Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to speak out of order.

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Ohio has shown one of the hallmarks of this administration, its ability to spin a tale. Say it often enough and the American people may actually begin to believe it. In fact, they are so good at it they may have begun to believe their own press releases.

The other day, Secretary of War Rumsfeld delivered a major speech at the National Press Club. Along the way, terror got a new name, Osama Hussein. Or was it Saddam bin Laden? In English, the rule is I before E except after C but in this administration I equals A. Iraq equals al Qaeda because they say so, not because there is a shred of evidence. There is not.

Mr. Rumsfeld appeared to link Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein in the same breath. He has got them all confused in his head now. He has said the story so many different times and they still are trying to connect the al Qaeda with what happened on 9/11. Or maybe it was just a stumble compounded later in his appearance by another gaffe. Or was it reading too many spin memos that your head begins to turn and spin and spin and you do not know where you are. At the very least, this shows the effect of a PR campaign that began well before the invasion of Iraq. The separation between the rhetoric and the reality has blurred into one and the same. Over and over again, the administration has exaggerated the tie between Iraq and al Qaeda. When questions from the Congress and the American people outstripped the rhetoric, the administration's rhetoric got louder, a lot louder. Today it is so loud that it is hard to hear the quiet truth. But it is there.

It has been over a year and a half since the President ordered the beginning of hostile action against Iraq. It has been over a year since the President declared ``mission accomplished.'' Absolutely no one on the planet believes that the mission has either been accomplished or will be anytime soon. Even some Republicans are now talking about a presence in Iraq over the next two decades. Is that the plan for winning the peace? Is that the plan or the consequence of going to war in Iraq?

Today, U.S. military commanders are using more air strikes in Iraq. If that helps save American lives or keep soldiers safe, out of harm's way, I am all for it. If this is a new military strategy, then it raises the question, why can we not get a lot of American soldiers out of Iraq and get them out of harm's way? It has been almost 3 months since the so-called handover. In those 90 days, 150 soldiers have died and 900 have been wounded. We cannot ask what we are going to do to win the peace because U.S. soldiers are still fighting and dying in a war. This is not the time to ask how the administration plans to win the peace, because there is no peace in Iraq today.

Colin Powell came out yesterday and said we have a secret plan that sometime soon we will roll out so we can get stability at the time of the election. What is he waiting for? The election? Or the fact that he does not know what he is doing? U.S. forces managed a weekend without a military death but the death count of innocent Iraqi citizens is up dramatically over the last 48 hours. In another day of war, there can be no peace.

Today, the American people have a fog of war, reality obscured by an administration which would prefer that we merely accept their version of reality or versions when the story needs to change. While it may have been a slip of the tongue the other day at the National Press Club, one wonders whether Secretary Rumsfeld inadvertently expressed publicly what he thinks privately. Are bin Laden and Hussein two different faces of evil, or are they some kind of split personality? Spin the rhetoric around enough and it gets hard to separate it from the reality on the ground, here or there.

The administration has wrapped itself in the mantle of fighting the war on terror. Just today this administration could have struck a major blow against terrorism simply by extending the ban on assault weapons. These are bona fide weapons of mass destruction. We know where they are and we know how to keep them out of the hands of the bad guys. The President said he favored the ban, but then he did absolutely nothing to make it happen. You think he could not get the leadership in the House of Representatives to act on this if he meant business? He never meant anything close to that.

The administration did not need weapons inspectors from the U.N. or air strikes from the military to find and isolate weapons of mass destruction that will threaten police officers and our security officers and our homeland security. All the President needed to do was tell his surrogates in this body and the other body to extend the ban. That did not happen, despite overwhelming support from the American people, despite overwhelming support from law enforcement officers. Instead, the administration used empty rhetoric to disarm a true weapon in the war on terror.

The regime is coming to an end, Mr. Speaker, in 49 days.

Madam Speaker, the Republicans have performed a hat trick. They have control of the House, the White House, and the Senate, and now they are trying to pull a rabbit out of a hat.

They need money, piles and piles of it.

The President's tax giveaway to the very rich soaked average Americans and drained the U.S. Treasury. The President's Iraq war is bleeding the U.S. economy and ballooning the Federal deficit.

It will only get worse.

Administration surrogates now openly talk about remaining in Iraq for decades. The Pentagon's annual budget is already close to the entire Federal deficit. To feed the President's war, every domestic program, from Medicare to veterans' health, to low-income housing, is on the table. Make no mistake. Domestic programs are going to be squeezed hard, just like the middle class. This is the lemon that we have in the White House.

It is the Republican way. Why be fair when you can govern by fear?

Think about it. The 2nd of November, it is coming.

Mr. Speaker, The New York Times today says: ``U.S. Conceding Rebels Control of Regions of Iraq. Pentagon is not certain when central areas can be secured.''

Iraq has come to that. From the day the President launched his crusade, we feared that casualties would mount, and they have. One thousand brave Americans have died.

The marker somehow brings it more in focus for the American people. As if 999 would not, or if even one death in this war is not tragic enough.

One thousand soldiers killed in Iraq, over 6,000 wounded and maimed, tens of thousands of Iraqis killed and injured; and the American people still do not know why.

The President has changed his reasons for going to war so often that we have lost sight of another casualty. The truth has fallen alongside of those brave U.S. soldiers.

We cannot bring them back, but we can honor them by demanding the truth on the 2nd of November. It is coming, Mr. President.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take my Special Order out of order.

Mr. Speaker, young men and women are giving up their lives nearly every day to sustain the President's war in Iraq. They are not in Iraq toppling Saddam. That has been done. They are not in Iraq dismantling weapons of mass destruction. There never were any. They are in Iraq dying in George Bush's crusade.

I think it is only fitting that we should give each of the dead a minute of silence here on the floor. But we cannot because we would have to stand here silent for 16\1/2\ hours. That is because today we lost the 1,000th American in Iraq. For what? For what?

The President says we took out Saddam Hussein because he was a bad guy. Well, that could apply to an awful lot of people all over the face of the Earth. They went in there with no plan for establishing the peace. And more people have died since the President made his fabled landing on the Abraham Lincoln saying ``mission accomplished'' than died before that. More people have died since they handed over control to the Iraqis than died before the mission was accomplished. This has been an unending disaster.

So since we cannot give a minute of silence for every member, let me tell you who has died from my State thus far in Iraq. And I hope every Member will come to the floor and do what I am doing tonight, speak the names of the dead. Think about the futures they have lost and the families they leave behind. And then I hope every American will ask the President why. Why?

From Washington State we have lost Lance Corporal Cedric E. Burns, age 22; Specialist Justin W. Hebert, age 20; Private Duane E. Longstreth, age 19; Private Kerry D. Scott, age 21; Second Lieutenant Benjamin L. Colgan, age 30, distinguished soldier who made his picture on to the front page of Time magazine, very courageous and very good soldier; Specialist Robert T. Benson, age 20; Specialist John R. Sullivan, age 26; Captain James A. Shull, age 32; Specialist Nathan W. Nakis, 19; Sergeant Curt E. Jordan, Jr., age 25; Staff Sergeant Christopher Bunda, age 29; First Lieutenant Michael R. Adams, age 24; Sergeant Jacob R. Herring, age 21; Sergeant Jeffery R. Shaver, age 26; Private Cody S. Calavan, age 19; Lance Corporal Dustin L. Sides, age 22; Staff Sergeant Marvin Best, age 33; Specialist Jeremiah W. Schmunk, age 21; Sergeant Yadir G. Reynoso, age 27; Lance Corporal Kane M. Funke, age 20; Lance Corporal Caleb J. Powers, age 21; Sergeant Jason Cook, age 25.

These men have died in this crusade in a war that was never understood by the people who started it. They had no reason to go to Iraq and they went anyway, and these people from my State paid the price.

Mr. Speaker, as I got up this morning, I heard on CNN news that the Republican leadership had already decided we cannot do anything about the 9/11 report until next year.

What we come to this morning is, first, the gentleman from Florida, now the lady from Tennessee, to tell us that the problem is Sandy Berger. Hey, folks, do not pay any attention to that report, just look at Sandy Berger's picture. Come on, look at Sandy Berger's picture. Look at Sandy Berger's picture. That is what you want to do.

This is a distraction by the White House. This is a damning report, and

we can spend all the time we want to blaming people here, but the question is what are we going to do.

The Republicans say they care about terrorism. This here is a report that gives us concrete things to do; and the leadership of the Republican Party says, well, put this up on the shelf, this 9/11 report, just put it up there, and let us go down and talk about Sandy Berger.

Did anything get lost? Did the commission say they could do not their work? Did the Justice Department come to it with any charges against Mr. Berger? No.

Now, we do not want to talk about the White House and Vivian Plame, or whatever her name was, that they outed or the majority leader who seems to be in some difficulty in Texas. We do not want to talk about that stuff. Let us talk about what needs to be done with the terrorism report.

Mr. Speaker, I rise against this amendment.

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

Mr. Speaker, what the Republicans are doing today is a ``needless, futile and utterly dangerous abandonment of constitutional principle . . . without precedent or justification.'' These were the very words used by the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1937 when they opposed President Roosevelt's court packing scheme. it was exactly 67 years ago today that the U.S. Senate voted down that dangerous plan.

Mr. Speaker, the legislation that you are asking this August body to consider is no less dangerous. This legislation, the so-called Marriage Protection Act, is championed by the Republican leadership. It aims to manipulate, to indeed disrobe the Third Branch of our government, The Judiciary.

Any why, Mr. Speaker? Because the Republican Party and this Republican Congress wishes to deny a particular class of people their right to come before the federal courts and defend their unalienable rights. What a horrible precedent.

Mr. Speaker, Alexander Hamilton--the man on our ten dollar bill--in Federalist 78 said that the courts of justice are the bulwarks of a limited constitution against legislative encroachments, and are there to safeguard the private rights of particular classes of citizens against unjust and partial laws. What the Republican bill does is attack the very foundation upon which our Founding Fathers built this great republic.

The Republican party says that we ``need to protect marriage from activist judges.'' Maybe

there are a few activist judges out there, but this bill strips all federal courts--even the Supreme Court--from considering the constitutionality of a federal law that attacks the rights of a particular class of people.

The Defense of Marriage Act is clearly a legislative encroachment upon the Constitutional rights of Homosexuals. Why else would you bring a bill out here that denies judicial review over that unjust and partial law?

Mr. Speaker, C. J. Chen soon will be concluding his term as Representative of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (``TECRO''). In this capacity C. J. Chen has spent the past four years as Taiwan's unofficial ambassador to the United States, an important posting and a critical position for the twenty-three million people on Taiwan.

Few diplomats have a greater understanding about East Asia and the United States than C. J. Chen. He has been a member of Taiwan's foreign service for more than three and one half decades, and he has spent most of that time focused on fostering ties between Taiwan and the United States. By all accounts, he has done an excellent job.

Representative Chen's diplomatic career has been most impressive. He has held a number of important positions in Taiwan's Ministry of External Affairs and capped his long diplomatic career in Taipei by being named Foreign Minister. During the past four years while serving as head of TECRO, Representative Chen has used his vast experience to preserve and expand ties between Taipei and Washington. Representative Chen's advice and counsel have always been sought by Members of Congress who have a keen interest in matters involving the Taiwan Straits. Therefore, his impending departure is a loss for Taiwan's friends in Washington.

Mr. Speaker, my colleagues and I wish Representative Chen and his lovely wife Yolanda well as they prepare to return to Taipei for new challenges. I look forward to seeing him again in Taipei or when he returns to Washington in the months ahead.

Mr. Speaker, the President and his Trade Representative say that the U.S.-Morocco free trade agreement is a good idea because it will strengthen our economic ties with moderate, I emphasize moderate, Muslim countries.

Well, first of all, two-way trade flow between the United States and Morocco is around a billion dollars a year. Morocco is a tiny economy with little economic significance. The U.S. Commerce Department indicated the trade agreement will have a negligible impact on trade and negligible impact on our economies.

Furthermore, while I recognize that King Mohammed VI has made great strides recently, particularly with regard to the rights of women, we should not forget two very important issues. One, Morocco is a monarchy and the king is deemed the country's religious leader. This FTA is really about strengthening ties with moderate monarchies; Jordan, Bahrain and others have preceded it.

There are dozens of Muslim countries that are vibrant democracies, Egypt, that we should have chosen to pursue trade agreements before we chose Morocco.

But, two, the way in which Morocco has handled the Western Sahara is really a stain on their nation. In 1975, when the Western Sahara went free from Spain, the Moroccans moved in immediately and said this is our country. It is a very, very wealthy country in natural resources. Both oil is being drilled for by Kerr McGee and other American and British companies, and the fishing industry off the coast is very proficient.

So before signing an agreement with them, with a nation that has been occupying a territory to which it has no legal claim for 25 years, a nation that has erected a 2,000-kilometer wall to keep the inhabitants of Western Sahara from fleeing, with a country that has no respect for the right of self-determination, we should have ensured that the area of Western Sahara was justly and peacefully resolved. It would have been a lever we could have used to get them to resolve this.

The U.N. has said you should have an election and they just never quite get around to having it for 25 years.

I am really pleased, however, that the chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means and the ranking member, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel), have worked with me to insert language into the official committee documents to indicate that in no way does the free trade agreement cover trade investment in the Western Sahara.

The issue is this: If you drill oil in the Western Sahara and the Moroccans take it into Morocco, is it then eligible for tariff-free dealings with the United States? And the answer should be no, and there should really never have been a trade agreement until that legal claim was relinquished or we had some sort of agreement on all of this.

What we do have is a letter which the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Pitts) inserted in the Record. I suspect I have one very similar to his but he will insert it also in the Record. I will include a letter from the Trade Representatives saying that in dealing with Morocco we are dealing with Morocco as understood by the United Nations and the United States, and we are not using this as a kind of end- around to go out and get more oil.

One wonders why did we go to Morocco? What is it about Morocco? It is a little tiny country, very little trade with us. What is being done here that really needs to be done?

I think we need to protect the indigenous people of the Sahrawi who live in Western Sahara. They need to have the protection from this United States reaching in and taking their resources by the back door. I thank the chairman for bringing this issue to the floor.

Executive Office of the President, The United States

Trade Representative

Washington, DC, July 20, 2004.

Hon. Jim McDermott,

House of Representatives,

Washington, DC.

Dear Congressman McDermott: Thank you for your letter of

July 19, 2004, concerning our Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with

Morocco and the status of Western Sahara.

The Administration's position on Western Sahara is clear:

sovereignty of Western Sahara is in dispute, and the United

States fully supports the United Nations' efforts to resolve

this issue. The United States and many other countries do not

recognize Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara and have

consistently urged the parties to work with the United

Nations to resolve the conflict by peaceful means.

The FTA will cover trade and investment in the territory of

Morocco as recognized internationally, and will not include

Western Sahara. As our Harmonized Tariff Schedule makes

clear, for U.S. Customs purposes, the United States treats

imports from Western Sahara and Morocco differently. Nothing

in the FTA will require us to change this practice. The

Administration will draft the proclamation authorized in the

legislation implementing the FTA (H.R. 4842) to provide

preferential tariff treatment for goods from the territory of

Morocco. Preferential tariff treatment will not be provided

to goods from Western Sahara.

I hope this letter addresses your question regarding the

FTA and the status of Western Sahara. I encourage you to

support the FTA. It will create economic opportunities for

U.S. manufacturing and service firms, workers, and farmers,

and will support economic reforms and foreign investment in

Morocco.

Thank you again for your letter. Please feel free to

contact me should you have further questions.

Sincerely,

Robert B. Zoellick.

Mr. Speaker, well, here we go again. Anytime the heat is on the Republicans, the Bush administration, they leak something out and try and smear somebody.

The 9/11 Commission report is coming out tomorrow, and just 3 days before it they bring up something that has been investigated for 9 months. They leak it out of the Justice Department.

Now, even conservative reporters like Norm Ornstein and David Gurgin have said they are enormously skeptical about this whole thing. David Gurgin said it is suspicious.

It is not suspicious. It is what they always do. Whenever there is something coming up, they find a way to leak out something like against Ms. Gorelick on the 9/11 Commission. They never wanted the commission, and now it is going to come out and say bad things about them. So they are going to smear all the people around it as quickly as possible.

That is a standard operating position for these people, and it is despicable. Why do they not let the Justice Department do the report? It was 9 long months ago it started. Let them bring it out when there is going to be an indictment.

We will do the same for the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay), and we will do the same for all the Members on the Republican side who want to raise these kinds of issues. Why do we not wait until the people in the Justice Department make the decision?

Mr. Speaker, we are getting close to election again. The gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) Congress says it is time for simplifying the Tax Code. But, Mr. Speaker, my colleagues know that ``tax simplification'' is just the term the Republicans use to start talking about the need for a flat tax or a sales tax. Every year at this time it comes up.

The Committee on Ways and Means had a host of hearings about this same issue in the mid-1990s under Chairman Archer. At one point during the hearings in 1995, the chairman said he was convinced that the Tax Code needed to go to a flat tax. He even said he was going to introduce legislation to do it. But, after all the hearings and all of the rhetoric, he never even introduced a bill.

Mr. Speaker, we can do two things with money: We can save it or we can spend it. Now, rich people have more to save than do poor people. If all that we do is impose taxes when people spend money, then poor people are going to spend the larger share of their paycheck on taxes than rich people are. I mean, anybody knows that. Poor people spend every dime of every paycheck; rich people spend some and then they put a whole bunch in the bank or in the stock market or in something else. A system based on consumption taxes hardly is fair at all.

Legislation has been introduced in the past to convert our tax regime to one that relies solely on consumption taxes. The gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Linder) has introduced legislation to abolish the IRS, abolish it, and force the Federal Government to rely on a national sales tax, a proposal that the majority leader supports. This proposal would be a boon to the wealthy elite. His proposal would tax all purchases on goods and services in our economy, including food, health care, home rents, and new home purchases.

The Joint Committee on Taxation did an analysis of the Linder proposal. The study indicated that in order for the bill to be revenue neutral over 10 years, the estimated national sales tax rate would be between 36 and 57 percent. In other words, the price of blood transfusions, prescription drugs, and a pair of sneakers would increase between 37 and 57 percent. Does that sound fair to my colleagues?

How do we sell this proposal to simplify tax structure to the baby boomers of this country who are about to go onto a fixed income? We have this big bulge of people who are just about, in 2008, going to start going onto Social Security. You cannot, and that is why they call it tax simplification. It sounds like a good idea.

The Health Insurance Association of America states that one of the consequences of a flat tax bill is likely to be a rapid increase in the number of people without private health insurance coverage. One economist estimated that there would be 8 million more people without health benefits if a flat tax proposal were enacted.

James Poterba, an economist at MIT, estimated that eliminating the current tax law benefits for purchasing homes could result in a 17 percent decline in the value of the U.S. housing market.

Now, what about the payroll taxes? A flat tax proposal may eliminate the deduction that employers pay for their payroll taxes, amounting to a massive tax increase on businesses of all sizes.

The American public is not naive, Mr. Speaker. They know that when it is election time and the Republicans start talking about tax simplification, it really means they want a flat tax. If you just give us one more chance, we did not simplify it over the last 10 years that we have been in control. Give us another chance and we will get our flat tax in.

Now, when are they going to be honest about these goals for the people? When are they going to be honest and tell the American people that the Tax Code has only become more complex since they controlled the Congress and its tax-writing committees. They have 105 more days to run this charade, but it is coming. There is going to be a change, and not in the Tax Code, but in who runs this House.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman for yielding me a couple more minutes. After listening to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Portman), I always can think of things to say.

The gentleman tells us that this bill, that I am probably for it; the gentleman is right. This is nothing. This bill does not do anything except do what the gentleman told us he was not going to do. The gentleman said he was going to make the expensing for a while and then stop it. Now my Republican colleagues are making it permanent. It is just one more of those things.

But the real point here is, you say this is a start. It is not much. It is a start on the way to what?

I yield to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Portman).

Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, does the gentleman realize he just put everybody to sleep, who is watching this, with that stuff? You guys come out here to pass a bill because you cannot get through the military construction bill, and this is nonsense.

Every time we have had, since 1994 we have Archer talk about simplification, we had the majority leader, Mr. Armey, who campaigned against the tax system and said he was going to rip it out by the roots and have a flat tax. I mean, we have been hearing this stuff, and today we have this little bitty thing, and it does not do any harm, really; it does not do any good, really.

I mean, surely everybody would like to have their taxes cut, whoever they are, but the real issue is the working people of this country. They are paying payroll taxes, and nobody is talking about them. Nobody is talking about the fact that we took the tax structure and gave the bulk of the benefits to people above $1 million, or above $100,000, for that matter. Nobody is talking about that. Why do my Republican colleagues not talk about what you are doing for people on the bottom?

In India they ran a campaign and they said that ``India is shining.'' That was the theme of the campaign in India. And the Congress Party ran one with a symbol that said, ``The hand of Congress is with the common man.'' And, lo and behold, in spite of an 8.2 percent growth rate in India, they threw out the ``India is shining'' because it was not shining on the people at the bottom.

And you people have got to understand that. You can keep doing this kind of stuff and telling people, we are going to simplify, we are going to simplify. They do not believe you. They do not believe you. They have watched what you did for 10 years. So you can say it as many times as you want, but they have to figure out their taxes, and they know that it is not simplification.

So I know it is election time, and I appreciate that you have control of the Committee on Rules and can bring this kind of stuff out, but it is not making it any better for the common man in this country.

Mr. Speaker, as I sat and listened to this debate, I thought of a very famous quote from Groucho Marx. He said if you are going to go into politics, the first thing you have to learn to do is learn to keep a straight face and act sincere.

Now this bill taxes anybody's ability to do that. It is election time. We have a man from a southern State who is running for election. He spent a million dollars in the primary, and yesterday he did not do that well. But he now has this bill the next day to take home and say, ``I have brought tax simplification to Georgia.'' That is what we have here today.

I understand it is election time, and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) certainly has interest in tax simplification, but the other side of the aisle simply has no credibility on this issue.

They have been talking about this for 10 years. My colleague from Maryland pointed out the other side has passed 42 new laws since 1994, and they have added 3,533 changes to the law covered in more than 10,000 additional pages.

Now, not one single committee had a hearing on this. This is such a political bill, they did not even bother to run it through committee. They said, What does this guy from Georgia need? Let us give him a bill and pass it so he can run home with it and put out his press release.

Mr. Speaker, I guarantee there will be a press release this afternoon that will hit the Atlanta Constitution and whatever else is in Georgia. It is done for that reason. Otherwise it would have gone through committee and had a hearing, and we would actually talk about it. But when it has no purpose legislatively, there is no sense running it through the legislative process; just jam it through so we can get it into the campaign.

Now, we cannot find time in this Congress to deal with the alternative minimum tax. Everybody is out here saying bad things about it. The reason AMT was put in in 1986 was very simple, and that is, there are rich people in this country. It may come as a surprise to some Members who do not think of themselves as rich, but there are some really rich people, and they were manipulating the Tax Code so effectively that they could have $10 billion and not pay any taxes at all.

The average working Joe or Jill who carries a lunch bucket to work or to the restaurant where she works or as a maid in a hotel, they pay taxes. And then you have got these really rich people out there who are not paying anything.

So the decision of the Congress was, and it was another Congress, not a Republican Congress, it would never have passed if you guys had been in charge, I understand that, because you think if you can figure a way out of paying taxes, you should not pay any. You do not owe anything to the country. You should not pay any part of what is going on in Iraq.

You should not pay anything for what is going on in Iraq, you should not pay anything for what is going on in homeland security, that should be paid by Joe Lunch Bucket and Jill Lunch Bucket. You do not want an alternative minimum tax, and what you are doing, we all know, is letting more and more people get sucked into it. They have to do their taxes twice, so you can get rid of it to help the people at the top. It is real clear what the other side is up to.

Mr. Speaker, this silly bill the other side of the aisle has out here today, I do not think anybody is going to vote against a title like ``tax simplification.'' The first section you dropped; the other ones do not do anything.

Mr. Speaker, I cannot forget the event in the Kigali Airport when I traveled with President Clinton to Rwanda and he spoke to Rwandans and apologized for our failure to act.

There was a woman sitting there who had lost all of her family in front of her

eyes. There was a priest there who had his arm cut off. There were people sitting there that the President acknowledged as people that the United States did not act to save.

We have that same opportunity. We have it. It is in our hands. We have the capacity, and we must exercise our solemn duty to humanity for justice for everyone.

No one on this floor, no one in this building should ever want to sit in a meeting like that again and say, we are really sorry; we knew it was going on, but we did not do anything. We must act.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take my Special Order at this time.

Mr. Speaker, the 900th U.S. soldier died today in Iraq. A brave soldier whose name we do not know yet died in the line of duty. Four other soldiers died yesterday in Iraq. The fighting and dying goes on in Iraq, but the administration does not say much about it.

The President did not mark today's sober note. Instead, he hit the campaign trail and did not say anything

about the 900th American dead or of the 899th or the 898th, or the other brave men and women who have died just yesterday, not to mention since the war was launched by the President.

Iraq is not popular with the American people, so it has fallen out of favor in the President's remarks. By the Republican convention, finding any comments about Iraq by the President will be akin to finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Just not there.

They have moved on as quickly as possible, but remember meanwhile, 160,000 U.S. soldiers remain in harm's way in Iraq, fighting and dying because America sent them there, but the America they left behind, not the America they have come home to.

That is worth some discussion. We have an administration that talks tough on terror, but they completely overlook Iran. Ten years later the administration's best sound bite today is we will look into it. That is not a plan to combat terror at home or anywhere else.

The administration had 10 years to look into it. Instead, they looked to someone they knew on evidence that was flimsy at the start and proven false since; the President committed American soldiers to a war in Iraq. When they could not find weapons of mass destruction, the administration changed the reason for going to war. Then they changed it again. Is that the administration's plan to combat terror? Yes. There is terrorism in the world, but we need real leaders and a real plan to meet that threat.

There is terrorism in the world, and America is capable of meeting that threat, but not with bullets and bombs alone. And if you look at the record of this administration, you have to conclude that they do not have a plan on terror. They hold news conferences to tell everyone, presuming they include terrorists, that America should be vigilant, but afraid. America should go about its business, but be afraid. That is not a plan. That is rhetorical duct tape.

America needs to be strong, not afraid. We did not win World War II by being afraid. We won by being American. We won by being American by fighting for American values, by fighting for American freedoms, but today American freedoms are under attack, and it is happening right here by this administration. In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, the administration switched language in the middle of the night and America woke up to something called the PATRIOT Act. There is nothing patriotic about depriving Americans of their civil liberties. There was nothing patriotic a few days later when the House voted to restore some of the civil liberties taken by the PATRIOT Act.

Then Republicans deliberately left open the vote until they could force enough Republicans to change their vote. Yes, I said change their vote.

The White House had preordained the outcome of the vote, so Democrats and Republicans voted. Then the Republicans voted again. The process was rigged. Civil liberties never had a chance. That is what the administration calls its plan to combat terror. Monitor the books you checked out of the library or the movie tickets you are buying online. They can go to a secret court and gain access to your entire life.

George Orwell called it ``1984,'' his legislative novel that we used to think could not happen in America. It is happening. We have law enforcement agencies, smart, dedicated public servants who know how to catch the bad guys. We have the financial resources to arm the agencies with the funding they need to support our people. We do not need 1984 in 2004. Every time the administration says, oh no, that is not what we are doing, another story surfaces about America under suspicion for doing something like taking pictures at a popular tourist site in Seattle, for example.

The administration does not have a plan to combat terror. It has a terror alert stuck on ``be afraid, always.'' The American people deserve more than that. America is strong enough to fight the war on terror. It needs a leader strong enough to do it.

John Kerry is a decorated combat veteran, a war hero who has seen the face and the horror of war firsthand. America can win the war on terror, but not by subverting American freedoms and civil liberties.

America can win the war on terror under the leadership of a sailor who led men in combat and who risked his own life to save others under fire. America can win the war on terror, but it needs a combat veteran to do it. John Kerry is just such a man. We will have him in 104 days.