Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, it is with profound sorrow that I rise to recognize the loss of a New Jersey citizen who served with dignity and honor as a soldier in Iraq. I join his family, friends and members of his community in mourning this great loss.

On Saturday, January 1, LCpl. Brian P. Parrello, 19, of West Milford, NJ, was killed in Al Anbar Province, Iraq as a result of hostile fire. Lance Corporal Parrello was assigned to Small Craft Company, Headquarters Battalion, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Lejeune, NC. Parrello was attached to a Marine Swift Boat unit that patrolled the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.

A resident of West Milford, New Jersey, Parrello attended West Milford High School where he was a member of both the football and hockey teams. Following high school, he was so deeply affected by the attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon that he proudly enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps. His teachers, coaches and peers have called him a real leader and a role model, someone who always gave 150 percent, a person who led by example and with a big heart.

This loss causes us to reflect on the bravery demonstrated by our men and women in uniform as they carry out their obligations in the face of danger. When their Nation called them to duty to preserve freedom and the security of our neighbors, they answered without hesitation.

Mr. Speaker, it is my sincere privilege to recognize the life of a proud soldier and heroic representative of the State of New Jersey. LCpl Brian P. Parrello was an honorable defender of liberty and he deserves our gratitude and respect.

We remember those who have fallen not only as soldiers, but also as patriots who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country. May we keep their loved ones in our thoughts and prayers as they struggle to endure this difficult period and mourn the heroes America has lost.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the Speaker for the opportunity, I think, to be the last speaker of the 108th Congress, if I am not mistaken.

I want to take this opportunity before I begin just to reflect back, to reflect back on the 108th Congress, to think where we began at the beginning 2 years ago, all what seemed at the time insurmountable issues that this Congress would have to address. And we overcame them, addressed major issues, and passed significant legislation for the benefit of the people of this United States. And as we wrap up this 108th Congress now and look forward to the 109th Congress, here, this evening, we were actually able to pass the intelligence bill, to hopefully reorganize and restructure the Intelligence Community in this country for the benefit of the people, for the benefit of the liberties of this Nation as well, and the free world for that matter. It is a daunting task that lies ahead for us, but it is one that we can look back with great accomplishment that we have already achieved in the 108th Congress.

But as we do this, as we reflect back, we have to remember one problem that was just beginning to rear its head at the start of this session, and that grew out of the corruption, anti-Americanism, the inefficiencies of the United Nations and what we know now as the United Nations's food-for-oil scandal. And as the photo to my left shows, a steady diet of corruption, the U.N. oil-for-food scandal, oddly we see with Saddam Hussein on one side and the oil container on the other side, leaving out, of course, of the picture the very people of his nation that the food-for-oil dollars were supposed to benefit.

The U.N. Food-for-Oil Program was a program that was poorly structured from the very beginning. Basically it was one that was set up to allow for the egregious abuses that came. The nature and scope of this scandal is turning out to be, what I believe to be and what others have already said, the greatest financial scandal in the U.N. history, and actually the greatest theft in the history of the world.

The United Nations created a program that, if we think about it for a moment in retrospect, was doomed for failure from the very beginning at best, and, at worst, for corruption; and apparently what we got was the worst, corruption along with the failure.

I just want to take a moment to reflect back how this all began. It was back in 1990, 1 week after Iraq invaded Kuwait, that the U.N. Security Council passed Resolution 661. That established a worldwide embargo on the exportation of oil from Iraq.

Well, obviously, that was put in place to make sure that he would not be able to use those oil dollars for his own benefit. Due do Saddam Hussein's continued defiance and disregard of the U.N. weapons inspectors, we recall that we were trying to find out what was going on in his nation; but due to his defiance of those U.N. weapons inspectors after the war, those sanctions remained in place throughout much of the decade of the 1990s.

Now the critics at the time that those sanctions were put in place argued that they were placing an extraordinary burden on the general population, the regular people of Iraq. And by not allowing the Iraqi Government to export oil and derive the money from that, the government was faced with a significant decrease in revenue, and, therefore, they were unable to, it was said, to provide humanitarian assistance, basically food and medical supplies for their own people.

In fact, back at that time it was UNICEF that was saying that 1 in 4 children in Iraq at the time were malnourished, that 4,000 children were dying every single month due to the sanctions being in place.

The U.N. responded to that sort of argument that UNICEF and others were saying and the critics were making, and so, in 1996, with the Iraqi people honestly suffering at the hands of their government and no end to the sanctions in place of being lifted because Saddam Hussein was not allowing his weapons inspectors to come back into the country, the Iraqi regime agreed with the U.N. to set up the program that we now know as the Oil-for-Food program.

If there was ever a way to set up a program that could have been more set for failure, I cannot think of one. Why do I say that? Because it allowed for Saddam Hussein to have all the decision-making in his hand and the U.N. basically to have none, and in addition to that, the U.N. had very little oversight. Saddam Hussein was able to say who he wanted to sell the oil to under the Oil-for-Food program, which became a scandal, and in addition to that, he could basically set the price. So he could say that he was going to sell the oil to the companies or countries of his choice at a price that he would determine, that the U.N. would be able to look over those transactions at that point, but the U.N. was not given any ability to make further inspection when that company or that country was able to then sell the oil probably at a much higher price, a handsome price, a price that enabled that company or country to then do what it is entirely possible for it to do and what it did do, kick back that money to the Iraqi government and Saddam Hussein.

Likewise, Saddam Hussein was able to and was given the power by the U.N. to decide who it would be who would provide this humanitarian aid for his people. What was this doing? This was saying that Saddam Hussein was able to choose this company or this company or this country or this country to be the ones that provide the humanitarian aid, and of course, if he was rolling out literally hundreds of millions of dollars of program payments to them, what was occurring under the table in form of kickbacks only became realized later on. The Oil-for-Food program only stayed in place, of course, until April of 2003, when his regime was toppled.

Many investigations have begun and have proceeded over the last several years to try to explore exactly what occurred during that, what fraud and abuses came about due to this program that was so poorly set up from the very beginning, and what, of course, is found out? It has found corruption and bribery. It has found literally billions of dollars being taken from the starving people of his country and given to himself and for other purposes.

In the area of bribery, investigations revealed that Hussein's regime bribed numerous foreign officials, companies and others, to curry favor to have the sanctions imposed on them lifted by the U.N. This is just not wild speculation. It comes back from Charles Duelfer, the top American weapons inspector in Iraq at the time, he testified, Mr. Hussein was successfully using illegal proceeds specifically from the Oil-for-Food program to undermine support for the sanctions that the U.N. imposed after the 1990 invasion of Kuwait. So some of the very money that was supposed to be going to the people was going to U.N. officials.

The first report came out in the spring of early last year, the GAO report, and that report cited that Saddam Hussein had generated over $10 billion, that is with a B, of illicit revenues by gaming the system since 1991. Recent reports we may have seen have more than doubled that estimate to around $21 billion. Where was the money going besides bribery? To weapons.

Further corruption was exposed after allegations surfaced that Saddam Hussein used a large portion of the money to purchase weapons for his regime, and so now, it is widely believed that those very same weapons are the weapons that are being used by the rebels over in Iraq to kill and attack American soldiers.

Where else did the dollars go besides bribery and weapons? There are also reports that Saddam Hussein used the money he acquired from the program to pay families of Palestinian suicide bombers who killed Israelis and Americans to the tune of $35 billion, and this was done through Jordanian banks. I think we have a chart that in a not too complicated manner puts this one example in play, just gives a little idea how he was able to do it.

On the top of the chart, we show three different areas. The first two are really the main ones of where the money came from from these illicit purposes. Ten percent, kickback payments from companies in Oil- for-Food programs. Those are the humanitarian programs that I spoke to just a moment ago, those companies that he was able to say that I would only pick this company or this company or this country to do business with so long as they were kicking money back to them.

The other is a fee for oil. In this one example, $3 per barrel fee for oil paid

by the Jordanian government as part of their program of getting oil from Iraq. So these were basically, if you want to use the vernacular, kickbacks that were coming for every barrel of oil that they were able to export at a very low price, and the Jordanian government was able then to sell at a higher price, they were required to kick back to his regime around $3 per barrel. That money then went into the Rafidain Bank in Amman, Jordan, into a Central Bank account in that bank.

Item number four shows that came out of the account, and in this one example that we show in this chart at least, to the families of suicide bombers in the amount of, as this chart is showing around, $15- to $25,000 per family for suicide bombers.

So, for anyone out there who is still believing that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do prior to 9/11 and prior to the toppling of his regime, that he had nothing to do with terrorism, let this evidence now dismiss that thought of innocence by Saddam Hussein from their thoughts today.

So, instead of his using dollars to help starving people in his own country, Saddam Hussein used the money to bribe, buy weapons, support terrorists and, of course, to further his lavish lifestyle as a dictator. I will just say as an aside, earlier this year I had the opportunity to travel to Iraq to visit with the American troops that are over there, see the great job that they are doing, that many of these men and women are so proud of the accomplishments that they have already achieved and what they want to do in the future.

While we were traveling about Iraq we had the opportunity also of seeing the palatial mansions that Saddam Hussein had not only for himself but other leadership in his government, for his generals, for the lakes that he had made for himself, man-made lakes and palaces around the country. That is where some of the money from the Oil-for- Food oil was going to instead of the starving people of his own country.

There is also speculation or evidence that is coming out to say that not only did the money go to other countries and to other companies, for the purposes I have already cited, but also to members of the U.N. itself, to the executive director of the Oil-for-Food program it is asserted that received dollars back from Saddam Hussein's regime from the Oil-for-Food program. Each one of these examples is an example of corruption by this regime that is becoming more and more apparent as the facts begin to present themselves.

The fact that this such an ineffective body in the Oil-for-Food program, the U.N., really should not come as a surprise to any of us who know a little bit about the history of the U.N. It is really just another example of the long-running inefficiencies of the U.N.

I mentioned before that UNICEF was blaming the sanctions on the fact that 4- to 5,000 Iraqi children were dying every single month; that one in four children in that country were malnourished during that period of the sanctions. What these facts really reveal is that it was not the sanctions that were causing the malnourishment of his population, but rather, it was the corruption and complicity of men like Saddam Hussein and Kofi Annan and other U.N. officials who allowed this to go on year after year after year.

The fact that the U.N. is inefficient as an organization really has to look at their overall purpose. What their major overall purpose, of course, is the prevention of war. There have been over 300 wars since 1945 and over 22 million deaths resulting from these wars. So we have to ask, how efficient was the U.N. in preventing them?

The U.N. has authorized military action to counter aggression only twice really, in North Korea's invasion of South Korea and Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. So how efficient was the U.N. in doing what it was really set out to do? It was not.

Today, the most urgent threat to international peace and security today is terrorism, and yet, the U.N. cannot even agree upon a definition of what terrorism is. That is really in large part because it counts terrorist-sponsoring States and countries among its own membership. They are not going to define terrorism in the same way that their country is established.

How about finally human rights violations? The U.N. counts the world's leading human rights violators and repressive government among its membership. Worse, those members are disproportionately represented among the 53 countries elected to the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, with Libya as my colleagues recall serving as chairman just last year.

Coming back to the issue then of Oil-for-Food and what the U.N. says they should be doing about it, well, the U.N. and the leadership says they are looking at the issue right now. The most troubling fact, however, is the lack of cooperation that we are receiving from the U.N. to get to the bottom of the most recent scandal involving Oil-for-Food.

The United Nations has continuously denied U.S. government access to papers and internal records that concern the Oil-for-Food program, and they have repeatedly in addition to that shielded their officials such as their executive director of this program from ongoing investigations.

How about audits? There is something like 55 internal audits that the U.S. government has requested from the U.N. so we can see exactly what was going on with this program, and the U.N. leadership has denied turning those audits over.

I will point out that the U.N. does continue to claim that they are addressing this problem by the establishment of the Volker Commission, and I think most people would agree that Paul Volker is beyond question as far as his integrity is concerned, but that is not the issue here. The issue is the way the commission was set up by the U.N. in order to investigate the Oil-for-Food scandal and basically was set up just as the other program was, totally ineffective.

It is ineffective due to his inability to gain any significant results. For example, Paul Volker has no subpoena power, and so, therefore, he is clearly open to U.N. manipulation as to the documents that he needs to get. In addition to that, he has no power of contempt, and by that I mean he cannot, like a court can, order someone to testify, bring forth documents, and if they do not, file contempt charges against them and force them to do so. So, without those abilities, the Volker Commission really is an empty shell and will not produce any results that are verifiable or that this Congress can rely upon.

I mentioned before that the U.N. leadership has failed to allow people to testify. The U.N. failed to allow Benon Savan, executive director of the Oil-for-Food program, to testify before Congress, and Volker Commission's has rejected requests to make them available for us.

I will point out something to make sure that our whole focus on this issue remains focused where it should be in light of my comments so far.

The Washington Times today, Tuesday, December 7, headline is House Republicans call for Annan to step down, Kofi Annan to step down. This followed a press conference that we held here in the House with the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Flake) and others who have sponsored a piece of legislation that I will speak to in just a moment, and we sort of worried that the take on that press conference would be just the one that it is in the paper, and that is, the focus is on whether or not Kofi Annan should step down or not, as far as the headline is concerned.

While that is certainly an issue that should be discussed and debated and finally come to grips with as to whether or not we want to have someone in power, in charge of the U.N., that it was in place and overseeing the Oil-for-Food scandal the entire time that it was operating, and also now is stonewalling and blocking the U.S.' ability to get to the bottom of it, that is one issue.

But the real reason that the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Flake) and others here had the press conference yesterday to address this issue was not so much who is at the leadership today, who is going to be at the leadership, at the helm of the U.N. tomorrow, but overall whether this scandal existed, and of course, the evidence shows that it did; to what extent that scandal existed; and who was involved; and basically to just get to the bottom of it. Until we get to the bottom of it, we owe it to the American public, and here is the point, to say to the U.N. that they cannot continue operating as they have operated all these many years and doing it on the American dime.

And the American taxpayer is not going to be subsidizing the scandals that continue to go on in the U.N. We are going to withhold payment to the U.N. until we get to the bottom of these facts.

So to that end, legislation sponsored this year, H.R. 4284, in the 108th Congress, is a piece of legislation that would do just that. It would say that we are going to withhold 10 percent of American taxpayer dollars going to the U.N., 10 percent of America's responsibilities to them, and that number is around $340-some-odd million a year. So 10 percent of that, obviously, is $32 million or $34 million this year. That would go up to 20 percent next year, so around $72 million next year, until the U.N. becomes more forthcoming, provides the documentation, provides the audits allowing the President of the United States to certify that the U.N. is cooperating with all investigations so we can get to the bottom of this and find out who is responsible in each one of these instances.

During the course of the year, or just recently, I should say, some Members, myself, the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Flake), and others, have sent around what is called a ``Dear Colleague'' letter to encourage our colleagues to sign on to that bill during this session of Congress. As we go into the 109th Congress, we will be encouraging other Members to sign on to that bill as well, the focus, of course, being that tax dollars should not be going to such a scandal-plagued organization as the U.N. until they begin to clean up their act.

The fact that this evidence is all coming to a head now, or coming more to light now, may be an explanation as to why earlier in this session, when some of us moved an amendment to an appropriation bill that basically did the exact same thing that this bill would do, and that is to say when we had a spending bill going through this House earlier in the 108th Congress, we said let us do it right then, let us withhold some or all of our funding to the U.N. until we get this information, that, unfortunately, all the information was not out and we did not have enough Members in the House to support this legislation. So in the spending bills this year, we completely funded the U.N.

But now the information is coming out. It started early enough, of course. I honestly believe there was enough evidence at that time for us to withhold funds earlier this year. It started way back in a report dated June 20, 2003. An article appeared that said, ``The now defunct program, the Food-for-Oil Program, allowed Iraq to buy food and medicine with its oil proceeds under U.N. supervision. Although the oil proceeds were legal and approved by the U.N., several observers say the system involved kickbacks and was used to buy political support and to finance intelligence activities and even terrorist activities. That is going back to reports in June of 2003.

Of course, there is the one I mentioned earlier, the Food-for-Oil minister, Benon Sevan. At that time he was granted an allocation of 7.3 million barrels of Iraqi oil. By that, I mean that under this program, Saddam Hussein decided that Benon Sevan, the Food-for-Oil administrator, the person in the U.N. who is overseeing the entire program, would be able to buy 7.3 million barrels of Iraqi oil from its regime. But he was able to do so at an artificially low price that Saddam Hussein set. So he was then able to resell that oil, and he could expect to receive $3.5 million in profit. As somebody else said, not a bad deal.

Who else was on that list, besides officials at the U.N.? Well, reports also show that three countries were involved, and these probably should not surprise any one of us here. Overall, 248 companies purchased through the Oil-for-Food program, but three countries go to the top of the list:

First, Russia. Maybe that should not surprise us. Russia has had a vested interest, as related in some of the reports, for the last 15 years in Iraqi oil production. But what may be interesting is one notable recipient of one of those lucrative oil contracts was the director of the Russian President's office.

Now, we are trying to get information from Russia to what extent that was going on, and why someone within the President's office in Russia was receiving those dollars. So far we have been unsuccessful.

A second country that should probably also not be a surprise to any one of us is our old friend France, also involved in the Food-for-Oil scandal. France's oil vouchers account for 150.8 million barrels of oil. And the people involved in that reportedly include the French interior minister and also close friends of Chirac and others.

So what this means is that people close to Jacques Chirac and the interior minister were able to get the ability to buy 150.8 million barrels of oil from the Saddam Hussein regime, again at an artificially low price, and again able to resell it at whatever price they could, which would be market prices, and then make a killing in that market deal.

The third and final one, Syria, again just like France and Russia, should come as no surprise that they were also part of the deal with Saddam Hussein as far as getting oil at a low price. How much? 116.9 million barrels of crude oil that they also got at an artificially low price and that they were able to sell and get back at a much higher price.

So the examples of abuse and fraud are complete. The people who are involved in it is a growing list of some of the countries that we always suspected may have had a reason for trying to undercut us in the U.N. with regard to sanctions, countries that had a reason to undercut us with regard to the war in Iraq. The people involved were the very people who were involved with implementing the program at the U.N.

So it now is incumbent upon this Congress, as we go forward into the 109th Congress, to do all that we can to shine the light of day on this program, to make sure all the facts come out, and to hold all guilty parties responsible. But the only way we are ever going to put pressure on the U.N. is by putting pressure in the area they respond to, and that is their funding.

So as we go into the 109th Congress, the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Flake) and myself will be supporting legislation to withhold U.S. taxpayer dollars going to the U.N. until they open up their books, provide the audits, allow the people in that organization to testify before Congress and to let all the information come out so that the American public knows exactly where their taxpayer dollars are going.

With that, Mr. Speaker, as we close the 108th Congress, I look forward to the challenges ahead in the 109th Congress. I know that, as Franklin said, the price of liberty is eternal vigilance. Well, this Congress has been vigilant in the past, and I am sure we are going to be ever vigilant with the taxpayers' dollars and the American public's interest as we go through the next 2 years as well and we get to the bottom of the Food-for-Oil scandal.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am grateful for the opportunity to pay tribute to Hackettstown Community Hospital as a model of an exceptional healthcare resource serving the rapidly growing, multigenerational population of Warren County and the city of Hackettstown, NJ for over 30 years.

Hackettstown Community Hospital is taking steps to make the transition into a Regional Hospital Center in response to evolving health care needs of northwest New Jersey residents. Investments have been made to provide additional state-of-the-art technology and services essential in diagnosing and treating the two leading causes of death: cancer and heart disease.

Recent statistics show, the residents of Warren and Sussex counties have a higher cancer incidence rate than the rate for the entire state of New Jersey. Hackettstown Community Hospital's new Cancer Center will meet this critical demand for specialized cancer services, offering the area's first radiation oncology program and a new chemotherapy/infusion therapy center.

And with a substantial increase in the number of patients seeking cardiac care, Hackettstown Community Hospital plans a new Low-Risk Cardiac Catheterization (Angiography) Laboratory offering its patients extensive diagnostic, treatment and rehabilitation services for patients with cardiac distress to long-term cardiovascular and cardiopulmonary illnesses.

I ask my colleagues in the House of Representatives to join me in paying tribute to Hackettstown Community Hospital for the excellent care it provides for the citizens of northwest New Jersey and for its continued success in its efforts to become a leading Regional Hospital Center.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me. I think that message right up there says it all: ``America Speaks.'' And America spoke very loudly and correctly on November 2, 2004. November 2, 2004, was really a great day not only for the Republican Party but for the American people in this country as well. President Bush won reelection by over 3.5 million votes on that day, becoming the first Presidential candidate to win more than 50 percent of the vote since 1988.

The Republican majority also maintained the majority in both the House and the Senate, while also gaining seats in both Chambers. For House Republicans, that means this cycle Republicans made history by increasing their majority two cycles in a row. This historic game proves the critics' claims that the House was up for grabs and there was a general discontent among American voters with the Republican leadership false. Those arguments were all wrong. Republicans won 22 of the 39 so-called hotly contested seats.

Yes, on November 2 the voters confirmed that the agenda of this Republican-led Congress is in fact best for America and what the Americans want; that the Americans are for tax relief for American families and hard-working Americans everywhere; that they realize that their economic and growth policies of these last several years are right for America; that our job creation and pro-growth policies have worked. Perhaps more importantly, they realize that America's security is best in the hands of the Republican President and this Congress.

So I want to congratulate not only the President but also these newly elected Members of Congress today that made this historic feat possible. And I look forward to working with them as they come in January to be sworn in to further the successes in the 109th Congress. Because we must deliver on the confident hope of millions of American voters across this country.

We are going to be faced with enormous challenges ahead; and in a bipartisan effort, we must really support behind this agenda. So I welcome two new Members to this Congress. John R. ``Randy'' Kuhl, Jr., of the southern tier of the western New York region was elected to the 29th Congressional District in New York, and he is one of those great new Members. Now, Kuhl's past experiences will bring a wealth of information and experience to this Congress. It includes three consecutive terms in the New York State Assembly and election to the State senate in 1986. There he was appointed to the senate as assistant majority leader for house operations back in 1995. He also served as senate chairman of the senate Standing Committee on Agriculture in 1987 through 1999 when he was then appointed chairman of the senate Standing Committee on Education. He served as chairman of that committee up until 2003 when he was appointed chairman of the senate Standing Committee on Transportation.

Kuhl is also a former State chairman of ALEC, a group that I am familiar with, that is the American Legislative Exchange Council, a group for States rights, and vice chairman of the National Conference of State Legislatures, that is the NCSL. In addition to this, he is a member of the senate Select Committee on Interstate Cooperation, the New York State Early Intervention Coordinating Council, the NCSL assembly on State issues, their committee on education, and their assembly on Federal issues and their committee on education, labor and workforce development. Also another national organization, the CSG, the Council of State Governments' Intergovernmental Affairs Committee, and the CSG Eastern Regional Conference Committee on Economic Affairs.

With all of this we know that he is going to be a valued addition to this Congress, and we welcome Congressman Kuhl.

I would also like to welcome newly elected Representative Thelma Drake. Ms. Drake served as a delegate in the Virginia house for 9 years to represent the people of the 87th district. She is also a Realtor with RE/MAX Allegiance Realty's Hampton Roads home team, and she has worked as a Realtor in real estate for over 20 years.

Drake also served on the house finance, the general laws, rules and commerce and labor committees; and as a long-standing member of that committee on general laws she served as chairman of its subcommittee on housing and also as chairman of the finance tax preference committee.

In addition, she has held a leadership position in that Republican house majority. In addition to all this as well, she has served as chairman of the Virginia housing commission, is a member of the mayor's task force on ocean view, and is a board member of the Virginia Zoological Society, and also a recipient of the John Marshall Alliance for Leadership and Property Rights.

We welcome Ms. Drake. Her background and skills will be an asset to the House. As we have heard of all of the accomplishments of all the Members and the Members that we are about to hear as well, these accomplished individuals to the Republican freshman class of 2005 is a strong loop and will remain committed to working in the House of Representatives promoting the values of the American people, and I welcome you all.

Mr. Speaker, the fabric of American history is woven with the hearts of Patriots. Since the colonists' first landing on American soil centuries ago, courageous men and women have toiled, sacrificed, and persevered to build a legacy of freedom and hope for future generations.

While the public contributions of some have been widely lauded, the silent service of countless others is known only in the freedom that we as Americans continue to cherish.

Margaret Jean Wales O'Rourke was one such unheralded patriot.

Born on August 24, 1922, Margaret grew up in Saddle River, New Jersey. She became a nurse and spent time serving at St. Albans Hospital in Long Island, New York. In 1943, in the midst of World War II, Margaret answered her country's call and traveled to California to work as a nurse in the San Leandro Naval Hospital.

While in San Leandro, Margaret met Charles Arthur O'Rourke, the man who would become her husband. A fellow-patriot, Charles was born on December 19, 1923, and joined the Navy in 1942 at the tender age of 18. He spent several years at sea serving in the South Pacific during World War II.

Charles and Margaret completed their time in the Navy in 1946. They married and settled in Ramsey, New Jersey. Although their tours of duty were over, however, their service to country did not end.

The O'Rourke's had three children: Thomas, Shirl, and Barbara. Thomas carried on the O'Rourke military tradition and joined the United States Marine Corps in 1966. He remained in the Marines until 1974, serving as a Cobra pilot in Vietnam.

Today, Thomas's son and Margaret and Arthur's grandson, United States Marine Corps Major Kevin Thomas O'Rourke, continues his family's military heritage, serving as an F-18 pilot in Iraq.

Margaret passed away on August 20, 2004. Her course in life took her farther than she may have anticipated, and her legacy will surely be more enduring than she ever could have imagined. Through their dedication to protecting and preserving liberty, three generations of O'Rourke's have now become part of the tapestry of America.

While Margaret's life on earth has passed, her gift to all of us will endure. I honor Margaret's memory, and her service to the United States of America.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in full support of this body's effort to preserve the sacred institution of marriage.

Children are best served when they are raised and influenced by a mom and a dad, and marriage must continue to be the institution to best raise children and not simply for the desires of adults.

Mr. Speaker, I am the youngest of four boys who feel we were blessed to have a mom that we could look to for her loving and nurturing ways, and a dad to be there, well, when boys will be boys, to know that we had a dad.

And now I am a dad today with a wife and two young girls of my own, two young girls who are blessed to know that they can look to their mom when they need a mom, and they know that they can look to have a dad there when they need a male influence in their lives.

Marriage exists for the well-being of children. It is the only institution that gives kids a mom and a dad. Where do grownups get the right to give their own desires higher priority?

If we redefine marriage, it will harm everyone, especially the children. It will legally repudiate the idea that marriage has anything to do with a family, and will legally embrace the idea that marriage is just an arrangement for the convenience of the grownups.

Now, I am here today to support what is best for the kids. The ideal situation for a child is to grow up with a mom and a dad in a loving, committed marriage. Mothers are better able to provide certain lessons than fathers can, and fathers in turn can provide role models in ways that moms simply cannot.

I think it is time that we rip away all the rhetoric that we have heard and know that this debate comes down to this: it is a choice of being what is in the best interests of our children over the choice of what is in the best interests of a select few adults. The choice is clear. I urge all Members to support our children by supporting the Marriage Protection Amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I rise today in proud support of H.R. 2028, the Pledge Protection Act, introduced by the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Akin). We are here today because, once again, activist judges have taken it upon themselves to dictate law in this country, believing they know better than all Americans, they know better than the State legislatures or the Federal legislature, and they know better than the Founding Fathers themselves, they think.

The Pledge Protection Act defends the constitutionality of reciting the Pledge of Allegiance by simply restricting the jurisdictions of some lower Federal courts. This body here is more than within our bounds to limit the role of Federal court jurisdiction.

The power of Congress is granted in article III of the Constitution. The clause states, ``The judicial power of the United States shall be vested in one Supreme Court and in such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.''

Accordingly, the Constitution provides that the lower courts are entirely creatures of Congress, as is the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court.

Just as this Congress is checked every so often by the power of the Presidential veto, and we are checked every 2 years by re-elections, we in turn have the ability to check or rein in abusive and out-of-line courts.

The Pledge closely reflects the noblest intentions of our Founding Fathers and the inspiration that has led to the creation of this great Nation, and that is why I can confidently say that nothing in the reciting of the Pledge discriminates against any religious minorities or abuses any rights.

The phrase ``under God'' simply acknowledges that our Founding Fathers, who were leaders in the fight for our independence and the authors of our Nation's framework, did so with the inspiration and their belief in a divine being.

We all know this House starts each morning with the Pledge as we begin our business, and I believe that right should not be taken away from the children of this country as well.

Mr. Speaker, in an effort to obtain a first-hand perspective on the conditions is the newly liberated nation of Iraq, to visit with and pay tribute to our Nation's uniformed sons and daughters serving there and to share insight with officials of the newly established government, I will be leaving for Iraq tonight as part of a bipartisan congressional visit.

If I had been able to cast my vote, I would have been a proud supporter of the H.R. 1308 conference report, the All-American Tax Relief Act of 2003.

This bill will extend important tax provisions including the $1,000 per child tax credit, marriage tax relief, the expanded 10-percent income tax bracket and one year of additional relief from the alternative minimum tax (AMT).

I urge all my colleagues to support this legislation in order to prevent a tax increase on hard-working American families.

Mr. Speaker, in 10 years of majority, Republicans have made a difference and a difference not by over- legislating but by having confidence and faith in the American people and the American individual.

My Republican colleagues and I believe that it is the individual American and not the government who can best improve their lives. Financial decision-making is best done by the family and not by the Federal government. The taxpayers' money belongs in the taxpayers' pockets. They work hard for it, and they know how to spend it best.

Republicans created across-the-board tax cuts for working Americans, giving them a greater chance to spend and to save their money as they deem fit, giving them options, giving them independence. The benefits of our tax relief have rolled on to jump-start the economy, with 1.7 million new jobs this past year, with the current unemployment rate lower than the average rates of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s combined.

Mr. Speaker, in the next 10 years, the Republicans will continue to respect the American individual and, in turn, build on our successes and on the success of this great Nation.

Madam Speaker, the war in Iraq is one that we all understand is not easily won. The enemy does not play by our rules of engagement. They have no conscience, they have no decency, they have no moral compass.

Yet the same anger, arrogance, and ignorance that fuels these terrorists who have lashed out at citizens across the globe is now, according to John Kerry, a sign of the Iraqi people's ``frustration'' with the Bush administration.

Yes, there are pockets of resistance within Iraq, but Kerry's assertion that the Iraqis are acting out in political dissension with the Bush administration's military strategy is ludicrous.

Madam Speaker, Iraqis are not lashing out through political activism, they are shooting American soldiers. They are killing the very same people who have come to help them. Mr. Kerry should be more focused on reality and less on political rhetoric. Our soldiers have risked it all to liberate Iraq and the Iraqi people.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

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

Over the last few days, I have heard colleagues from both sides of the aisle address the financial situation that our government finds itself in with regard to the budget deficits and our level of spending. Mr. Chairman, while people may disagree on each side of the aisle on exactly how we got to this point, how we got here, I think most Members will agree that we are, in fact, spending too much money.

That is why I am proposing today a very simple amendment, a common- sense approach, I think, to help limit the amount of money that the government spends of our constituents' hard-earned tax dollars.

My amendment will simply do this: It will limit the number of Federal employees that are sent to international conferences funded under this bill to 50. Recently there has been a trend, unfortunately, by various government agencies to send far in excess of this number of staff to international conferences, costing taxpayers millions upon millions of dollars. Like all of my colleagues, I understand the importance of staff, both on a personal level and on an agency level, but I think we have an obligation to our citizens back at home to do all we can to rein things in.

Let me just take a moment to cite one example. Back in 2002, a U.S. agency sent 236 people to an international AIDS conference in Barcelona, Spain. These employees were sent at a cost of $3.6 million of taxpayers' funds. Someone pointed out after I raised this point earlier how much treatment and how many individuals could have been treated with that $3.6 million had we not sent so many people.

Due to my limited time here right now, I am not going to go into other examples of excesses as far as employees and staff being sent to these conferences; I am just going to urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support this amendment, to support the limited number to 50, a number that we have done on voice vote on a previous bill, on the foreign ops bill, a number that was also concurred with by the Secretary of HHS as well as in his own directive to his employees. So I encourage my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support this amendment.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

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

There is probably no more serious topic that we could be discussing this evening than we are right now when we are discussing suicide, especially when we are discussing suicide of young people. It is a serious topic, and it is an emotional topic.

Earlier today, Mr. Speaker, I heard someone say in the Chamber that this House, as we move along and make changes, we do not always make large changes or great changes at one time; we may only be making changes incrementally. And my response to that was I am all in favor of incrementally moving the agenda along, just so long as we are moving it in the right direction and not in the wrong direction, a harmful direction, or a hurtful direction. I want to be moving the agenda along in a direction that is guided by facts and thought and planning and not by emotion.

We just heard that this bill is moving along in an expedited fashion, and that is true. We are here tonight on a bill, on a piece of legislation, spending $82 million that would create two new Federal programs that never existed before, a new technical center that will deal with this issue as well; and yet there has never been an opportunity for input, discussion, a vote, or consideration in a committee. This bill has never gone in this House to a committee for a hearing, for a complete markup in a formal manner.

If you are a parent and you have thoughts on this topic, you are concerned about your children or other children in your community, you have not had the opportunity to have your say, to have your feelings, to have your thoughts heard in a committee on this subject. If you are an expert in this field, a psychologist, psychiatrist, mental health association or the like, and you have thoughts about what would be best for our children or what would be harmful to our children, you too have not had the opportunity to have your thoughts or your opinions heard in a formal committee manner.

So it is correct when we hear that this legislation is moving in an expedited format, without the committee process and already to the floor.

Now, before this bill came up, we were talking about another topic, and I heard a lot of talk about the deficit and what grave financial straits we are in. I hope they continue with those feelings when we consider a bill that is $82 million in the making for the first 3 years, and how much after that no one knows.

There was an article today in National Review that addresses this piece of legislation. It says, ``Occasionally a bill hits Capitol Hill over which there is remarkably little debate. This bill is an extreme example of that. Actually, according to news reports, there is no debating the bill, which provides additional Federal funding for suicide prevention programs in U.S. schools.'' It goes on, ``Well, of course if you are against suicide, you are for the bill; right?''

Well, we really do not know. I am certainly against suicide. Everyone in this House is against suicide. But are we all for the bill? Are parents all for the bill? Are the experts all for the bill? The article goes on to point out that, ``No, the experts are not all for the bill.'' The Journal of the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry have reported on this topic of suicide prevention programs, such as this bill addresses, and they reported, ``Suicide awareness programs in schools have not been shown to be effective either in reducing suicidal behavior or in increasing help-seeking behavior. Most kids who take their own lives are mentally ill. They need help, help that a school suicide prevention program is not going to provide them.''

``For some of the children, these new federally funded programs,'' as it says in the article, ``would reach awareness, putting ideas in their already normally confused adolescent heads.'' Conclusion: ``Such programs,'' as we are talking about tonight, ``could actually be harmful.''

Let me go back to the issue of family and the like. We have to ask: Is this yet again another encroachment on the family, on the parent- child relationship, one in which the Federal Government should at least ask for input and thought before we start creating new Federal programs on this level?

In the end, are these programs, we should be asking ourselves, more harmful than helpful? The experts seem to indicate more harmful. Another expert, David Shaffer, M.D., Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons, talking on the subject and doing research at Columbia University supported by grants for the Centers for Disease Control, suggests that ``case findings that involve giving lessons or lectures about suicide either to encourage suicidal students to identify themselves or to teach other students or teachers how to identify the suicidal teenager is not effective, and in some instances may undermine protective attitudes about suicide.''

Furthermore, from Dr. Shaffer and others, ``self-identified attempters were less likely to approve of these programs, and there was little evidence that the programs were successful in influencing their views. There was some evidence that previous attempters were more upset by the programs than nonattempters were.''

Again, the experts are showing that these programs that we are now spending money on may be more harmful than good.

There was a case several years ago in Michigan where a second grade boy killed himself in the spring of the year, the day after watching a film in a suicide prevention class such as what we are talking about today. People who knew the young boy said that he was a happy child who had just been accepted into the school's gifted and talented program, and he was not depressed at all at the time of his death. Many think that he was merely mimicking what he saw in the movie in the suicide prevention program and had no intention to die. In the movie, the boy who tries to hang himself to commit suicide is rescued by his friends. In real life, that did not occur, and the 8-year-old boy, having attended a suicide prevention program, killed himself.

As a parent, one also has to ask, where does the time come to do all these things in our schools? We already ask of our teachers so much, to teach all the curriculum already. Now we are adding an additional burden on the schools as well. I have talked to parents who have had their kids in public schools and have taken them out and either put them into private schools, Catholic schools, parochial schools, or home schooling. When I ask them why they do it, they say, because they realize the public schools are no longer focused on what they are supposed to be focusing on, and that is educating their kids. Instead, they are involved in so much other social programming, such as this.

So we have to ask ourselves this question as well: Does this program address the needs of our schools as being able to fulfill their obligation to teach our kids?

Next, we have to ask the question: Is this enough money, $82 million? Now, to me, that sounds like a lot of money; but if we are talking across the entire country for a 3-year period of time, I hazard a guess that next year and the year after that that people will be coming back and saying this was just a drop in the bucket and that we will have to spend even more.

I figured it out just briefly in my head sitting over there earlier. This would provide my county in New Jersey maybe one new counselor, if it was spread evenly across the country. One counselor for my entire county. What about all the schools in that county? Will they not be looking for assistance as well, all the other services in the county? $82 million is not going to go that far.

Now, it is set up as a 3-year program. In actuality, the bill that I am looking at talks about how much money we spend for the first 3 years; but if we look at the fine print, it details $7 million one year, $16 million the next year, and $25 million the next year. That is 3 years. But thereafter it says ``and such sums as may be necessary for each of the fiscal years 2008 and 2009.'' So, in reality, it is saying we know how much it is going to cost for the first 3 years, but after that it is anybody's question, as people come back asking for more.

In the end, suicide is an emotional topic. The legislation we are dealing with today is an emotional topic. It is one that deserves our thoughtful time, it is one that deserves input from parents and experts alike, and so, therefore, Mr. Speaker, I would recommend to vote against this bill, or, better yet, to allow this bill to go back to committee for further consideration.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute to respond.

Many times in this House we do things for symbolic purposes, and I am not suggesting that this legislation is being done for symbolic purposes, but I do have to raise the question, as I did earlier, as to just what extent this bill may be successful if everything goes right.

As I indicated before, we are spending at $82 million. That translates into around the addition of one new guidance counselor in every county in my State. So we have to question really are we providing any new services to the majority of kids, or are we just lifting up hopes and also the expectations of future calls for greater spending on these programs?

As to the aspect of additional harm that may come from this, that is the very nature of the question that I raise here. We have yet to hear of any testimony in this body as to what is the nature of the benefits of this, from academic institutions, parents or otherwise, how this may benefit the students. Anecdotally we may have some, but I would think before we get into such a critical area as dealing with the mental state of our kids that we would want to have that information on hand.

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

Again I have to say it, the topic that we are dealing with is an extremely emotional one; and I take nothing away from what the sponsors are attempting to do with this legislation. And I take nothing away from the families that have suffered from the pains and arrows of going through this. All I say is that the best method of addressing this issue was perhaps, not perhaps, absolutely not followed in this procedure, that the parents in our communities have the right to have their say to make sure that we have the best system of taking care of their kids; that the experts, the doctors, the academies, have the right to have their say as to what are the best procedures as far as addressing the issue of suicide in schools. Finally, it ultimately falls upon our families and our parents to make sure that we are bringing our kids up in the correct manner.

This legislation does not address that at all. This legislation simply expands once again the size and the scope of the Federal Government into an area where we have not heard any testimony tonight and never had the opportunity to hear testimony in the past to say whether this system will do more harm than good.

Therefore, Mr. Speaker, I would suggest a ``no'' on this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Barton).

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Offered By: Mr. Garrett

Amendment No. 2: At the end of the bill (before the short

title), insert the following:

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

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

Mr. Chairman, while those on both sides of the aisle may disagree exactly how we got here today, I think most of us, myself included, would say that, as far as the Federal budget is concerned, we are spending too much and the deficit is too high. That is why I am offering an amendment that is, I think, a commonsense approach to help limit spending and the abuse that our constituents at home complain about.

I will say this: when I go home to my town hall meetings, so many times constituents ask me, why in the world is Congress spending so much money on this or that particular program. In short, my amendment will limit the number of Federal employees that are able to be sent to international conferences to 50.

Recently, there has been a trend in our government to send far in excess of the amount of staff to these international conferences, costing our taxpayers millions and millions of extra dollars. This amendment would simply put a cap on that number.

Now, like my colleagues on the other side of the aisle on this, I understand

the importance of staff in our daily routines. I am simply saying that we should send the essential staff, those necessary in order to get the job done. Let me just give a couple of quick examples here why I bring up this amendment.

In this year, 2004, in a conference that was in Thailand for an AIDS conference, over 130 Federal employees of the U.S. Government were sent to this conference. Had my amendment been in place at that time, and been able to limit the amount of employees, Federal employees that went over there, we would have saved millions of dollars.

To put it in the context of dollars and cents, we could have provided a dose of nevirapine, which is an AIDS preventive medicine which provides benefits to babies, to over 216,616 newborns in Africa. Over almost a quarter of a million dosages could have been provided had we had a cap on people going there.

Another example, 2002: the U.S. sent 236 people to a conference in Barcelona, Spain. These employees were sent at a cost of $3.6 million. Again, my people at home, the constituents at home, ask why do we spend so much money.

Due to the limited amount of time I have right now on this amendment, I cannot go into more of the examples we have seen in past experience as far as excessive numbers of Federal employees going overseas to Federal conferences. I would simply urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support this commonsense and important amendment to make a limit as to the amount of people we send over.

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

Mr. Chairman, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Just very briefly, Mr. Chairman, I do not believe that the amendment would address those concerns, or the points the gentleman raises, and I share his concerns there. This applies to those that would come under this act, and that such conferences as those could very well conceivably be coming under the other act, like State Department and the like.