Floor Statements

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

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 11 o'clock and 31 minutes p.m.), the House adjourned until tomorrow, Wednesday, September 17, 2003, at 10 a.m.

Mr. Speaker, we come to the floor again this evening as part of the Iraq Watch. For the last 2 months or so, four of us have been coming here the first evening that the House is in session each week to talk about Iraq, to talk about the policies that we think are flawed, to suggest new policies that the Nation might pursue, to ask questions about our policies and involvement in Iraq that we believe the American people need to know about and that Congress needs to know about.

The four of us who have done this week after week include the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt), the gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Abercrombie), and the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Emanuel). We have been joined each week by several others, and we look forward to the discussion this evening and to continuing this each week until our involvement in Iraq has been clarified and stabilized and until we get answers to some of the questions that we think Congress is entitled to and the American people are entitled to.

Mr. Speaker, this past week the President has announced his budget request for our occupation in Iraq for next year totaling $87 billion, a much higher figure than anticipated, on top of the $79 billion appropriated by Congress just this past April for the 2003 budget year. This requested $87 billion for 2004 would make our national investment over about a year-and-a-half period of time $166 billion, and every Member of Congress wants to make sure that we do right by the brave soldiers that are stationed in Iraq today. Every Member of Congress is determined to do right by the troops in the field, to make sure they get the support that they need, the resources they need, the equipment, the reinforcements, the supplies, everything they need to fulfill their mission as safely as possible.

So the debate that Congress will have over the next 2 or 3 weeks regarding the President's request for $87 billion will not be about supporting the troops in the field, because we all want to do that; and we are all prepared to do that. What we will ask questions about is the President's vision for Iraq. He wants $87 billion. I believe Congress is entitled to the benefit of his thinking to know what he plans and what his administration plans to accomplish in Iraq and how he is going to do it.

We owe those questions and deserve those answers, not just to Congress, but to the American people. It is their tax dollars being spent. It is their sons and daughters who are fighting in Iraq; and in a very tragic sense, their sons and daughters who are dying in Iraq, and this Congress needs to know some of the answers.

Fundamentally, we need to know what the plan is. We need to know what the exit strategy is. How long will we be in Iraq? What are we trying to achieve? How will we know when we have achieved it? What standards can we set for ourselves? What are we trying to accomplish? What yardsticks can we use to determine whether or not we are succeeding, whether or not more troops will be needed, whether or not more money will be needed down the road?

So I would suggest four areas before I turn to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt). Let me suggest four areas that I would like to see the President give information to the Congress.

The first would be regarding the military operations and occupation in Iraq, how long does the President believe that our troops will be needed, how much money will be needed, not just next year but in the foreseeable future to support those troops and how many more troops will be needed to fulfill the mission. I should point out that the civilian leadership of the Pentagon last spring estimated by this time, by September of 2003, we would only need 40,000 American troops in Iraq. Right now we have 130,000 American troops in Iraq; and clearly, that is not enough. So we need a better plan. We need to know how many troops, how long will they be here, and how much will it cost to support them.

Secondly, we need to ask the same questions and get the same answers about the reconstruction of Iraq. How long will it take to get the lights back on? How long will it take to get clean water to the villages and the cities of

Iraq? How much will it cost America to finance the reconstruction? When can we anticipate Iraqi oil revenues coming on line to pay for Iraq's reconstruction itself? How many more personnel from America will be needed, whether it is architects or engineers or teachers or government experts or lawyers? How many more personnel will be needed to move the reconstruction and the new governance forward?

Thirdly, how quickly can we internationalize the operation? I think this is a key to our success in Iraq. We have got to bring forward our allies, United Nations, other international organizations to help pay for the reconstruction and to provide their resources and assets and expertise for the reconstruction, as well as for the military security challenges. Many of us have thought that the U.N. should have been brought in months ago to be put in charge of the reconstruction. Many of us felt that NATO should have been brought in months ago to be responsible for security, but we need to know what the President's plan is, how does he foresee the internationalizing of Iraq, if he foresees that at all. This is something that we need to know.

Finally, the fourth point is, when will Iraqis be back in charge of Iraq? Clearly, America cannot run Iraq into the indefinite future. It has been said since we almost unilaterally won the military victory that we now own Iraq, Iraq is ours. I am not sure we want that to be our approach to this. We cannot own, run, dominate, occupy a foreign country for long. That is not what America is about. We will fight for freedom, we will fight to liberate, we will fight to disarm murderous tyrants. We will do many good things to help people around the world, both to help people around the world and to protect our own national interests; but occupying a foreign country for a long period of time is not what this country is all about.

So how will we get Iraqis back in charge? What do we need to do to get them back in charge? What kind of training do they need? How can they support a democratic government when they do not have a history of democracy?

What do we need to do to build the institutions of liberty to help them support a democracy? What do we need to do to establish a free press in Iraq, the rights of free speech, the traditions of free speech? How do we make a corruption-free and open court system in Iraq? How do we help them write a constitution? How do we get all segments of Iraq to participate in a representative government, a pluralistic government, and a democratic government? How long will it take, how do we do it, what yardsticks can we use to measure our progress?

Mr. Speaker, these are the questions I believe that Congress needs to ask of the President. These are the questions I hope he will be eager to answer. He wants $87 billion. It is a great deal of money. We want to do right by our American troops. We want to do right by our commitment to freedom and liberty around the world. But doing right requires us to know what we are doing and to do right by the American taxpayer as well. And so we will be putting these questions forward, and I hope that we will be getting prompt and full and complete answers from the administration.

Mr. Speaker, at this point let me turn to my good friend, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt), who has been a leader in the Iraq Watch and a leader on the Committee on International Relations and welcome him to this discussion. We look forward to his comments.

If I may reclaim my time, Mr. Speaker, for just a moment, the President has recently said that he will be advocating to make the 2001 tax cuts permanent. If the gentleman will recall, that tax program was too big to fit into the 10-year budget program that the Republicans put forward, so they sunsetted most of those tax cuts. But now the President wants to make them permanent, which will lose another trillion or so of revenue over the next 10 years.

I wonder if the gentleman has ever before noticed, in his study of history, a time when America was at war, where, when we asked for sacrifices from the American people, those sacrifices were limited to the middle-income and low-income people who are receiving frozen or reduced government services and, of course, are bearing most of the cost and burden of fighting our battles in Iraq, while the wealthier Americans are actually being asked to sacrifice by getting a tax cut?

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his comments. Eloquent as always.

We have been joined by our colleague, the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee), and we welcome him.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments from the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee). We have also been joined by the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland). I look forward to your comments.

The gentleman has made several very good points, and he has been talking about the notion of whether or not the President is leveling with the American people.

I would like to get back to an earlier discussion. A suggestion was made by one of us this evening that the President was deceitful and we were admonished by the Chair that was not appropriate language. None of us are here to challenge the Chair. We are here to ask for the truth and ask questions about our policies in Iraq.

I would like to review the bidding a little, to set this question in some context, whether or not the President has been deceitful.

The President and his top advisers in the fall of 2002 said with complete certainty that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, was developing more weapons of mass destruction, was developing a chemical weapons of mass destruction program, a biological weapons of mass destruction program, and was probably moving forward to try to restart a nuclear weapons of mass destruction program, long before the State of the Union address this past January. I am speaking now of September 2002.

In private briefings many of us received at the White House the same representations were made: complete certainty that the weapons of mass destruction program in Iraq was in full bloom and full speed ahead with, as I think the gentleman said, hundreds of tons of these weapons in the possession of Saddam Hussein, more on the way.

The briefing I attended with maybe 15 of our colleagues was led by George Tenet and Condoleezza Rice in the Roosevelt Room of the White House. In their presentations and in their answers to questions from Members of Congress, a bipartisan group of us, complete certainty was expressed. At one point, Mr. Tenet, being asked would you rate on a scale of zero to 10 your certainty about the presence of these weapons in Iraq, he said 10.

It is not just that we have not found those weapons. Maybe they are there and hidden away, but we sure have not found them yet. It is not just we have not found them. It has now come to light that the White House was being given classified information by the intelligence agencies last fall that was telling the White House that there was great uncertainty about the state of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program.

These then-classified documents, now available in part because the White House declassified one to try to prove its case, and the other because it is now available for us to read at the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence office, the Defense Intelligence Agency report of September 2002 and the National Intelligence Estimate of October 2002 are replete with expressions of doubt, uncertainty. I remember the phrase ``no credible evidence'' that Hussein had an ongoing chemical weapons program.

None of those doubts were reported to the American people or to Congress, none of that uncertainty was expressed; and it is my belief that the President exaggerated the threat of weapons of mass destruction in the fall of 2002, in the buildup to the war, in order to secure public support and congressional support for an authorization of war.

I will yield when I have unloaded my frustrations, which will be in just a moment.

It is my belief that the President misled Congress, and it is my understanding from the documents that I have since read that are now available to us that were not available to us in the fall of 2002 that the White House was well instructed about the doubts and the uncertainty from the CIA, the FBI, and the rest of the intelligence agencies.

Now, if it is objectionable to say that on the floor of the House, if the Republican leadership does not want to hear that on the floor of the House, bring it on. Let us bring it on right here, because this is the nub of the argument. This is what we are here to ask about.

I would be happy to yield to my friend.

Mr. Speaker, would the gentleman explain that for the viewers? Would the gentleman explain the point he is making about the difference between authorization and appropriation?

Mr. Speaker, I thank the Chair, and I thank the gentleman for his cooperation. I would like to thank the gentlemen that joined in the discussion this evening. We will be back next week, and the Iraq Watch will continue to ask questions about our policies in Iraq. We need to discuss some legislative proposals such as the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Emanuel) has made, his American Parity Act, which would require the spending of equivalent dollars on our American domestic needs for each dollar spent on domestic needs in Iraq. If we are going to spend $10 billion on housing in Iraq, we want to do the same in America. If we are going to spend money on water systems or infrastructure improvements in Iraq, we are suggesting we do the same in America.

That legislation deserves consideration during our next weekly discussion. We will ask more questions about the administration's policies. We hope we will get answers. I think it is a consensus view of all of us that we need to know what the plan is in Iraq. And we need to know what our exit strategy is in Iraq before this Congress will be comfortable in appropriating another $87 billion. We need to know what our strategy is, what conditions we are trying to achieve, what yardsticks we can use to measure our progress, how we can internationalize the situation in Iraq, how we can get Iraqis back in charge of Iraq because that must be the ultimate goal for all of us.

Mr. Speaker, the House is back in session this week. And on the first evening back in session, we are resuming the Iraq Watch.

This is an effort that has been going on since late in the spring, primarily by four of us here on the floor of the House, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt), the gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Abercrombie), and the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Emanuel), to raise questions about our policies in Iraq, to suggest corrections in those policies, to ask questions about the diplomacies leading up to military action, to ask questions about the intelligence relating to weapons of mass destruction, the use of that intelligence, the presence and whereabouts and the custody of those weapons of mass destruction, fundamentally questions about whether we are winning the peace and what exit strategy we have and when we will turn Iraq back to the Iraqis.

I know my colleagues have a lot of things to say tonight because a lot has been happening since we were last in session, and much of it bad, in Iraq, and we all have our own focus we would like to put on the debate this evening.

I am going to open up and ask some questions focused on the fundamental issue of credibility, and I am then going to turn to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Emanuel) who has a conflicting time commitment, if my colleagues will agree, for the points that he would like to make in just a few minutes.

There are so many unanswered questions about credibility relating to our actions in Iraq. Why did the White House press the CIA to approve misleading language in the State of the Union, suggesting that Hussein was uranium shopping throughout Africa, when the White House knew that that information was not accurate? Why did the administration hype alleged strong ties between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda, although those ties have never been established? Why did the White House exaggerate the threat of the weapons of mass destruction themselves and hype both the nature of those weapons and the urgency of the danger caused by those weapons?

The real threat that I see posed by Hussein, who was clearly a murderous tyrant who used weapons of mass destruction in the past against innocent civilians, the real threat was his potential to restart those weapons of mass destruction programs, including the ability and perhaps the desire on his part to restart or even purchase nuclear weapons if the international community lost its focus, if the focus and pressure for resumption of international inspections were to have been set aside, or if sanctions were lifted or if we simply lost interest. That was the threat from Saddam Hussein.

Why did President Bush not stick to that? Why did he exaggerate the threat caused by weapons of mass destruction and these other alleged ties that have not come to pass? We know now that these claims by the administration were exaggerated.

Last fall, in the lead-up to the congressional vote, the administration publicly and privately stated with complete certainty that Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, that he was seeking more; that his chemical and biological and nuclear programs were well underway; that there were ties between al Qaeda and Hussein; that he had these weapons, he was trying to get more and he was likely to give them away to terrorists. Now we know from declassified intelligence documents that at this very same time the administration was being told by our intelligence agencies that there was a great deal of uncertainty about the status of the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

The Defense Intelligence Agency report of September 2002 and the national intelligence estimate of October 2002 raised serious doubts about this, used phrases like no credible evidence of an Iraqi chemical weapon program. Yet the administration publicly and privately said it is a sure thing, we count on it, we have got to stop it.

Does this matter? Maybe this is the question that we need to address. Does this pattern of deception matter? Do the ends not justify the means? Should we not all be rejoicing that Saddam Hussein is out of power?

I think this pattern of deception does matter because the administration's credibility is shot as a result of this, and when the administration's credibility is shot, our national credibility is threatened. It matters when a government uses deception to try to achieve its goals because that deception can become a habit. It can be habit forming and we reach a point where the government loses its credibility and its moral stature.

The administration oversold the need for war. They oversold the prospects of winning the peace. They oversimplified the challenge of bringing liberty and democracy to Iraq, all the while insisting that we could do this on our own unilaterally, without the help of our traditional alliance, the Western alliances, and in the international community, willingly proclaiming all this time that the U.S. and Britain should be known as the occupying powers, the occupying powers in Iraq, and ignoring the international institutions and the assets they can bring to bear to help a people become a free people and develop democratic institutions. It is time for the administration to level with the American people, to stop this pattern of deception that undermines the work we are trying to achieve.

The President should answer seven questions. The first is he should tell us how long the military occupation is going to take, how long will it last.

Secondly, how much will the military occupation cost? The current estimates are $1 billion a week, $4 billion a month, to maintain our military occupation.

Thirdly, how long is the reconstruction going to take?

Fourthly, how much will that cost? Most estimates I have seen, $20 billion a year for at least 5 years. That is $100 billion to reconstruct Iraq.

I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.

A $450 billion deficit.

Mr. Speaker, the fiscal picture is bleak. It is daunting. One of the things the President has to tell us is how we are going to finance his reconstruction plans in Iraq, because I do not know how we are going to pay for it. The gentleman is absolutely right to bring that up, and I can see the gentleman from Illinois is anxious to make a point.

I yield to the gentleman from Illinois.

I yield to the gentleman from Hawaii.

Mr. Speaker, just quickly, I wish to ask the gentleman from Illinois if in his review of our military history, and I know his statements are accurate and insightful, has he ever come across an example where an American President has taunted the enemy to ``bring it on''? Has my colleague ever seen an example where after victory is declared, while Americans are continuing to die post declaration of victory due to a guerilla war, that the President of the United States taunted the opponents to ``bring it on'' and subsequent to that taunt another 60 or 70 Americans have been assassinated in this guerilla opposition in Iraq?

And my question to all three of my colleagues, and the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt) talked about the war coming home to Quincy, what does the President say to those families? It is a tough enough job for the Commander in Chief in good faith to deal with any death to any American serviceman or woman, but what does he say to the families when he said on that day we have enough force in Iraq to protect our own troops so bring them on? What does he say to those that have died since?

Mr. Speaker, not only is the administration engaging in a unilateral nation-building, but I would submit it is a stealth nation-building because they do not want to tell us the cost, the length, how many troops might be needed, how many more civilians of all manner might be needed. I think we need to ask the President three fundamental questions. The first is what is in store in Iraq, what is it going to cost and how long is it going to take?

Secondly, what is he doing to build the international support that he has finally acknowledged that we need, as the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt) has just referred to. What can we expect him to do to reach out to the international community to get their assets and their troops, if necessary, and their civilian reconstruction experts into the mix. And as the gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Abercrombie) has been saying all night and in private conversation as well, the third question is how soon do we put the Iraqis back in charge, and what is the administration prepared to do to put the Iraqis back in charge?

I would respectfully say to the gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Abercrombie) that the Iraqi governing coalition is not ready to run those ministries that have been identified, and I think the gentleman knows that, too. They are not ready. We need the President to tell us when, and I yield to the gentleman.

Let me thank the gentleman from Washington for joining us and for his comments. And, the first time with Iraq Watch, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland).

I thank my colleagues for being part of this tonight. Iraq Watch will be back next Tuesday night.

I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me this time and for her leadership in the committee and on this issue.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 2328, the legislation designating the United States postal facility located at 2001 East Willard Street in Philadelphia as the Robert A. Borski Post Office Building.

Congressman Robert Borski was one of the longest-serving members of the Pennsylvania delegation, having served here for 20 years in Congress representing the Third Congressional District of Pennsylvania. Congressman Borski was a leader on the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure where he served as Ranking Member on the Subcommittee on Highways, Transit and Pipelines. He fought for a strong Federal commitment to our Nation's highways and transit systems. His efforts on the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century resulted in major infrastructure investment for the Philadelphia region.

Congressman Borski also worked hard to revitalize urban areas, supporting both transportation and water infrastructure projects. From his seat on the Subcommittee on Water Resources, Congressman Borski pushed for legislation to promote the cleanup of brownfields and to redevelop urban industrial sites. Congressman Borski also initiated the effort to reclaim and revitalize the neglected areas along the North Delaware River in Philadelphia.

With the support of the entire Pennsylvania congressional delegation, I introduced H.R. 2328. I selected this specific location because Bob Borski's late father was a postman who delivered mail from this facility on Willard Street and his mother still lives in the delivery area of this post office. The naming of the Borski post office, accordingly, has a very rich symbolic value and makes this action very meaningful and very emotional for the Borski family.

I first met Bob Borski in 1977 when we were both freshman legislators in the Pennsylvania State House. We came from very different backgrounds and very different political worlds, one from the Richmond neighborhood of Philadelphia, one from suburban Abington, but we became good friends. We served together for 6 years in the State House. Bob got here to Congress well before I did; and when I finally made it, he took me under his wing and served as my mentor. He would only occasionally give me advice. Sometimes I followed it; sometimes I did not. I learned after time I should have always followed it. He is a good man and a good friend.

Mr. Speaker, it is not often that you find an individual with such dedication and commitment to his community. I am pleased to honor Congressman Bob Borski in this manner. He is truly deserving of this honor. I urge swift passage of this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

I thank the gentleman for yielding. I cannot think of a more eloquent filibusterer than the gentleman from Connecticut. I thank him for doing this honor to Bob Borski.

Mr. SHAYS. He deserves it. He is an outstanding man.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me time and congratulate her on her leadership on this issue.

I rise in strong support of House bill 1516, and I want to start by acknowledging the great work of our colleague, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Gerlach). The gentleman has taken an issue that is an old issue in the Philadelphia area, trying to create new cemetery space for our veterans, and he has found a way to get this out of committee on to the floor for certain passage here today. I compliment the gentleman on it. It is important.

For the last, I guess, five terms of Congress, Members have tried to create a new cemetery in southeastern Pennsylvania. My predecessor, Congressman Jon Fox, introduced a bill in both of his two terms in Congress, with a similar bill introduced in the other body by Senator Arlen Specter, that would have named the Valley Forge National Historical Park as the setting for a new veterans cemetery, a setting I still think is the perfect location. There is some controversy and resistance to that. The important thing is that we get a new cemetery in southeastern Pennsylvania.

In my first two terms, I introduced the same bill with the same support in the Senate. I lost that area in redistricting, and now the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Gerlach) has figured out a way to add other sites to southeastern Pennsylvania and move this bill forward with full support; and I thank the Members of the committee, the ranking members and, of course, the chairs of the full committee and the subcommittee, for putting together a bill with great support.

This will create a clear and strict timetable to establish a new veterans cemetery in southeastern Pennsylvania and four other locations around the country, with sensible and responsible reporting requirements placed upon the Secretary of Veterans Affairs so that Congress can make sure that these new cemeteries actually get opened.

It is overdue, it is important legislation, and it is the right thing to do for our veterans. They have given so much to this country. It is entirely appropriate for us to make sure that all veterans who are interested in a final resting space in a national veterans cemetery have the opportunity to do it, and I know that the veterans in southeastern Pennsylvania will be very pleased by this progress.

I congratulate the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Gerlach), as well as all involved.

Madam Speaker, for 6 or 7 weeks a number of us have been coming to the floor to talk about our role in Iraq. We are calling ourselves the Iraq Watch, and we are back tonight. We are back with some of the challenges regarding Iraq fresh in the news. And I am joined by the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt) coming as well as part of our four Iraq Watchers, the gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Abercrombie) and the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Emanuel). I believe there will be others joining us as well this evening.

We are dedicated to the propositions of asking questions, seeking answers about what is happening in Iraq, trying to suggest policy changes that would improve the situation and certainly reporting back information to the American people.

Two of us voted in favor of the military authority sought by the President last fall, myself included. Two of us did not. All of us, of course, were told, as were the American people and Members of Congress, we were told with great certainty that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and was trying mightily to develop more. And there is no question that in the past Hussein had such weapons. He used them in murderous ways against his own civilians and against innocent Iranian civilians in the past. None of that is in any doubt.

But it is becoming more and more clear as time goes by that last fall there were those in the White House and in senior levels of the administration and the President himself who, in my opinion, exaggerated the threat of the weapons of mass destruction in order to win support in Congress and in the country for the invasion of Iraq.

It is now known that our intelligence agencies were reporting to the White House and to the Pentagon with significant uncertainty and with serious doubts about certain aspects of the weapons of mass destruction program in Iraq; notably, the September, 2002, Defense Intelligence Agency report and the October, 2002, National Intelligence Estimate, both of which have been discussed in the news. I have reviewed parts of both of those which are classified documents in the custody of the intelligence agency.

It is interesting to note that the administration itself declassified some of the National Intelligence Estimate last week to try to prove their point that there was a legitimate threat from Iraq, and most analysts have concluded that that release of that information actually pointed out once again how many doubts and how much lack of certainty was being expressed by our intelligence professionals, but that information being used by the White House and the Pentagon civilian leadership with no uncertainty, with nothing but certainty in terms of trying to sell their case.

So let me just make a couple of quick points before yielding time to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt).

Because of the recent disclosures regarding the intelligence gathering by our professionals and the use that that intelligence was used for by the administration, I am joining others in calling for the creation of an independent commission, something the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt) has talked about for weeks here on the floor, an independent commission, a nonpartisan or bipartisan commission, that would be above politics, to investigate both the accuracy of the gathering of intelligence regarding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and the uses of that intelligence by the administration.

We clearly won an important military victory in Iraq due to the brave and courageous fighting of our young men and young women in uniform, but I do not think that our military mission is complete until we have a full

accounting of the weapons of mass destruction, both regarding their location and the custody of those weapons so that if they still exist we know they are in safe hands, and also a full accounting regarding the intelligence associated with those weapons of mass destruction.

Having won the military victory, we surely will not win the peace unless we seek and receive more international help in Iraq for the post-conflict phase of the challenges there, so I am giving my support to those that are calling for a United Nations Security Council resolution. We are seeking approval from this administration and urging President Bush to go to the United Nations Security Council to seek an over-arching resolution that would sanction NATO peacekeeping and United Nations reconstruction and humanitarian aid so that we can provide proper security in Iraq, which is obviously a huge problem, as now 38 American soldiers have been assassinated in attacks and ambushes since the President declared victory on May 1, 38 Americans in uniform assassinated by guerilla tactics in Iraq. Clearly we have not secured that country, and we will not be able to deal with the reconstruction and humanitarian challenges, first, without security, and, secondly, without more international help.

Let me stop at this point before I get too carried away, because there is so much to talk about and so much has happened since the time we were on the floor a week ago; so much has come out in the press and in public discussion.

Let me at this point yield to my good friend, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt), a senior member of the House Committee on International Relations.

Mr. DELAHUNT. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I would just reinforce his words regarding the need for an independent commission, because, unfortunately, there are or have been accusations about political sniping occurring, when it is the purpose of many of us simply to pose questions that not just our constituents, but many Americans have, regarding the use of intelligence, whether in fact it was selective, the quality of the intelligence. But I think it is very important tonight to stress to the viewers that this is simply too important to be a partisan issue.

The reality is that many prominent, well-respected Republicans share our concern. This past weekend, Senator Lugar of Indiana, who chairs the Foreign Relations Committee in the Senate, Senator Chuck Hagel from Nebraska, as well as the senior Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Joe Biden, all expressed their concern about the need for the White House, for the President, to start telling the American people the reality of how long the American presence will be required in Iraq.

The three Senators indicated that they had reached a consensus that some 5 years was a reasonable period of time. I hope they are right. But I fear that it will even be longer, given the experience that we have had in the Balkans, given the experience we have had in the Korean Peninsula, and given the estimates that we have heard from others. But this is not a Democratic issue, a large D Democratic issue; it is not a Republican issue. It is an issue that affects each and every American, because it is about American credibility.

In some respects, it is more than simply our policy vis-a-vis Iraq, because the credibility and the competence of the President of the United States, no matter what party is in the White House, is essential to peace in this world. I do not think, as some pundits say on TV, that in a serious issue such as this there should not exist a ``no spin zone.'' It is simply too important.

When I first suggested an independent commission, I pointed out the fine work that was conducted under the cochairmanship of the former Senator from New Hampshire, a Republican, Senator Warren Rudman, and the former Senator from Colorado, Gary Hart, and there were many well- respected, highly experienced Americans who were part of that commission, and they had an excellent staff.

Tragically, the quality of their work could not be disputed, because they filed a report back in February of 2001 that described in frighteningly prescient terms what would occur if America did not take seriously the threat of terrorism. They, for all intents and purposes, predicted the tragedy that occurred some 9 months later on September 11, 2001.

I feel confident that the kind of people that served on that commission would be willing, if asked by the President, to come to answer all of the questions that are currently being posed; and they could do it in a way that was transparent, that was open to the American people to hear, to see, and to reach their own decisions.

I notice we are joined by our colleague, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Emanuel). He looks like he wants to have something to say.

Mr. EMANUEL. Mr. Speaker, as all of our colleagues here have noticed, this is our sixth week down here discussing what is going on in Iraq, what is happening to our troops, what has happened to the occupation, what has happened to the reconstruction.

A lot has been focused on the President's credibility. I have repeated before from this podium, as we have done this Iraq Watch, that although it is the President's credibility, it is very much America's credibility that is on the line, and that this inquiry would be so important as we face what is now becoming a consensus in the intelligence and security arena, an ever-present threat in North Korea.

Former Secretary of Defense Perry, a well-respected Secretary of Defense, on North Korea, our policy there, I think his words were clear. He fears war by end of the year. Unless we clear up the notion of America's credibility locked into and tied to the President's credibility, we will not be able to muster the international support for the choices we will make as we deal with that nuclear threat.

Just recently Iran, another member of the ``axis of evil,'' has prepared a missile with capability to hit American troops. There, too, we will need international cooperation and consensus.

I yield to the gentleman from Washington.

What I think we need, before I get back to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee), who has only had one bite at the apple night and is going to get another one, we have got to have straight talk about what is happening now and a clear reality and acknowledgment of what is happening now. Let me give one example.

We have a new U.S. commander in Iraq, General John Abizaid, I hope I said his name right, who has acknowledged that we are facing a guerrilla opposition, which I think is an obvious reality that we all know. What he has described as ``a classical guerrilla-type campaign'' is being waged against our armed services in stark contrast to what the Secretary of Defense has refused to acknowledge. Donald Rumsfeld has refused to acknowledge that we have got an organized resistance or a guerrilla resistance; and as Trudy Rubin of the Philadelphia Inquirer in her commentary said, ``You can't fight a war unless you recognize the enemy.''

Even on the military side of this conflict, until this new commander has told us the truth, General Abizaid, the civilian leadership of the Department of Defense has not faced the reality. What has happened, as we all know, is since the military victory was announced on May 1 by the President on the ship off San Diego, the American forces have been subjected to repeated ambushes and attacks.

Some 35 Americans have been assassinated since that day. And 10 have occurred since the President said the other day ``Bring it on.'' Since the President said, ``We have enough force to protect our forces in Iraq, so ``bring it on,'' ten more Americans have been assassinated.

Last week, Minnesota Public Radio quoted Mary Kewatt, the aunt of a soldier killed in Iraq, who said ``President Bush made a comment a week ago, and he said `bring it on.' Well, they brought it on, and now my nephew is dead.'' The lack of straight talk and too much arrogance and too much bragging is bringing on this credibility gap.

And so I do not have a credibility gap, Madam Speaker, I am going to honor my commitment to hear from the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) one more time.

Mr. INSLEE. Madam Speaker, one thing that I think is important to say about this commission that we are urging is that it is not a commission to debate the Iraq war or the reasons for the war or the propriety of the war. I represent constituents who have divided opinion about that today. Some of my constituents believe that a removal of Saddam Hussein was justified even if he had toothpicks and that is all he had. Some of my constituents believe that was a legitimate exercise of military force by the United States.

Now, I do not agree with that, but some of my constituents feel like that sincerely. But those same constituents tell me that they did not appreciate being kept in the dark about the reams of intelligence which suggested that the President concluded that there was no doubt about Iraq's having these weapons, when, in fact, there was massive doubt; that he had no doubt there was a connection with al-Qaeda, when, in fact, there was massive doubt; that he made the decision after he had the intelligence; when, in fact, he made the decision before he had the intelligence. Those same people who believed the war may have been justified do not appreciate that because they recognize this is a threat to democracy.

Madam Speaker, let me, in our final 5 minutes here, see who among us might like to make additional comments or perhaps quickly raise a new issue, and I think the gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Abercrombie) has something to say.

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

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 11 o'clock and 12 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until tomorrow, Tuesday, July 22, 2003, at 9 a.m., for morning hour debates.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

There is nobody in this House I respect more than the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews). But I disagree with him completely on his amendment, and I rise in strong opposition.

The gentleman talks about four points. I would like to rebut them. He says that the deepening of the channel for the Port of Philadelphia from 40 feet to 45 feet would be a waste of money. That is not true. The Army Corps of Engineers has studied this matter twice. The first study said there would be $1.40 of benefit for every dollar of investment to deepen the channel. That was challenged by the GAO, as the gentleman has suggested. The Army Corps reanalyzed and came back with an economic analysis of a benefit of $1.18 for every dollar of investment. That is the current status. It is not a waste of money; it will help the Port of Philadelphia and the Philadelphia region to deepen the channel to 45 feet.

The second point is the gentleman suggested a 40-foot channel is adequate and that we do not need to lower the channel, and he is simply wrong. Big, modern ships cannot come to the Delaware River to the Port of Philadelphia if it stays only at a 40-foot depth. It must be deepened to 45 to stay competitive with all of the other ports up and down the Mid-Atlantic. It is necessary to deepen the channel.

Thirdly, the gentleman suggested there is environmental damage by the deepening. Well, that has been debunked and refuted by seven State and Federal agencies that have found no adverse impact on the environment. The Federal Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the National Marine Fisheries Service have all found no adverse environmental impact; and the environmental agencies of Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania have found no adverse environmental impact.

The final point that the gentleman made is that there is a lack of local support. Nothing could be further from the truth. As we will hear from the gentleman from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (Mr. Brady), there is unanimous support from the governments, from the labor unions, from the businesses. The only, only business opposed to deepening the channel is the litering companies in the area that benefit from a shallow channel so ships come off port, have to unload their material, and smaller ships from the litering companies take it up the river. Those are the people leading the opposition to this.

Philadelphia needs a deeper channel. It is good for the economy. We have to do it to protect jobs. We have to do it to stay competitive. I oppose the amendment.

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

Mr. Chairman, I am here today to support the Holt-Rahall amendment that would phase out the use of snowmobiles in Yellowstone and Grand Teton National parks. These parks have a special place in my heart as they have in the hearts of most Americans. I have frequently visited Grand Teton and Yellowstone Park during the summer months, probably visiting Yellowstone 10 times during my life. It is a beautiful park, as all Americans know. It is a grand and wonderful place, our first national park. But because of the concerns I heard about snowmobile use in the winter, I visited the park this past winter with the gentleman from New Jersey and the gentleman from West Virginia, because I could not believe that things were quite as bad as I heard. In fact, I found that they are worse.

The use of snowmobiles in Yellowstone has all of the negative impacts that the gentleman from New Jersey has described, of noise pollution, air pollution, the harassment of animals, the impact on the habitat. I was completely overwhelmed by the amount of noise that these machines generate. But what I did not understand was that government policy is to virtually require the use of snowmobiles. I thought this problem was because of some recreational use in Yellowstone during the wintertime. That shows you what an Easterner maybe does not understand about Western winters. There is a lot of snow out there, and they do not pave the roads so that cars can ride into Old Faithful or around Yellowstone. They groom the roads with the snow on it and pack it down for the use of snowmobiles. Snowmobiles are the preferred and only way to travel around Yellowstone unless you use a snow coach, a larger- tracked vehicle that can carry 10 or 15 people.

So the government policy is to use snowmobiles. Therefore, we are responsible for what is happening there. The reality is that the Holt- Rahall amendment is not about banning snowmobiles. It is about protecting Yellowstone. It is about protecting it from the invasion of these machines in the wintertime that pollute, that disrupt because of noise, disrupt because of harassment.

We see this picture of one of the groomed roads with some of the bison in the Yellowstone herd with even more of a machine herd coming behind them, the people that are using the snowmobiles to travel. I am sure snowmobiles are a lot of fun to ride. I have, in fact, ridden them in the East. I understand the appeal. But this is not about snowmobiles. We have an obligation to protect Yellowstone. We have an obligation to make sure we stop practices that are hurting Yellowstone. We have stopped allowing tourists to chip off parts of the formations there. We keep them out of the geyser basins so that there will not be damage to the natural beauty or harm to the visitors. We have stopped certain things from happening in Yellowstone and in Grand Teton because we want to protect the natural beauty and protect those parks for the future. Under the same thinking, we have to phase out snowmobiles in order to protect the park.

The three of us visited the entrance to the park on a Saturday morning. The pollution, the smoke, the haze was extraordinary. The noise was disruptive. No matter where we went in the park, we could hear the noise of the snowmobiles. The advocates of the current use say that modern technology is improving the situation, that the four-stroke technology of the new machines gets rid of the problems that the old two-stroke machines were causing. That simply is not the case. The four-stroke machines are noisy. They pollute.

The answer here is to phase out snowmobiles, promote the use of snow coaches. The government could purchase a fleet or help develop a fleet of snow coaches that could be leased by the government to the private sector that now represents snowmobiles. The private sector could take the responsibility for putting the visitors into those snow coaches, could charge for that, could make money, the economies of the surrounding areas would

stay strong, and yet we would have done a major benefit for Yellowstone by outlawing the snowmobiles, protecting the environment and living up to our obligations to be good stewards of Yellowstone and Grand Teton for our children and our grandchildren to enjoy.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize and honor Mr. Robert Miller III on his receipt of a Congressional Award Gold Medal on Wednesday, June 25, 2003.

At a mere 18 years of age, Robert's accomplishments are amazing. As a recipient of the Congressional Award Gold Medal, Robert has demonstrated a noteworthy commitment in several fields. Receipt of this award signifies that Robert has performed over 400 hours of community service, as well as 200 hours of both personal development and physical fitness activities over the past 2 years. This honor similarly attests to Robert's exemplary academic and extracurricular status as a student at North Penn High School.

Prestigious awards such as this one are nothing new to Robert. Previously, he has received both a bronze and a silver Congressional Award Medal. As an Eagle Scout, his involvement in the Cradle of Liberty Council Boy Scouts of America further reflects the strength of his character. Robert has shown exceptional dedication to community service, personal development and physical fitness. I firmly believe that these characteristics will lead him to unbounded success in the future.

I also wish to extend my congratulations to Robert's parents, Dorothy and Robert Miller Jr., who have instilled him with good moral standards and have supported his efforts tirelessly.

Again, I congratulate Robert Miller III on his Congressional Award Gold Medal.

Mr. Speaker, for 5 or 6 weeks, a number of us have been coming to the floor to discuss our Nation's involvement and our role in Iraq. We have at least four times come here, four of us, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt), the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Emanuel), and the gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Abercrombie), and have had a discussion and a lively give and take about Iraq, about what is going right over there, what is going wrong, trying to seek the truth, trying to suggest policy changes, trying to have a full discussion and report to the people of this country. And we have decided to do this every week, every week that the House is in session as long as our country is involved in Iraq.

We are going to call ourselves the Iraq Watch because we think that there are important public policy matters that the American people need to be aware of, that Congress needs to focus on, we need to ask questions about, seek information about, to clarify, to seek policy changes, to make some changes and fundamentally to report to the people of this country on what we know and what we think we all ought to know about what has happened in Iraq.

Now, of the four I named, two of us voted in favor of the military authority sought by the President and two of us voted ``no'' to exercise that authority. But we all were sold, as was the entire Congress and the American people, with great certainty by the administration and by the President that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction last fall when the vote was approaching and that he was trying to develop more. The certainty was expressed in public. The certainty was expressed in private.

I have, along with a number of Members of Congress, attended a briefing at the White House, one of a series of briefings. In my case, we were briefed by Condoleezza Rice, the National Security Advisor, and George Tenet, the director of the CIA. We were told with certainty that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and was trying to develop more.

Now, there is no question that in the past Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. That has been proven. He used them. He used weapons of mass destruction against his own people. He used them against the Kurds. And he used them against innocent civilians in Iraq. He used them in murderous ways. That is beyond question. But what we were told is that he had them in the fall of 2002, that he was developing more, and that he was an impediment to the peace in the Middle East and to our Nation's security and because of that imminent threat, we needed to exercise preemptive military power to disarm Saddam Hussein.

I voted for it. I would do so again being told the same information as we were told then. I imagine that some of my colleagues who voted ``no'' would vote ``no'' again. But the question is we are discovering that things may not have been just what we thought they were. We certainly have won a great military victory. Our armed services, our young men and women in uniform performed admirably and with great courage in Iraq. But we have got two questions, this group has two questions: Fundamentally, is our military mission complete and are we winning the peace in Iraq? And I would submit before I yield to my colleagues that the military mission is not complete and cannot be complete as long as there has not been an accounting of the weapons of mass destruction, where are they and who controls them, and what went wrong regarding our intelligence, how was our intelligence collected, and how was it used by the White House and by the political leadership, and are we doing the right things from a policy standpoint to win the peace.

And I suggest that this group of four and many of our colleagues have a lot of questions about this. I know those questions are shared by the American people; I hope we can give voice to these questions in this Iraq Watch. I hope we can come up with some answers or seek those answers from the administration, and I hope we can report back on a regular basis once a week to the American people.

I yield now to my colleague, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Emanuel).

I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.

Mr. Speaker, I can assure the gentleman, as the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt) can, that there was no lack of trying to get that exit strategy from the administration last fall. I wrote letters to the President. I know the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt) participated in similar efforts. He and I serve on the Committee on International Relations. There was great efforts at hearings as well as individual letters written to the administration seeking information.

Yes.

The gentleman is correct, there were not answers. And there were many more questions, certainly in my letter? How much will it cost? How many troops will it take? How many allies will go in with us? How many allies will stay with us in the post-conflict exercise?

The military victory was never in doubt. No one doubted that, but the question was what kind of risk were we assuming, would we have friends to help us, to absorb some of the cost and to take on some of the responsibility so that the United States would not alone be the subject of frustration and anger after the fact, which is exactly what is happening.

Thirty American soldiers have been assassinated, attacked, ambushed and assassinated since the President declared military victory. About 75 altogether have died, but 30 have been killed directly.

Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, we know exactly whose fault it was. It is George Tenet. That is what Condoleeza Rice is saying. That is what the Vice President is saying. Everybody's quite willing to blame George Tenet for that information being in the State of the Union that should not have been there. Does anybody in this House or watching throughout America believe that George Tenet alone is responsible?

Mr. Speaker, I agree with the gentleman; and before we go any further, we have been joined by the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee), and I yield to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee).

I thank the gentleman from Illinois for pointing out the inconsistency of our admirable generosity to those overseas and our moral obligation to help rebuild a nation, a country that we had to use military power against but our failure to live up to that same moral obligation to our own citizens.

Let me ask my colleagues to respond to what we would like to see happen in Iraq. There are 8 or 10 or 15 things perhaps that we might recommend. I would suggest one, and perhaps my colleagues can make further comment.

I think we need to start with a full explanation by the President of his vision for what is happening, for the costs that he believes will be necessary to complete the reconstruction, the timetable for that, the number of U.S. military forces that would be needed.

The President needs to come clean. He has a growing credibility gap in my view because of the use and possible misuse of the intelligence leading up to the war, the statements made with such certainty that we are now learning the White House was being advised by intelligence agencies that things were not so certain at all and by the fact, as we have commented earlier tonight, that since the President, as our colleague from Illinois says, flew onto that aircraft carrier and declared victory, that 30 American soldiers have been assassinated and 84, as the gentleman points out, have died in some fashion since military victory has been declared. We need to know what the President thinks. We need to know what he believes will be necessary. He has got to tell the American people what is coming. That would be my suggestion for just a fundamental need.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his comments. I think our time is getting short. Any final comments from the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) or the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt)?

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his comments. I thank the gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Abercrombie). The Iraq Watch is going to be hard at work. I thank my colleagues for being part of this. We will be back next week to ask more questions, to seek more information, and to try to better educate our colleagues in the Congress and the American people regarding the challenges of our role in Iraq.

Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to address the situation in the Middle East. Our government has embarked on a journey promoting the so-called roadmap to peace, and I sincerely hope that the road we are taking is straight and wide and safe, but I am deeply worried.

I support the concept of the roadmap, and I support the idea of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but I do not believe the timing is right. Neither the Bush administration nor the Israeli Government, under pressure from the Bush administration, has required enough of the Palestinians for us to continue successfully on the road at this time.

Simply put, we need the Palestinians to crack down on terror, and they have not done it. In today's Washington Post it was reported that the administration has reversed years of American policy and decided to provide $20 million directly to the Palestinian Authority. The amount of money is not huge, but the symbolism is.

The theory behind the policy change has some merit, as it hopefully would strengthen the hand of Prime Minister Abbas. But I believe we must demand and see a much greater commitment toward peace and the end of terrorism from the Palestinians before we reward them with money or support that could, in fact, be used against the Israeli people.

In my opinion, before we seriously pursue the roadmap and before we send $20 million to the Palestinian Authority, the Palestinian Authority should take concrete action to arrest terrorist leaders, to confiscate terrorist weapons, to dismantle terrorist organizations, to change the cultural bias that allows anti-Semitism to be taught in the schools and broadcast on radio and TV, and to stop honoring suicide terrorists with public posters and street names.

Until the Palestinian Authority cracks down on terror, the Palestinian cause should not be rewarded with a Palestinian state. We can make progress in the Middle East, we must make progress in the Middle East, but with this progress we must demand effective action from the Palestinians to stop terror. This will protect the innocent as we move down that road to a just and lasting peace in the Middle East.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on and to include extraneous material on the subject of this Special Order.

Mr. Speaker, we are here this evening to talk about Iraq, to talk about the military activity, to talk about the weapons of mass destruction, to talk about the postconflict steps that have been taken and need to be taken. I am joined this evening by the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt), and the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Emanuel), and perhaps others, to talk for the next hour about our national policies in Iraq.

Some of us, myself included, voted in favor of the military authority requested by the President to invade Iraq. Some of us who will be speaking tonight voted against that military authority. But all of us have some common questions. We all salute the brave and courageous efforts by our young men and women in uniform. They won a very impressive military victory in short order. That military victory was never in doubt, but it was impressive nonetheless how well our troops performed.

But there are two questions, really: Is our military mission completed in Iraq? And secondly, are we winning the peace?

Now, I would suggest, just to get the conversation started this evening, that first off, our military mission is not complete, because we have not found the weapons of mass destruction. Those weapons are what motivated me to vote in favor of this military authority, because I believed then and I believe now that it was necessary to disarm Saddam Hussein of weapons of mass destruction. But if we cannot find those weapons of mass destruction, there are serious questions. And we need a full accounting, first, of where those weapons are so that we know they are secured or dismantled and in safe custody. Secondly, we need a full accounting of how accurate our intelligence was. Were our intelligence agencies accurate in the information they gave to the administration? Was that information properly used by the administration?

And this is not just an academic exercise. The entire Bush doctrine of the preemptive use of force requires as a foundation accurate intelligence regarding the intentions of other countries and potential enemies around the world. If we are going to use force preemptively in the face of imminent threats to this country or to our allies, we have to know that our intelligence is accurate.

I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.

If I could reclaim my time for a moment just to point out that the gentleman is pointing out that the Bush administration has a growing credibility gap regarding its prior claims and the evidence that is forthcoming after the conflict. And I know the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt) was the first on

this floor to my knowledge to raise the questions about the accusations regarding the country of Niger in Africa.

I wonder if the gentleman would share the latest information that has been made public on that score.

Yes, it is.

Given the extraordinary examples that the gentleman has just cited of American generosity to help reconstruct Iraq, does the gentleman think that we are winning the peace in Iraq?

Mr. Speaker, if I can follow up on the comments of the gentleman, I certainly agree with him that we need to internationalize the postconflict situation in Iraq. We are bringing on ourselves the frustrations of those people. We do not have anyone sharing the burden other than the British. We do not have anyone else sharing responsibility or blame for things that are going wrong.

We need to bring in NATO to help with peacekeeping. We need to bring in the United Nations to help with reconstruction. And, obviously, the United States would be the major partner in both of those operations. We still would be very deeply involved, but we would have international allies and international institutions to help with resources and to help with credibility and to help with responsibility for the work that needs to be done.

We need to turn over to the Iraqis as quickly as possible two things: One, their oil; and, secondly, their government. We need to make sure that the Iraqi oil industry is transparent, corruption-free, and the proceeds from which are used to rebuild Iraq. And we have to turn over to the Iraqis their own government. We are moving way too slowly to do that.

Paul Bremer, the viceroy occupier, I am not sure what his title is, has postponed repeatedly the formation of an Iraqi interim government. He is now calling it an advisory committee that he will appoint to advise him. I do not think that is the way to give the Iraqis the stake in their future government that they expect and deserve.

Before the gentleman leaves, let me ask him if he has been able to figure out what strategy the President was pursuing last week when he suggested, in the face of the guerilla attacks and ambushes and assassinations of American soldiers, that our opponents should ``bring 'em on?'' Could any of the gentlemen joining me on the floor today tell me what they think the President's strategy was with that comment?

If the gentleman will yield on that point, is he aware that the Bush tax cuts in 2004 will reduce revenues about $60 billion, and that for $1 billion we could fully fund our obligations to all of the veterans, including category 7 and category 8 veterans, so that they all would get the health care that we promised all veterans?

We are $1 billion short. Now, $1 billion is a lot of money.

The gentleman is correct. We are appropriating $29 billion next year for veterans health care. We need $30 billion to meet all of our obligations, our moral obligations, and we are not measuring up, and it is wrong.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his comments. I think we need to learn our lessons and learn them well and ask the questions that need to be asked and avoid the taunts and the arrogance that can get us into a lot of trouble when we fail to think things through.

I would like to point out to my colleagues that editorial opinion is focusing on the President's comments and on the post-conflict realities in Iraq. The Philadelphia Inquirer on Sunday in response to the President's comments about ``bring it on'' in their lead editorial title ``Bring Reality On,'' said continued hubris in high places heightens risks for U.S. soldiers in Iraq. The Inquirer asks: ``Mr. President, do you live in a playhouse or the White House? Childish taunts such as that are not the calibrated words demanded of the United States President at this turn of history's wheel.'' And the Philadelphia Inquirer goes on to make several points about the reality that is needed in our policy.

First, they say get real about the number of U.S. troops needed to establish and maintain order for months to come; get real about the full scope of reconstructing Iraq, its costs and duration; get real about cutting taxes. The incumbent is the only President, the Inquirer says, in the Nation's history to cut taxes in the middle of a hot war. They say get real about spurning the value of the United Nations; get real about the democratic aspirations you unwisely inflated among the long-oppressed, divided Iraqi population; and get real about admitting mistakes.

Mr. Speaker, I am sure the gentleman is aware that there is a perfectly rational reason why the White House admitted this week that they made a mistake with the President's State of the Union speech in which he claimed Iraq was trying to buy uranium from Africa. The reason that the White House had to finally admit their error is they were basing this on British intelligence, and the British system has resulted in an open inquiry where British parliamentarians have investigated and continue to investigate the question of the accuracy of their intelligence prewar, and the uses of that intelligence by the Blair administration.

They have concluded that while Prime Minister Blair did not himself mislead the public, that this information regarding the purchase of uranium in Africa was simply wrong and was based on forged documents.

This White House could no longer maintain the fiction that there was any basis in anybody's intelligence reports that Saddam Hussein was trying to buy uranium in Africa, and they simply had to because of a more open system in England where their Parliament has been more aggressive than this Congress. They had to face reality.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his comments, and I actually wrote those words down. ``The hammer of truth will be brought down on the anvil of inquiry,'' and that is our job. It is our challenge here. It is not unpatriotic to ask questions. It is not unpatriotic to seek accountability. It is not unpatriotic to dissent. In fact, it is the highest form of patriotism to seek the truth, to ask questions, to try to get to the bottom of this in the name of the American people.

I know our time is short. Mr. Speaker, does either gentleman have any concluding remarks?

The gentleman from Hawaii I thank for being here.

The gentleman from Massachusetts.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his comments, and I would only add it would also be nice if we could be joined by our friends across the aisle in some of these discussions during these special orders. I thank my colleagues for being part of this discussion.