Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize and honor the Corporal William A.

Sydnor Veterans of Foreign Wars Post #3398, located in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania, on its 55 years of community involvement and dedication.

Since its beginning in 1939, Post #3398 has represented the efforts of an entire community. The building itself has changed several times, but the underlying spirit has never wavered.

Post #3398 has a long history of helping the community. The Post's involvement includes sponsoring several annual community events such as the Children's Halloween Party, the Senior Citizens Dinner, the Easter Egg Hunt, and Memorial Day Services. In addition, each year Post #3398 presents the William C. Purcell Scholarship to students planning to attend college. The Post now has four registered service officers to take care of the needs of veterans, widows, and the families of veterans.

Today the Corporal William A. Sydnor Veterans of Foreign Wars Post #3398 has grown from 36 Charter Members to over 250 members, and approximately 75 Ladies Auxiliary members. I wish the members of Post #3398 continued success and commend them for 55 years of service.

Mr. Speaker, would the gentleman yield?

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers) for bringing the Seymour Hersh article to the attention of the House today. I read that this afternoon, and I agree with my colleague, the impact of that article clearly is this was a planned special operation that did not originate with the privates and the sergeants but at the highest levels of the Bush administration.

But the question I wanted to ask my colleague, what I got out of the article was that not only was this a very clear attempt, if the article is accurate, by the Bush administration to set up an intelligence- gathering mechanism and operation that would be free and clear of any congressional oversight, but that they were taking these procedures and methods from Afghanistan, where we were clearly fighting terrorists and had terrorists in custody, and were interrogating terrorists and where we had announced, rightly or wrongly, that the Geneva Conventions would not apply. Then we were taking these methods and procedures to a more traditional war zone in Iraq and applying them to the detainees in the Iraqi prisons, notably Abu Ghraib, where the detainees were a bunch of people off the street, street criminals, rock throwers, hoodlums, maybe some terrorists, but certainly a wide number of just disaffected Iraqis who got swept up by the police and by the Army in an urban setting that was a traditional war zone. Yet, here the American operation was using these same interrogation approaches that we have been using against known terrorists in a lawless situation in Afghanistan.

This seems to me to be the root of the problem. First off, there is clear accountability to the very top of the Defense Department and the White House, and every time those gentlemen talk about just a few bad apples, it sets my hackles on edge because clearly they are trying to avoid accountability and responsibility.

The fundamental error they made was, in my judgment, taking this from a terror interrogation into interrogation of street criminals and routine suspects that have so badly backfired on our image in Iraq.

So I wonder, does the gentleman read the article the same way as I do?

Very aptly known as SAP, S-A-P.

Well, I was just going to say that we have as much of a clue as the American officials in Iraq have, which is no clue at all. I do not think anybody has any idea what is going to happen on June 30.

Sure.

Mr. Speaker, just over a year ago at one of our first Iraq Watches, I recounted a visit that Mr. Chalabi paid to my office, as I think he did to most members of the Committee on International Relations in October 2002, just before the vote here in the House on the war authority on Iraq.

I talked to Mr. Chalabi for 10 or 15 minutes. He had an aide with him, and my chief of staff was with me. They left, and I turned to my aide and I said, That is the kind of man that my grandfather would have called a four-flusher. I do not think I have used that term since my grandfather died in the 1980s. I am not quite sure what it means. I think it must come from poker where a player has four cards for a flush, does not have the fifth, and you are all hot air and cannot be trusted and you are just a spin doctor.

That is exactly the impression that I got from Ahmed Chalabi that day, that he was spinning. He was spinning me, he was spinning the Congress, he was not a man of substance and not someone we should trust.

The sad fact is, as my colleagues have said here tonight, the administration trusted him. Paul Wolfowitz trusted him, Doug Faith, Donald Rumsfeld trusted him, and because those individuals trusted him, our President trusted him; and he is not worthy of our trust. As a matter of fact, I think we need to talk about all of this talk about resignations in the Department of Defense. I do not think we should allow those civilian authorities in the DOD the luxury of resigning. The President ought to fire them. He ought to fire Rumsfeld and Faith for the bad advice they have given him, for believing in people like Chalabi, for the lack of planning in Iraq, for sending troops over there without enough numbers, without the armored vehicles to keep them safe.

The failures of leadership in the Department of Defense are so great, including believing Chalabi, that the civilian leadership ought to go. While the President is at it, he ought to get rid of George Tenet for the bad intelligence regarding the failure of the weapons of mass destruction intelligence.

The only person that ought to resign in the administration is Colin Powell, because his advice is not being listened to, but that is another matter.

I remember. It was Mr. Chalabi.

Mr. Speaker, we should have no more talk about resignations. We should not talk about Donald Rumsfeld resigning his office. We should not let him resign his office. He ought to be fired. He ought to be fired, and George Tenet ought to be fired. I do not know that there has ever been two Cabinet Secretaries in the history of this Nation that have given their President more bad information, more bad intelligence, more bad advice than Don Rumsfeld and George Tenet. And while the President is at it, he ought to clean house at the Pentagon. He ought to get rid of Paul Wolfowitz and Doug Feith, all of the architects of this failed policy in Iraq.

It is astonishing to me that the President is so loyal to people who have given him such bad advice. If you look back on the failures in Iraq, and I speak as one who voted in favor of the military authority that the President sought a year and a half ago, I voted ``yes'' because I believed we had to disarm Saddam Hussein of weapons of mass destruction. I am now convinced that I was misled, that the Congress was misled, that the people of this country were misled.

And you look back on the failures of intelligence and planning and advice from George Tenet and Don Rumsfeld and the list is very long. The weapons of mass destruction have not been found. The intelligence was bad coming from George Tenet, and the intelligence was hyped by Don Rumsfeld and the other civilian leadership of the Pentagon. Don Rumsfeld tried to do this war on the cheap. We did not send enough troops over there. General Shinseki said we needed several hundred thousand troops. He was virtually run out of the Army for saying so. He was right. We have got 135,000 troops in Iraq today, and we have not secured the country. The country is not secure. Clearly more security is needed. We tried to do this on the cheap without enough troops, without enough armor.

The troops left their armor at home, and our soldiers have been sitting ducks killed by roadside bombs that armored personnel carriers and tanks would not have to worry about but unprotected Humvees, which is what our troops have been given, do have to worry about.

There was no plan to deal with the looting. There was no plan to deal with the violent insurgency that has come up. We were told by Don Rumsfeld we would be greeted as liberators. Instead, we have become occupiers. Donald Rumsfeld believed Ahmed Chalabi and the other leaders of the Iraqi National Congress. Chalabi, one of the great four-flushers of all time. You ask me what a four-flusher is. I am not sure. It is a phrase my grandfather used to use. I think it has something to do with having four cards to a flush and that you cannot trust a guy who is a four-flusher. Well, that is Ahmed Chalabi. He is a spinner. He has not given us good advice. But our leadership believed him in the Pentagon and we have paid a heck of a price because of it. We have no notion of how long we are going to stay or any notion of how much we must pay.

And now the prison abuse scandal has come. Clearly, the privates and the sergeants were completely wrong in the steps they took and they need to be punished, but I do not think the accountability stops with them. It goes up the chain of command. Because the training was inadequate; the supervision was inadequate. There has been no accountability in the chain of command at this point. Secretary Rumsfeld did not listen to the International Red Cross who apparently started complaining about this a year ago. He did not listen to the Secretary of State who began complaining to the Pentagon and to Mr. Rumsfeld several months ago. The Secretary of Defense did not read the report that he ordered. And he did not even tell the President. He did not even tell the President.

We do not need to stay the course in Iraq, Mr. Speaker. We need to change the course in Iraq. We are not winning. We want to create a stable and peaceful Iraq with a representative self-government, hopefully a democracy. There can be no reconstruction without security. There can be no transfer of authority and government without security. There can be no elections without security. There can be no democracy without security. And there is no security in Iraq today. We cannot stay the course. We must change the course.

We have three choices. We can pull out, declare victory, or say it does not matter and pull out; and I think that would be a great mistake. We cannot leave Iraq worse than we found it. We did get rid of a murderous tyrant, and I am glad we did, but we cannot leave Iraq in shambles. We can stay the course, but we are not winning. We won the military victory, but we are not winning the peace. Or we can mobilize more troops, international troops from NATO and Arab nations preferably, our troops if necessary, in order to stabilize that country and achieve our goals.

Mr. Speaker, I compliment the gentleman on his 10 opinions that opened the Iraq Watch tonight. I think the gentleman is right on the money, and I appreciate his summarizing the problems that we face.

I want to thank the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt), the new Chair of Iraq Watch, for his leadership and his stalwart support for what we are trying to do here.

The point that the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt) makes is a very good one. There has been no criticism of the military in any of the comments that I have heard or read about in the papers. We are not criticizing the military. That is the one good thing about what is happening in Iraq, is the performance of our young men and women in uniform.

We are criticizing the civilian directors of the Defense Department. We are criticizing the administration, the policymakers, the politicians.

I think we should criticize not just Mr. Rumsfeld and Mr. Wolfowitz and Mr. Feith at the Department of Defense, but I would throw in George Tenet as well at the CIA. I do not think any President has ever received more bad information in our Nation's history than George Bush has received from George Tenet and Don Rumsfeld.

The information was wrong about weapons of mass destruction. I am summarizing what the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) has already summarized. They were wrong about weapons of mass destruction. They were wrong that we could do this on the cheap. We did not send enough troops in to Iraq to stabilize the country, and General Shinseki was right and he was run out of the Army for telling the truth, that we needed several hundred thousand troops, not the 120,000 that Mr. Rumsfeld thought he could do this with.

If you will recall, in the spring of 2003 Mr. Rumsfeld said by August of 2003 we would only need 40,000 troops. There would be only 40,000 troops left four or five months after the invasion. Of course, in August of 2003 there were 120,000 troops. We are up to 135,000 troops now, and we still have not stabilized Iraq.

Look what that means. You cannot have reconstruction without security. You cannot have a transfer of government without security. You certainly cannot have elections without security. And we do not have security in Iraq. After all this time, we do not have stabilized conditions in Iraq.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman. If we just focus on the prison scandal for a minute and see the failures of leadership there, as the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt) has been talking about, there are not enough prison guards assigned to Abu Ghraib or I am sure to the other prisons that were running as a result of the Iraq war. There simply are not enough guards assigned. Those guards are not properly trained. That is abundantly clear. They are not properly supervised, and there is no accountability up the chain of command.

So we start off with a disaster waiting to happen. Then what does Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld do? Well, he ignores the Red Cross, who, apparently, for over a year, has been complaining about conditions and abusive activities in our prisons. He fails to respond. He does not read the report in a timely fashion that is finally done by his subordinate, and he does not tell his President what is at stake. He even hangs his own President out to dry who is embarrassed by the disclosure of this information to the media, rather than in the normal chain of communication between cabinet Secretary and President.

One more failure. I think we ought to stop talking about resignation. I do not think Donald Rumsfeld should be allowed to resign. He should be fired for his failures to inform and properly advise the President. And the reality is, we cannot stay the course in Iraq. We have to change the course in Iraq. We cannot keep doing what we are doing, because we are failing, and we cannot achieve our goals of creating a stable and a peaceful country with a representative form of self- government. We cannot do that with the level of insecurity and instability in Iraq today. We have to get more troops in there. There ought to be international troops, NATO, Arab nations, Western European nations. They have a bigger stake in a stable Iraq than we do. But right now, 90 percent of the troops, 90 percent of the money is American; and it is not working. We have to change our course.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education.

The United States Supreme Court case, decided on May 17, 1954, challenged the constitutionality of racial segregation in public schools. The landmark decision of Brown v. Board of education affected changes in national and social policy by putting an end to the legality of racial segregation.

The achievements of early leaders continue today as Linda Brown and Cheryl Brown Henderson, daughters of Oliver Brown, the first of the 12 families to file suit, promote equality in education. Their foundation, the Brown Foundation for Education Equity, Excellence and Research, provides scholarships for minority students.

In the spirit of equality, I am pleased to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize and honor Weldon Volunteer Fire Company #3 on its one hundred years of service to Glenside, Pennsylvania and the surrounding areas.

The fire company was established in 1904. Originally, it owned a single horse-drawn hose reel, which it had to house on a community member's property. From its difficult beginning, the company has expanded and moved into its current building, which provides space for its growing number of members and fire rescue vehicles. This expansion has allowed the company to serve over 55,000 people in Abington Township, including my family.

The Weldon Fire Company holds strong values of volunteerism and community involvement. In my experiences with the company, I have seen its dedication to its past and present members and to the community. These basic principles will allow the company to prosper in the years to come. I thank the company and its volunteer members for their service to Abington Township. Again, I congratulate Weldon Volunteer Fire Company #3 on its 100th anniversary.

Mr. Speaker, I was absent for three votes on Tuesday, March 9, 2004 due to a family illness. Had I been present, I would have cast my votes as follows: Rollcall No. 42 (H. Res. 519), ``aye''; Rollcall No. 43 (H. Res. 392), ``aye''; Rollcall No. 44 (H. Res. 475), `` aye.''

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize and honor the Hatfield Volunteer Fire Company and two of its outstanding volunteer fire fighters, who have each contributed in excess of 50 years of dedicated service to the community.

The Hatfield Volunteer Fire Company was founded on March 10, 1910 after a fire destroyed a local business. The Hatfield Volunteer Fire Company had modest beginnings with 24 charter members and equipment that included a single horse drawn chemical truck. Presently the company has 68 active members and a ladies auxiliary. The current fleet consists of two fully equipped 1,500 gallon per minute engines, a Rescue/Cascade truck, and a 2,000 GPM pump with a special service six wheel pickup truck. The company serves the Hatfield Borough and Hatfield Township and provides mutual assistance across Montgomery and Bucks Counties in Pennsylvania.

Robert Nolen is a lifetime member of the Hatfield Volunteer Fire Company, who at age 70 still drives trucks to active fire calls. Isaac Feusner, another lifetime member now 93, has devoted countless hours to his duties as a fire fighter. The dedicated volunteers of the Hatfield Volunteer Fire Company have provided critical services to citizens in need, oftentimes endangering their own lives in the process.

I congratulate the Hatfield Volunteer Fire Company, specifically Robert Nolen and Isaac Feusner, for embodying the spirit of volunteerism in America through proactive service in the community.

Mr. Speaker, I am glad to be back on the House floor with my colleagues, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt) and the gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Abercrombie), and I think others will join us, for another installment of Iraq Watch. We have been coming to the floor one evening a week since, I believe, last May to talk about our policies in Iraq, to raise questions about the policies when we do not understand those policies, to suggest alternatives, to try to get information before the Members of the Congress and the members of the general public about what is happening in Iraq.

Before turning to my colleagues for this week's installment of Iraq Watch, let me review a little bit what has been happening, and the last few weeks have been tough weeks for President Bush regarding his policies in Iraq. We know that the chief CIA weapons inspector, Dr. David Kay, returned from Iraq and said that stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction do not exist. He could not find weapons of mass destruction themselves. He doubts that such stockpiles existed before we went to war. He doubts they existed in 2002 or 2003. This, of course, is completely contrary to the White House assertions in the fall of 2002 and in the spring of 2003 that these weapons of mass destruction existed.

The President continued to advocate his case and, in my judgment, hype the

situation regarding weapons of mass destruction in the State of the Union Address where he talked about weapons of mass destruction-related program activities. I am still trying to figure out exactly what is a weapons of mass destruction-related program activity, but I can tell my colleagues what it is not. It is not a weapon of mass destruction, because we have not found those in Iraq, according to our chief CIA weapons inspector David Kay.

Then, in his Face The Nation interview recently, the President talked about Dr. Kay's report and said that Dr. Kay came home and, number 1, made an interim report and, number 2, suggested that things were worse in Iraq than we thought.

Well, in fact, may I say to my colleagues, Dr. Kay came back from Iraq not to make an interim report, but to quit. He said he has had enough. He is frustrated. He says he is not getting the support that he thinks the Iraq Study Group should get in order to focus on the search for weapons of mass destruction. He believes those weapons do not exist. And far from saying things were worse over there than he thought, he said we could not find the things that we were told we would find.

Then, the President finally appointed a commission to study the intelligence regarding Iraq and the weapons of mass destruction. And I am glad that he appointed such a commission, but he made two big mistakes, in my judgment. One, he limited the time, or maybe I should say he expanded the time so that the Commission will not complete its work until well after this fall's election. Secondly, he limited the scope of the Commission. He asked them to look into the accuracy of the intelligence gathering. And I agree that accuracy must be reviewed, but he did not ask the Commission to review the use of that intelligence by the White House itself.

I am delighted to yield to the gentleman from Hawaii.

Mr. Speaker, if I may interrupt the gentleman for a moment, I am proud of the fact that last April in one of our very first Iraq Watches, I identified Mr. Chalabi in the words that my grandfather would have used as a four flusher. I have to explain what a four flusher is. A four flusher is a man whose word you cannot accept, and if it was good enough for my grandfather, it is good enough for me.

If the gentleman will yield, as bad as the situation is that the gentleman from Massachusetts has just described, it could be even worse, the impact of this faulty intelligence on this country. Think back on the military strategy that our Armed Forces used. We all understand that our Armed Forces fought bravely, with great courage. But remember that they rushed to Baghdad because they believed that weapons of mass destruction were there, in large measure because of the representations made by Chalabi and others, and the very false and misleading information that the gentleman from Massachusetts has identified tonight.

Our troops did not protect their flanks. They figured the most important thing they had to do was get to Baghdad and stop any potential use of these weapons of mass destruction against the American troops or the British troops or against the Iraqi citizens; that the key was to get there as quickly as possible. And in that rush, which they successfully did, very bravely and courageously, they left their flanks exposed. The insurgency started, and we began to lose soldiers right away because they were not taking their time, they were not protecting themselves. They thought they had to rush in.

I think you can put onto the heads of these folks that gave us bad information the loss of life, the loss of American life by our brave soldiers whose leaders thought they had to adopt one strategy based upon incorrect information, when it would have been a little safer for our troops to protect the flanks, move more carefully and cautiously, which I am sure they would have done if they were not worried about these weapons of mass destruction that did not exist.

Mr. Speaker, we have talked quite a bit tonight about Ahmed Chalabi, and rightly so; but he is not apparently the only favorite of the American government involved in positioning themselves for leadership in Iraq.

In today's Roll Call, one of the Hill newspapers, a fascinating front-page story titled ``Iraqi Money Flows'' detailing how four different Iraqis seeking power in Iraq are paying over $100,000 a month for lobbying costs and public relations costs here in the U.S. capital. It is a million-dollar-plus annual industry.

Mr. Speaker, I do not have a clue. Ahmed Chalabi and three others listed in the article are paying up to a combined $100,000 a month.

The principal source I know of is U.S. Government.

Before we get too carried away with Chalabi, let me just make the point that is in the Roll Call article. There were three others doing this. One of them is the favorite of the CIA to be the new Iraqi leader and a third the favorite of the State Department to be the new Iraqi leader. The gentleman from Massachusetts is right, the Defense Department has long wanted Chalabi to be the new leader of the Iraqi Government.

The favorite of the State Department is Adnan Pachachi, who is another member of the current interim government in Iraq as Chalabi is. And, according to Roll Call, the favorite of the CIA is Ayad Allawi, also a member of the Iraqi Governing Council.

We have got a three-headed monster here. The administration itself cannot agree on who should be the next leader of the Iraqi Government. There are three different agencies pushing three different people.

The gentleman from Massachusetts is making a lot of sense here, but the situation is made that much worse by the fact we are not just trying to hand-pick the next leader from Washington, but the Bush administration has three different favorites, one from the Defense Department, one from the State Department, one from the CIA.

Yes. All the firms are identified, the monthly retainers. It is an interesting article. It is a million-dollar industry.

I will be delighted to do it.

Mr. Speaker, there is something else troubling about this. The gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Abercrombie) is correct and he is right to be personally offended by the lack of disclosure. And it is also clear from this article that a lot of money is being spent to influence the gentleman from Hawaii and me and the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt) and every other Member of Congress, and we have a right to know who is being paid to influence us and what the subject matter is.

But the fact that this article also demonstrates that the Bush administration is pushing three different people to be the next leader of the Iraq government leads to the following question: What does come next in the larger governance question? We know that Paul Bremer has been advocating on behalf of the Bush administration this concept of caucuses, that when the Bush administration leaves Iraq on June 30, at least the civil authority is pulled out, that Paul Bremer has been pushing for caucuses to take the place of direct elections and somehow lead to a representative form of self-government for Iraq.

The problem is none of the Iraqis like that idea. The head of the majority

Shiite Muslims do not like that idea. The Kurds do not like that idea. That is not going to happen. What is going to take the place of the American-appointed 25-member group of what most Iraqis think are American puppets, the Iraqi Governing Council, what is going to take their place, particularly if the Bush administration has three different favorites to lead the next government? What comes next? We have got an arbitrary deadline set by the President of June 30 to withdraw the civilian authority, a date that seems more based upon the upcoming election than any ability of the Iraqi people to actually conduct a self-government.

I could not have said it better. There is clearly no exit strategy. In fact, there are three different strategies, if the Roll Call article is correct, about who is supposed to lead the next government, and all of this is supposed to come to fruition by June 30.

Iraq Watch has to come to fruition in 5 minutes tonight. I want to give my two colleagues an opportunity to make any closing comments.

Mr. Speaker, if I can add to the gentleman's comments, specifically about what appeared to be the distortions of information in Iraq. I am not speaking of Mr. Woolsey. I am speaking of the Iraqi Governing Council representatives, Mr. Chalabi and others. I do not want to see them benefit any more than they already have from their relationships if they have misled this country and this government, and I hope that Congress can figure out a way to deny those individuals, if we can show they intentionally misled us, from any further contract with the U.S. Government, benefit from the U.S. Government, promotion by the U.S. Government. If we have been intentionally misled, if we had gone to war in part under their false comments and under false pretenses, and particularly, as I believe happened, there have been additional American deaths because of that faulty information, we need to cut off those relationships and prohibit any further financial relationships with these malfeasors.

I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt).

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues for their comments. Iraq Watch will be back next week.

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

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at midnight), the House adjourned until tomorrow, Wednesday, February 25, 2004, at 10 a.m.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize and honor the Fox Chase Cancer Center for its 100 years of outstanding effort and achievement in the fields of cancer treatment and research.

Chartered in 1904, the Fox Chase Cancer Center was the Nation's first cancer hospital. Since its inception, the hospital has provided quality care for patients and has developed and refined methods of cancer treatment. The Fox Chase Cancer Center has been recognized for integrating strong basic and clinical research programs with programs of cancer treatment and detection, cancer control and community outreach efforts, and cancer prevention research and services. These efforts have earned the center various honors including a Nobel Prize for medicine, a Lasker Clinical Research Award, memberships in the National Academy of Sciences, and American Cancer Society Medals of Honor.

Founded on a spirit of optimism and determination, the center remains a national leader in cancer care. I congratulate the Fox Chase Cancer Center on its 100 years of dedicated service to the community.

Mr. Speaker, good evening. I am happy to be back here with my colleagues to conduct another hour of Iraq Watch. We have been meeting one day a week, one evening a week for 1 hour for about 8 months now, since the invasion of Iraq was conducted and problems became apparent; and we have been trying to raise those questions here on the floor, asking for answers, and trying to educate the American public about the problems and challenges in Iraq. Since our last time on the floor, there have been amazing developments that I would like to talk about for a few minutes before turning to my colleagues and engaging in a discussion with them.

The big news is that President Bush, at long last, has agreed to appoint an independent commission to investigate the question of weapons of mass destruction and their presence in Iraq and to try to answer the unanswered questions about the weapons of mass destruction.

Now, on behalf of Iraq Watch, all I can say is, it is about time. We have been individually and as a group calling for an independent commission to investigate the controversy surrounding weapons of mass destruction since the very beginning of the Iraq Watch 8 months ago. I know, in particular, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland) and the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt) never miss an opportunity to call for such a commission to be appointed; and I have lent my voice to that as well. Finally, the President has agreed that such a commission is needed.

Well, let us take a quick review of the situation and find out why President Bush now believes it is important for an independent commission to investigate the weapons of mass destruction and the performance of his administration, because I can tell my colleagues, President Bush does not like independent commissions. I do not think he did this lightly. I think he realizes that there is a huge question here, and it is not a political question; it is a question of national security. The issues that we are raising are not designed to raise political controversy, but to deal with our national safety. These are matters of national security.

Well, we all remember that President Bush and his administration stated in the summer and fall of 2002 with complete certainty that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction and those weapons of mass destruction posed an imminent threat to America, to world peace, and to our national safety. There was not any hedging; there was not any doubt in the President's comments. There were not any hesitations or uncertainties expressed by any of the policy-makers in the Bush administration. They stated as fact that these weapons of mass destruction existed. They identified on maps where the weapons of mass destruction were located in Iraq. They even indicated how much those weapons weighed. They told us, we have 500 pounds over here; we have 300 pounds over there.

Now comes a year and a half later, Dr. David Kay, the CIA's chief weapons inspector in Iraq. And after working there for 7 or 8 months, he has announced, upon his retirement from that job, that the weapons of mass destruction do not exist and, in his opinion, did not exist during 2002 or at the time we went to war in 2003.

Now, it is, by the way, undeniable, Mr. Speaker, that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction in the 1980s. We know that. He used them in murderous ways against his own civilians, innocent civilians, the Kurds in Iraq. He also used them in murderous ways against the citizens in Iran, during the Iraq-Iran War. But the question is not whether he had them in the 1980s. The question is during the 1990s and the period of international sanctions and international inspections, did Hussein give up those weapons and did he have them at the time we went to war in 2003. David Kay says no. He has concluded they did not exist.

In addition to our general memory of how positive the President was, I can share with the House, as I have before, that I attended a briefing at the White House on October 2, 2002, 1 week before this House voted on the war resolution. That briefing was for a bipartisan group of Members, about 20 of us attended. It was one of several briefings the White House conducted during that time. The briefing was conducted in the Roosevelt Room of the White House by CIA Director George Tenet and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice. Ms. Rice and Mr. Tenet told us with complete certainty that weapons of mass destruction existed, that they believed Hussein was giving them to terrorists, that there was a link between Hussein and al Qaeda and, again, they knew where the weapons were. It was just a matter of invading and uncovering them and seizing them. One of my colleagues specifically asked George Tenet, Mr. Tenet, on a scale of 1 to 10, how certain are you that Saddam Hussein has reconstituted his nuclear weapons program? And Mr. Tenet answered, without hesitation, 10. He was completely certain.

Well, we now know that information was simply incorrect. In fact, we had a glimmer of the amount of exaggerations and deception when in the spring of 2003 rank-and-file Members of the House were finally allowed to see the classified intelligence reports from the fall of 2002, the Defense Intelligence Agency report of September of 2002, that said, in part, there was no credible evidence of a chemical stockpile of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and the national intelligence estimate of October of 2002 that was filled with uncertainties. That report said that we think, according to the CIA, that Hussein has weapons of mass destruction. We believe he may have this. We believe it is possible he has that. Then we discovered in the spring of 2003, when we saw these reports 6 months after they were made available to the White House that the President, when he talked to the public, forgot about all that uncertainty and told us, without a hesitation, that these weapons existed.

Well, it seems clear to me, and it has for some time, that we were led to war on half truths and deception and that America was misled and the Congress was misled by these statements regarding weapons of mass destruction.

Now, Saddam Hussein is in custody. Iraq and this country are better off with him in custody. But the fact of the matter is, our challenges in Iraq have been made much harder and much riskier because of the arrogance, the unilateralism, and the cowboy diplomacy of this administration.

Now, a few final comments about the commission, and I know my colleagues are anxious to join in this discussion. The President has finally called for an independent commission, something that all of us have called for; and we have been joined by the gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Abercrombie), who has called for an independent commission as well. There are questions remaining about how to set this up. One, of course, is who will be the members, and this will be critically important for the President to pick a bipartisan and independent group of commission members.

The timetable for reporting is important. Obviously, this commission should be given sufficient time to do

its job. I certainly hope, though, that there will not be any artificial attempt made to delay the report until after the election to protect anybody who may be embarrassed by its findings.

But most importantly of all is the scope of the commission's work. In my view, it must do two fundamental things. Certainly, it must review the accuracy of the intelligence-gathering and why our intelligence agencies were wrong about the possession and existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. But secondly, and just as importantly, this commission must review the use of that intelligence by the Bush administration to delve into why this material was so badly stated; why, when the Bush administration was told there were uncertainties about the weapons, why did they tell Congress and the American people that there was no uncertainty about the existence of those weapons. This commission must delve into both the intelligence-gathering and the use of that intelligence by the Bush administration.

Let me at this point turn now to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt), who has been waiting patiently and who is a senior member of the Committee on International Relations and a leader on this issue.

Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, is the gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Abercrombie) suggesting that there is some similarity between the behavior of the British 90 years ago and their colonial ways and the behavior of America in Iraq?

Mr. Speaker, I welcome the questions of the gentleman, but I hope he is not turning to me to give him some answers because I cannot begin to answer these very legitimate questions he has raised about what comes next, what does the Bush administration think will happen at the end of June when we turn over civil authority at this point to a completely unknown local or international or some form of alternative government or group. These questions are important, and we are nowhere close to having an answer.

I am afraid to ask.

Mr. Speaker, I agree with the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt) on that point. That is an excellent point, and part of the problem we are having is that the President and the Vice President continue to spin the issue of weapons of mass destruction. The Vice President in the last couple of weeks still talks about those trailers being the place where weapons of mass destruction were being manufactured. David Kay laughs about that and says, no, they were not.

They were perhaps making rocket fuel. More likely, making helium for weather balloons, but they were not making weapons of mass destruction. But the Vice President continues to suggest that that was happening.

The President himself in the State of the Union address that the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt) just referenced, in the face of the absence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, in my view, continued to try to confuse the situation and fool the American people by talking about the fact that Mr. Kay himself, who was in the process of saying there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the President quoted Mr. Kay as talking about weapons of mass destruction- related program activities. And I do not have a clue what is a weapons of mass destruction-related program activity.

At last, an answer.

Let me respond or add on to the comments of the gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Abercrombie) about the Iraqi scientist, because Dr. Kay has also reported on what he believes may explain part of the incredible inaccuracy of our intelligence work regarding the weapons of mass destruction. He believes that some of those Iraqi scientists that you referred to were actually conning Hussein; that they were telling Hussein that they had had these programs; they needed

more money; they were on the verge of developing the weapons that this murderous dictator was interested in developing. Hussein apparently believed that con, and kept giving them money for their research and for their development, and some of that money was skimmed off the top through base corruption by these scientists and all the rest.

What is amazing is the suggestion from Dr. Kay that our intelligence agencies fell for the con, too. We were conned by the con. We picked up the communications of the Iraqi scientists to Hussein, and we believed those communications, and so that is why we felt that the weapons of mass destruction were well developed and in existence when, in fact, they were not.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues for joining in Iraq Watch this week. We will be back next week. We are going to look at the commission and what happens June 30th, and we look forward to talking next week.

Mr. Speaker, last week during the State of the Union address President Bush spoke to us about the Iraqi War and described how the Kay report, the Dr. David Kay report, indicated dozens of instances of what the President called weapons of mass destruction- related program activities.

Now, I am not sure what a weapons of mass destruction-related program activity is, but I do know what it is not. It is not a weapon of mass destruction, because we have not found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. And, in fact, David Kay himself has said so. He has resigned his position as the United States Chief Weapons Inspector in Iraq, working for the CIA.

He has stated that in his opinion, Iraq does not have stockpiles of chemical weapons of mass destruction or biological weapons of mass destruction, that Iraq does not have nuclear weapons, and any nuclear program was rudimentary in nature, according to Dr. Kay. He feels that these stockpiles do not exist now and did not exist before we went to war with Iraq in March of 2003.

Now, this is a startling conclusion from our Chief Weapons Inspector because it is so different from what the Bush administration told us in the fall of 2002 in the run-up to the congressional vote of whether or not to give congressional authority to the President to use military authority to deal with what was described as the imminent threat to peace, to regional peace and world peace and to the United States, the imminent threat of the use of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

Mr. Speaker, I voted to give the President that authority based upon the representations of the administration because I wanted to disarm Saddam Hussein of those weapons of mass destruction. Now, we have finally captured Saddam Hussein, and I am glad that we have; I am glad he is out of power. I believe both Iraq and America are better off now that he is in custody. But, Mr. Speaker, we have not found those weapons of mass destruction; and we now have a report from Dr. Kay that those weapons of mass destruction did not exist and they do not exist today.

Hussein had weapons of mass destruction in the 1980s. We know that because he used them in murderous ways against his own citizens, the Kurds in northern Iraq, and he used them to murder tens of thousands of Iranian citizens. But the issue is not what he had in the 1980s. The issue is whether he had such stockpiles in 2002 and 2003. We were told with complete certainty by the President, by the Vice President, I was told with 20 other Members of the House in a briefing in the White House on October 2, 2002, by Condoleezza Rice and George Tenet that there was complete certainty that Iraq possessed these weapons of mass destruction. And based upon those representations, I voted with many of my colleagues to give the President that war authority.

Now, it is now clear that there were half-truths and deceptions from the administration as well as mistakes from the Intelligence Community. And I stand here tonight to call for an independent investigation, an independent review, of both the work product of the Intelligence Community of the United States and the work of the administration policymakers that stated with such clarity that we faced an imminent threat from Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

Clearly the American people were misled. Clearly the Congress was misled. I was misled by the Bush administration and by the United States intelligence agencies.

The President and the Vice President continue to want the American people

to believe that there was this threat and is this threat of weapons of mass destruction. The President talked about WMD-related program activities last week without clarifying what they were. The Vice President continues to insist that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. These statements are contrary to the report of the Weapons Inspector, Dr. Kay.

I call for an independent investigation and review so that we can get to the bottom and find out the truth.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize and honor the Salem Baptist Church of Jenkintown for its 120 years of worship and community development.

Founded in 1884, the Salem Baptist Church emerged from its modest, singleroom origins and flourished into a thriving church community. Through the immense effort of its congregation and the esteemed leadership of its pastors, Salem has grown consistently in both size and impact. Outgrowing each new building in which it resided, Salem expanded its presence in the community. Throughout its history, Salem has welcomed into its ministries such esteemed guests as Martin Luther King, Jr., Samuel Proctor, Rosa Parks, Jesse Jackson, and Pricilla Evans.

Today Salem includes the Church, a parsonage, Section 8 housing facilities for low-income residents and the elderly, and the Robert Johnson Smith Educational Center. In addition, there are plans to build a Family Life Center and nursing home facility. From its inception, the Salem Baptist Church has been committed to community development through the faith and determination of its congregation and pastors. I congratulate the members of the Salem Baptist Church on their 120th anniversary.

Mr. Speaker, Taiwan has been a close and valuable ally of our nation since its inception as the Republic of China in 1949. In contrast to the People's Republic of China, both democracy and capitalism have flourished in Taiwan, as demonstrated by its peaceful transition to a multi-party political system and its thriving free market economy.

I support the notion of a united China, but not if it means the assimilation of Taiwan into anything resembling the current People's Republic. Rather, I look forward to the day when both peoples are united in a truly democratic state, and are able to share in the political and economic freedoms of Taiwan. Until this is possible, the United States must use the tools at our disposal to maintain the status quo, guaranteeing the people of Taiwan the freedom they currently enjoy.

Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian has called for a nationwide referendum in March regarding China's deployment of hundreds of missiles aimed at Taiwan. Asking the Taiwanese people whether Taiwan should purchase more anti-missile defenses in response to this obvious threat does not represent an escalation of tensions with China. On the contrary, this ``defensive referendum'' is an affirmation of Taiwan's democratic system. We must support this exercise of the right of free expression, which is consistent with our own values.

In this instance, China's inflammatory statements, not Taiwan's referendum, threaten to upset the delicate balance that exists in the region. The United States must remain firm in its support for the people of Taiwan. And until China is ready to adopt a democratic system of government and a free market economy, that means maintaining the status quo.