Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the Oak Grove Union School District on the occasion of its 150th anniversary. Established in 1854, the school district is the second oldest continuing school district in the state of California.

Wm. M. Rider, the first teacher FOR whom records are available, in 1857 had a daily attendance of 18 students. By 1858, attendance grew to 32 children. Currently, the district has over 650 students in grades K- 8 supported by the two schools in the district: Oak Grove Elementary and Willowside School.

For one hundred and fifty years, the Oak Grove School District has educated numerous generations in Graton. This excellence would not have been possible without the support and efforts of the teachers, parents and community.

The community supports and benefits from the environmental friendly program at the Oak Grove School. The school has reduced its landfill waste by nearly 90 percent. Students enjoy fresh vegetables and fruit grown from their own classroom gardens prepared by a volunteer teacher.

The Oak Grove School District is integral to the community. The community shares in the learning experiences of the students as they test new ideas and understands that we must all work together to prepare our students to be our nation's future leaders.

Mr. Speaker, I am honored to recognize the Oak Grove School District for its commitment to extend education beyond the classroom and into the community for one hundred and fifty years.

Mr. Speaker, as thousands of our brave American soldiers continue to fight and die and receive serious wounds halfway around the world, I want to speak about two Iraqs that are presented to the American people.

There is the Iraq that President Bush and his administration want people to see, the one that is supposedly one small step away from becoming a peaceful democracy. And then there is the real Iraq, the quagmire halfway around the world that the rest of us know.

In President Bush's Iraq, the war was never a mistake, never a failure, and never something to question, much less regret. The same war, which as of today has caused the deaths of 1,027 American soldiers and seriously wounded at least seven times that many, not to mention the thousands of Iraqi civilians that have been killed, President Bush says he would have gone to war in Iraq even if had he known 2 years ago what he knows now.

That means he would have gone to war knowing that Iraq did not have a nuclear weapons program. He would have gone to war knowing that Saddam Hussein never harbored al Qaeda terrorists, and he would have gone to war knowing that thousands of our young soldiers would be killed. Somehow, and I do not know how, somehow President Bush fails to recognize the death, destruction, and deprivation that his war has caused.

The rest of us see a different Iraq than President Bush. In the real Iraq, America preemptively waged a war that was never a war of necessity and never a war to protect our Nation. Instead, President Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress led this country into a war that U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan recently called ``illegal.''

In the real Iraq, hundreds of soldiers have died because they were not given the battle armor that would have stopped bullets from entering their bodies, even after Congress made funds available for that very specific purpose. This was a drastic mistake made by the Pentagon.

In the real Iraq, President Bush, as Commander in Chief, has failed to properly address the insurgency that is killing scores of troops and civilians every day. This is a failure that could have and should have been addressed during the planning stages of the war.

In the past week, four Republican Senators have bucked their party line and acknowledged the sweeping problems that exist in the real Iraq. Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska said, ``I don't think we're winning . . . we're in trouble. We're in deep trouble.''

Senator Richard Lugar, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, went further. When asked why only $1 billion of the $18 billion appropriated for Iraq's reconstruction has been spent, he said, ``Well, this is the incompetence of the administration.''

This did not have to be an unmitigated disaster. But Iraq is woefully unstable largely due to planning failures by the Bush administration: the failure to enlist most of our allies as partners in the war, the failure to anticipate the anger and intensity of the insurgency, and the failure to allocate the billions of dollars in reconstruction funds that could have helped secure that country.

Fortunately, we have opportunities to fix this awful mess. Earlier this week Senator John Kerry offered a better, smarter solution to fixing the real problems in Iraq. John Kerry's plan includes soliciting and enlisting support from our allies, properly training Iraq's security forces, and carrying out a viable reconstruction plan that truly involves the Iraqi people, instead of giving companies like Halliburton the benefit of America's investment, while leaving Iraqi companies without contracts and the Iraqi people without jobs.

We need to engage in smarter policies if we want to stop the bleeding in Iraq. That is why I have introduced H. Con. Res. 392, to create a smarter security resolution for the 21st century. SMART stands for Sensible, Multilateral American Response to Terrorism. With SMART security, we would not be in the mess that we are in today. SMART security treats war as an absolute last resort. It fights terrorism with stronger intelligence and multilateral partnerships, and it controls the spread of weapons of mass destruction with aggressive diplomacy, strong regional security arrangements, and vigorous inspection regimes.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor United Against Sexual Assault (UASA) of Sonoma County on the occasion of its 30th anniversary. Founded in 1974 as Women Against Rape, the agency consisted of a phone number to call for emotional support. Today that crisis line operates 24 hours a day, and the organization has 12 board members, 14 paid staff, and more than 40 volunteers who address the problems related to all forms of sexual assault.

Over the past 30 years, UASA as greatly expanded the services offered to the people of Sonoma County. It provides extensive training on helping victims, including not only women and girls, but also men, children, and the families of victims. Staff and volunteers also accompany victims and their families for police reporting, court appearances, medical exams, or other personal situations.

Prevention programs include outreach to elementary through high school youths, reaching approximately 6,000 young people every year, as well as parents and school personnel. Other efforts include bilingual outreach to Hispanic teens, teen peer education training, anti-racism curriculum which deals with violence against the Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/ Transgender community, and a unique men's program featuring men educating men. All services are offered at no cost.

UASA also plays a key role in the county's pioneering SART (sexual assault response team) which unites law enforcement, mental health, legal, and advocacy programs to support victims and families. This collaborative project makes services easily accessible and minimizes the stress felt by victims. The agency is also working with the District Attorney's office to establish a county-wide Family Justice Center by 2005.

In May 2004, Executive Director Gloria Young was named ``Outstanding Director of the Year'' by the California Coalition Against Sexual Assault for shepherding the agency through many of these transitions.

Mr. Speaker, UASA's long-term mission is to eliminate all forms of sexual assault. I know that with its inspired leadership, dedicated staff, and committed volunteers United Against Sexual Assault of Sonoma County has brought our community a long way toward achieving this goal and will not be satisfied until they have reached it. I salute UASA on their 30th anniversary and look forward to the day when their services are no longer needed.

Mr. Speaker, earlier this year people from around the world saw photographs of the mistreatment, the torture, the sexual abuse of Iraqi prisoners that took place at Abu Ghraib. If anti- American sentiment was not strong enough after the United States invaded a country that never had weapons of mass destruction and never once threatened us, these callous images of American soldiers torturing prisoners sealed the deal. Still, Bush administration officials deny any responsibility for the actions of these soldiers.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld shamefully called it the action of ``a few bad apples.'' This scandal continues to get worse. It has come to light in recent months that prisoners also have been abused in Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay and, moreover, evidence was uncovered earlier this week indicating American abuse of Iraqi prisoners in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul.

An American inquiry into the prisoner abuse uncovered the existence of ghost detainees, prisoners hidden from International Red Cross inspectors and kept off the inmate list of each prison, and military personnel have indicated that the number of ghost detainees may total in the hundreds. Even someone who does not closely follow the quagmire in Iraq would readily acknowledge the real possibility that the widespread prisoner abuse may not be the unfortunate actions of just a few bad apples.

In fact, the evidence overwhelmingly suggest that prison bias by U.S. forces has been coordinated by the Bush administration. The New Yorker Magazine recently detailed a high level Pentagon plan to encourage physical coercion, otherwise known as torture, of Iraqi prisoners in an attempt to produce intelligence about the post-war insurgency in Iraq. If abusing prisoners is not quite official U.S. policy, the widespread nature of these crimes indicate that they were at least deemed acceptable at the highest levels of command. Perhaps the few bad apples are located at the Pentagon and in the White House, not serving in Iraq.

Sadly, it has become obvious that while a few soldiers are standing trial for the prison abuse, the Bush administration and the Republicans in this House have no plans whatsoever to hold any high ranking officials accountable for these terrible misdeeds. In fact, the House Republican leadership refuses to hold hearings on this subject. The House GOP leaders could learn something from the Senate, which has readily investigated this widespread scandal, and it does appear from their hearings to extend to the highest levels of our government.

What has President Bush done about this situation? Absolutely nothing. The White House continues to deny, dodge

and deflect any and all rumors that individuals in the administration may have been involved at any level in the prison abuse scandal.

Mr. Speaker, there must be a better way, because the current method of hiding prisoners from humanitarian agencies and using vicious attack dogs to help conduct so-called prisoner interrogations is further hindering the war on terror and encouraging anti-American sentiment around the world. That is why I have introduced H. Con. Res. 3792, a SMART security platform for the 21st century. My SMART plan will keep America safe.

SMART stands for sensible multi-lateral American response to terrorism. SMART means interrogation, not torture. It encourages open government, not a secretive government that fails to investigate and covers its own back. SMART security encourages negotiations and leadership, not aggression and unilateralism. SMART invests in developmental and humanitarian aid for the most impoverished nations, not an expensive and unproven missile defense system and certainly not the inhumane treatment of prisoners.

The situation in Iraq requires the best America has to offer. SMART security, accordingly, relies on the very best of America, our commitment to peace and freedom, our compassion for the people of the world, and our capacity for multi-lateral leadership. SMART security treats war as a last resort to be considered only after every diplomatic alternative has been exhausted, and it controls the widespread use of weapons of mass destruction with a renewed commitment of nonproliferation.

Mr. Speaker, the Nonprofit Athletic Organization Protection Act before us today I believe sets a very dangerous civil rights precedent. I take this personally, because I raised four, now grown, children, and each and every one of them was an athlete, from competitive skater to All American football player, and I cannot imagine what our family would have been like if they had not been able to use their energy in sports. I cannot imagine the learning experience they would have missed if they had been faced with some unfair practice or decision that I could not challenge if that would have kept them out of athletics.

So I think what we are setting up here is the possibility of unfair practices and policies when I do not believe there is a need. This bill attempts to protect nonprofit athletic organizations from liability arising from claims of negligence, but I believe it could do more than that. What I believe it does is protect organizations from actual legitimate lawsuits.

What position does this put a parent in, when and if their daughter is told she cannot play soccer because she is not a boy? What does a parent do when their handicapped child is told they cannot be on a golf team because they cannot walk the course, but they could certainly get around the course in a wheelchair?

While my children are now grown, they join me in wanting to have their children have every opportunity to play any sport. They know the value of their experience and they want all children, every child in this country, to have the same experiences that they had.

Mr. Speaker, this legislation will prevent athletes from fighting for their rights to play, and that is just plain wrong. I urge my colleagues to oppose H.R. 3369.

Mr. Speaker, tonight, I will read an article that was written by Joan Ryan, a columnist at the San Francisco Chronicle, that was in the newspaper on September 9, 2004. Joan was talking before a TV show, and she wrote an article about the conversation she had with Dolores Kesterson, and these are Joan's words: ``Dolores Kesterson wanted to know if I had read about the father in Florida. Dolores's 29- year-old son, Erik, her only child, was killed almost 10 months ago when his Black Hawk helicopter crashed in Mosul during a firefight. He had been in Iraq just 8 days.

``She found out the ways parents always find out, a knock on their door. For her, it came around 8:25 the night of November 15 as she was washing her dinner dishes. A man and a woman from the Army stood in the doorway. They gently suggested she sit down. `This father in Florida,' she was telling me, `when the Marines came to the door to tell him his son had died, took a hammer to their van, poured gasoline into it, set it on fire and got in.' ''

Her face remained expressionless, but her eyes lifted to meet mine as if to say, do you get it? That is what it feels like.

Later, during the show, I saw a picture of Eric: good-looking, square-jawed, and smiling. But what I really saw on the screen was my own son, my own only child.

That is why we do not look too closely, I think, on those occasions when the names and photos of the dead appear in print. We do not want to get too close to that pain. That is why neighbors have been giving Kesterson a wide berth. They do not know what to say, but they also do not want to think too hard about what she has lost: not a soldier, but a boy, who once slept in footie pajamas, who waved at her from the merry-go-round, who liked her cooking more than any on Earth.

The only way to make this war at all tolerable is to allow it to be a televised blur of road-side bombings, insurgent militia and thick reports issued from Washington at regular enough intervals to keep the talking heads occupied on the Sunday morning shows.

When embedded reporters covered the start of this war, the big picture issues, namely, the shaky rationale for the war, were buried beneath the stories of individual military units. This is why embedding reporters was such a brilliant stroke. The unwavering focus on the grit and courage of the American soldiers made it nearly impossible to criticize the war publicly.

Now that those soldiers are dying, the lens has gone panoramic. The farther we stay from Erik Kesterson and Steven Bridges and Jimmy Arroyave and Arron Clark and Ken Ballard, the easier to imagine that this war is not a horrifying disaster.

The Bush administration is so determined to keep us from thinking about dead soldiers that it even will not allow photographs of flag- draped coffins being transported back to the United States. ``Maybe if everyone could see them, they would realize that they are somebody's children,'' one parent at the town hall meeting said, which is exactly the point. This administration would rather we not listen

too closely to Mark Crowley tell us that his 18-year-old son, just 10 months out of high school, was killed on patrol, or that his gunner, who weathered six hits to his machine gun, was killed when the seventh bullet went through his head.

It would rather we not listen to Cindy Sheehan holding her son's childhood Teddy bear, say that she sleeps only when she takes a pill, and even then, just 3 or 4 hours. ``It gets worse every day,'' she said Tuesday night. Her son, Casey, died in April.

All of our children have given their futures, and our futures, Kesterson satisfied, finally raising her hand to speak on camera toward the end of the show: ``There will be no grandchildren. These young men had so much more to give. They could have been great. They are not just wooden pieces pushed around a war table like a game.''

Somewhere, there is a mother hearing on the news that there have been casualties in Mosul or Fallujah or Baghdad. She prays, ``Please, don't let it be my child.'' Maybe this time it will not be, but it is always somebody's child.

The number of dead Americans in the Iraqi war passed the 1,000 mark this Tuesday, before the show's taping, and kept going. More knocks on the door, more gentle suggestions to sit down.

Mr. Speaker, there is a smarter, safer way for America to conduct itself in Iraq. The course the Bush administration currently has us on is not it.

Mr. Speaker, today, this Congress committed a shameful act of omission. When today's congressional session ended, so too ended the assault weapons ban that has helped to keep our streets safe for the past decade.

In 1994, President Clinton bravely ushered the assault weapons ban through Congress. This act took its political toll on not only President Clinton but also the Democratic Party, but he stuck to his guns, so to speak, and strongly supported passage of this important legislation.

As a result, the use of military-style automatic weapons in crimes dropped from 4 percent in 1995, before the ban had taken effect, to 1 percent in the year 2002. In fact, according to the Department of Justice, the proportion of banned assault weapons traced to crimes has dropped by 66 percent since 1995.

The refusal by the House Republican leadership to bring up an extension of the assault weapons ban and the failure of President Bush to push for its renewal is about much more than gun control. This issue is about nothing less than the very security of our Nation.

Today's failure to extend this important law will make Americans less safe. In fact, al Qaeda, in their training manuals that were recovered from Afghanistan, specifically cited the ease of obtaining automatic rifles and machine guns in the United States. To many terrorists around the world, America is known as the great gun bazaar.

Let us break down the facts: First, al Qaeda, our worst enemy, has specifically instructed terrorists on how to

exploit America's gun laws to obtain the weapons they intend to use to kill Americans.

Next, the United States had a proven and effective law on the books that made it difficult to purchase these deadly weapons, and this law needed to be renewed.

Finally, President Bush, who claims to be a huge homeland security supporter, stayed silent. Why did he remain silent? Why did the President not act? I believe the answer is really pretty simple.

The National Rifle Association, the NRA, refused to support President Bush's reelection bid until after the renewal date for the assault weapons ban came and went, that was today, came and went untouched by the White House. This President has been cowed by the NRA. The sad irony is that last week Vice President Dick Cheney made the outrageous claim that it is absolutely essential on November 2 that Americans make the right choice because if we make the wrong choice, then the danger is that we will get hit again. I quote that from the Vice President's remarks.

This misleading connection in addition to insulting the intelligence of the American people wrongly asserts that a vote for John Kerry and John Edwards is a vote for terrorism. Instead, al Qaeda will be poised to hit us again because in large part on September 13, 2004, today, the Republican leadership has allowed Islamic militants and others to once again purchase American machine guns, all for the reelection of the President. How very, very shameful that is. If we truly want to secure our homeland, we need to pursue policies that are smarter than those that would decriminalize deadly weapons to elect someone to office. By the way, virtually every major law enforcement organization in the United States of America supports extending the ban.

That is why I have introduced a new SMART security platform for the 21st century. H. Con. Res. 392 is legislation to create a sensible, multilateral, American response to terrorism. SMART security is stronger on national security than President Bush claims to be. SMART security will stop the sale of weapons to oppressive regimes and regimes involved in human rights abuses. SMART security will pursue enhanced inspection regimes and regional security arrangements to ensure that state sponsors of terrorism do not get ahold of more light weaponry, or even deadlier chemical or biological weapons.

Let us talk for a moment about presidential flip-flops. When it comes to keeping assault weapons out of the hands of terrorists, George Bush speaks out of both sides of his mouth.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words.

I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the Obey-Miller overtime amendment, and I support it because it blocks the administration from gutting the income of working men and women, some earning as little as $23,000 a year.

My Republican colleagues continue to proclaim, and we have heard it already this morning, that they are friends to working America. However, they and this administration are, I believe, the working Americans' greatest enemy. They say one thing. They do another. They are changing overtime policies to cheat millions of workers out of overtime pay. What they ought to be doing is investing in our Nation's infrastructure, creating jobs that pay a livable wage, strengthening job opportunities here at home, stopping the incentives for outsourcing the high-paid jobs in the United States of America. But, no, they continue their attacks on American workers.

That is why we are considering a bill today that has failed to address the $265 million backlog of the Job Corps. Their facility renovations are essential to placing disadvantaged young adults into jobs.

That is why the bill before us today cuts the employment service program which is the foundation for the Nation's one-stop employment and training service delivery system.

That is why there is no increase for adult training programs or the title V community service employment program to aid low-income older workers.

One hundred million dollars is being cut for the H-1B technical skills training program, which specifically was designed to reduce the Nation's reliance on foreign workers.

Millions of dollars have been cut for activities to promote international labor standards, enhanced worker rights and combat exploitive child labor.

This President, the administration that is asking us to cut unemployment and overtime coverage for American workers, this President has lost 2.7 million manufacturing jobs since he took office. It is one thing to go to

Pennsylvania and Ohio and talk about job training, but President Bush's budget, this initiative we are talking about today and this bill in particular does not support his talk.

Americans need quality jobs. They need effective job training in order for us to remain competitive in the global economy. The Bush- Cheney antiworker pattern continues with policies such as the Family Flexibility Act, which would further strip worker overtime rights. Let us not kid ourselves. This policy proposal is not about flextime for workers. It is about more flexibility for employers.

Bush also signed legislation overturning workplace safety rules to prevent ergonomic standards. The President has advocated budget cuts for job safety agencies such as OSHA and NIOSH. President Bush even went further, suspending 23 important job safety regulations. The list goes on and on. These are the people that are asking us to vote today to cut overtime pay for most of the neediest workers in this country.

Mr. Chairman, it is clear this administration values corporate profit over workers' safety. It is time that we support our workers. Vote ``yes'' for the Obey-Miller substitute.

Mr. Speaker, earlier this week, when Vice President Cheney was talking about terrorism, he told the audience something that I consider to be absolutely appalling. He said, ``It is absolutely essential on November 2nd that Americans make the right choice, because if we make the wrong choice, then the danger is that we'll get hit again.''

The White House would like the American people to believe that President Bush is the only person capable of confronting terrorism, even though his record has proven otherwise. They employ fear as a campaign tactic, claiming that a vote for John Kerry and John Edwards is a vote for the terrorists. This misleading connection, besides insulting the intelligence of the American people, raises a very important question: If Presidents are singularly responsible for terrorist attacks that happen on their watch, was President Bush responsible for the attacks on September 11?

While I believe that President Bush was not responsible for the events of 9/11, he is responsible for the failure to truly secure America after 9/11.

Three years ago, after the worst attacks on American soil in our Nation's history, the United States had the support of nearly all other countries in our fight against terrorism. With the anniversary of the September 11 attacks approaching, now is a good time to consider whether we have made progress in the global war on terror over the last 3 years.

Last week in Russia, Chechen terrorists shocked the world when they took 1,200 hostages at a school and killed over 300 of them, most of them children. I ask you, what is humanity becoming? We have to stop this. What a terrible tragedy. Surely there must be a better way. There must be a smarter way.

In Sudan, thousands of Sudanese Africans have been subjected to a horrific campaign of rape, looting, and ethnic cleansing driven by a militia that has the tacit support of the Sudanese Government. More than 30,000 people have needlessly been killed as a result of this campaign of genocide terror. Much more needs to be done, and despite almost unanimous passage of a House resolution calling upon the Secretary of State, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the U.N. to immediately address this issue, it is still not being completed.

There has to be a better way, a smarter way, a smarter course of action dictated not by what is politically pragmatic, but by what is good and by what is right. And there is such a course of action.

I have introduced H. Con. Res. 392 to create a SMART security platform for the 21st century. SMART stands for Sensible, Multilateral American Response to Terrorism.

SMART security fights terrorism with stronger intelligence and multilateral partnerships than the Bush administration, and it does so without endangering our alliances around the world. It treats war as an absolute last resort.

SMART security controls the spread of weapons of mass destruction with aggressive diplomacy, strong regional security arrangements, and vigorous inspection regimes. It invests in the development of impoverished nations to prevent the kind of terrorism occurring in Sudan and Chechnya from ever taking root in the first place.

President Bush thinks the best way to fight terrorism is to confront it head on by possessing bigger weapons and being stronger than the terrorists. But that only addresses the symptoms of the disease and certainly does not ensure a 100 percent success rate.

In order to truly defeat terrorism, we need to confront its root causes: poverty, despair, and unfair allocation of resources in so many underdeveloped nations around the world. SMART security will protect America and the world by addressing not just acts of terrorism, but also the reasons why terrorism exists. In the end, SMART security is smart, and it will keep America safe.

Mr. Speaker, George Bush is running for reelection on a platform that our economy is in good shape. Well, this is a sham.

Today, 8 million Americans are looking for work; 8 million Americans are looking for work. The unemployment rate is 30 percent higher than it was when he took office.

So what is he doing about it? He continues to encourage and reward sending good jobs overseas, while creating low-paying jobs right here at home and, at the same time, changes overtime policies to cheat millions of workers out of overtime pay.

What he ought to be doing is investing in our infrastructure, making sure that our Nation gets roads, highways, bridges, sewer systems, waste water treatment plants; our clean water systems are upgraded, are enlarged, are made better. Because, I say to my colleagues, those jobs pay a livable wage. Those jobs leave behind improvements for our communities and our country. That would increase the jobs in this country.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of this amendment, because we need to continue to give women the boost they must have yet to succeed in this global economy that we are living in.

Our late colleague, Patsy Mink, authored the Women's Educational Equity Act, which we call WEEA. WEEA and other equity provisions have been doing a very, very good job. But, do you know what? That good job has made this program vulnerable, because it appears that their success could be an excuse to eliminate this good program.

It is hard to believe that the Members of this Congress think that gender equity provisions can be eliminated today because more women are enrolled in college, are graduating from college, or because boys, of all things, have reading scores that are not as good as girls. That is a very shortsighted view.

Women are still underrepresented in math and science and in engineering-related fields, fields that actually pay higher salaries and oftentimes require overseas hiring to fill the positions.

Many girls and women shy away from any sort of science or technology activity, despite the importance of these areas in modern society. We need to fix that, because research has shown that interest in math and science begins to wane in early adolescence.

We want to make sure that girls keep all their options open. They do not have to be scientists, they do not have to be mathematicians, they do not have to be engineers, but when they are ready to go to college, they have to have the option, just like the guys do.

The National Bureau of Economic Research reports that students who do well in math outearn their nonmathematical counterparts even if they do not go on to college. Within 6 years of graduating high school in 1980, young men with strong basic math skills were earning 53 cents more per hour than those with average math skills. The difference between women with stronger math skills and men with average math skills was even more significant, with women earning 74 cents more per hour.

It is clear that increased comprehension in math and science benefits women. The Women's Educational Equity Act program is critical to helping promote equal education opportunities for girls and women by providing funds and assistance to educational agencies. That is why our amendment would protect this successful program by leveling out funding for WEEA at $3 million. We would be taking funds from the Fund for the Improvement of Education, or FIE. These funds fund individual Member projects. I can tell you that every single Member in this body will better serve their constituents if they are serving the women in their school districts.

If our schools do not continue to receive this support, females and minorities will continue to dominate the low-wage jobs, while America's high-wage, high-tech jobs go to foreign undergraduates and foreign graduates. Women will continue to have fewer economic opportunities than men and less access to the careers that will support them and their families. Without these opportunities, this country will be deprived of the highly-educated, highly-skilled workforce we need in the United States to compete in the global economy.

Gender equity in education is not a women's thing. All Americans, men and women alike, have a stake in making sure that all students gain the skill and self-confidence they need in elementary and secondary school to become productive, self-supporting adults.

Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to support our amendment, to protect this important program from becoming yet another unnecessary casualty of a very shortsighted budget.

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

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the 1,000th American soldier was killed in Iraq; 1,000 young men and women who will never again return to their homes and experience the warm embrace of their parents and others who love them.

Young men and young women have died for a war the United States entered not of necessity, but out of choice. An attack against a country that never possessed the illegal weapons it was accused of possessing, a war in a country that never once threatened the United States. And this war is not over.

Worst of all, of the 1,000 soldiers that have died in Iraq, over 850 of them were killed after President Bush declared the ``end of major combat operations.'' He made his now-infamous speech aboard a Navy vessel displaying a banner that read ``Mission Accomplished.'' That was 15 months ago yesterday.

Obviously the Bush administration has failed, failed dramatically in its postwar custodianship of Iraq.

The abuses at Abu Ghraib have emboldened our enemies and provided them with ammunition for the war of images waged on the front pages of newspapers worldwide. The moral support shared by countries around the world in the months after September 11, 2001, has long since evaporated.

When it comes to supporting our troops abroad, we have not done much better. A recent Pentagon study acknowledged that about one-third of all American casualties in Iraq could have been prevented if the military had outfitted every soldier with state-of-the-art body armor. Thirty thousand troops, most of them members of the Army Reserve and National Guard, did not have vital equipment for several months after facing battle situations in Iraq.

In addition to the 1,000 soldiers killed in the war in Iraq, this war has cost the lives of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians, which some estimate to be as high as 15,000. And it is estimated that 7,000 of our troops and our civilian forces have died, or 20,000 have been evacuated out of Iraq for medical reasons.

This is a failure. This is a war that has failed. It has taken a huge economic toll in the form of a whopping $200 billion in congressional appropriations, money that should have been invested here at home and used to pay for the real war against terrorism, a war that never has included Iraq. The Bush administration's line is that the war in Iraq was essential in fighting the so-called war on terrorism. Bush Press Secretary Scott McClellan, commenting on the number of troops

killed, claimed that ``the best way to honor all those who lost their lives in the war on terrorism is to continue to wage a broad war and spread freedom throughout a dangerous part of the world.'' What a shameful thing that was to say.

It is clearly time for a new national security policy. I have introduced H. Con. Res. 392 to create a SMART security platform for the 21st century. SMART stands for Sensible Multilateral American Response to Terrorism. SMART security treats war as an absolute last resort. It fights terrorism with stronger intelligence and multilateral partnerships. It controls the spread of weapons of mass destruction with aggressive diplomacy, strong regional security arrangements, and vigorous inspection regimes. SMART security invests in the development of impoverished nations to prevent terrorism from taking root in the first place.

SMART security is about preventing war, as opposed to preemptive war. It emphasizes brains over brawn. It is tough, but diplomatic; aggressive, but peaceful; pragmatic, but idealistic.

President Bush loves to think that those who support his efforts in Iraq are patriotic, and those that think there is a better way are unpatriotic, or, worse, un-American. But I can think of nothing more patriotic than pursuing a national security policy that protects America by relying on the noblest of American values: our capacity for global leadership, our compassion for the people of the world, our commitment to peace and freedom.

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

Mr. Speaker, in November of 2000, America witnessed the breakdown of its electoral system. Four years later, as far as I can see, nothing that was broken has been fixed. Many Americans believe the same injustices to democracy that we witnessed 4 years ago could occur once again this November.

The very security of our democracy is at stake. For all of the Bush administration's talk about securing our Nation from the threat of terrorism, no discussion of security would be complete if it did not address the need to secure our national election system.

After the controversial election in 2000, one would think President Bush would do everything in his power to ensure the integrity of America's election system. I know that is what I would have done had I become President of this United States, particularly after having lost the national popular vote by more than half a million votes. But unfortunately, despite some Democratic efforts here in Congress, this administration has failed to win back the trust of our Nation's voters.

The Help America Vote Act, which was signed into law in the year 2002, was designed to assist States in upgrading their fragile election systems. I supported this legislation because it took steps in the right direction to make our election system secure. While some improvements have been made because of this act, its most useful reforms, the reforms that would actually ensure security, will not be in

place by the November election, and that is because this administration refused to release most of the Federal dollars promised by the Help America Vote Act until June of 2004, 2 years after it became public law, delaying what could have been a secure election this November.

With 32 million voters in 19 States using punch-card ballots again this November, millions of voters will walk away from the polls not knowing for certain whether their votes were tallied correctly.

The emergence of electronic voting systems, I believe, is a good thing, but not without verifiable technology. Sadly, Republicans have refused to allow for paper-verified voting trails to ensure that each vote is counted correctly. Without a paper trail, there will be no way to conduct a recount should an election be contested.

Why have Congress and the Bush administration failed to produce vital changes since the drawn-out election of 4 short years ago? Some would say it is in the administration's best interests not to change the system.

Mr. Speaker, there is an even greater threat lurking quietly below. That is, the possible disenfranchisement of voters due to inaccurate registration methods and the shady control of voting lists. A recent Caltech/MIT study concluded that 4 million to 6 million votes were lost nationwide in the 2000 election. Half of these were traced to registration problems. In the year 2000, thousands of Floridians were deprived of the right to vote because they shared the same name with someone who had been convicted of a felony. This type of disenfranchisement and the physical intimidation of some voters is no better than the practices used to prevent Southern blacks from voting in the 1950s and 1960s. It appears we have not come very far since then.

We need to be smarter. We need to be smarter in order to secure our elections. I have introduced H. Con. Res. 392, the SMART Security Resolution, to address both foreign and domestic threats to our Nation. SMART stands for Sensible, Multilateral American Response to Terrorism. SMART security emphasizes the need for the United States to act as a leader and a model for other less sophisticated, less democratic nations. This means shoring up the credibility of our own election system, including the development of new, verifiable technology, to ensure that our Nation's poor and aged are not disenfranchised. It means avoiding a system where our own citizens are forced to cry out for international observers to ensure the fairness of our elections. SMART security means fully and quickly implementing the reforms stipulated in the Help America Vote Act.

Mr. Speaker, how can this country ever hope to be a true democratic model for the rest of the world when its own elected leaders have failed to ensure that our election system is truly democratic? Let us be smarter about the way we elect our national leaders, because until we do, our election system will remain one accused of fraud and riddled with doubt, and we will not stand as an example of democracy in the rest of the world.