a few.

No one is condemning the entire military, but once again I ask who are the few? Does it include those, whoever they are, who told the military police to ``soften up'' the detainees for interrogation? I cannot accept, especially when we hear that military intelligence and private contractors ordered the actions, that these military police officers just happened to choose acts that are offensive in any culture, but are especially humiliating to males in the Arab and Islamic cultures.

And logic leads me to believe the psychological implications were well understood, and the acts imposed on the detainees were deliberately selected.

It is fair to ask what else may be going on? Has there been such a heavy reliance on private military contractors precisely to evade criminal liability? Have not Iraqis been given new reason to view the United States war on terrorism as a war on terrorism against them, their religion, and their culture?

Congress needs to conduct a probe of the incidents and their wider ramifications. Congress and the American people must answer to questions that we can be sure that the people of Iraq and all Muslim lands are asking. While the full weight of punishment should be brought on all of those implicated, the American people, as a whole, need to appreciate how much higher the mountain now is that the President must climb to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people and to persuade the Middle East to follow the model of American democracy. Under his leadership things continue to go from bad to worse to terrible.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek) for his leadership and for his courageous battle to make sure that the people of Haiti are not forgotten, and that is really what this is all about, and that is why the leadership of the gentleman from Florida's focus has been not on the politics, not on what is in the best interest of this one or that one. His focus has been on what can we do for those people, those average everyday citizens that live in Haiti who have dreams and aspirations just like we do, who all they want is for their children to be able to have a better life, to be able to get an education, to be able to go to work to provide a living so that they can have a family themselves and live a life that is a life that is free of violence and that is free of the deprivation of food and human rights violations. And that is what this is really all about. It is about people.

And I am going to travel with the gentleman because he is going, and I know there is a bipartisan CODEL that will be leaving for Haiti tomorrow morning, and I have decided to change my schedule based upon his courageous trip that he has already taken, that he already visited, and he has gone out to not just the big cities. He has gone out to the side roads. He has gone out to the rural areas. He has gone out to where the people are.

And I want to just get a chance to get a feel of that so that we can make sure when we come back here that we can implement a kind of program and a kind of attention on Haiti that does not last just for 6 months, just for 1 year or 2 years, but something where it is sustained, 10, 15, 20 years, to establish a true and strong democratic institution, not for the United States of America, quite frankly, not for Canada, not for France, not for anybody else, but for the people of Haiti, that little country that is connected to the island of Hispaniola. We need to make sure that we do something for those people, and I just appreciate the gentleman's leadership on that.

That is it, Mr. Speaker. I think if we do not create the kind of democratic institutions and help them go along, and not just America, I think that he said it absolutely right. Not just us, but with the help of the United Nations, with them involved, so that we can create a climate of security. Because only if they have security can they have elections, and then only with elections can they have a true democratic government. And I do not like to get into these comparisons to Haiti and Iraq and things of that nature. We know that there are substantial differences. But one thing that is clear is there is a question as to what people of Iraq want and wanted. There is no question as to what the people want. Yes, they want us and they want the United Nations there to help them. They are begging for us to do this. So this is not something that is imposed, and they are just saying, if you give us the window of opportunity to create a secure environment, we know what we want to do and we just need that kind of help, not just for a day or for a week, as I said, but where it is a continuous help, and just help us get on par with the Dominican Republic, for example. Forget being another United States.

Help us so that when it is time to negotiate trade agreements when we are doing the FTAA that we as a country can take advantage of it and we can create the jobs. As the gentleman appropriately said, we can fish on our own.

So we are moving now. We have got the FTAA coming. We have got some other pieces dealing with the Caribbean Basin Initiative. We have got various other trade agreements. And if we do not help now, these people could be left out. But if we help now, they can be included in. And guess what? It will be short-term pain for us for long-term gain for everybody because then they will not be dependent upon us. Our troops will not be necessary there. They then will become a prosperous neighbor, and we do not have to worry about people coming over in a boat trying to get to our Nation, trying to flee an island that should be one of the most beautiful islands in all of the Caribbean. That is what this is all about.

Mr. Speaker, I will close with this: I will follow his leadership. He has been a great leader, and I think that the people of Miami, but more importantly, the people of Haiti, are well served by his leadership. I think he is doing this not in a political way, but in a bipartisan manner; and I look forward to being with him in the morning.

Mr. Speaker, I believe it was Abraham Lincoln who said, ``You can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time.'' Until recently, the Bush administration has fooled some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time on Social Security, Medicare, tax cuts for the rich, economic recovery, the No Child Left Behind Act, nation-building, the war against terrorism, and, most especially, the war in Iraq. The President has been able to do this because most Americans simply do not believe that the President of the United States would distort and deceive on such basic issues as war and the well-being of children and the elderly.

Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

Mr. Speaker, during the 2 days of the hearings of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, it was clear that the time for the fooling of the people may be running out. Of course, there are those Americans inside and outside of Congress who always question the veracity of the President's arguments for going to war. My hope is that the testimony at the hearings, along with a series of widely publicized books and articles published in the last year or so, the latest being Richard Clarke's ``Against All Enemies,'' will enable the broader public to connect the dots to the truth. I believe they will see that the dots of deception lead straight to the Oval Office.

This response of administration officials to Mr. Clarke's charge that the President has done a terrible job on the war against terrorism is typical: throw sand into the public's eyes. Bait and switch. In other words, attack a person's motives while refusing to address the substance of the critique. Hide the facts. Concoct data. Delay. Blame everything on Clinton. Do the opposite of what you say. Claim not to remember a conversation or a meeting. Insist on redacting critical portions of critical congressional reports. Accuse critics of being disgruntled employees. All to cover up arrogant, reckless, and disgraceful conduct of foreign and domestic policy.

We should commend those public servants who, in the aftermath of 9/ 11-PATRIOT Act hysteria, have put loyalty to country above loyalty to the President, risking their careers to shed light on the dark underside of George W. Bush's Presidency. This lengthening list includes the Minneapolis and Phoenix-based FBI agent who revealed that FBI field operatives tried to get higher-ups to pay attention to individuals on the counterterrorism watch list, including several who later crashed airplanes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, were in the United States taking flying lessons; the joint inquiry of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees that revealed serious lapses on the part of the senior administration and intelligence officials during the lead-up to 9/11; John Wilson, a former ambassador, who disputed the claim that Saddam Hussein had sought uranium fuel in Niger, Africa. Wilson rejected the tales of the President and Vice President, Defense Secretary, Secretary of State, and National Security Adviser were telling about Saddam's alleged nuclear weapons program and, as we now know, the White House retaliated by telling a journalist that Wilson's wife was a covert CIA operative.

In a book by Ron Suskind, former Treasury Department Paul O'Neill insists that from the very beginning, the administration and the President were fixated on invading Iraq, Mr. O'Neill, who told the President that a second round of tax cuts would damage the economy, and also reveals that Vice President Cheney contended that Ronald Reagan had proved that deficits do not matter.

David Kay head of the CIA's Iraq Survey Group, congressional testimony that no weapons of mass destruction had been found, that no weapons of mass destruction were likely to ever be found, and that frankly, the administration and the intelligence community had it all wrong. And now, Richard Clarke, a senior counterterrorism official in the Reagan, Clinton, and both Bush administrations, who says immediately after 9/11, the President and other senior officials were focused more on finding a pretext for attacking Iraq than on finding Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda.

Clarke quotes Defense Secretary Rumsfeld as saying there were not any good targets to bomb in Afghanistan but plenty in Iraq. Mr. Clarke also contends that invading Iraq was a priority even before the President took office.

If what Clarke, Kay, O'Neill and others have said is true, then it is fair to not only say weapons of mass destruction was a hype but also that every new explanation the administration has given since it declared an end to major operations is part of a cover-up of a war of choice, not necessity.

This is the context in which the public can connect the dots of the administration's attempts to obstruct the joint congressional Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence investigation of 9/11 and its belated cooperation and then only under the threat of subpoena with the independent commission investigating intelligence.

Mr. Chairman, let me begin by congratulating the leadership, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Oxley) and the ranking member, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank) on this great bill.

It proves that when Democrats and Republicans sit down and talk and work together, we really can come to a consensus. And the leadership of this committee should be applauded in a way that this bill, this important bill has gone through the committee. And I thank both the ranking member and the chairman.

My position has never been to favor one depository institution charter over another but, instead, to support policies that give each charter the best opportunity to be competitive and improve service delivery to their business and individual constituents.

It is my assertion that H.R. 1375, the regulatory relief bill, does just that for national banks, savings institutions, and credit unions, all of whom are vital to the financial health of this Nation and the provision of financial services to businesses and individuals nationwide.

For national banks, the bill eases certain restrictions related to directors, provides for flexibility in declaring dividends, and makes it easier to expand through intrastate branching or mergers with State banks.

For savings institutions, the bill provides more flexibility to provide automobile loans and leases for personal use. It also eliminates the limitation on small businesses, lending based on percentage of assets. These changes, among others, will greatly allow savings institutions to increase the diversity of their lending portfolios.

Federally chartered credit unions will be able to purchase and hold for their own account highly rated investment securities. They will be able to provide check cashing and money transfer services to nonmembers within their field of membership.

These changes, along with others, such as easing the process for voluntary mergers, will help credit unions diversify their portfolios and provide more services to individuals and the communities that they serve.

The ever-changing dynamics of the financial service industry demands that from time to time this committee review the existing laws and take action where required, not just to increase the laws as we often do, but to adjust and even eliminate archaic laws that may be hindering the success of our financial industry. I believe that this is just what we have done with this regulatory bill, a bill that has a little bit of something for everyone.

Mr. Speaker, I have nothing but praise for our warriors in Iraq, but I oppose the President's Iraq war.

If this was a resolution praising our warriors instead of using them as a pretext for applauding the President's after-the-fact arguments for going to war, I would vote for it. If this was a resolution proposing ways in which Congress and the President will raise our soldiers' pay, improve their housing at home and abroad, ensure quality health care for their families and survivors, I would vote for it. If this was a resolution guaranteeing the greater benefits, job training, educational and employment opportunities for returning veterans, I would vote for it. If this was a resolution demanding that the President develop a real foreign policy agenda instead of a doctrine of preemption and preventative war, I would vote for it. If this was a resolution calling on the President and the Intelligence Community to come clean on why no weapons of mass destruction have been found, I would vote for it. If this was a resolution condemning the no-bid contracts by which private military companies like Halliburton have enriched themselves and whose contributions have fattened the President's campaign war chest, I would vote for it.

But since this resolution is none of the above, I am compelled to vote against it. Since this resolution is steeped in hypocrisy and self-congratulatory bravado while refusing to address the false pretenses upon which the Iraqi war was launched, I am compelled to vote against it.

Again, this is poli-tricks, again, as this resolution was crafted to divide this Nation, not bring this Nation together. No, none of us had an opportunity on this side to contribute anything to this resolution, if, in fact, they want to have any kind of unity.

Mr. Speaker, I rise this morning to applaud the D.C. Circuit Court's decision on Tuesday ordering the FCC to come up with new wholesale and unbundling rules that can pass legal approval. This decision sets U.S. telecom policy on the correct path as envisioned by both Chambers of Congress when we passed the Telecom Act of 1996.

This requirement that the regulated local phone companies lease their phone lines to competitors at below-cost rates, ensuring constant financial losses, as witnessed over the past 3 years, has severely hindered investment and service quality to many communities, both large and small.

The time for the FCC to act is now, and with the same sense of urgency the agency displayed after the Super Bowl half-time show. Quick action by Chairman Powell will help spur investment and job creation at a time when our Nation and this sluggish economy certainly need a boost.