Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to join this effort on Earth Day. I have two messages, one inspirational and one that desires, frankly, a good fight. Let me start with the inspirational message. I want to tell my colleague about a friend of mine, a Dennis Hayes, who as a young man the first Earth Day stood up and said, I am going to become personally committed to the environment of the globe. And he became, actually, the manager of the organization that conducted the first Earth Day. And Dennis Hayes is still fired with the vigor of dealing with these multiple environmental challenges, and he is working

in Seattle now for the Bullet Foundation, which helps promote many great ideas and environmental agendas.

I hope other people who are of his youth become inspired on multiple environmental challenges now, politically and otherwise, and stay working as long as Dennis has, who is still working on solar cell technology and a host of other efforts to deal with our energy.

I appreciate this opportunity. We will have other opportunities next week to continue this discussion.

If the gentleman will yield on that point, I would like to comment on what you just said, but before I do so, I would like to make a statement of why we are here tonight.

This is months after the Iraq war started, and I just want to state the reason I am here tonight is the people who are fighting this war deserve answers of how this war started based on false information. If it takes us years to get to the bottom of how this was started, why it was started and who started it so that they can be held accountable, we are going to be here until we get those answers.

But you have put your finger on a very, very important point; and that is that the people who this administration are attacking, Mr. O'Neill, Mr. Clarke, Ambassador Wilson, the actuary of the Medicare fund, all of whom are being attacked by this administration, their statements have proven to be true in the last several weeks. One of the great ironies of this is that this administration is attacking civil servants for telling the truth.

Look at Mr. O'Neill. As you indicated, he was attacked because he had the temerity, and this was the Secretary of the Treasury, a high-level person appointed by the President of the United States on a personal basis. Mr. O'Neill said, ``In the 23 months I was there, I never saw anything that I would characterize as evidence of weapons of mass destruction. There were allegations and assertions by people.'' That is from Mr. O'Neill's book.

He said that in January 30, 2001, before September 11, the President instructed at the National Security Council meeting, that the President directed the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, to ``examine our military options'' with regard to Iraq.

Mr. O'Neill was quite viscerally attacked by the administration for making those statements. But now it turns out in listening to statements by Condoleezza Rice and essentially Donald Rumsfeld and Mr. Clarke, those things were true. From their own lips, of people still in the administration, that statement was true.

Mr. Clarke a week or so ago had the temerity to point out that on the day after September 11 the Secretary of Defense said something to the effect like ``let's get ready to bomb Iraq,'' and it was pointed out to the Secretary of Defense that al Qaeda, who at that point we knew was behind the September 11 attack, that al Qaeda was in Afghanistan, not Iraq. Mr. Rumsfeld responded, ``Well, there are not any targets in Afghanistan.''

Mr. Clarke originally said, ``Well, I thought he must have been kidding.'' It turned out he was not kidding, and when asked about that on a talk show this weekend, Mr. Rumsfeld, I did not hear him deny it. Incredibly, I did not hear him deny it.

What I heard was Mr. Clarke pointed out that on September 12, when he talked to the President of the United States, the President of the United States took him aside and said, essentially, ``I want you to look and scrub to see if you can find any evidence whatsoever that it was Iraq behind this.''

Mr. Clarke wondered about that, because he felt the President was essentially pushing to find something that had not been reported to date.

Originally, you know what the administration said? They said Mr. Clarke was not there that day. Well, today we find from Condoleezza Rice not only was he there, but, yes, those conversations apparently took place.

So what we are finding is we are finally getting down, after peeling the layers of the onion, to the truth of what happened in Iraq. And what happened in Iraq is that this administration very early on was bent on taking a course of action involving military action in Iraq.

It is not that they were forced to by this overwhelming intelligence, this mountain of intelligence that led us to the inescapable conclusion that Iraq had these weapons of mass destruction. As early as the day after the attack on September 11 they were looking for some reason to start a war in Iraq. This is something that has been confirmed today by their own statements.

It is apparent the questions asked by the President were not about the inspection program. The statements were ``let's go bomb Iraq, because there are no targets in Afghanistan,'' or something to that effect.

If the gentleman will yield further, I think what the gentleman is pointing out is that there were huge falsehoods that are now apparent that were told to the American

people, to the U.S. Congress, that were used as a premise to start this war.

I want to talk about just a couple of those and see what the administration has done in response to those.

The President on March 17, 2003, said, ``Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised.

``This regime has already used weapons of mass destruction against Iraq's neighbors and against Iraq's people.'' The second half of that is true, but the first statement is false. Yet, no one in the administration has admitted the falsity of that statement, despite overwhelming intelligence information to this effect. We have people serving, and we have lost over 500 Americans in this war that was started based on a falsehood, and no one in this administration has had the courage and the willingness to straight talk, to say these statements were false that were the basis for this war.

Mr. Speaker, it is clear that our country did not have things to be proud of at the time that the Kurds were gassed. We could talk at length about that.

Mr. Speaker, we should have clearly raised a siren internationally when that was going on, but let us not compound the error by leaving these falsehoods to lie like sort of a stinking mackerel in the moonlight right now without this administration clearing this up and shooting straight with the American people. Because on January 28, 2003, the President of the United States stood right behind the gentleman from Hawaii and addressed the Congress and the American people and said, ``The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.'' That statement was false, and the administration knew it was false.

He went on to say, ``Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production.'' That statement was false.

Announcement By the Speaker Pro Tempore

Mr. Speaker, we appreciate the reminder.

That statement was false, and it was false at the time it was made. The reason I know that is that subsequent information has revealed that our own agencies have reported that they concluded that those aluminum tubes were probably going to be used for some standard rockets, not anything to do with centrifuge tubes; and yet the President of the United States told the American people there is no doubt that Iraq had some of the most lethal weapons devised by man. Now, the fact of the matter is, if this is some innocent thing that occurred, we need the President to address the American people about how this happened.

Now, I am glad that the President has finally allowed Condoleezza Rice to publicly answer some of the questions around what has happened in some of this affair. It is unfortunate that it has taken so long to be drug to the public spotlight; but, nonetheless, we hope this will shed some light on this.

Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield for a moment, I just want to sort of reiterate basically what the gentleman is saying. I keep hearing more and more evidence that with the President taking our eye off the ball of al Qaeda, it has damaged our ability to bring them to the ground; and it has done that in multiple ways.

We had a hearing the other day in the Committee on Financial Services about our ability to track down and cut off the funds of al Qaeda coming out of Saudi Arabia, because that is where the money came, largely, from al Qaeda. It turns out the administration has had a lot of the forces that could have been used to cut off the money going to al Qaeda, the people who killed 3,000 Americans, to chase Saddam's funds all around the world. Now, it would be nice to get ahold of Saddam Hussein's funds. That is fine. I am sure he abused and did the Iraqi people tremendously, not only personally, but fiscally. But the guy who killed over 3,000 Americans is at large; and his network of raising money is still intact, because this President took our eye off the ball and cut off some of the resources we had to cut those resources off from al Qaeda.

Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, we have got people there tonight who are sitting ducks for this terrible situation in Iraq, and there are two things really galling to me about this.

Number one, I have heard some people in these Chambers sort of suggest, well, we only lost a couple today; we only lost 10 this week; we only lost 100 this last couple of months; it is not like Vietnam. Well, I have got to say when I went to a family 2 weeks ago to spend the Sunday with them when their father and husband of two young kids is never coming home again, it is just like no other war; and these numbers, this is not a numbers game.

These people who are serving tonight deserve something. They deserve their government to be accountable to them, to be responsible to them as to why this war started based on false information given to the American people, and we are now learning that there was lots of false information given to them. They are entitled to that. The American people are entitled to that, and we are intending to get that one way or another.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for yielding.

I want to make a couple points before I address the specifics of this trade adjustment which I really think is great, not a panacea but certainly one of the things we need to do that address this problem. But I want to make two points about why legislation like this is necessary right now, and that is that two I think interesting facts that demonstrate why Congress needs to act now and the administration needs to follow us in doing so.

That is the unemployment, the job loss that we have suffered in the last 3 years is actually understated. A lot of folks have heard now a familiar number that we have lost about 2.2 million jobs in the last 3 years which is a greater job loss than any other time since Herbert Hoover was President of the United States. But that number is really kind of a fake number, and the reason is that it fails to take into account the jobs that should have been created under any sort of normal rate of economic growth. The truth is we have lost specifically about 2.2 million jobs, but if we had just grown jobs to keep pace with the rate of population increase, we would have actually grown four and a half million jobs if we had only kept pace with the population increase in the United States in the last 3 years.

So it is not that we have lost 2.2 million jobs, sort of behind the curve by

2.2 million Americans that are out of work. It is actually closer to 7 million. So the job deficit, along with the largest Federal deficit in American history, we now have the largest job deficit in the last 50 years.

Mr. Speaker, that is another way of basically saying we have had no meaningful job creation for the last 3 years. So we have a $7 million job deficit and we basically had an experiment and that experiment failed. The President basically said these very large tax cuts for the wealthiest among us, those who are over $200,000 a year, we are going to create millions of jobs. It failed even to keep pace with just population growth.

There is four and a half million jobs missing that should have been there just to keep pace with population growth, and then there are 2.2 million jobs lost on top of that. So we are in a deep, deep hole; and whatever we are going to say, if we add one job now, we are still at the bottom of the well. So maybe we are one inch off the bottom of a 7 million foot well, if you will. We have got a long ways to go.

Second point is the reason Congress needs to act now is that these figures belie the severity in the length of this unemployment. Because we have over 2 million people who are unemployed tonight who have been unemployed for more than 6 months. That is the longest period and the largest number of people who have been unemployed over 6 months for over 50 years in America.

So not only are people not even counted in the unemployment insurance statistics because they have given up looking for work, those who are still on there we have the longest period of long-term unemployment in the last 50 years.

So I just want to point out those two points that we need to take into consideration whether we are going to act or not boldly and aggressively. And we think we should.

So one of the ideas, and this is not the only idea that we need to pursue, but we need to bring our trade adjustment assistance for Members up to speed with what is going on in the U.S. economy. We, and I am sure the gentleman has talked about this, have had a program to help people who have lost jobs that are associated with the dynamics of trade in manufacturing now for some period of time.

We have seen in Seattle a great success with that program. We have seen hundreds of folks, if not thousands, in Boeing who several years ago during the downturn availed themselves of the benefit of this program to get retraining. I have talked to any number of those. It is not 100 percent, but any number of these folks have been successful in finding other careers with retraining.

But now we have this phenomenon in the service sector, computer programming, accounting, in radiological services, in call centers. Now the service sector employees are experiencing the dynamics of trade. We simply have to bring this up to speed to this century's challenges that exist.

Our bill will do that. It will simply say that people in the service sector who lose jobs associated with the dynamics of trade are going to have an assistance from Uncle Sam. It is a pretty simple commitment that Uncle Sam ought to fulfill. We hope that the administration will embrace this idea.

And I will share one piece of good news. I serve on the President's Export Council, which is a group appointed essentially to advise the executive branch on export policies and trade policies.

It is a group of a lot of high-level executives of major corporations at General Motors, Intel, Boeing, a couple of Members of Congress; and last week, we met and this group sort of unanimously concluded that this idea of the extension of trade adjustment authority to service personnel should be pursued, and that will go to the President as a formal recommendation of this group here in the near future.

So we are hopeful that the administration and our Republican colleagues will join us in this very commonsense measure to help Americans get back on their feet, and we do not want to hear that we cannot do this for fiscal reasons, for two reasons; and there is a fiscal impact for this obviously, and we should be totally responsible in addressing that fiscal impact, but we believe that in the long term this is fiscally responsible to do because these folks are going to get back to work, they are going to get off the unemployment rolls, and they are going to start creating wealth and profits and wages and taxes themselves. This is a fiscally responsible thing to do, is we get people back to work. Over the long term it does not create the deficit; it helps to ameliorate it.

In addition, we think there are some future tax cuts for those earning over $200,000, which on a scale is not as important as the fact as getting these thousands of people who may have lost these jobs to folks in other countries due to trade. They have a higher claim on America's assistance right now, and they will be much more productive for the U.S. economy as well, and so we think this is a fiscally responsible approach; and we hope our Republican colleagues will join us.

There is one other thing that this bill will do. You may have talked about this already, but I want to allude to it. There are some imperfections in the existing trade adjustment bill, one of which would not kick in assistance for Americans except that they lost their job, at least the presumption is a country that we already had free trade agreement with. That is an artifact of history that we had to cure because if you are out of work, frankly it does not make a difference to your creditors whether you are out of work, losing a job to someone Uncle Sam has a free trade agreement with or not. So we hope to fix that in the long term.

The bottom line is, as the trade world has changed, as the economy has changed, Congress needs to change our provision for Americans to get retrained; and this is a fundamentally sound, fair, fiscal way to do it, and we are hoping that ultimately this becomes a bipartisan effort.

Unfortunately, we have not had our colleagues across the aisle coming in droves to join this, and that frankly is disappointing because anyone ought to understand when you are out of work and your job's been shipped to another country, and your mortgage still needs paying and your child's college education tuition still needs paying, it should not be a Republican or Democrat position the fact that we ought to help you get retrained, and we ought to recognize for those of us who recognize the value of trade, and I count myself among those who come from a very trade-dependent part of the world. The State of Washington is one of the trade-dependent parts of the country. We recognize the value of trade, selling Boeing planes to India, selling Microsoft software to China. We understand the value of trade, but those who care about trade have to recognize that there are dynamics of trade and people are discomfited and there are job losses associated with trade, and we need to create a lifetime learning situation where, as trade creates dynamic changes in the job market, we need to guarantee Americans the ability to get back on their feet and become retrained, and that is one part of that support system that I hope that we will pass.

Mr. Speaker, we need to be in a bipartisan fight against the Federal deficit. One of the tools we have in fighting the Federal deficit is called the pay-as-you-go rule, and it is a tool that works very, very well because when the pay-as-you-go rule is in effect, any Member of Congress, Democrat or Republican, if they are going to propose a new spending or a new tax cut, they are required to show how they are going to pay for it. This is common sense.

Unfortunately, my colleagues on the Republican side of the aisle refuse to apply this common-sense rule that was effective during the 1990s in reducing the Federal deficit.

Now, there is one thing we ought to be able to agree on, when you are in a fight, it does not make sense to tie one hand behind yourself. And the Republicans are tying one hand behind us, and the pay-as-you-go rule is going to be the pay-as-you-gone rule. I am disappointed that my Republican colleagues are taking a dive against the Federal deficit.

Mr. Speaker, I come to the floor to express concern about the European Union's first step in a decision against Microsoft, one of the most creative engines of economic growth in American history. The reason we all ought to be concerned about this European Union decision is it essentially breaches and disturbs, if not destroys, a carefully wrought-out resolution of antitrust issues in the American judicial system.

Whatever one thinks of our judicial system, we ought to know one thing, that it is better that these matters be resolved in the American system than internationally when the international groups now could turn into a feeding frenzy, if you will, of upsetting this apple cart after we have worked for years and millions of dollars of effort to have a very carefully calibrated resolution of these antitrust issues.

We hope that our government expresses and does not acquiesce in this issue since we need to have comity and a consistent application of antitrust rules across borders. We hope that our government will take that position.

Mr. Speaker, this really is a bright day for the U.S. House of Representatives because today, with the passage of this bill, we will expedite the abilities of Americans to give the gift of life. It is not every day that we do something in the House of Representatives that can allow people to live, allow people that are now on waiting lists, waiting this morning to get an e-mail to come in and get their liver transplant or their heart transplant, that we are going to pass a bill today that will allow people to make a decision to actually give the gift of life; and I think that is a pretty good thing to be pleased about in the U.S. House of Representatives.

The part I would like to talk about just briefly about this bill is a portion of a bill that Floyd Spence, our great Republican colleague from South Carolina, who I introduced a portion of this bill with back in 2000. Floyd, when we introduced this bill, was the longest living double heart/lung transplant in America, and I hope that this will shine on his memory with the passage of this bill today. Because what this bill will do will create an organ donor coordinator position in hospitals.

It will be largely federally funded, and where we have put organ coordinators in hospitals, we have found we actually doubled the rate of donation decisions made by families, because it allows families the confidence and the knowledge and the coordination with doctors and nursing staff to make this decision.

So this bill, we believe, is going to significantly increase a number of people who get that great call in the morning saying, come on down for your new liver and a new lease on life with 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 new years of life that people are going to have in this country because this bill is going to pass.

Just to put a personal face on this if I can, and let me tell my colleagues why I feel so passionately about this. I want to introduce my colleagues to a friend of mine, Chris Klug. This was taken about 2 years ago when we started working on this bill. Scott, in the year 2000, had a problem where he lost his liver function, and Scott did not have a lot of time to live when he got a new liver transplant.

Just to show my colleagues how successful these organ transplants can be, Scott, just 2 years later after getting a new liver, went on to get a Bronze Medal in the slalom snow-boarding Olympic championship in 2002. That is a pretty amazing thing that this gift of life not only gives a gift of life, but it gives a gift of the tremendous life that Scott is now engaged in. We can see him on these snow-boarding competitions on occasion.

The second person I want to tell my colleagues a little story about is, yesterday morning I was at the University of Washington Medical School in Seattle, Washington, and I was talking to Dr. Robert Carithers and Dr. Connie Davis, who had been involved in one of the premier transplant centers in the United States. They introduced me to a general named Henry Durnil.

Henry is a fellow who works making sure that our navy ships are in good shape at the naval port in Everett, Washington, and some time ago, Henry's liver started to fail him. He got a call Saturday saying, come on in, get your new liver, and I got to meet Henry who was lying in bed. I have got to tell my colleagues if my colleagues saw the smile on Henry Durnil's face and we heard him talking about the miracle of getting a new lease on life, my colleagues will both vote for this bill and they will be happy to spread the gospel of helping others to make the donation decision, because Henry told me that he felt this was truly a miracle. He thanked his nurse, Susan Moore, and the whole transplant team at the University of Washington.

I am happy we are going to pass this bill so there will be more people with Henry's story to tell.

I want to make a special plea to those who are considering this bill, and may be candidates to be organ donors. There are 80,000-plus people who are in the position of Scott Bennett, whom I also met yesterday at the Washington University Medical School. Scott Bennett has climbed Mount Ranier a few

times. He has a heart ailment and has been on a waiting list for a heart for over 4 years.

I would also like to mention Jack Slater, who is a teacher for Seattle public schools who has been writing a diary in the Seattle newspapers about his experience.

Mr. Speaker, we have over 80,000 people like Scott and Jack on a waiting list. This is a step we are going to take today to get the Jacks and the Scotts of the world in a position like the Chris Klugs of the world back doing healthy active lives.

To let Members know how active they can be, we are trying to get the Organ Donation Transplant Athletic Games in Seattle in 2006.

I want to make a couple of points in general that are important in this issue of donation.

Number one, it is very important for people to realize that all of us are both prospective donors and recipients. I can tell Members how we are all prospective recipients, because a year after I started working on this bill, my son developed a congenital eye condition and ended up getting his sight restored due to a cornea transplant. So all of us can be recipients.

But most importantly, we can all be donors. It does not matter how old you are, your race, where you live; all of us can give the gift of life.

There is a fellow named Jamie Moyer, who is an All-Star pitcher for the Seattle Mariners. He is going to be the starting pitcher this year, and he has been an advocate for organ donation issues. Not all of us can pitch like Jamie Moyer, but all of us can be donors to give the gift of life; and I hope people will think about that in their own personal lives.

Secondly, if someone wants to be a donor, it is very important to talk to your family because your family is essentially involved in the decision at that particular moment, and it is very important to let your family know about your wishes because your family needs to convey your wishes to the hospital at the right time. I hope people will talk to their families about this issue and we can make sure that we help more folks on the road back to recovery.

I thank the gentleman from Florida (Chairman Bilirakis), who has shown great leadership on this issue. This is a great bipartisan effort, and the wonderful story that we can tell as we go home to our constituents this weekend is to say that we can give the gift of life. It is a good day for the House of Representatives and America.

Madam Speaker, just to follow up on the comment and the discussion of the deficit, it is not only Democrats who are concerned with the deficit; it is Republicans as well. Last night I was in a town hall meeting attended by about 150 people in Snohomish County, Washington, and I had a fellow stand up who said he was a Republican and was extremely concerned that this government, which he understood was controlled by the Republican Party lock, stock and barrel, was running up these enormous deficit. His basic question was, What is going on? He was flabbergasted to see that happening.

What I had to tell him was the news was actually worse than he had heard. He had heard the number that the Republican government had run up a $500 billion deficit, and it bothered him. It bothered him even more when I told him the deficit was actually higher than that because the administration and the Congress to some degree have played with some funny numbers that make Enron blush how accounting is done.

One example, I had to tell him the President's budget, which has been forwarded to the Congress proposing expenditures for next year, omitted any sums for fighting the Iraq war, any sums for fighting the Afghanistan war. You can kind of understand how a government can run up giant deficits, the largest deficits in American history if they play funny games of sending up budgets when we are in the middle of a war spending $100 billion a year in Iraq, or a little short of that, and then assess zero cost to that.

I just cannot understand, this administration must not think anybody can read in America when they try to play games like that. I can inform the White House that my Democrat and Republican constituents are very aware of this and are very concerned about it.

Let me turn, if I can, to the Iraq issue which we have now been talking about for some months.

The reason we are here is twofold: One, our proud men and women are doing a job in Iraq tonight which all Americans are proud of. Over 500 of them have paid the ultimate sacrifice to the duty to which they pledged honor to our country. Their sacrifice demands that the government of the United States tell the truth to the American people about what happened in Iraq and why this war started, based on false information.

Just to set the stage for our discussion tonight, I would like to point out at least some of that false information that ended up starting this war. I want to be very specific on this so no one can say that we have gilded the lily.

The fact is, sadly, that on March 17, 2003, the President of the United States of America went before the American people and in an address to the Nation said, and I quote, ``Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised.'' That statement was false and the information gathered over a year of spending over $100 million of seeking with a fine-toothed comb in Iraq has demonstrated with some conviction that that statement was false, unfortunately.

On August 2, 2002, the Vice President of the United States, Dick Cheney, went before the Veterans of Foreign Wars and stated, ``Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.'' That statement was false, false both on the issue of the presence of weapons of mass destruction as indicated by Mr. David Kay, who was the person hired by this country to find out, but also false in saying there was no doubt, because a review by this Chamber, by the three of us and others, has showed there was plenty of doubt about this issue in Iraq that was covered up, was suppressed by this administration.

Let me, if I can, say why that is a problem. We need the administration to fulfill its obligation to the American people to help get to the bottom of what happened in this situation. The fact is, I will indicate in just a moment, every single chance we have had to peel back the onion and peel back the draperies to find out what happened, this administration has continued to suppress information.

I want to give the gentleman this one example. On January 28, 2003, the President went before the Nation in the State of the Union address, stood right behind where the gentleman is standing right now and said, ``The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production.''

That statement was false. The reason we know that is that the person sent by the administration to Africa to find out whether it was true or not, Ambassador Joe Wilson, who, at the request of the administration, went to Africa and reported back before the State of the Union address that that was a bunch of hokum, it was a bunch of malarkey, and it was false.

And the President, in the State of the Union, despite that specific response from our intelligence service, if you will, or someone acting in their behalf, put it in the State of the Union anyway, or someone on his behalf.

Everybody can make mistakes. We are all human. But let us see what this administration's response to this falsehood and disclosure of falsehood was. Was it a thank you to Mr. Wilson for helping us get to the bottom of this? Was it a further inquiry to find out who was responsible for putting this gross misstatement in the State of the Union address? No.

What did they do? They tried to punish Joe Wilson, the citizen who did his patriotic duty to disclose this misstatement, by outing his wife who worked for the CIA, attempting to destroy her CIA career, to send a message to the world and to America, ``Don't tell the truth about this administration because we'll attempt to destroy you.'' That is what they have attempted to do.

Thank goodness there is a grand jury investigating what could be a Federal crime here, because this is a pattern with this administration. Look what is happening tonight.

Madam Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Madam Speaker, I think the proper characterization, I heard one of our colleagues at a town meeting say to one of our colleagues never in this country have so many been misled by so few, and now we are going to find the truth as to why that happened. And the reason we are going to find the truth are two principles: principle number one, facts are stubborn things; and, two, the truth comes out. It is coming out now, and it has come out yesterday on television, and it is coming out tomorrow in the commission.

I want to read some of this truth that I believe we are going to hear. The question is whether or not this administration was compelled by intelligence reports of weapons of mass destruction that forced them to action in Iraq or whether this administration had a preconceived judgment and decision to go after Iraq and then went looking for something to substantiate that preconceived decision to the American public. And it is the latter, and we know it is the latter, because every day more and more truth is leaking out of this White House.

What did we hear last night? We heard in a book by Mr. Richard Clarke, who was the White House's former counterterrorism chief, a pretty high individual in the White House who is responsible for counterterrorism, which was quoted in the New York Times, where he said that Mr. Bush pressed him, Mr. Clarke, three times to find evidence that Iraq was behind the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The accusation is explosive because no such link has ever been proved. Mr. Clarke says, quoting the President, `` `I want you, as soon as you can, to go back over everything, everything,' '' Mr. Clarke writes, and Mr. Bush told him `` `See if Saddam did this. See if he's linked in any way.' '' When Mr. Clarke protested that the culprit was al Qaeda, not Iraq, Mr. Bush ``testily ordered'' him, he writes, to `` `look into Iraq's Saddam,' '' and then left the room; then demanded a report, which was prepared, which came back and gave the same answer that there was not a meaningful connection between al Qaeda and Iraq, sent the report up the chain from CIA and FBI. It got bounced back and sent back saying, `` `wrong answer, do it again.' ''

A war was started on a false premise of a connection between Iraq and al

Qaeda, and the truth as to why that happened is coming out. Basically, as far as I can tell, the White House's principle is that their Secretary of the Treasury, who essentially said pretty much the same thing, that it had been Iraq, Iraq, Iraq even before September 11. Their counterterrorism chief, Richard Clarke, who said on the day of the attack they said let us go get Iraq and try to gin up some evidence to support this, in a manner of speaking; Joe Wilson, who was sent by this administration to find out whether this is a bill of goods about this uranium that got into the State of the Union address, the White House is saying that all these people who worked for the White House in these high positions have no clue as to what was going on. As far as I can tell, what the White House says is their position is nobody who ever worked in the White House has a clue as to what went on there because whatever they said has got to be wrong. And now, instead of welcoming a critical analysis as to what went wrong here and where the foul-up is, what is this administration doing?

According to the New York Times, the way they characterize it, and I think it is fair, they have ``opened an aggressive personal attack against its former counterterrorism chief, Richard Clarke.'' What did they do to Joe Wilson, the ambassador who found out that they told a falsehood in the State of the Union address? They tried to destroy his wife's career. What did they do to their former Secretary of the Treasury, who said essentially that they had been trying to go after Iraq from day one in the administration? And I paraphrase a little bit, but generally that was the thrust. They attacked him personally.

Madam Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, frankly, again, I want to reiterate we are all human and we have all made mistakes and every administration has made mistakes in the past, and we ought to be somewhat understanding of that. But this administration has been an abject failure in helping us find out what happened here and finding responsibility for those and taking action to hold them accountable so we can demonstrate to the world and to the American people that we are not going to countenance starting wars based on falsehood.

Let us look at the record of this administration in that regard.

How many people have been held to account for the fact that a war started based on false information? How many people? The answer? Zero. Zero. Five hundred people have lost their lives in Iraq, but zero people has George Bush held accountable for this false information, and it is wrong. Only one person in America has lost their job over this false information, and that was a radio talk show host.

We need accountability for this mistake, and this administration needs to get busy, instead of stonewalling and covering up the truth, to help us find the truth and find who is accountable.

If the gentleman will yield, the question you are asking is what Americans are asking all over the country. Yesterday, one of my constituents asked, I thought, a very interesting question. He said, after September 11, who did the President focus on? According to Paul O'Neill, the Secretary of the Treasury, including the President's own counterterrorism chief, Richard Clark, the answer was Iraq.

What my constituent asked me then, he said, well, you know, 15 out of the 19 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia. Did the President ever ask about Saudi Arabia, the country where historically a lot of these companies he has had dealings with in the oil and gas industry are? No. He never asked about Saudi Arabia. Iraq, Iraq.

I wanted to read what the counterterrorism chief says happened, because it is important, in trying to find out whether they focused on Iraq without justification.

Mr. Richard Clark said, ``Mr. Rumsfeld was saying we needed to bomb Iraq, and we all said no, no, al Qaeda is in Afghanistan; we need to bomb Afghanistan. And Mr. Rumsfeld said, there aren't any good targets in Afghanistan, and there are lots of good

targets in Iraq. I said, well, there are a lot of good targets in a lot of places, but Iraq has nothing to do with it.''

This is the counterterrorism chief of the White House. He went on: ``Initially, I thought when he said there aren't enough targets in Afghanistan, I thought he was joking. Initially. I think that they wanted to believe that there was a connection, but the CIA was sitting there, the FBI was sitting there, I was sitting there, saying we have looked at this issue for years; for years we have looked, and there is just no connection.''

This is the White House's counterterrorism chief telling the Secretary of Defense there is no connection between Iraq and al Qaeda.

And what did the President tell the American people over and over and over? He said essentially you cannot even think of them as distinct entities. He wanted to create a fear, to create an image in America that al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden had been morphed into Saddam Hussein, because he believed it was in the Nation's best interest, for whatever the reasons are.

But he did not have the right to tell these falsehoods to the American people. Now that the truth is coming up, he owes us an obligation to hold accountable in his administration whoever is responsible for this, and he owes us the obligation to stop stonewalling the distribution of truth to the American people, and he needs to come clean, as his arms inspector, David Kay, says he should do. This is an obligation to the people who are serving in Iraq tonight, our brothers and sons and daughters and husbands and wives.

If the gentleman will yield, the obligation that I think is paramount, forgetting for the moment the need for allies, but the real paramount obligation is to the families who have lost loved ones in Iraq.

Now, the family I think of is one that I spent some time with last weekend who lost their husband and son in the Tigress River, a U.S. soldier awarded the Bronze Star for his heroism and service in Iraq. That family is owed an explanation by its government as to why their husband and son died in a conflict that was started based on false information from the Government of the United States, and that ought to be a bipartisan position that that obligation is owed.

Amongst questions that need to be answered are these: Why did the President of the United States of America and his administration 10 times on nine separate public appearances tell the American people that Saddam Hussein and Iraq had obtained aluminum tubes for use in a reconstituted nuclear program, when its own Department of Energy had told it that that was false before they made those statements?

How can they possibly now stonewall this information when we have already peeled back the onion to find out that the Department of Energy had told the White House that they were wrong about this claim and they still used it to start this war? That is a question this family is owed an answer to.

Second, why did this administration tell Americans that Iraq had developed these robot drone aircraft for the purpose of spraying chemical and biological weapons on us here in the continental United States when its own Air Force in analyzing the information had concluded that these robots were used for photography, not aerial spraying of biological and chemical weapons?

Why did the President of the United States authorize doing that, and if he did not do it, who did? Who did that? Because those people need to be held accountable, if necessary, with their jobs at least. This administration has done nothing of the sort.

Mr. Speaker, one of the reasons this current administration has run up the largest Federal deficit in the universe's history is it has not told the truth to the American people.

The most recent example of that is this story that has come out that the chief actuary for Medicare had numbers indicating that the President's Medicare bill would cost billions of dollars more money than the administration told the American people. Indeed, Richard Foster advised the administration that this bill would cost $534 billion, when the administration was telling the American people it would cost about $400 billion.

And the reason this individual was not able to blow the whistle at that time is they effectively said they would

fire him if he told the truth to the American people.

In an e-mail disclosed yesterday in the Wall Street Journal, it was disclosed that this gentleman got an e-mail that said essentially, if you tell Congress or the American people the truth, quote, ``The consequences for insubordination are extremely severe,'' closed quote. We know what that means.

This administration told the person he would be fired if he told the truth to the American people. Well, we disagree with Jack Nicholson: We can handle the truth, and we deserve it.

I appreciate the gentleman from Maine bringing this important matter to national attention. I do care about the mercury contamination which this country will be experiencing because of the attempted sellout by this administration to special interests which will result in more mercury in the blood of young children in America. If that sounds like a strong statement it is, and it is true.

But one of my concerns here is this is not just the only instance when this administration has knuckled under to the interests of special interests on K Street rather than the public interest which is supposed to be expressed on Independence Avenue where the U.S. Capitol is located. I just want to say that this is not, unfortunately, an aberration of this administration's sellout to special interests, to ignore science, to ignore clear health implications. It is consistent with their pattern of neglect of science and they are showing great attention to special interests. They need to do it the other way around. We need an administration that will show special sensitivity to health interests and ignore special interests on occasion. They have got it exactly backwards. They show exquisite attention to lobbyists from these industries and ignoring the clear science for health to the American people. I want to list some of the other places where they have done this.

And the oil and gas industry that has attempted to open up these methane drilling wells in a variety of places, the Rocky Mountains, including wilderness areas in Utah and in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, they have catered to specialists; and they have ignored the clear import of science.

We are not the only ones who care about this. There have been some investigations in the Department of Interior about a fellow who used to work for the oil and gas industry, then was put as the fox in charge of the hen house, supposedly regulating. What was the first thing he did, like in the first few weeks on the job? And what did the investigators find out? They found out that he hosted a get-together, a little shindig for all the lobbyists to come down and do business with me, boys, I am now in charge of the Department. That is not what we expect from our public officials, and as a result, we have seen some ignoring of good science, which has caused tremendous problems for ranchers in Wyoming of contaminating the water supply because they have shown more interest to K Street than to Main Street.

Second example, we had over a million people testify about whether to preserve old-growth timber in our remaining 10 percent of our national forests that have not been clear-cut, and we went out to ask what the public thought of the President's proposal to open up what we call the roadless areas to clear-cutting, and the public responded. There were over a million people who told the administration to keep their handsaws and their chainsaws from clear-cutting our roadless areas. And they got maybe three letters from the lobbyists on K Street.

So what did this administration do? They are gutting this protection of the most pristine, the most precious crown jewels in our national forest system to allow these 6-foot and 8-foot and 10-foot 600-year-old trees to be cut down in clear-cuts, violating the clear science that that is not what we should be doing with the roadless areas. And why did they do it? They did it because this administration is extremely sensitive to K Street and not sensitive to the health interests and well-being, as they should be, of our constituents.

Let me tell the Members why this is important. A lot of people do not think of forests as a health issue, but we have found out that is where our clean water comes from, from the forests. This is the greatest water purification system the planet has. And this administration ignored 1.2 million people who told this administration to ignore K Street and fall to the wishes of people, which they did not do.

Third issue, and again I think it is important to note, anyone can make a mistake and any administration can make a mistake once in a while, but this is just a long train of abuses, an unbroken chain of following special interests rather than the health of the American people. When we are considering lead poisoning levels in the lead paint industry, which is of some interest to Members of Congress now because we are drinking water with too much lead in it in the Washington, D.C. system, which is an issue we are going to have to address, and maybe that explains some of the bad legislation around here, I am not sure; but in consideration of lead poisoning levels, in 2002, the CDC's Advisory Committee on Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention was preparing to address the issue, and they had been advising that we need to address this issue. Did the administration address this issue in an aggressive, health-oriented way? No. Did they appoint people to the reflective committees that made their decision? No. They had special interests on their operation, and they failed the health of the American people.

We could go on and on, but we are limited by time. This is a system that has corrupted the democratic process, and some of the best evidence that I know of, and the gentleman may have talked about this already, about a month ago, 20 nonpolitical Nobel laureates, and Nobel laureates usually think about physics and chemistry rather than politics, and they do not pound a lot of yard signs and they are not interested in running for public office, but 20 people who won the Nobel Prize, Americans in various sciences, chemistry, physics, name it, they were so disturbed by what this administration was doing in ignoring science to cater to special interests, they got together and wrote a letter to the President of the United States, and their basic message was start listening to good science rather than bad special interests.

And it is a pretty extraordinary event when scientists will get out of the lab, frankly, where they do tremendous work, and write a letter like that to the President of the United States. These are Democrats and Republicans, probably some Green Party members in there too. So I think it is an indication of how sour and corrupted this system has become. And so we are down here blowing the whistle on it, and I want to thank the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Allen) for his efforts.

Mr. Speaker, just one final note. There is a reason that the Vice President of the United States refuses to let the people who hired him, which is the American people, know what went on in this secret operation that took lobbyist language and put it in our energy bill. There is a reason for that. And that reason is another symptom of the sickness that is on our body politic right now. And I want to thank the gentleman for his efforts

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Speaker, I would posit that this is a great example of waste, fraud and abuse being perpetrated by this administration in trying to sell a pig in the poke to senior citizens who are not buying it, and it is waste, fraud and abuse in its most classical sense for at least three reasons.

Number one, it is not working. Seniors listen to this and almost laugh at it. I was at a meeting put on by the local chapter of the AARP in Edmonds, Washington last week, and there were about 150 seniors there, 150 seniors who had listened to this ``gobbledy-gook'' put out by the administration, trying to sell this ad to them. Not one single person out of 150 seniors, not the lobbyists who they hire, but the real seniors who supposedly need to depend on real coverage, not one person bought this as a decent plan for them. And I have got to tell you, there was fire and vigor and youthfulness in that room because they were so angry at the government trying to sell them this wasted opportunity. So first thing is the waste, because it is not going to work, because seniors are not going to buy it.

Second, it clearly is propaganda. I think the GAO has looked at this, General Accounting Office, and they cited several omissions, at least in the charitable sense of the term, of these advertisements not telling seniors what the real deal is; which is, number one, left out the fact they conveniently forgot that this legislation prohibited Uncle Sam from trying to try to get better drug prices for seniors, prohibited seniors from getting drugs from Canada, prohibiting reimportation in a safe way. Somehow they conveniently forgot that. It is waste because it is propaganda.

The third is it is simply not true. Let me tell you, it seems like every week we hear about another abuse of governmental power here. But let me tell you about one I heard about just yesterday, and that was that this administration is sending out deliberately phony alleged videos that purport to be news accounts from news reporters which, in fact, were paid models and actors who were faking like they were doing a news conference. Now if that is not an abuse of government authority, I do not know what is. Right now, the General Accounting Office lawyers are investigating this abuse and I think they are going to find a violation. I will tell you why.

This administration hired actors to pose as people. One of the people they hired, actors, who at the ending of this video that the administration is using our taxpayer dollars to send this around to all these local news stations around the country, and at the end they have this actor who says, ``In Washington, I am Karen Ryan reporting.'' Turns out she was just an actor on the take, paid for by this administration with our hard-earned dollars. It is a fraud. It is a fake. It is being investigated, and the administration should be ashamed of itself, not only for the substance of this bill which is insulting enough to seniors, but then they pay

these people to fake seniors, to think there is cheering mobs out there. They pay these people to clap for this thing when we go out and talk to real seniors that I know think it is a bunch of garbage, politely speaking.

So this is a perfect incidence of waste, fraud and abuse that I wish my Republican colleagues would write letters to the White House and tell them to knock it off because it is our taxpayers dollars that are being wasted here, and it is not going to work.

Mr. Speaker, it needs to be said, too, that our colleague who made the assertion that he had been offered essentially a $100,000 bribe or something akin to that to his son's election campaign was a Republican. This was a Republican Member, a colleague, who made this assertion, and that is why it is important to find out what happened in the situation.

But I will tell Members why I am here at 11 at night and that is there is such a growing pattern of a corruption of democracy here in the Chamber that I have great respect for, the House of Representatives, the people's House. I am a relatively new Member to this Chamber, and it is troublesome to me and I can tell Members it is getting very troublesome to my constituents when they hear this repeated consistent drum beat of a corruption of the democratic process.

It is not just one thing. It is the fact they do not let Members read the bill before they vote on it, which my people believe is a corruption of the democratic process, which happened in the Medicare bill. It is the fact that when they lose, they leave the time open for 3 hours to try to break arms, like the Russians did in the Olympic Games in the 1960s when we won the game and the Russian official just put another several seconds up on the clock. My people believe that is a corruption of the democratic process. And then during that 3 hours, according to a Republican colleague, he was offered a $100,000 bribe essentially to change his vote, which he had the moral integrity not to do, by the way, and remained a ``no'' vote solidly because he believed, I suspect, this is a bad bill, as we do. This is a pattern, and it is not just isolated to the Medicare bill.

Let me tell Members about another couple of problems that trouble me. I serve on the Committee on Resources, and we had the Department of Agriculture people. They supervise our national forests. We found out due to some diligence of an investigative reporter, that of our hard- earned taxpayer money, this administration has spent almost $100,000 hiring a public relations firm to try to spin the public into accepting a forest plan that would allow more old-growth trees to be cut, which is against public sentiment in the Sierra Nevada and the Rocky Mountains, and this PR firm advised the Department of Agriculture to keep it secret. It did not want the public to find out that they had spent $100,000 to spin the public. Their memo is a classic. He said we cannot tell the public because this is, quote, ``a matter of perception.'' We should not be spending $100,000 to create misperceptions or worry about perceptions. We ought to give the public the straight scope.

That is not the only one. The Department of the Interior, I picked up The Washington Post and I see we have an investigation going on at the Department of the Interior of a gentleman who works for the Department of the Interior, who, on repeated occasions, essentially was associated with beneficial decisions for his former clients in the oil and gas industry to open up methane wells in Wyoming and in the Rocky Mountains when he was specifically ordered not to do it.

Time after time, we are finding incidents where common sense and good practices of democracies are being violated.

Let me go back to a fundamental tenet. We have disagreements in this Chamber, and our constituents have disagreements. They disagree on a lot of things and it is not unexpected that we would have disagreements about matters of great import. But Americans ought to be able to expect at least one thing from the administration and from the President: That is the truth. Even if they may disagree with it, they are entitled to the truth in exchange for paying their taxes, and they have not got it, repeatedly. I want to go down a list of some of those things.

The President's administration told the American public and the U.S. Congress that the Medicare bill would cost about $460 billion. That was false; and more importantly, it was false and known to be false by this administration. To add insult to injury, not only was it known to be false, they ordered their own actuary to refuse to disclose this information to Congress. It is one thing to commit the sin of untruth and falsehood, it is a second sin to cover it up, which they have tried to do. That is falsehood number one.

Number two, they used taxpayer money to phony up these videos, acting like it is a news report, saying it is a news reporter reporting live, Sally Smith or whatever her name was, hiring actors to act like they liked the Medicare bill; and seniors all over the country are rejecting this Medicare bill. They want to hire actors. It is a falsehood to do that, and they did this consciously. They cannot do that by negligence or mistake. They made a decision. Somebody who works for the President of the United States said, I am going to hire an actor to fake out the seniors of this country, consciously, intentionally, and it is wrong.

And third, they told us their tax cuts were going to result in large surplus. We were going to have surpluses as far as the eye could see. They cut taxes wildly for the upper class. We now have the largest deficit in American history. That is falsehood number three, and they keep making the same mistake.

Fourth, and to me a series that I want to go through, because it is one thing to give falsehoods to Americans when it is about money, it is another thing to give falsehoods to Americans from the executive branch of this country sworn to defend the Constitution and the United States of America when it jeopardizes and takes the lives of Americans.

I just want to read some quotes that I think we need an accounting of and some responsibility from this administration. On March 17, 2003, the President of the United States told the American people, and I quote, ``Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised.'' That is a direct quote. It was false. Of all the information that we have gathered after hundreds of millions of dollars, the best evidence we have is that statement by the President of the United States, ``it leaves no doubt.'' America deserves an answer why the President of the United States told Americans that there was no doubt when the facts were at least there was significant doubt as reported by multiple intelligence agencies and the facts have come to bear that multiple statements by this administration were false and as a result of that Americans paid the ultimate sacrifice, one of whose family I visited this weekend whose children will never see their father again who died in the Tigris River trying to save an Iraqi policeman while serving in the United States Army. That family and the other 500 families and the other over 3,000 families of our wounded GIs and Marines and other proud service men and women deserve the truth, and they deserve to know why they did not get it.

On August 2, 2002, the Vice President of the United States, while talking to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, a group that deserves the truth after their proud service to this country, said, ``Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.'' That statement was false. According to the best information we have after hundreds of millions of dollars spent searching for these weapons, that statement was false. Americans who served in Iraq deserve to know why that happened. We do not know why that happened. It may have been a failure of intelligence. Our intelligence agencies may have overstated the threat. They may have left out caveats in their report to the White House. Somebody in the political machinery may have stretched, exaggerated, spun; we do not know what happened and why those statements that were made were so grievously in error that cost American lives, but we deserve an answer and this Chamber deserves an answer.

On January 28, 2003, during his State of the Union address in this Chamber to us, the President stated, ``The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production.'' That statement was false. Americans deserve to know the exact circumstances that led to that falsehood being given to them leading to this war.

On March 16, 2003, Vice President Dick Cheney on an interview with NBC's ``Meet the Press'' said, referring to weapons of mass destruction, ``He had years to get good at it. We know that he has been absolutely devoted to trying to acquire nuclear weapons and we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons.'' To our knowledge that statement was false.

On January 9, 2003, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer stated, ``We know for a fact that there are weapons there,'' referring to weapons of mass destruction. That statement was false.

On April 10, 2003, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer stated, ``But make no mistake, as I said earlier, we have high confidence that they have weapons of mass destruction. That is what this war was about and it is about, and we have high confidence it will be found.'' That statement may be correct in the sense that he may have had high confidence. He may have had high confidence. But the underlying statement was false. With all due respect, we are hopeful about the people of Iraq; but this war was based on false information, and Americans deserve to know why they did not get the straight scoop about this situation.

On September 19, 2002, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld stated, ``No terrorist state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people and the stability of the world than the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq.''

People have been saying that, well, gee, the administration is now telling us that we did not mean to actually make Americans worried by saying this was an immediate threat. But, in fact, the Secretary of Defense gave reference to an immediate threat with his own language, and on multiple occasions they have continued to make that statement. When White House communications director Dan Bartlett was asked if Saddam Hussein on January 26, 2003, was ``an imminent threat to the United States,'' he stated, ``Well, of course he is.'' This is repeated references, and we have page after page after page of statements that were false. Again, I want to repeat. The people who made these statements may have believed that they were true at the time they were making them. We do not know that. I do not know that. I like to give people the benefit of the doubt. But when this country has suffered the loss of over 500 of its sons and daughters and wives and husbands and fathers and mothers, this Chamber owes it to the United States of America to get to the absolute bottom of who is responsible for these multiple falsehoods on multiple occasions with absolutely no contrition, accountability, or responsibility.

No one has lost their job over this false information except one disc jockey. Maybe it was not a disc jockey. He was a person who was involved in political discourse. Where is the accountability? Where is the personal responsibility for these falsehoods? Where is the smallest discipline of anyone for giving Americans false information leading to the deaths of over 500 Americans? Where are the changes of procedures? Where is the joint committee in this Chamber? Where is the report of the Congress? Where is the action from the Republican Party to help us find out what happened here? It is missing in action. It is AWOL. With all due respect to our intelligence committees, and they have been doing some discussion of what is happening here, but it is sadly lacking, the type of responsibility that we need to see taken, an explanation of what happened to this information.

Let me make one suggestion when we do get to the bottom of this what we are going to find. Let me tell you about a couple of things I have found through my research. There was a statement by the administration, frankly I cannot recall if it was the President or the Defense Secretary that told Americans that Iraq had developed a drone aircraft that was capable and intended to be able to spread biological and chemical weapons, that could fly over America and spread these horrendous materials over the United States of America. Obviously, that is something we should be concerned about and we should do everything we can to prevent. The problem is that the Air Force, the experts in airplanes, had told the administration before they told Americans this information, before they told Americans the information, that these things were made out of balsa wood and almost duct tape and what they were good for is maybe taking pictures. They were not meant for this other nefarious purpose. They had that information and did not share it with us because frankly there was a lot of doubt about this. There was doubt about this. We cannot expect our intelligence service to be 100 percent, but they did not tell us that.

These aluminum tubes. The President of the United States in his State of the Union address made reference to these aluminum tubes. He said specifically, ``Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production.''

In fact, before the President made that statement, one of our agencies, and it was either the CIA or the Department of Energy, I cannot remember which, had concluded that that was not what these aluminum tubes were for. They were meant for other purposes.

If this was one misstatement, we would chalk it up to the fog of war and the need to be responsible as we need to be in the war on terrorism. But when it is a pattern, when it is a pattern of falsehood that continues to be consistent in their approach to the Medicare bill and the effort to clear-cut old-growth timber in the Sierra Nevada and a whole host of issues, it is

responsible for Members of the House to come and blow the whistle on this multiple corruption of the democratic process. And that is what we are here to do.

Let me suggest there is a simple answer to some of these things, these issues that we are calling for. If the President would really initiate a thorough investigation of this, we could find out why this information was false and why we found out. But do my colleagues know what he did or his people did? When this mistake was found out about this yellow cake in his State of the Union address, we found out that his statement that they were trying to get yellow cake from Africa was false, when the administration found out that was a falsehood, it was pointed out by a gentleman named Joe Wilson, who was a former ambassador who was sent by the CIA to Africa to find out whether this assertion was true, and he concluded it was not and told the administration it was not; and then the President went ahead, and somebody gave it to him. I cannot believe he did it himself and put it in the State of the Union address.

I am not faulting him for that specific failure. Somebody had to give that misinformation. But when his administration found out there had been a big mistake in the State of the Union address, one might think he might want to thank the person who helped him correct publicly this mistake because obviously none of us want to make any mistakes. We like to make sure what we are saying is credible. Does the gentleman know what the administration did? Instead, they tried to destroy the career of a CIA agent, who was Joe Wilson's wife, by outing her to destroy a citizen's career in public service who blew the whistle on this corruption of the democratic process. And that is wrong.

And we are many months passed this issue, and the President of the United States, the most powerful person in the Western World, cannot find out who in his administration did that. I am not satisfied with that. I am not satisfied unless the President picks up his phone and says I want an answer by eight o'clock tomorrow morning who did this because they are fired. And he has not done that. This is a pattern that needs to be corrected.

Mr. Speaker, if I may, I suppose there are gray zones about conduct, but when the U.S. Congress is debating something as important as the Medicare prescription drug benefit and we are trying to figure out how to finance it so this deficit does not continue and the President knows that there are many people concerned about the cost of this and a good American patriot, in the fulfillment of his democratic responsibilities, figures out it is going to cost another $160 billion than the President tells us it is going to cost, and he tells the administration that and the White House and HHS and everybody else and they tell him that may jeopardize our ability to win our political battle and our political battle is more important than the truth. Because that is what this boils down to. They reached a conclusion here, and their conclusion is they are so smart and they are so gifted and they are so special that they are more important than the truth. Therefore, they ordered and they threatened to fire an American who wanted to and would have shared the truth with Americans and this Congress, Republicans and Democrats, because they concluded they were more important than the truth.

And I just may add, I want to tip a hat to some of my Republican colleagues here because we have Republican colleagues that are madder than hops about this too because they were concerned about the cost of this bill because we have a $500 billion deficit and we have a number of our Republican colleagues who want to fix that problem. So they are mad about this too. They are not quite as vocal as we are in this context with their party member in the White House. But Republicans and Democrats ought to agree on one thing, and that is let us get the facts and the truth; then let us have our debate and let the chips fall where they may, and we are just happy to have that debate. But it is time for them to stop perverting the truth.

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Speaker, all of us have tremendous personal respect for our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Anyone who has had experience like I did, spending an afternoon with a family as I did from Bremerton, Washington, this weekend, but I want to mention a question that I have.

Tonight there is someone at large who wants to kill us. This person has killed us. This person has the capability of killing us. This person has an

organization dedicated to kill us. We have known this situation since September 11. Why is it that with the passage of years, that is, until last week, that the administration finally says they actually are going to have a 24/7 effort to catch Osama bin Laden? They launched a war and took their eye off the ball to catch this guy who is at-large, and now, last week, finally says now we are going to have an all-out effort to catch Osama bin Laden? Where have they been?

They have been in Iraq, and I have a question I want this administration to answer. I was asked by the victims families of September 11 two weeks ago. Why, after September 11, when we knew that somewhere between 12 and 15 of the hijackers who killed our people were from Saudi Arabia, did this administration allow an airplane to fly all across America, when everybody else was grounded, when you could not fly home from anywhere, why did this administration specifically allow an airplane, paid for by Saudi Arabia, to fly around this country picking up potential witnesses who could have helped us catch Osama bin Laden, including members of the bin Laden family? Why did this administration allow that?

Mr. Speaker, I think it was something like 15 out of the 19, and yet this administration, I want to know why they flew out these people two days after September 11 without the full, complete, comprehensive interrogation of these individuals, including blood relatives of the guy who we know did this, and several days later they are playing footsy with the ambassador down at the White House of Saudi Arabia, an organization that has been very close to the oil and gas industry? I want to know why they did that. Maybe there is a good answer. I cannot imagine what it is, but this is one of the questions that the people who are serving in Iraq and the victims of September 11 want answered.

Zero Iraqis on that plane.

The fact is we should have been cracking down on Saudi Arabia a long time ago. We should have been cracking down on the Pakistani fellow that we found was purveying nuclear technology all over the world and, instead we have been involved in an action in Iraq. Now, I am very happy that eventually maybe something good will come out of the action in Iraq, but our people need answers to these questions.

Mr. Speaker, I pay tribute today to a dedicated veteran, father, teacher, advocate, musician, and athlete. His leadership and courage touched many lives, including my own, and it is my great honor to recognize and commemorate this extraordinary man.

Robert B. Maier, was a model American citizen. He served in the U.S. Navy after graduating high school. Later, he taught American Studies and English at Mercer Island High School. A staunch advocate for public school and school employees, Bob worked in Washington State Capitol for 20 years. At the time of his death, he was chief lobbyist and director of public policy for the Washington Education Association.

Beyond these accomplishments, one of the most important things about Bob was his enthusiasm for life. Anyone could see it in the way he was always learning new things. He loved to play basketball and music. He read books and solved cross-word puzzles. He took leadership roles in his community. He was a contributor.

Bob's achievements and accomplishments speak to his tremendous love and respect for his community, friends, and family. I know he will be remembered by all those he touched. Our children are receiving a better education because of his long effort, for which we are deeply grateful.

Mr. Speaker, it is with great sorrow that I rise on the House floor to mourn the passing of one of my past colleagues and personal friends. Although we all feel great loss with her passing and it is difficult to express grief for her family and all those who knew her, I would like to offer this tribute as a celebration of her many accomplishments.

Representative Shirley J. Rector was a woman of spirit and principle. As one of the first women to work at Kaiser Aluminum, she took the bull by the horns and was elected as Steelworkers Union Local 338 legislative education chair and recording secretary. Even at that time, her dedication to making the world a better place was clear.

Shirley was committed to public service. She was vice chair of the Democratic Central Committee. I am honored to have been her colleague when she served as a member of the State of Washington House of Representatives where she was instrumental in passing legislation for both the Shared and Family Leave Acts. She was also on the SIRTI Higher Education Board and was co-founder of the Women Helping Women Fund. No one who was there will ever forget her speech which electrified the House concerning family and medical care.

I am humbled by these accomplishments and I am assured that her legacy of strong involvement in government and community has touched the lives of many.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I think there is a bipartisan consensus here today that educated and informed consumers regarding what is in their food should not have a claim relating to obesity and that we would all attempt to write a law that will effectuate that goal. But as Mark Twain said, the difference between the right word and almost the right word is the difference between lightening and a lightning bug. And the difference between a well-crafted bill and one that misses the mark a little bit is the difference between a radical restructuring of civil

liability law in the United States and a bill that we want to produce. And, unfortunately, this bill lacks two words. And our amendment would cure that defect.

Mr. Chairman, it is a very well-accepted principle, if I can compare this scenario, it is a very well-accepted principle that in America if a person is inattentive for a few moments and violated a law by going through a stop sign, they are responsible to the injured party for the wreck. It is a very well-accepted principle that if a person who manufactures jet airplanes is inattentive for a moment, and they fail to put a bolt on an engine and the engine falls off and 250 people are killed, they are legally, or their corporation is legally, responsible for that violation of the law.

It is clear at this moment that if an employee of a company is inattentive and puts the wrong information on the box of a food or a bench or a medical product and someone dies as a result, that corporation is liable for their inattention.

But because of the absence of the word ``negligence'' in this bill, we would have removed liability for that very, very well-accepted principle. Let me tell you why that is important. Take the case of Steve Beckler, former pitcher for the Baltimore Orioles who took a product called Xenadrine RFA-1. It is a dietary supplement, and it appears to be covered under the definition of food of this statute or proposal. It was sold and Mr. Beckler died. It was advertised as having the quality of a rapid fat-loss catalyst. The medical examiner concluded that his death was a proximate result of this medication.

Now, I do not know exactly about the circumstances of the warnings or lack of warning on that product; but under this bill as currently drafted without the Inslee amendment, if the clear testimony was that the label that said do not take this if you have high blood pressure was left off due to inattention, there would not be a responsibility. And the widow of this gentleman would be out of luck.

If, in fact, someone violated the clear mandate of Congress or a State legislative body to give a specific warning that is identified in law, and if that warning did not get on the product, the victim would still be out of luck.

And I want to make sure people understand this. By inserting the word ``negligence'' into this bill, we will not be giving jurors the right to determine what warnings or information should be on the product. That is not giving jurors that ambit. All this will say is if my good friend, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner), the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Watt), and all of us get together and we pass a law that certain information has to be on the box, like do not take this weight loss supplement if you have high blood pressure, or do not take it if you have evidence of stroke or previous history of stroke, and due to someone's inattention or the fact that they were asleep at the switch or they just were not doing their job, the victim will not have a claim under law. And I do not think that is what the majority of us ought to be about if we are imposing this obligation.

I ask the majority party, let me just pose this as a friendly question to my friends, if indeed we pass a bill here that requires, for instance, that a warning be on a weight-loss product that says do not take this weight loss product if you have an evidence of high blood pressure, and if an employee is asleep at the switch or is inattentive at the brief moment and the product goes out without the label and somebody dies, I am asking the majority party why the widow or family of such a victim who died as a result of an obligation we voted to impose in United States Congress, why do you intend to deny that person a remedy? That is an open question to anyone in the majority.

I yield to the gentleman from Florida.

Mr. Chairman, I reclaim my time.

Mr. Chairman, I want to again reiterate I think there is a mutual desire to try to find the right language that will accomplish our mutual end, but this bill does not use the right language to do it.

I want to respond to the gentleman from Florida's (Mr. Keller) statement that my situation was inappropriate. I think I would refer the gentleman to the language of section 5 which cuts off claims for a whole host of injuries including ``any health condition that is associated with a person's weight gain or obesity.''

Any health condition that is associated with a person's weight gain or obesity. The fact of the matter is if someone forgets to put the label on that says do not take this if you have high blood pressure, and you gain weight and your high blood pressure

goes through the roof, you have a claim associated to your obesity. There is no reason to have to include that language. And if you are going to include that language, you ought to at least include the well- accepted principle of American jurisprudence in 50 States which is this:

If someone refuses to honor the legal mandate for conduct that the U.S. Congress imposed due to inattention or negligence, there is legal responsibility for that. And for the first time as I know it, and I think the gun law is not applicable because that applied to creating an obligation through the obligation of exercising reasonable care, what this amendment does is say if Congress imposes an obligation to say X, Y or Z, it is not the jurors coming up with that obligation to say something on the label. We are simply saying if you do not follow the law, there is a responsibility.

I am asking my colleagues to consider this closely for an additional reason. Yesterday, Julie Gerberding, the director of the Federal Center of Disease Control and Prevention said, ``Obesity is catching up to tobacco as the leading cause of death in America. If this trend continues, it will soon overtake tobacco. This is a tragedy,'' Gerberding said. ``We are looking at this as a wake-up call,'' suggesting that over 500,000 deaths annually will occur due to obesity.

Now, in light of this scientific information, what is the first thing the House of Representatives does? It rushes to immunity for corporations, which may be appropriate in this particular case; but let us show a little care how we define which cases, so the people who die as a result of negligence and people asleep at the switch and their refusal to do what Congress told them to do are not swept up in this bill.

Mr. Chairman, I want to respond to my friend, the gentleman from Wisconsin's (Mr. Sensenbrenner) appropriate reference to the idea of accountability because, as I said, we on a bipartisan basis ought to be able to craft a bill that appropriately says if a person has information about their food and they are not personally responsible and become obese due to their own lack of personal responsibility, they should not have a claim. And I am first to say that, or second or third. But there is another personal accountability that the way this bill is drafted ignores. And that is that if the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner) and I both voted for a bill that imposed a personal legal responsibility to put on every package of phenadrine or any other product that you can think of that says do not take this if you have history of a stroke, and they do not do this, and this is not a jury-imposed obligation, it is one imposed by the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner) and myself, together, and they fail to do it, they ought to be held accountable because accountability and personal responsibility work two ways in our society.

Hold the person who has information about fatty products and they get fat because they are irresponsible, hold them accountable and they have no claim, and this bill should accomplish that end. But for the person who refuses to abide by the mandate of this Congress what to put on food products, they should be held accountable for their lack of responsibility; and this bill clearly obviates that in the language that says ``any health condition that is associated with a person's weight gain or obesity.'' You are cutting off, perhaps unintentionally, claims for injury due to high blood pressure, stroke, cardiac arrest and a whole other group of diseases associated with weight gain.

Frankly, I do not think you are intending to do that. Because if I think that you think your constituents, if somebody fouls up a label and they die due to a stroke, I do not think you intend to cut that off; but you are doing

it. And it is unfortunate, and I wish you would help me fix it.

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Speaker, the sad fact is that our proud men and women are not being treated with adequate dignity and respect when they come back, and some do not come back from Iraq. There are a thousand frustrations that we have been hearing across the Districts. Let me just give you one. I think it is typical of what happened, a small instance.

I have been working with the family of a soldier who was killed. He drowned in the Tigris River while trying to save an Iraqi policeman when they were on patrol. He died a hero in the service of his country. We tried to get his brother in from the Philippines to go to his funeral. You would not think that would be too much to ask when a man gave his life for his country and his family lost a husband and a son for their family. We could not even get the State Department to let his brother in for the funeral of this American soldier. Now, this was incompetence of the highest order.

I want to point out two things from my District as I now meet with the families who are now sending their sons and daughters and husbands and wives in the biggest movement of American military since World War II. That is going on right now, and thousands and thousands of Reservists and National Guard personnel are leaving their families and their jobs to go to a multi-year mission that we have no definition how long it will be unfortunately, and what I hear from them is two things.

Number 1, they believe that they deserve an administration that will shoot straight with them when it comes to their duty in this war, and I hear over and over again that they believe they are getting the short end of the stick because they are not getting the straight scoop even today about what is going on in Iraq. I will give you an example.

I had lunch with a proud father whose son is a marine who is I think in Baghdad tonight, just left a few weeks ago, and he is proud of his son, rightfully so. But he told me in no uncertain terms that he has a very high level of anger that his son is going into harm's way on a war that was based and started on a false premise, a false premise about the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and he says what he is most mad about is even today, when we know that premise was false, that the President of the United States continues to stonewall an inquiry to find out what happened in this sorry state of affairs.

That is what makes him angry; that when this Commission goes to look for this information, the President says, oh I do not have time, I will only give you an hour. He has time to go to rodeos; he has time to go to Ohio and time to fly to Florida, and he ought to have the time to answer the inquires of that father of that proud Marine who is in Baghdad tonight, and tell us why the Americans did not get the straight scoop when we went to Iraq?

This man told me this, and I thought this was an interesting comment because I would not think he would be thinking about fiscal issues while his son is in Baghdad, but he told me that he is angered that even today, when we are hundreds of billions of dollars into the Iraq expenditure, that even today, when this administration has run up a $500 billion deficit, the largest deficit in American history and that is getting larger by the minute, even when we know we are going to be in Iraq for goodness knows how long, the President of the United States has not been square with the American people as to how much it is going to cost.

We have a $500 billion deficit and we are spending billions of dollars today in Iraq. The President sends up to this Chamber a budget which is supposed to be an honest, forthright, meaningful prediction of the cost associated with running this government and he leaves out one thing, any money for fighting the Iraq war. Now, what does the White House think; that the American people do not know we are going to be spending billions of dollars in Iraq? This administration does not have the courage, I guess, to tell us how much it is going to cost or put $1 in their budget for it.