Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, Secretary Powell came before the Congressional Black Caucus yesterday. Every Member was there. They asked him, Are you going to ask for more money? He said, There is no need for more money.

Within 2 hours, the President of the United States came on and said, We need $25 billion more money.

Even the Secretary of State is left out of the loop. This government has no plan; and the fact that a Member has finally stood up and said what everybody knows, the emperor has no clothes, it is about time somebody said that.

My newspaper, the lead editorial this morning is ``Rumsfeld Must Go.'' He laid our people out there in danger. There is a study out of the Army that says that a quarter of the people who have died would not have died if they had provided the proper equipment.

Now, this was a war of choice. We did not have to go. Nobody was attacking us. It is clear we were not in danger.

They chose a day to go and so they went, whether they were ready or not. They did not care about the troops. Our troops are being badly used by rotten leadership. They should go.

Mr. Speaker, we all know what is going on out here today. We are passing a CYA resolution to limit the damage. The Christian Science Monitor carries the story of Mr. Miklaszewski from NBC News who asked the question of a Pentagon official about the soldiers involved. He said, ``You mean the six morons who lost the war?''

The decision has been made in the Pentagon what they are going to do to those six, but this resolution does not go wide and deep like it ought to. This was not six young people that we are going to blame and make scapegoats and send them out in the wilderness. This has to go all of the way to Mr. Rumsfeld, the Secretary of War.

A Scottish newspaper, the Sunday Herald, said, ``The pictures that lost the war. The grim images of American and British soldiers torturing Iraqi prisoners has taken the moral high ground from Blair and Bush.'' And the article finishes with a quote from Lieutenant Colonel Retired Bill Cowan of the United States Marines, ``We went to Iraq to stop things like this from happening; and, indeed, here they are happening under our tutelage. If we do not tell this story, these kinds of things will continue and we will end up getting paid 100 or 1,000 times.''

The other side can try and limit the damage here with this and say let us keep it in the Secretary of the Army, but the fact is that the world knows much more broadly.

[From the Sunday Herald, May 2, 2004]

The Pictures That Lost The War

(By Neil Mackay)

It's an image that would do Saddam proud. A terrified

prisoner, hooded and dressed in rags, his hands out-stretched

on either side of him, electrodes attached to his fingers and

genitals. He's been forced to stand on a box about one-foot

square. His captors have told him that, if he falls off the

box, he'll be electrocuted.

The torture victim was an Iraqi and his torturers were

American soldiers. The picture captures the moment when

members of the coalition forces, who styled themselves

liberators, were exposed as torturers. The image of the wired

and hooded Iraqi was one of a series of photographs, leaked

by a horrified U.S. soldier inside Saddam's old punishment

centre, Abu Ghraib--now a U.S. POW camp.

When the images were flashed around the world by America's

CBS television network last Wednesday, there was a smug

feeling within the U.K. that British troops would never

behave like that to their prisoners. But on Friday night, the

U.K. was treated to images--courtesy of the Daily Mirror--of

British soldiers urinating on a blood-stained Iraqi captive,

holding guns against the man's head, stamping on his face,

kicking him in the mouth and beating him in the groin with a

rifle butt.

The pictures of U.S. soldiers torturing their captives have

the added horror of sexual abuse. In five of the 14 images

that the Sunday Herald has seen, a female soldier--identified

as Lynndie England, a 21-year-old from a West Virginia

trailer park--is playing up to the camera while her captives

are tortured. In one picture, she's smiling and giving the

thumbs-up. Her hand rests on the buttocks of a naked and

hooded Iraqi who has been forced to sit on the shoulders of

another Iraqi prisoner.

In another, she is sprawled laughing over a pyramid of

naked Iraqis. A male colleague stands behind her grinning.

Later, she's got a cigarette clenched between grinning lips

and is pointing at the genitals of a line of naked, hooded

Iraqis. A third snap shows her embracing a colleague as a

naked Iraqi lies before them.

In other pictures, two naked Iraqis are forced to simulate

oral sex and a group of naked men are made to clamber on to

each other's backs. One dreadful picture features nothing but

the bloated face of an Iraqi who has been beaten to death.

His body is wrapped in plastic.

Other pictures, which the world has not seen, but which are

in the hands of the U.S. military, include shots of a dog

attacking a prisoner. An accused soldier says dogs are ``used

for intimidation factors''.

There are also pictures of an apparent male rape. An Iraqi

POW claims that a civilian translator, hired to work in the

prison, raped a male juvenile prisoner. He said: ``They

covered all the doors with sheets. I heard the screaming . .

. and the female soldier was taking pictures.''

The British pictures show a hooded Iraqi aged between 18-20

on the floor of a military truck being brutalized. According

to two squaddies who took part in the torture, but later blew

the whistle, the Iraqi's ordeal lasted eight hours and he was

left with a broken jaw and missing teeth. He was bleeding and

vomited when his captors threw him out of a speeding truck.

No one knows if he lived or died.

One of the British soldiers said: ``Basically this guy was

dying as he couldn't take any more. An officer came down. It

was `Get rid of him--I haven't seen him'.'' The other

whistle-blower said he had witnessed a prisoner being beaten

senseless by troops. ``You could hear your mate's boots

hitting this lad's spine . . . One of the lads broke his

wrist off a prisoner's head. Another nearly broke his foot

kicking him.''

According to the British soldiers, the military police have

found a video of prisoners being thrown from a bridge, and a

prisoner was allegedly beaten to death in custody by men from

the Queen's Lancashire Regiment. Although there is a debate

about the veracity of the images, Armed Forces Minister Adam

Ingram said that if the pictures were real, they were

``appalling''. A Downing Street spokesman said Tony Blair

expected ``the highest standards of conduct from our forces

in Iraq''. The U.K.'s most senior army officer, General Mike

Jackson, said that if the allegations were true then those

involved were ``not fit to wear the Queen's uniform.'' The

Defense Ministry is in crisis over the pictures as top

brass know they ruin any hope of U.K. forces winning Iraqi

hearts and minds.

The U.S. torture pictures were taken by members of the

American 800th Military Police Brigade sometime late last

year. Following an investigation, 17 soldiers were removed

from duty for mistreating captives. Six face court martial.

Brigadier General Janice Karpinski, who ran Abu Ghraib and

three other U.S. military jails, is suspended and faces court

martial. Prior to the relevations, Karpinski assured the U.S.

media that Abu Ghraib was run according to ``international

standards''.

Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, deputy director of

coalition operations in Iraq, said he was ``appalled''. He

added: ``These are our fellow soldiers. They were the same

uniform as us, and they let their fellow soldiers down. Our

soldiers could be taken prisoner as well--and we expect our

soldiers to be treated well by the adversary, by the enemy--

and if we can't hold ourselves up as an example of how to

treat people with dignity and respect . . . we can't ask that

other nations do that to our soldiers as well. This is wrong.

This is reprehensible. But this is not representative of the

150,000 soldiers over here.''

But these soldiers aren't simply mavericks. Some accused

claim they acted on the orders of military intelligence and

the CIA, and that some of the torture sessions were under the

control of mercenaries hired by the U.S. to conduct

interrogations. Two ``civilian contract'' organizations

taking part in interrogations at Abu Ghraib are linked to the

Bush administration.

California-based Titan Corporation says it is ``a leading

provider of solutions for services for national security''.

Between 2003-04, it gave nearly $40,000 to George W. Bush's

Republican Party. Titan supplied translators to the military.

CACI International Inc. describes its aim as helping

``America's intelligence community in the war on terrorism''.

Richard Armitage, the current deputy U.S. secretary of state,

sat on CACI's board.

No civilians, however, are facing charges as military law

does not apply to them. Colonel Jill Morgenthaler, from

CentCom, said that one civilian contractor was accused along

with six soldiers of mistreating prisoners. However, it was

left to the contractor to ``deal with him''. One civilian

interrogator told army investigators that he had

``unintentionally'' broken several tables during

interrogations as he was trying to ``fear-up'' detainees.

Lawyers for some accused say their clients are scapegoats

for a rogue prison system, which allowed mercenaries to give

orders to serving soldiers. A military report said private

contractors were at times supervising the interrogations.

Kimmitt said: ``I hope the investigation is including not

only the people who committed the crimes, but some of the

people who might have encouraged the crimes as well because

they certainly share some responsibility.''

Last night, CACI vice-president Jody Brown said: ``The

company supports the Army's investigation and acknowledges

that CACI personnel in Iraq volunteered to be interviewed by

army officials in connection with the investigation. The

company has received no indication that any CACI employee was

involved in any alleged improper conduct with Iraqi

prisoners. Nonetheless, CACI has initiated an independent

investigation.''

However, military investigators said: ``A CACI

investigator's contract was terminated because he allowed

and/or instructed military police officers who were not

trained in interrogation techniques to facilitate

interrogations which were neither authorised nor in

accordance with regulations.''

One of the U.S. soldiers facing court martial is reservist

Staff Sergeant Chip Frederick--the equivalent of a part-time

territorial army squaddie. In civvy street, he was a prison

warder in Virginia. Frederick has said he will plead not

guilty and blame the army for the torture at Abu Ghraib. ``We

had no support, no training whatsoever,'' he said, claiming

he had never been shown the Geneva Convention. ``I kept

asking my chain of command for certain things like rules and

regulations and it just wasn't happening.''

Frederick also blamed the intelligence services for

encouraging the brutality.

Among the agencies coming to the prison were ``military

intelligence'', said Frederick, adding: ``We had all kinds of

other government agencies, FBI, CIA.''

In letters and e-mails home, he wrote: ``Military

intelligence has encouraged and told us `Great job'.'' He

added: ``They usually don't allow others to watch them

interrogate. But since they like the way I run the prison,

they have made an exception . . . We help getting [the PoWs]

to talk with the way we handle them . . . We've had a very

high rate with our style of getting them to break. They

usually end up breaking within hours.''

Frederick said prisoners were made to live in cramped

windowless cells with no clothes, running water or toilet for

up to three days. Others were held for 60 days before

interrogation. He said one prisoner with a mental health

condition was ``shot with non-lethal rounds''. An

interrogator told soldiers to ``stress one prisoner out as

much as possible [as] he wanted to talk to him the next

day''. Frederick also said one prisoner was ``stressed so bad

that the man passed away''. Prisoners were covered in lice

and some had tuberculosis. None were allowed to pray.

Frederick said his commander sanctioned all this.

The former commander of Guantanamo Bay prison, Major

General Geoffrey Miller, has now been made deputy commander

for containment operations to overhaul the Iraqi detention

centres.

Frederick, unlike mercenaries, faces jail and being thrown

out of the army. His lawyer, Gary Myers said: ``The elixir of

power, the elixir of believing that you're helping the CIA,

for God's sake, when you're from a small town in Virginia,

that's intoxicating. And so, good guys sometimes do things

believing that they are being of assistance and helping a

just cause . . . and helping people they view as important.''

Kimmitt admitted: ``I'd like to sit here and say that these

are the only prisoner abuse cases that we're aware of, but we

know that there have been others.''

This also applies to Britain. A Sunday Herald investigation

has found that at least seven civilians have died in British

custody in Iraq.

Describing the images of abuse as an ``atrocity'', Abdel

Bari Atwan, editor of the newspaper Al-Quds Al-Arabi, said:

``The liberators are worse than the dictators.'' His

sentiments have been echoed around the world. It is hard to

find a country or agency that hasn't condemned the torture of

Iraqi prisoners. From the Red Cross to the UN and from

Amnesty to the coalition's loyal ``deputy in the Pacific'',

the Australian premier John Howard, the world is united in

horror against the actions of the US and UK forces.

The awful cost of these acts of barbarism by Britain and

America is summed up by ex-US Marine Lieutenant Colonel Bill

Cowan: ``We went to Iraq to stop things like this from

happening, and indeed, here they are happening under our

tutelage . . . If we don't tell this story, these kind of

things will continue, and we'll end up getting paid back 100

or 1000 times over.''

Mr. Speaker, when it comes to education, the administration's rhetoric is there, but it masks the reality. The administration waves a lot of papers and makes a lot of speeches, but they have failed education in America; and it is a required course.

Here are their test courses. The administration has an Education Secretary who calls the teachers' union ``terrorists.'' The administration left every child behind when it grossly underfunded that essential education in the United States.

Today, we are celebrating and they are celebrating Cinco de Mayo, while they hide from the Hispanic community the fact that they have cut programs to promote staying in school, knowing that the high school dropout rate for Hispanics is four times higher than white students.

Come November we are going to enroll the President and the administration in a remedial rhetoric course to learn how to tell the truth.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 5 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, this is one of those days when we come out here and try to fix a problem the Republicans created for themselves. Ever since you have been in charge of this place, you did not want to have regular order. You wanted to run bills through the committees without having any witnesses come in and talk about them. You would not listen to what people said to you. And now you have a big problem on your hands and you want to come out again today and put one more Band-Aid on a program that you put a Band-Aid on last year, and you will be back next year and next year and next year because you never understood what you were doing.

Now, when this bill went into effect in 1987, it was designed to tax those people who made lots of money and paid not one penny. That is what it was about. It affected .1 percent of the payers in this country. And the same was true even with the adjustments that we made in 1993 when I was here. The numbers were essentially the same, around .2 percent of taxpayers. Today we are looking at 25 percent of the people in this country are having to figure their taxes twice, because the Republicans made all those tax cuts in 1997 and paid absolutely no attention to what was going on.

If you live in a high tax State like New York or like California or like a lot of the progressive States in this country, and you have a couple of kids, you cannot deduct the money you pay in State taxes. You cannot deduct the money you pay in local taxes. You cannot deduct the deductions for your children. That is why it is sweeping down into the middle class. Half of the households who will be paying this tax are making less than $100,000 a year and over a third of them will be paying between 50 and $75,000.

Now, consider we made these great big tax cuts, we gave $112,000 to people making more than a million and we gave $676 to people in the average income range in this country. And then we turn around and slap them with the AMT tax. Most Americans do not know what the AMT is. It is called, for those of you watching this on television including somebody at the White House maybe, alternative minimum tax. It means if you are not paying enough income tax, then you have to pay this alternative.

Now, what has happened because the Republicans messed it up so badly, they have now swept up about a quarter of the taxpayers in the country with it rising to a third if they do not do something about it, and they have done that while they were busily helping their friends at the top who were not paying taxes anyway.

Now, this bill is another, as I say, Band-Aid. We have an alternative which will be offered by one of my colleagues from Massachusetts which solves the problem in a much more reasonable way and gets the middle class out of this tax trap.

Mr. Speaker, the following is an article from the Seattle Post- Intelligencer which describes this whole program.

[From the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Jan. 17, 2004]

Get Ready for the Alternative Minimum Tax

(By Mary Deibel)

Few Americans have heard of the alternative minimum tax,

but many taxpayers are about to find out that it's the

biggest financial setback they face, an IRS taxpayer advocate

says.

``Although the AMT was originally enacted to prevent

wealthy taxpayers from avoiding tax liability through the use

of tax avoidance techniques, it now affects substantial

numbers of middle-income taxpayers and will, absent a change

of law, affect more than 30 million taxpayers by 2010,''

taxpayer advocate Nina Olson said in her 508-page annual

report naming this parallel tax system taxpayer enemy No. 1.

Olson should know: State and local taxes pushed her into

the alternative minimum tax last year so now it is personal

as well as professional for her.

And it's about to get personal for lots of other taxpayers,

too. Absent action by Congress and President Bush, one in

four households will owe the alternative minimum tax by 2010.

Some 52 percent of them will be families making $100,000 or

less a year, including 73 percent of households making

$75,000 to $100,000 and 37 percent making $50,000 to $75,000.

Married couples--especially couples with lots of children--

are most apt to be hit by the alternative minimum tax, which

prohibits deductions for dependents along with write-offs for

mortgage interest, state and local taxes, medical expenses

and the like.

``It's a class tax that became a mass tax,'' says Urban

Institute economist Len Burman, who co-authored the study

projecting the future growth of the alternative minimum tax

unless the tax code is changed.

Congress enacted the tax in 1969 after being flooded with

mail protesting reports that 155 ultra-rich Americans gamed

the system to avoid paying a penny toward income tax.

The alternative tax has been on the books since then, never

indexed to inflation the way regular income taxes have been

since 1981.

The tax breaks President Bush and Congress enacted since

2001 expanding child tax credits, ``marriage penalty'' relief

and the like make it more likely taxpayers who try to claim

these write-offs will owe the alternative minimum tax.

The 2003 tax cut contains a temporary provision that will

help many families avoid the alternative minimum tax for just

one year.

Repealing the tax through 2010 would cost the Treasury $600

billion in revenue, according to the non-partisan Tax Policy

Center, a Washington think tank.

Meanwhile, taxpayer advocate Olson says taxpayers who might

owe the alternative minimum tax can expect to pay a higher

tax bill and spend an extra 12 hours preparing their 2003

taxes.

Many won't owe it, but they still must spend the extra

half-day on the paperwork, she says.

Mr. Speaker, the average citizen in this country is not aware what is happening; and the Republicans are out here today, the reason they do not want to have hearings in the committee is it might get on C-SPAN. Some people might find out what was really going on in the tax structure. But, no, we have to come out here, take it up to the Committee on Rules in the middle of the night, slip it down on the floor; and slam, bam, thank you, ma'am, it is out of here in an hour so that people will not know how badly you have messed it up for the middle class.

You have got to put these commercials on that say the middle class have benefited immensely from our tax cuts, and then you run out here to take the pain away that you are creating for them. And in my view, it could all be stopped if you simply would follow the regular order and allow this to be a debate in this House and about the issues that you are changing. To go from .1 percent of the taxpayers to 25 percent of the taxpayers, including people making between 50 and $75,000 without letting people ever, their representatives in the Congress, to have an opportunity to explain that to the American people, is absolutely unacceptable.

We will all vote for this bill, but it is another Band-Aid; and you will be back here next year. I bet you a month of my salary on that.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Lowey).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pascrell).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds.

The gentleman from Texas talks about this being a sneaky tax sneaking up on people. It is only sneaky because my colleagues would not have hearings. If they would have listened to us when they were passing these tax bills in 1997 and 1998 and 1999 and 2000, we told them over and over again, we offered these changes that were necessary then and it all happens now. They say we snuck up on them.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Engel).

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

I would say to my distinguished colleague, the gentleman from New York

(Mr. Houghton), we are going to miss the gentleman when he leaves Congress. It will be a loss for all of us. The gentleman said this is a tax that nobody wanted. Well, if we take the Democratic alternative and look at it in the Statement of Congressional Findings and Purposes, and mostly Members blow through these bills and never read that. I have a little bit of time, so I would like to say a few things about it.

In 1986, because of tax preferences on oil and gas depletion and a whole lot of things, there were a number of people in this country who made a lot of money who then could write it all off because they had these preferences on oil and gas exploration and so forth. So there was an agreement in this House to put in an alternative minimum tax, believing that every American ought to pay something. No matter how rich or how poor, we believe that each worker should put something in the pot. Here we had these people at the top who figured out how to get rid of it all. So we put the alternative minimum tax in.

Then came the 1990s and we had tax reform. We got rid of all of those preferences. Even when we did that, we still had less than 1 half of 1 percent of taxpayers who paid this alternative minimum tax. It never became a problem until 1997 when we took away the personal deductions and the deductions for kids, and we suddenly swept up a quarter of the people this year. If we look at the projections, we are going to have three-quarters of the people paying this thing at some point down the road.

We could have fixed it along the way, but most people did not want it in the first place, and so they said let us get rid of it. Those people on the top should not have to pay anything if they can figure out how to get out of it. So we have not fixed it.

I give you a tale of two taxpayers. There is one standing here, and I have a wife who works and the two of us make a nice living. We have good salaries. We do not have any children, and we do not pay the alternative minimum tax. And the other thing is I live in Washington State. We do not have a State income tax. A great State to live in. It wants folks to come and visit, but do not stop there and live. We do not have any problem with the AMT.

Mr. Speaker, I am not arguing for myself. I am arguing for these people behind me who live in the District of Columbia. One has two kids, one has four kids. They have to pay it on staff salaries in the House of Representatives. Tell me where is the fairness in that tax structure? How is it my wife and I benefit tremendously from this system, and we clobber the people in the middle class behind us? That is why we are here today.

Obviously, Republicans realize that the people out there are going to find things out when they do their taxes. They start through the form, and if you have an adjusted gross income of $58,000, you should begin to figure your taxes in a parallel fashion, the regular income tax form, the 1040, and then there is the alternative minimum tax. So there you are at $60,000, $70,000, and you have to figure your taxes twice.

If you ask the IRS, they put out a flyer that says it takes 3 hours and 56 minutes to figure the alternative minimum tax. Now people are filling out their tax forms making $70,000, a lot are not using accountants, that is their time. So we are putting them through the wringer twice to fill out their taxes because you would not listen.

Now this idea that we will repeal the alternative minimum tax, that is nice. That is a great idea. You know who that helps, well, it helps these people behind me a little bit, but it helps the people at the top. Again, it would be a give-away to the people on the top. I understand what the Republican Party is all about. I believe that is what your goal is. That is a major plank in your platform, is no one who has millions of dollars should pay anything, they know how to use their money, we should let them have it and they will invest it and we will have a lot of jobs.

Well, these tax cuts have not worked in the State of Washington. They have not worked in the State of Washington. We have more people unemployed today than we have ever had. It is the highest long-term unemployment we have ever had since the 1950s, and we are still waiting for the recovery. In February, there were 21,000 jobs created, all government jobs. So the tax cuts did not work except for people who had a lot of money. The next month, March, we had 306,000 jobs. Goodie, we are growing.

The fact is that economists say that it takes 250,000 new jobs every month to simply keep up with the growth in the labor force in this country. So 300,000 is just barely replacement, saying nothing about the 3.5 million that we have lost since President Bush has been in office.

This economy has been an absolute disaster for the middle class and the ordinary working people in this country. This tax structure Republicans have created is awful. We will vote for this today. There is no Member who is not going to vote to put a 1-year patch on it, but it is not being fixed. As a Member said, the way things are going, down the way, you are going to have half the people we are going to have to deal with, and at some point it is going to cost a lot of money.

The other side of the aisle would not fix it in 1997. We tried to tell them, but they were too smart and too full of their own ideas and ideology to look at what they were doing to people, and that is why we are here today. We certainly will all vote for it.

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

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

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

One of the problems here in the House on an issue like this is that it is hard to have a real debate because we do not set it up as a debate. We really are having a bunch of 2-minute speeches, and nobody ever gets to answer anybody back and forth. The gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. English) is an honorable Member and, I think, is just wrong on this issue. I do not bear him any ill will, but one of the interesting things about this is one of the more recent Members who came out here was the gentleman from California (Mr. Herger). He went on about the fact that the Democratic alternative is going to cost $17 billion. This is a time at which the Republican management of the economy has developed the biggest deficits in a very long time. We are going to have to raise the Federal debt limit again. We are going to have to sell more bonds to the Chinese. We are going to have to sell more bonds around the world to keep our economy afloat than ever before.

The gentleman from California's complaint about the gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel) is that the gentleman from New York has come in here and said, you know, I think we ought to pay for this bill. We ought to pay for it. The gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. English) and his colleagues are not interested in paying for it. They just want to throw it on the credit card, another $17 billion onto their kids and their grandchildren. I just had a grandchild born last August, so for the first time I am really thinking about grandchildren. I used to just think about my kids. But now I am looking two generations down the road. It is no problem for the gentleman from California and the gentleman from Pennsylvania and other Members to say, Hey, throw it to the kids. Let's not pay for it.

You have done that since 1996. The mess we are in is directly related to what you have done. When President Bush took over, we had some kind of surplus, I forget, $200 billion; and we are now going into the hole at least $400 billion or $500 billion every year. When the gentleman from New York comes out here and says I would like to pay for it, he gets criticized. That is called raising taxes. No, it is being fiscally responsible.

The gentleman from New York is no wild-eyed liberal. You think he is, but you have never looked at the proposal he made. He reached over across the hall here into another place and took a provision from the Finance chairman in the United States Senate. The provisions that he put in are offsets that are contained in the provisions of a tax abusive transactions bill from the Senate Finance Committee written by a Senator from over there. I cannot name him. The offsets are not tax increases. They are provisions designed to ensure that corporations cannot use aggressive tax shelter transactions to avoid the taxes they pay.

So the charge that the gentleman from New York is trying to raise taxes is simply misleading, to be very generous. I am sure we will see advertisements going all over, well, you know, the Democrats tried to raise taxes on you another $17 billion, and we stopped them. They are not going to tell you about what it is going to cost your kids and your grandchildren in terms of interest rates and what is going on in this economy.

The first group of offsets that the other body came up with are designed to curtail tax shelters by clarifying the economic substance doctrine. People back home, I am sure their eyes are crossed by now, but some of you people

ought to be thinking about it. Increased reporting and penalty provisions. The economic substance doctrine is a rule of law that denies artificial losses or other tax benefits from transactions that have no business purpose or profit motive. It is the usual shenanigans of tax attorneys. Even a Republican in the other body thinks that ain't right. But, no, people over here say, oh, no, we can't do that, we can't tighten up. Oh, no, no, no. All those tax attorneys will have to go out there and find another way to take it away from the middle class and give it to the rich. They apply to transactions with no substance other than tax avoidance.

That is what the gentleman from New York's bill does. He says, let's get people to pay their fair share. If we did, we could do this alternative minimum tax. In fact, we could do more. His bill actually says that if you have a combined adjusted gross income of $250,000, if you are less than that, you do not even have to look at this. That would take millions of people off the rolls. But the Republicans want to leave it so that everybody has to be at $58,000 and start into this alternative plan.

The IRS says the record-keeping for that is 19 minutes. Then they say it takes an hour and 14 minutes to read the law and understand it. This is the IRS telling the taxpayers: it is going to take you an hour and a quarter to read this law and figure it out. Then it takes an hour and 49 minutes to actually figure it. And then copying and assembling and sending the form takes another 34 minutes. That is where we get the 4 hours.

You are putting a half a day's work on the American public because you will not consider an alternative from the Democrats. You will not have a hearing to find out whether this is a better proposal or not, because all wisdom resides on that side of the aisle. And it is really wonderful to stand in the presence of people who know everything; but the problem, the reason you got into this mess is because you would not listen to anybody else and you are still in the mess because you will not listen to anybody else. The fact is that your own people, a guy from Iowa, my gosh, he is a wild liberal, right? Head of the Senate Finance Committee. He comes up with this, and you think it is no good.

The fact is that this is a big problem that we need to work on together. If there were any bipartisanship at all on the Committee on Ways and Means, we could get something done. But if it is going to be done all by one side, where the ideology is we have to give it all to the people at the top and we cannot worry about what happens to the middle class, then we are going to continue to have these kinds of deals. If, God forbid, you are still in charge next year, you will be out here with a bill just like this with a bigger problem and a bigger cost and more money into the deficit.

The question that really is sitting here today is, when is the Republican majority going to face up to the hole in the tax structure that you have dug and into which you have thrown all the people? You gave pittances, $676 average, for the average family and $112,000 for the people at the top. Do you think there is a millionaire in this country who needs $112,000? I mean, seriously. How could anybody come out here and support that, given the problems we have in this country right now? Spending $200 billion on a war that never should have happened in the first place, led into it by a President who stood right here and misled us, and you are throwing money out the door every way we can imagine; and you will not face what you are doing economically.

I really pray, I really do pray that the day never comes when Europe stands up or the Japanese or the Chinese stand up and say, we are not buying any more of that worthless paper from the United States.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to claim the time of the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio).

Mr. Speaker, America now knows the name of a woman who lives in my congressional district in Seattle. But she did not seek fame and would prefer anonymity.

Her name is Joelle Ligon. I rise to speak about her plight, her courage and the need for this Congress to act. Joelle deserves to live her life without fear, as everybody deserves. Unfortunately, Joelle's life was turned into a nightmare because of cyberstalking.

Today she is both a victim and an advocate, and she was invited to share her story the other day on ``Good Morning America.'' It was not easy for Joelle, but she knew it was important to warn America about the dangers lurking online. Joelle was 15 when she met and dated an 18- year-old young man in high school. Nothing unusual about that. Eventually Joelle severed

the relationship and moved on with her life. She married and began a career. A few years later, Joelle received an e-mail one day. It was supposedly sent from a woman she did not know, but whoever sent it knew her. Then a second e-mail came with more personal details that no stranger could possibly know. Joelle began to suspect that the woman was really a man. By the third e-mail, Joelle was sure the e-mails were coming from her former high school boyfriend. She wrote back, naming him, and telling him to stop. Things went from bad to bizarre. The e- mails got much worse. They began to include pornography and threats like this: ``Not only is it bad karma to have enemies, I'm a bad enemy to have.''

Joelle was terrified. Then came phone calls in the middle of the night. Her phone number had been posted online by someone urging men to call her for sex. Joelle went to the local police, but they concluded there was nothing they could do because no law had been broken. Joelle and her husband moved to Seattle, but within months the nightmare came back. Joelle started receiving calls at work from men who had seen her number posted online in sex chat rooms. She again went to the local police and to the FBI, but nothing was done. Finally, her coworkers and supervisors received an e-mail that accused her of falsifying her employment credentials and of sexual misconduct. The city of Seattle's computer security officer, Kirk Bailey, became the white knight. He got people involved, but progress was painfully slow because no laws specifically address cyberstalking. Eventually an assistant U.S. Attorney got involved, but finding a law to deal with a 21st century crime has been tough.

A break in the case came when the ex used her phone number in a chat room. Authorities acted, using title 47 of the Telecommunications Act for the first time in a case like this. The ex-boyfriend has been charged, but it has taken years and a courageous woman willing to see it through.

And it is not over yet. Joelle and millions of other Americans need our help. By some estimates, one out of every 12 women in America is stalked online. The problem extends to men as well. Some States, including Washington, have acted to toughen the laws, but it is time to recognize that cyberstalking is a national problem. We are using a 20th century law to fight 21st century crime. That has to change. Cyberspace has no State borders. Cyberpredators can reach across State lines to terrorize their victims wherever they live and work. Americans like Joelle need the protection that only the Federal Government can provide. We need to modernize our laws to make sure they protect Joelle and every American.

Cyberspace has opened doors we are just beginning to understand. This one, we already know. Everyone has the right to feel safe and be safe. Anything less is wrong and should be illegal with severe penalties. The first step is awareness. I am preparing a letter to circulate to my colleagues that will include newspaper accounts from Seattle about Joelle. We are going to work with the appropriate Members and committees in the House as soon as possible to tackle cyberstalking head-on. We will do what we need to do to clarify and strengthen our laws.

I urge both Republicans and Democrats to join me in protecting Joelle, to join me in protecting every American. Let the predators know that they are the only ones who should not feel safe today.

Joelle, you are not alone. Help is coming.

Mr. Speaker, America has suffered the worst defeat in memory, and not by any insurgents. The world is rightly shocked and appalled by the pictures from Iraq. Rogue U.S. soldiers have committed atrocities that sicken us. They have harmed Iraqi citizens. They have endangered every decent U.S. soldier, and they have turned more people against us. The world must know that America stands for justice, and that justice should be carried out quickly against those responsible for these despicable acts.

The Iraq war just keeps getting worse for America, Mr. President. For those who mistrusted us before, the pictures will inflame their rhetoric. For those who hate us, the pictures will impassion them to find new recruits.

Every decent American can only feel enraged that the sordid conduct of a few people will be portrayed worldwide as representative of our Nation.

Iraqis were insulted and humiliated, but seven officers have received only a reprimand, a slap on the wrist. They were not even demoted or discharged. The world will ask, is that what America calls justice? No, it is not; and this administration had better take this seriously.

The U.S. would have gone to war if our citizens had been treated like this in another country. Remember our outrage when they hung some of our people from a bridge. The administration's response is just one more mistake. It is completely inadequate.

Iraq has been a mistake from the beginning. The administration refused to get help and support from the international community, and the administration continues to spout rhetoric that no one in the whole world either believes or accepts. Every day, literally, the administration switches from one policy to another.

First, the Baathists were bad, aligned with Saddam and no friend to the U.S. Then the U.S. hired a Baathist general to try and get us out of the mess in Fallujah. Then the U.S. replaces the guy after Iraqis protest the general's role in Hussein's regime. Now a new guy is in; but the insurgents, heavily armed and fortified, have already rejected the new general.

Fighting has broken out in several cities, and U.S. artillery is shelling positions near the Baghdad airport. There have been more U.S. casualties, and U.S. soldiers remain in grave danger all over Iraq while the administration test-fires a few possible solutions.

Note, Mr. President, this is not a test. Iraq is not a laboratory. They are shooting real bullets, and we keep pretending we have a policy. Some say Iraq is not like Vietnam. Iraq looks more and more like Vietnam every day.

In southeast Asia, there was always more reassuring rhetoric from a Democratic President, by the way, than there was truth or policy to back it up. In Iraq, there is all this talk of growing a democracy; but in reality, we are seeding a civil war, with our soldiers' blood right in the middle of the violence.

What is the American administration going to say, We are working on it? The Pentagon said a few hours ago that 135,000 U.S. soldiers will remain in Iraq at least through 2005. In other words, the only thing being handed over on June 30 is a bill of goods, meant more for the American people and the election than the Iraqis.

It is time this administration faced the American people and the truth of their mistakes. Either get an international solution now, before more U.S. lives are lost, or get out and admit you should have never gone into Iraq in the first place. All the rhetoric in the administration's arsenal can start a debate, but it cannot stop a bullet.

Mr. Speaker, no one in Seattle doubts the city will be rocked by another earthquake one day. We've faced large magnitude quakes in the past and we fear a large magnitude quake in the future.

So, I rise to express my outrage that the Administration and Republican leadership refuse to pass a comprehensive highway bill that includes critical planning money for the Alaskan Way Viaduct. There is not a moment to lose in planning and replacing the roadway. A large magnitude quake could topple the double-decked highway, just as we saw with tragic consequences in Oakland, California.

Quit playing politics with peoples' lives. Safety must not be held hostage by the Administration and Republican leaders. Pass a real highway bill now, while there is time, while the Alaskan Way Viaduct is still standing.

Mr. Speaker, the administration, aided and abetted by some Republicans, have launched another undeclared war, this time a sneak attack on the truth.

Republicans launched a sneak attack on Senator John Kerry in this Chamber with a blatant disregard for dignity, heroism, and patriotism, or the facts. In so doing, Republicans have dishonored every American veteran and dishonored the people's House.

Republicans have staked out divisive new ground and every American ought to know it. Republicans have trampled patriotism, heroism, and the service of every American called to defend America.

Senator John Kerry is a decorated war hero. He did not get those Purple Hearts because they just hand them out. He was shot defending his country. He was not missing in action during the Vietnam War. The President was MWA, missing without action.

These are the facts.

Mr. Speaker, I agree with the previous speaker. The growing division in America over war in Iraq pales by comparison with the gut wrenching images that divided America during the Vietnam War. Thousands of men were called to serve their countries in Vietnam. Senator John Kerry did just that. Other Americans chose to be conscientious objectors and serve their country in noncombatant roles.

Still other Americans had one or another kind of deferment or joined the National Guard. A week ago, the administration chose to enlist Republicans in a new kind of draft for a new kind of war.

In this Chamber, Republicans launched a sneak attack against the heroism and patriotism of Senator John Kerry. The American people deserve to know the service records of Senator John Kerry and President George W. Bush. He can provide one of them. In 1968, John Kerry commanded a U.S. Navy swift boat in Vietnam. This was a 50-foot aluminum boat that was heavily armed but had no armor protection.

In 1968, George W. Bush joined the Texas Air National Guard jumping ahead of 150 people on the waiting list.

On the night of December 2, 1968, John Kerry commanded a Navy swift boat. It came under intense fire while on patrol. John Kerry was wounded and awarded the Purple Heart.

George W. Bush meanwhile was accepted into pilot training after scoring the lowest score possible to qualify.

In early 1969, the swift boat John Kerry commanded in Vietnam was in a fire fight with the enemy. John Kerry was wounded by shrapnel and awarded a second Purple Heart.

When George W. Bush joined the Texas Air National Guard, he could have volunteered for overseas duty as did John Kerry, but he checked the other box on the form, the one that said ``do not volunteer.''

In March 1969, John Kerry's swift boat was one of five on patrol in the Bay Hap River. They came under attack. The boat was hit. An intense fire fight ensued. Suddenly a mine detonated near his boat. John Kerry was hit and bleeding. Viet Cong fired automatic weapons from the shore. A man in Kerry's boat fell overboard. John Kerry would not leave that man behind. Under intense fire, John Kerry turned the boat around. With both sides exchanging fire, John Kerry moved to the bow of the swift boat, exposed to enemy fire. Still bleeding, John Kerry did not hesitate. He reached down into the water, bullets whizzing by. John Kerry grabbed hold of the sailor and pulled him into the boat. For his courage and valor under fire, John Kerry was awarded the distinguished Combat ``V.''

John Kerry was wounded three times in battle serving his country. Yet, Republicans on this floor rose to dishonor every combat veteran by attacking John Kerry and others.

In 2000, Senator Max Cleland of Georgia lost both legs and one arm in Vietnam. Republicans disgraced themselves by impugning the man's courage and service to the Nation. America needs to know. Where was President Bush during the Vietnam War?

Missing without action, that is where the President was.

In February 1972, the military stripped George W. Bush of his flight status. He was suspended from flying for failure to take a required physical exam. Why? Why did George W. Bush not take the physical? Would a physical have revealed a top gun or a smoking gun? We do not know.

There is an 11-month gap in George W. Bush's record, from May 1, 1972 to April 1, 1973. George W. Bush was not only grounded during this period, he was on the ground in Alabama working in a political campaign. That is not a mission in the National Guard manual. We would like to know more, but the National Guard Bureau Chief told a Spokane, Washington newspaper he was under orders not to talk.

Why is that?

We know that Senator John Kerry was wounded in battle three times. We know that Senator John Kerry never left a man behind. We know that Senator John Kerry fought with courage and valor on behalf of his country.

We know that George W. Bush flew under the radar, because that is the only explanation of how a pilot suspended from flying parachuted into a Republican political campaign in Alabama.

John Kerry, Max Cleland. America has many heroes from the Vietnam War. It is time Republicans and the administration honor the courage and valor of American veterans, no matter what party they belong to.

Mr. Speaker, I came to the floor to talk about Earth Day, but listening to what is going on out here makes me think I will change my subject.

I spent 2 years, 1968 to 1970, as a psychiatrist in the United States Navy taking care of people who lived through what John Kerry went to war about, and for anybody to come out here and attack his war record, you have to have pretty good credentials.

Now, if you served and showed up for drills at your local National Guard, I think those would be acceptable credentials. But if you were in the National Guard and you did not show up, you were AWOL for a whole year, you have got real nerve to start an attack on John Kerry's character.

During that war many people on both sides of the issue, whether we should go to war or were against the war, acted bravely. But some people were simply not available. They never showed up for their flight physical. They were not there.

Mr. Speaker, we see the Iraq war in the newspapers every morning and on the television every evening, but we are not seeing reports on the administration's undeclared war on the environment.

It is a war. It is being fought on our own soil, and the polluters are winning. This Earth Day this administration has launched a full frontal assault on the environment. The assaults include the air we breathe, the water we drink, the land we cherish, the fish in the sea and the people themselves.

I am a doctor. My medical training and experience taught me you have to treat illness by curing the problem, not by treating the symptoms. This administration does neither. We could write a prescription, but it will not be filled while this President is in office.

Air pollution shortens the lives of thousands of Americans, and air pollution worsens the lives of millions more. Breathing polluted air is bad enough when you are in good health. It can be catastrophic when you suffer from any one of a number of respiratory illnesses.

When I was a kid, I had asthma. It is a respiratory illness which can clog or even close the bronchial tubes which carry air to the lungs. In other words, asthma can impair the ability to breathe. In severe cases, asthma can be life-threatening and require immediate medical attention. An asthma attack can be triggered by smoke and by environmental pollution. And we have seen the enemy, and it is the administration.

The environmental pollution this administration has let loose on America saves the polluters millions of dollars, but costs individual Americans dearly. Do not take my word for it. Ask anyone with asthma or any other person with a respiratory condition in this country.

Respiratory problems are just one area of medicine impacted severely and negatively by pollution. There are others, from skin disease, to chronic allergy, to a host of medical problems hurting Americans, young and old. Polluters have poisoned water supplies. They have contaminated rivers and streams. And worst of all, they are getting away with it. They are changing the rules.

This country is more in danger at 5 o'clock on Friday than at any other time environmentally during the week because that is when the administration puts out the new regulations under the radar, no press conference, no anything, just give the polluters an open door. They invite them to secret meetings to craft America's energy policy. This administration does not look the other way. Instead they hold fund raisers.

The President cannot remember making a mistake the other day on television. I cannot remember the President doing anything right about the environment. The record is that abysmal. And unless we change administrations this November, it will only get worse.

In my home State of Washington, it takes committed local organizations like the People for Puget Sound and others to monitor the regulators. In my home State of Washington, we now fear new environmental actions Republicans openly hint about that may harm or kill whales, porpoises and dolphins.

No one and nothing is safe from the undisclosed war of this President on the environment. Now, whales cannot vote, but we can. Porpoises cannot vote, but we can. Dolphins cannot vote, but we can. Children cannot vote, but we can. Lakes and streams cannot vote, but we can. The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge cannot vote, but we can. The water, the air, and the Earth cannot vote. We must vote on their behalf.

This is Earth Day. Sadly, the Earth is in grave danger, much greater than it was in 1970s when this first was put on the calendar. We know who was responsible, and we know why. It is all about money, about greed. Energy producers are saying, we cannot clean up the air.

In the President's own State, the major city is one of the most polluted in the country. When he was Governor, he did nothing. When he is President, he does nothing. Houston might as well not have a President or a Governor.

We must save the planet before it is too late, and the sand is quickly flowing out of the hour glass. Today is the day we decide to vote for the planet and vote this President out of office in November.

Madam Speaker, it is time to play the tapes. Members of the administration seem to be rewriting history. The Secretary of State does not remember that the President forgot to tell him about the secret run-up to the war in Iraq. The Secretary of War does remember he often says what Bob Woodward quotes him as saying, but the Secretary cannot remember saying at that time. What is a person to do?

If the President were faced with this predicament, he would consult a higher authority. Our higher authority is closer, and he can speak without the need of a burning bush. Mike Wallace said on ``60 Minutes'' Sunday night he heard the tapes and read the transcripts for the book ``Plan of Attack.'' There is a record.

If Mike Wallace can listen to the tapes, so can we. The House should have hearings for the American people. The secret war is not secret any longer. Let Americans decide what the truth is. Play the tapes in open session. Let the truth be heard, not staged.

Mr. Speaker, the casualties in Iraq are a bitter reminder of the truth and consequences of war whether you oppose it, as I do, or wage it, as the President has.

As America grieves over our losses, we should also grieve over the losses suffered by the Iraqi Kurds in a war that went largely unnoticed in this country. In fact, this is not the second Gulf War, but the third in our memory.

After the first Gulf War, America pulled out of Iraq, leaving Saddam to reorganize his henchmen. They did more than take names; they took hostages, and they look lives, thousands of lives. It can happen again.

After the first Gulf War, we established a no-fly zone, but we did not disarm Saddam's Republican Guard, and we did not destroy his lethal helicopter gunships, killing machines used not against Americans, but against Iraqis. The outcome was a blood-drenched record of atrocities. At least 8,000 Kurds were massacred by Saddam and his henchmen after the United States withdrew from Iraq, having urged them to rise up. The Kurds cried out for help, but no one listened, and no one saw.

The war was over, then-President Bush number one declared. Victory was at hand. We marvelled at the stories told, many untrue, of how U.S. technology had spared lives, reduced casualties, and proved America's warmaking superiority. The satellite images showed everything except the coming slaughter of these peace-loving people.

The Kurds represent about 20 percent of the Iraqi population. They have their own language and culture. Although Muslim, they are not Arab. Historically they have lived in the mountainous regions of northern Iraq in an area around Kirkuk. This region holds about 7 percent of the world's known oil reserves. The vast oil wealth represented around Kirkuk has always been a motive for Saddam and other ethnic Iraq groups to act. Remove the oil by removing the Kurds. Saddam used every opportunity to hunt them down and eliminate them. But America is barely aware of the suffering Saddam inflicted on these people.

While the President never found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, Kurds would tell you that the President would have found evidence of mass murder. Kurds fear, and we should, too, that it could happen again. Kurds fear, and we should, too, that if the U.S. pulls out on the 30th of June, it will not take long before the killing begins again.

We should never have left the Kurds alone after the first Gulf War, and we must not leave them alone after June 30. The date is meaningful only for the President's political ambitions. We know what happened the last time we pulled out of Iraq. We cannot do it again and silently sanction a new outbreak of unspeakable crimes again the Kurds.

The Kurds deserve liberation. The Kurds deserve protection. The bloodshed we see daily in Iraq reminds us of the country's instability. It should be a warning of the bloodshed that will come if America forsakes its responsibility to Iraq and all the Iraqi people, all the Iraqi people.

We must stay the course. Stay past June 30. Stay until the Kurds are safe, until Iraq itself is a safe place. We owe Iraq and the world nothing less. By declaring war we took responsibility for the future of Iraq. We cannot walk away and throw it open to the chaos that we have created.

It was our warning to the President when we started, winning the war, the military part, that will be pretty easy because we have a tremendous fighting force. But as for establishing the peace, that is where the trouble is. The President never planned for it.

He ignored the State Department's efforts to do that. He ignored everybody's warnings. General Shinseki said it will take 300,000 troops. They said, shut up, and they fired him because he told truth. Anybody who tried to tell him the truth coming into this was discarded or shuffled off or put somewhere else.

We are about to do it again because the President wants to have another sign that says ``Mission Accomplished, Democracy Delivered.'' You could have a little ceremony somewhere and hand some paper around, I guess. It reminds

me of a scene in Vietnam when the United States declared victory and left off the roof of the embassy. We must not let that happen again.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from New Jersey for coming out here and giving us an opportunity to talk about the abuses of power of this administration.

I think we have had so many that it is really hard. You sit in your office and say, which one should I come out here and talk about? Well, the most recent and striking one to me was on ``60 Minutes'' last Sunday night when they talked about the book by Mr. Woodward in which he describes the run-up to the war.

Now, anybody who knows anything about the Congress knows it is our job to collect the taxes. I sit on the Committee on Ways and Means. We collect the taxes, and then the Committee on Appropriations says this is how it is going to be spent, and the President is supposed to spend it that way. He does not have the freedom to just spend it anywhere he wants. Otherwise, what do you need a Congress for? Why do you not just give him the money and say, Mr. President, do whatever you want? If it looks good to you, buy it. Do it. See if you cannot make it work.

So with that background, the revelations that came out of this book on Sunday on ``60 Minutes'' were absolutely mind-boggling. The President secretly diverted $700 million from the war on terror in Afghanistan to begin building airstrips in Kuwait, starting a war that nobody knew anything about, that was hidden totally from view. They took $700 million appropriated for dealing with the war on terror.

We just had two enormous buildings in New York knocked down and the Pentagon attacked, we were over there trying to find Osama bin Laden, and the President decided, on his own, I do not know, sitting there talking to I do not know whom, maybe he was praying, for all I know, and he came up and said, I am going to use $700 million to start a war in Iraq. Now, the question is whether that is not only not constitutional, but whether it is illegal for the President to have done that,

whether he has broken the law, and we hear nothing of it.

Ask yourself just for a minute, what would $700 million have bought in Afghanistan? It is fascinating. Just today the Pentagon came out and said it needs another $700 million to keep 20,000 troops in Iraq for another 90 days. So effectively what the President of the United States did was, in the middle of this war on terrorism in Afghanistan, he said, I am taking $700 million, I am taking 20,000 troops for 90 days out of the country. I am reducing our ability to deal with the war in Afghanistan, because I want to start this war over in Iraq.

It was not inconsequential what he did. Remember, this is when the Secretary of War, Mr. Rumsfeld, was quick to point out that they knew, it was not even close, that we suspect or anything else, we knew that bin Laden was hiding in the Tora Bora area of Afghanistan. Right in the middle of our dealing with Tora Bora, the President says, hey, Rumsfeld, out of my way. I want that money, and I want to put it over here.

Now, we were still in the shock of the attacks of 9/11, and all America watched and waited for the word that bin Laden would harm us no longer. The President still has not found bin Laden. He still is out there, still organizing, still sending out tapes, still having impact on us. And the President decided, I am tired of this, I do not want to chase bin Laden anymore. Because when this was happening, right in the middle of having him located in Tora Bora, the President said, I have lost interest in this, and I am going somewhere else.

Now, he acted unilaterally and without the Congress or the people of the United States understanding what he is doing. The President reduced America's resources in the hunt at the very moment when we had the best information about where bin Laden was.

Now we are talking about maybe he is in the border areas with Pakistan, or maybe he is here, maybe he is there. We knew apparently where he was at that point, but the President was not interested in getting him, I guess. I do not know.

He must have a short attention span to just say I am going to walk away from this. My belief is that unilaterally reducing American resources in the hunt for bin Laden really raises questions the President must face with the families of every 9/11 victim and with the Congress and with the American people and the mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters and husbands and wives of the 700 Americans who have died in Iraq.

What was he thinking about? Now, none of us think that the President was stupid, none of us think that Rumsfeld is dumb. But the question is, why were they so intent on going to Iraq? It clearly was not about weapons of mass destruction. It clearly was not about al Qaeda. There is no connection.

Yet we are now mired down in the war, and the question is, how do we get out of it? The fact was that the State Department predicted all of this in a big study, and the War Department just ignored it.

Mr. Speaker, one of the things that the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) raised was the issue of arrogance. And certainly it takes a certain amount of self-confidence to be a national leader. I mean, a President has to be a confident person and act confident and so forth. But there are times when one needs to ask forgiveness for making mistakes.

This administration has absolutely blanket not asked for a bit of forgiveness on anything. The dismantling of the entire Army they now say was a terrible mistake. The dismantling of the police was a terrible mistake. The dismantling and driving out everybody who was a Ba'ath Party member, university professors, doctors, lawyers, everybody, they threw them out of work. They threw the whole country out of work. And then they are surprised by the chaos.

Now, it would be bad enough, as that was a long time ago, but the viceroy we put in there, Mr. Bremer continues to do these stupid things on his own. I was talking to some people who are in Iraq at the moment who said it is absolutely inconceivable that he shut down a newspaper.

Mr. Bremer?

Mr. Speaker, he never talked to the Iraqi Governing Council. No Iraqi would have given him that advice. I mean, it is the President's mistake for putting a guy like that there.

This most recent one I spoke about, this closing this newspaper, now, we are bringing them democracy, right? Free speech. Newspapers should be able to say whatever they want to say. Well, we do not like somebody, so we go over and shut it down. These Iraqis say, hey, what is this about? I thought we had free speech now that we had democracy.

Now, clearly we want them to have free speech as long as they say what we want them to say. The conflagration that has come out of the Shia community was provoked by Mr. Bremer. That did not come from the outside. It did not come from foreigners. It came from the United States Government going in and saying, you shut your mouth.

We put gasoline on the fire of a guy who was a nobody. He had been talking 6 months before, and he lost all of his oomph. So we go down and throw some gasoline on the embers, and now we have a flame.

We have the worst month we have had in the entire war. More people have died this month. They have not learned anything from their mistakes. They continue to make them because they are arrogant. They think because they are from the United States, and they come over with all this knowledge in their head, that they could not possibly know anything about what was exactly the right thing to do.

We are doomed as long as the President of the United States and Mr. Bremer and Mr. Rumsfeld and Mr. Wolfowitz who cannot ever reexamine what they have done are in control. We have no chance if they do not go to the United Nations and get the United Nations actively involved and in control so that the United States is not the sole occupying force.

There is a wonderful article in the Atlantic Monthly by James Fallows that I think everybody ought to read from almost 6 months ago that lays it all out. It is called ``Blind into Baghdad.'' It is a statement about every mistake we have made. And we still continue to make them, and our kids are dying. That is the worst part.