Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I would like to join this debate for a brief moment and, first, echo the remarks of the gentleman from Texas and commend anyone in this institution for their commitment to end waste, fraud and abuse within the Federal Government's spending practices. No one party controls a monopoly on good ideas, and so we must always be open and subject to agreeing where we should.

We hear about the debt tax. My wife and I live in Lavonia. We are thoroughly middle class. We have both roughly working class backgrounds. My parents were teachers. My wife came from a single- income family. We have three children, 11, 9, and 6; boy, boy, girl. And so when we hear about relief for working families, believe me, I understand it. But what I also understand, as having been an elected official for a while, is that in terms of eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse, that is something that, regardless of whatever the tax policy of the United States is, we should all be committed to doing. It is not merely a collective burden. It is a burden that individually falls on each and every single Member of this Chamber and one which, if we do not pursue, we are remiss.

My concern by linking working families' tax relief and tax relief for small businesses, many of which in my district, a manufacturing district, are tier one and tier two auto suppliers, is that in linking them to the tax relief, we run the risk of holding working families' tax relief hostage to Washington's big spending practices. In short, it amounts to the fact that no matter how much money they pay to the Federal Government, unless they stop spending even more of their money, they will get no tax relief. That is not an incentive to appropriators to stop appropriating too much of their money. That is not an incentive to go find waste, fraud, and abuse and end it in the Federal Government. That is an incentive for Washington to continue spending, because Washington will not feel the price of their largess. They will.

So I think that that is my concern in this debate, trying to link those two together because I do not believe working families should be punished. I do not believe small businesses should be punished. I do not believe anyone in the American economy should be punished for Washington appropriators' misspending or misappropriation of their funds.

In the final analysis, there is also something that we have to touch on and I have touched on as a member of the Committee on the Budget and I will continue to touched on. We hear much about the deficit. We hear much about inherited recessions. We can argue that we inherited a recession, as we heard last night; but the reality is that I think the numbers were about 9 percent of the economy was lost in one quarter, the final quarter of the Clinton administration, which I will say for the record is not a recession because it takes two quarters of negative growth to constitute a recession. Granted, no one really works that fast that they can lose 9 percent of the American economy in one quarter, but it was done, which does not constitute a recession. But as jobs follow a recovery upward, jobs follow down too in a recession, in a collapse.

In the 1990s, and I will preface this with what I have said, which is that we cannot blame the Clinton administration nor this Congress for these three things changing. I know it is hard to believe, but sometimes things are outside our control. In the 1990s we had the first rush of globalization, which was beneficial to the United States at the time. We have since seen the long-term downside of that. We then saw the rise of the Internet, which was an enormous boon to the American economy, a lot of it based on potential because we had not learned how to factor that in.

The final, and I think the most important, was the collapse of the Soviet Union because at that point in time we all thought we had a ``peace dividend,'' and the American economic activity was spurred here and was spurred throughout the globe. What those three things have been replaced with are now the downside of the outsourcing problems that we have.

I speak as a representative from a manufacturing district. We now have the fact that not everyone is going to buy things on the Internet. We have seen a constriction of the optimism, and I think a large part of that was manifested in the dot-com boom; and, most importantly, we have seen the rise of the war on terror. These factors are as much driving the shaky economy that we have in many areas of this country as anything else because we replaced the perfect storm of economic prosperity we saw in the 1990s with these three detriments.

And every single American, especially for the war on terror, has to figure out how that is going to play into their economic outlook from their family room to their boardroom. The mistake that we would make is in claiming that somehow this recession that was passed and we are coming out of in this recovery are as normal as anything we have ever been through before. I totally disagree with that premise. And I think that as we continue to link working-family relief or small-business relief, things that are important, things that will encourage people to make investment decisions, will encourage them to come out of their shell in these difficult times both here at home economically and internationally in terms of the war on terror.

If these things are allowed to expire, the American public, which grows this economy, will have an even more difficult time figuring out how to factor in the irrational act of terrorism into their rational economic calculations they have made for years and years and years. So my concern is, and it is echoed by the gentleman from Texas, is that that is a wrong message to send.

But I would like to conclude by commending the gentleman for his commitment in trying to end waste, fraud, and abuse in the Federal Government.

Mr. Speaker, as my colleagues may recall, I previously asked to see a plan for the reconstruction and the future for Iraq, and that has happened. And I would like to examine what I will refer to as a prominent politician's plan for Iraq. It is a four-point plan.

The first part is that, ``The President has to get the promise of international support so our men and women in uniform don't have to go it alone.''

I would like to point out that this is one more insult to the 30 countries whose troops are fighting and risking their lives next to ours, including Hungary, whose speaker was here today.

The prominent politician then went on to say that the United Nations Resolution 1546, which urged other countries to come and wage the peace in Iraq, he at least then pointed out ``that 3 months later, not a single country has answered that call.''

My concern is that the best way he can come up with to solve that problem is to do what Washington always does. He wants to call a meeting, and he wants to invite to that meeting the major powers of the world and Iraq's neighbors to figure out how to work the security. Now, I for one do not suggest that anyone here hold their breath while we wait for France, let alone Syria and Iran, to RSVP to that meeting.

He then goes on to talk about what we have to do to get more allies is to let them ``help develop the oil resources in Iraq.''

Now, it seems to me odd that someone who has accused the people who are fighting with us, next to us, in Iraq are being bought, bribed, coerced, extorted, et cetera, that he now believes that, like Saddam proved in the Oil For Food scandal, that the way to the U.N.'s heart is paved with black gold because to build a new alliance, you insult our old allies, our current allies and then offer them the resources of the Iraqi people through their oil. It speaks for itself.

We also hear that somehow this multilateralism is our fault, which I find fascinating. But the reality remains that it is not our fault.

This four-point plan then goes on to talk about rebuilding Iraq's security forces and talks about how the President ``must get serious about training Iraqi security forces.''

Well, I have news for the prominent politician. The President is serious about rebuilding Iraq's internal security forces and its army. Unfortunately, the terrorists are just as serious about killing them before they get started. Unfortunately, nowhere does this plan reference that reality on the ground in Iraq.

It is then pointed out, something which I agree with, that the Iraqi people must feel a more palpable result of this reconstruction. I have agreed with that since last fall when I started saying that, and I have continued to say it. The problem is that the plan then goes into a top- down change in the contracting process, to emphasize ``a few on a list of high-visibility, quick-impact projects'' for ``an Iraqi where the job is less likely to shoot at our soldiers.''

My problem with this is this is not an Iraqi empowerment plan, it is a PR campaign. For the Record, the militia is not fighting for a public works project, and Zarqawi is not an Iraqi. He is a Jordanian. The true empowerment in Iraq's reconstruction must come from the grassroots, through allowing tribal leaders, through allowing town councils, through allowing the national government and religious leaders to make the decisions on what projects are important and giving them the resources to implement them and build their own stake in their free future.

Finally, there is the intriguing argument that somehow the goal in Iraq is

a peaceful resolution. Now, I am a Republican; I admit that. I am happy to. My father was a Truman Democrat, and if my father were alive today, I think I would have to ask him: Dad, do you ever remember F.D.R. or Truman asking for the Nazis to have unconditional resolution? Is that what we fought for? Did Ulysses Simpson Grant? Did that stand for unconditional resolution? Is this a new outcome?

The reality in Iraq is quite simple. There are two roads. There is victory and democracy, or there is defeat and Zarqawi. To sit here and claim that multilateralism from the United Nations is going to help us is bereft of any knowledge of why the U.N. acts as it does. The former colonial powers of the United Nations and the current tyrannical regimes of the United Nations quite simply believe that an America with the ability to preemptively protect its citizens from terrorists is a graver threat to them than the terrorists themselves, including Saddam Hussein who, I point out, in the Oil For Food scandal made many multilateralists quite rich. If you do not understand what is undergirding the opposition amongst these people in the United Nations, then you do not realize that your plan to have them save us, to have them come to our aid with troops and with money and with good intentions, is quite simply confusing the United Nations Security Council with Santa Claus. It will not happen.

The reality remains. The U.N. will not ride to the rescue, and there is no peaceful resolution acceptable to the American people or the Iraqi people short of victory, which is a word we do not hear much from some quarters these days.

In the final analysis, I believe that the absence of the willingness to admit that we have to win is becoming quite a problem.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to acknowledge and honor the City of Walled Lake, Michigan on the occasion of its 50th anniversary. Founded on December 7, 1954 the beautiful City of Walled Lake is noted for its bustling community of some 7,000 residents enveloped by a country atmosphere. The City of Walled Lake's caring citizens, diligent community leaders, superior schools, vibrant economy, and proud heritage constitute an exceptional civic life for its citizens.

The City of Walled Lake's rich history dates back to 1830, when two men by the names of King and Prentice established a trading post for Native Americans on the lake's eastern shore. Soon, in 1838 a general store to be established here William R. Adams; and in 1834, Ms. Fanny Tuttle taught in the first log cabin school.

The twentieth century saw the city serve as home to the Walled Lake Amusement Park, the abode of the Flying Dragon, the Pretzel, the Tilt- a-Wheel, the Rocket Ride, as well as the Walled Lake Casino where all of the name bands played--Red Nichols and the Dorsey Brothers, Les Brown, Harry James, Vaughn Monroe, Lawrence Welk, and Chuck Berry. Today, the City of Walled Lake has truly created a blend of old time charm with new and continued growth for its residents and its business community.

Mr. Speaker, today I ask you and my esteemed colleagues to please join me in congratulating the citizens of the City of Walled Lake on their very special anniversary.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the distinguished chairman of the Committee on Armed Services for recognizing a lowly member of the Committee on International Relations.

Mr. Speaker, hopefully, we do a better job of talking so my colleagues have to do less cleaning up of our messes.

I just wanted to take a moment to talk about the President's speech in front of the United Nations, especially in relation to the horrific events that we have seen in Iraq. I think it is very important that we see that we have two messages, deeply distinct, that are being aimed at the hearts of the world and our fellow Americans. On the one hand, we have the President of the United States standing in front of the United Nations General Assembly and reaffirming this Nation's commitment to democracy, to liberty and to hope throughout the world. On the other hand, we have terrorists who, despite whatever political rationale they put forward, are nothing short of murderers who offer a perpetuation of evil and horror for their fellow human beings.

It would seem to me today that nothing could more show the stakes in Iraq, because, despite the panaceas that are proffered by many politicians, Iraq has two futures. Iraq will be a democracy, or Iraq will belong to Zarqawi. No amount of international support that is promised will materialize. It is up to the Iraqi people and America's coalition partners to ensure that Iraq remains free from any tyrant, especially the tyrants of terror that are currently exerting their will in some pockets of the country.

I bring this up because it is important for us here at home to realize that the gravest threat to the United States of America in the battle for Iraq is our resolve, as the President has rightly said. For, as it has been noted often, the war on terror is fought as much on a map as it is on your mind as a civilian. The images that we see, the actions that are put forward are designed to terrorize us. And they are designed to terrorize us so that we can no longer think clearly or rationally about the situation in Iraq. It is designed so that a handful of evil people can try to obscure the fact that tens of millions of Iraqi people are living daily lives and are trying to build a country and a better future for themselves.

Mr. Speaker, a terrorist attack by one suicide bomber that blows up 47 people standing in line to join in the defense of their country and the promotion of their future, the story there is not the terrorists, the suicide, the foreign terrorists destroying innocent life; it is over 47 people in Iraq were killed to stand in line to defend their freedom, to fight for a better future for themselves and their children. And they will keep standing in line, and they will keep coming. That is the story. It is the resiliency of the Iraqi people, not the evil of the terrorists who wish to subjugate them once again and turn Iraq back into a haven for terrorists.

It is the terror that will preclude us from seeing that stark reality, the reality that we need to see, the reality that the gentleman from Georgia talked about, the historical examples that have been put forward by the gentleman from Utah, the rational thought that is required of us as policymakers and as people of this Nation to understand not only the stakes but the situation.

As we go forward and as the world looks and has a chance to reflect upon the message of the terrorists or the message of our President at the U.N., I think it is also necessary at this time for me to point out that, at the United Nations, many of those people in that General Assembly would not be sitting in those seats if their countries were free and democratic. So to all of those nations, be they free or democratic in the United Nations, regarding Iraq, I would just like them to ponder one thing. History may commend them for a reluctance to wage a war, but history will condemn them for their refusal to win the peace. And right now, those are the stakes.

I appreciate the opportunity to talk on this issue.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Pearce). As a member of the Committee on International Relations, Subcommittee on the Middle East, I would like to thank the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Ros-Lehtinen) for bringing into the committee some victims who had survived Saddam Hussein's brutality so we could personally hear from them. They also had with them a documentary filmmaker, Mr. Janos, who showed excerpts of his film interviewing survivors, the grieving mothers and widows of Saddam Hussein's executioners.

It is not often that we truly get a chance to plumb the unfathomable depths of human pain, but I believe we experienced that in committee yesterday. We had a chance to see a grieving mother whose husband was killed, whose children were killed, saying she would never laugh again in her lifetime, and praying to God for a short life and a merciful death so she could forget.

We saw a mother break down because she remembered the cries of her child in a cell, a 6 year old, crying out that he had no milk, he was hungry. Well, he is gone and she remains to grief. We had a Mr. Ibraham and a Mr. Taimor. They were both testaments to the evil of the Iraqi dictator. Mr. Ibraham, a Shiite, had been chased through that country, arrested several times, housed in Abu Ghraib prison, and was so shocked by what he experienced there he could not speak about it, especially about what happened to the women.

We also saw Mr. Taimor who had been shot by Iraqi executioners in front of a mass grave and while bleeding had to crawl out.

We in this country hear much from many that Iraq was a mistake. I ask one thing of those people, I ask them to say it to those victim's faces. We hear the hippocrits in this country say that Saddam was a bad man, but the United States should not have taken him from power. I ask them to say that to the Iraqi victims' faces. For those people who believe America is the greatest threat to peace in the world, I ask them never to show their faces in public again.

Whether we like it or not, what we are seeing internationally is a clash of revolutions. It is a clash of revolutions that is fought not upon maps but upon minds. It is the American revolution of freedom for the individual and republican forms of democracy and private enterprise that chased every king from Europe or put them on the dole, that has chased imperial Japanese forces and put a democracy in place, and the world is better. We have seen the Philippines that we once annexed and helped bring into a stable democracy, and throughout the globe we see people trying to emulate the freedom and opportunity we have here.

Yet the second revolution, which is lot upon many, is the Iranian revolution, a revolution of extremism and totalitarianism perverting the peaceful tenets of Islam to accomplish political objectives. Right now our revolutions meet in Iraq. That is why those in this country who do not think deeply about this believe we can retreat from Iraq and that the only consequence will be the United States will have to act multilaterally. The reality is we cannot retreat because unless freedom and democracy are established on the borders of the Iranian revolution, the Iranian revolution will continue to be exported through means both traditional and terrorist. The stakes have never been greater.

I know it is very difficult for many to remember that we are and remain the seminal revolutionary country, and that in many ways it is hard to admit we are a moral force for good in this world, and that absent the United States, what would the world be like.

Well, we might have trouble remembering that, but when I had the chance to ask the victims of Saddam if they thought any other country on the face of the earth could or would save them from his butchery, their answer was no, only the United States could do that. Only the United States would do that. I asked them if they thought it was a mistake, and they said no, that they believe we were a great and a good country for helping to save them.

So as we engage in the debate through now and the election and perhaps throughout the remainder of our lives, let us remember what is at stake, the clash of revolutions. Either we will prevail or we will be defeated, and if we are defeated, as President Lincoln said, we will lose the last best hope of earth.

Mr. Speaker, I would just like to touch upon a couple of points that the gentleman from New Mexico brought up. One of them I think that is fascinating is the fixation in this country to try to split hairs between what is a collaborative tie between Iraq and al Qaeda or what is, I suppose, called a casual tie between Iraq and al Qaeda. Or whether or not because al Qaeda may or may not have been involved in Iraq to a great extent but other terrorists were, it still was unjustified.

It seems to me, and I can only speak for myself on this, if a terrorist kills me, it is not really going to matter to me whether he was al Qaeda or whether he was some other group that was housed in Iraq or anything else. It is going to seem to me that, assuming I am looking down as opposed to looking up, I would ask the question why nothing was done. Have we become that legalistic in this country, that formalistic, that blind to the reality around us that we do not understand that if a dictator hates you and a terrorist hates you and they have ties, it does not bode well for you?

I think that is just something that has grated on me for quite some time, how we tend to intellectualize things without seeing the reality, behind the sophistry of the arguments. It is much like the approach that many wish to take towards terrorism. Many in this country believe that you can cleanse the criminal by deeming it political. A murder is a murder. Kidnapping is kidnapping. Extortion is extortion. It is an inherently, intrinsically evil act. The goal for which one engages in the intrinsically evil act does not change its nature, does not justify it.

So when we hear many in the international community trying to justify the actions of the terrorists based upon years of colonial occupation by European powers, I reiterate European powers, or we hear that there are underlying root causes, many of which are valid root causes but no justification for the act of terrorism, we have to be clear in our minds, because as I said before, every single American today is under attack from the terrorists. The act of killing our fellow citizens or kidnapping and killing our fellow citizens or kidnapping and killing other citizens of this world is designed to prey upon our minds, so that we believe that we cannot prevail, that we tend to doubt that people wish to breathe free, that they wish to love their children, that they wish to grow old, that they wish to savor the gift of life from our Creator.

Some would have you believe that there are people in this world that are unfit for democracy, that they would say they can never take to this forum, that it cannot be imposed from above. I believe that the thirst for democracy, the thirst for freedom, comes from within, and that what we as a Nation have done is created the conditions in which their own yearnings can be expressed and their own futures be determined, and then can they live in freedom. I think that if you come from

that perspective, it is easy. It is difficult to miss the reality in Iraq which proves my point about the terrorists trying to prey upon your mind. There are 25 million people in Iraq.

The reason the terrorists are engaging in individual suicide bombings, in individual kidnappings, is because you do not have millions of Iraqis fighting with their new government to return to the days of Saddam Hussein.

We do not see organized armies of Iraqis out in the field en masse trying to overthrow the transitional government and replace it with a terrorist regime. What we see every day in Iraq is what we try to do here: Iraqi citizens trying very desperately to live normal, happy lives. They want to take their children to school.

Let me just stress this. In this country when people take their child to school, they generally feel safe that their child will be in a stable environment, will be educated, will return to their loving arms. Put oneself in a position of an Iraqi parent today, and the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Pearce) and I were there at the time of the so- called days of national resistance when the first place they put the fliers threatening to kill people were around the schools so the parents would not take their children to school. We see an Iraqi parent, they have to take their child to school with the threat of terrorism around them every day in a magnitude we have yet to experience. We see them dropping them at the schools, under threat of death for doing so, and then praying that their child comes home to them.

And yet many in this world will say that these are people unfit for freedom. They are no different than we are. I think it was President Kennedy that put it best: We all inhabit this small planet. We all breath the same air. We all cherish our children's future, and we are all mortal.

To our fellow human beings in Iraq, we cannot offer condescension. We cannot offer derision. We must continue to offer assistance so that they can breath free, so that their internal thirst can commence upon a quest for freedom in their lifetimes.

And probably one of the things I will always remember from Iraq, as we were leaving, we were getting on the Black Hawk helicopters to leave the Green Zone for the final time. It was Halloween, and there was an American soldier with a small Iraqi child, maybe 8 or 10, and he had little Dracula fangs he was playing with and smiling at the American soldier. That to me expressed the hope for Iraq, that that child who has been inoculated, who has been given an opportunity to go to school, whose parents have a chance to seize his freedom, that child is the future of Iraq, and we cannot turn our back on that child.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New Mexico for yielding.

I would just like to conclude with an observation and a question. When we last participated in special orders, I asked the question about where is the opposition's plan for dealing with terrorism? Where is their plan for reconstructing Iraq? Where is their plan essentially to protect the national security of the United States, whether they would delegate it to the United Nations or keep it where it remains, here in the bosom of the sovereign people?

Well, I got kind of an answer, and I guess maybe this is what passes for planning these days, it seems to me more a statement of the obvious, that part of the opposition's plan was that they would, with sufficient evidence, preemptively take out terrorists.

Well, I am glad that they concur with part of the President's plan. But that is not necessarily the in-depth approach that we need at the present time. Maybe the forthcoming week will show us more.

My observation along those lines is perhaps more of a frustration, that many people today are saying that America needs international support if we are to stand with the Iraqi people. We all know we would enjoy international support. But what I find galling is they will then turn around and say they are most capable of building the international support for the coalition to help reshape Iraq and help defend the United States. But, in the process of doing that, they have done something very interesting, is that they have denigrated as coerced, as distorted, as bribed, quote-unquote, the allies we have abroad as part of our coalition whose children, whose young men and women, are fighting beside our soldiers in Iraq and who are dying.

Now, I am a liberal arts guy, I was not a math guy, but it seems to me that if you attack and denigrate your own allies, it is very difficult through subtraction to build a larger coalition, especially when one is going to rely on people who have adversarially tried to undermine the United States' effort and our coalition partners' efforts in Iraq. I am thinking of many people in the United Nations who during the Oil For Food scandal were not necessarily in the best position to tell Saddam Hussein, who they were in league with and making money off of, to try to follow the resolutions they passed regarding weapons of mass destruction.

So I would just ask people to consider whether someone may or may not hypothetically be fit to be the Commander-in-Chief of the United States who, during a time of war, denigrates our allies and courts our adversaries. There is no simpler way to put that, because that is absolutely true. Ask yourself that question.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to acknowledge and honor the City of Novi Police Department as we celebrate the department's 50th Anniversary.

The men and women who protect the Novi community have a long and distinguished record.

In 1954, the Oakland County Sheriff's Department had been patrolling the small farming community of Novi, and protecting its approximately 5,000 residents. As the community grew, the Board of Trustees worked to establish their own force.

The Department's first chief, Lee BeGole, a member of the Wayne County Sheriff's Department and World War II U.S. Army veteran, organized the fledgling organization. BeGole served alone initially, adding three or four officers later on. He was a dedicated law enforcement officer who served the City of Novi for 32 years.

During its early years, the Novi Police Department served the community by making the most of its meager means. With a pair of police cars and no police radios, the operation of the Department was very basic. Police equipment was very basic, too. The officers furnished their own firearms and paid for their uniforms. The patrol cars did not have overhead emergency lights, but rather were equipped with red or blue spotlights and a ``coaster siren'' under the hood.

The size and scope of the department has increased greatly over the past half century. In 1991 Chief BeGole retired and Douglas F. Shaeffer became the second Chief of Police in Novi's history. The Department moved into the 21st Century--the 1968 Rambler with the single red/blue roof light and coaster siren has been replaced by a large fleet of the latest police package Ford Crown Victorias, equipped with multifunction electronic emergency lights and siren. The old faithful police revolvers have been replaced by the newest in semiautomatic Glock pistols. Laptop computers are installed in each patrol unit, and a new in-house data system at the station has taken over most of the hand- written reports and forms used daily.

Today, the City of Novi Police Department is truly a world-class law enforcement organization led by outstanding men and women who are committed to providing the community with the highest caliber service and protection.

Mr. Speaker, today I ask you and my esteemed colleagues to please join me in congratulating Chief Doug Shaeffer, the men and women of the Novi Police Department, and the elected officials and citizens of Novi for their support of 50 years of excellence in law enforcement.

Mr. Speaker, I request the House of Representatives join me in recognizing Ms. Diane Browning, who has been chosen the Women of Westland's 2004 Woman of the Year.

Ms. Browning's dedication to Westland led her to serve as the Women of Westland's Secretary this past year, in which role she has participated in every event the group has sponsored--the Relay of Life, a 24-hour charitable walk for the American Cancer Society to promote cancer research; the Respite Relief program to provide for children; countless scholarship programs to promote educational opportunities; and, of course, her long standing devotion to the Huron Valley Girl Scouts.

Honest, intelligent, and intensely involved in the life of her city, Ms. Browning truly represents the transcendent spirit of Westland. Her daughter, Gretchen, and her parents, Bud and Virginia Hassett, are rightfully proud of Diane's undeniable mark on the community; and we are all admiring of and appreciative for her inspired leadership on behalf of our community and our country.

Mr. Speaker, the timing was impeccable tonight, to have heard the previous speaker from Ohio talking about the 30-something Democratic Caucus.

As a 38-year-old Republican, I am disappointed his bipartisan effort has not reached this far across the aisle to include some of the rest of us. Especially people my age, we are not baby boomers. We are Generation X. We grew up through the malaise of the Carter years. We grew up watching America internationally impotent in the world. We watched friends, neighbors, family lose their jobs under stagflation.

And then we watched Ronald Reagan's administration come in. We watched America be truly respected throughout the world. We watched free market economies grow and expand to provide opportunities for us as we left our college years, and we were blessed enough to see the fall of Godless communism throughout Eastern Europe.

But then we are also very practical opinion people for another reason, because shortly after that, we got to see our generation quoting Thomas Jefferson and James Madison on the streets of Tiananmen Square being gunned down by yet another totalitarian government, and we realized early on in life that life is a struggle between good and evil and in many ways it is a perpetual one.

My generation also had some difficult lessons to learn too. We were the first ones to realize that a sexual infection which was once curable could be superseded by sexual infections that could kill people; that we would have to continue to work our lives longer and longer with even the remote chance that we would have Social Security because we were the first generation smaller than the one that went in front of us, which was never part of the plan. We have to watch our parents, who are living longer, come to us for help as we try to watch the soaring cost of tuition for our own children behind us.

And perhaps because of the realistic, practical nature of my generation and perhaps something we have gotten from our grandparents, the Greatest Generation, that I think it is time on Iraq to ask some fundamental questions, and I think they are exceedingly fair questions to ask because no one has answered them and no one has bothered to posit any answers to them.

I want to know what the plan is from the minority party. The multilateral mantra has been disproved by the U.N.'s Oil-for-Food scandal, their inability to stop genocide in the Sudan or in Rwanda prior to that, and their abject anti-Americanism in so many of their member states.

Would we like to see multilateralism work and the reconstruction of Iraq? Absolutely. But I do not think we the American taxpayers should hold our breath until the governmental entity where we pay 22 percent of their core funding decides that they do not dislike us as much as they do.

So multilateralism is also not going to work because the Democratic approach to that has been quite simple. The Democratic Presidential nominee has derided and criticized our allies whose soldiers are fighting and dying next to us in the fields of Iraq as the coalition of the bribed and the coerced, the bought, and the extorted. How do they build an international coalition attacking their allies? Whom are they trying to add? One cannot attack their allies and add their adversaries and call that a true coalition, especially if one is trying to be the Commander in Chief of the United States Armed Forces.

So then we have to ask, what is the plan? We have not heard a plan. We have to ask, on the question of weapons of mass destruction, what constitutes a significant tie with al Qaeda? If one does not believe there were significant enough ties, there were contacts, although the same intelligence which is being derided is also being used to disprove that they were collaborative, which is quite an interesting feat rhetorically. I want to know under what circumstances, what was the threshold the minority party would hold Saddam Hussein to before they would engage in defending the United States of America without a veto from the U.N. When could we unilaterally protect ourselves if necessary?

Ten tons of yellow cake from Niger, which the French Government, the Italian Government, and the British Government still stand by exclusive of the bogus material, the one bogus document. What is the threshold? What is a collaborative link? What is their standard for defending the United States against an external threat from a terrorist-sponsoring state and a terrorist-sheltering state? If they did not like President Bush's, if they do not believe he had enough, then I ask them to tell us what their standard is so as we head into this election we can have a debate on issues, not individuals, because the American people deserve to know what they are going to do to defend this country if they hold public office today and tomorrow and probably for our lifetime in this war on terror. I think those are fair questions to ask.

I think we should also ask the question about the moral equivalency that we used to see between the Soviet Union and the United States and the left in this country, I want to ask the question where did the moral equivalency go? There is more outrage over

Abu Ghraib prison than there is the treatment of American soldiers that are shot and killed by the insurgents and terrorists in Iraq. The actions at Abu Ghraib were horrible, but the purpose behind them was to gather information from people who were shooting at and trying to kill our troops to protect our troops and protect the United States citizens, just as it was at Guantanamo Bay. The goal of the terrorists that are violating every civilized notion of captivity, their goal is to foist terrorism back upon Iraq and back upon the rest of the world.

It is so sad, I would not even settle for moral equivalency from the left these days that would wax nostalgic for it.

Finally, I just find it very difficult to see this debate continue and not to see a plan. I reiterate that. We are sentient human beings. We have the gift of reason if we so choose to use it. And as we head into this troubled time for our country, deeper and deeper we go, the longer and longer it takes us to come to each other with ideas to debate and discuss for the common good that can be objectively analyzed and assessed by the electorate and by each other, the worse off we are going to be.

So in the future I would just ask a simple question of anyone who has any opinion on this, on Iraqi reconstruction, on weapons of mass destruction, on the role of the United Nations in this world. It is nice to have their protestation and opinion, but show me their plan and perhaps we can proceed together.

Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield further, I am most impressed by the gentleman from Utah's understanding of the Spanish-American War. In fact, I would only add that there were also front page stories about American troops and captured insurgents in that war as well.

The gentleman brings up a very good point that I would welcome the opportunity to address, as my district has many constituents who are Iraqi and Arab American and, more importantly, many of my friends are.

One of the things we have heard repeatedly throughout this debate is the Iraqi people will not take to democracy, that they have suffered too long under a totalitarian yoke.

Well, what country could you not say that about in this world? Half have suffered under totalitarianism with no history of democracy, including up until the fall of the Soviet Union, Russian people themselves? How many Eastern European countries never knew full freedom, only knew serfdom and feudalism?

So I would like to add to my list of requests for plans one final one: Those people who believe that there are some human beings that cannot take to democracy, I would like your test and your complete list of those who you deem unfit for freedom.

First, just a couple of minor observations on the debate so far tonight. We heard earlier the gentleman from Oregon mention that the Pentagon on three separate occasions believed that they could strike and eliminate a terrorist who was a threat to the United States. I would just caution the gentleman to be very careful lest he be considered as advocating a preemptive unilateral act of war against a resident alien in his sovereign host country.

Also, on the previous mentioning of plans, whether real or not, that explored potentially delaying the election, I, too, would just like to say that I would oppose any plan to delay an American election. But I also think that it is important to remember that in the 1864 election Abraham Lincoln did not spend a lot of time personally campaigning to win the votes of southern voters, as my understanding is that those people chose not to participate in that election. The distinction which is critical would be, then, that while the southern States in rebellion chose not to participate in the Presidential election, there may be many Americans who, through an act of terror, may be precluded against their will from participating in an American election.

So if we are done with the rhetorical flourishes of partisanship, perhaps there would be some who would like to explore a responsible policy approach and instead think of if an urban center, which are primarily the targets of the terrorists, would be attacked, we do not suspend the date of the election but perhaps the election could be extended until those people could be given their American constitutional right to vote in that election. I say that as a Republican knowing full well that my party does not do well in large urban areas, but I say that as an American respecting the rights of my fellow citizens to be able to participate in the choosing of their national leadership.

On to the point that I wish to talk about. Mr. Speaker, in addition to playing host to the United Nations, United States taxpayers provide 22 percent of the United Nations' core funding. It is not, therefore, inhospitable nor unwarranted for U.S. taxpayers to demand a full and fair accounting of the U.N.'s $111 billion Oil-for-Food Program, especially when, as revealed in a May 6 article by Hudson Institute Fellow Claudia Rosett, the U.S. Treasury Department has designated one of the Oil-for-Food contractors as a front group for senior officials of the Saddam Hussein regime.

Initial reports estimate over $10 billion has been stolen, misplaced and/or skimmed from this program that was designed to help the Iraqi people. Combined with the aforementioned front group/contractor, we may well have witnessed a U.N.-administered relief program result in food being torn from the mouths of victimized Iraqis and placed in the pockets of Saddam's executioners and their contemptible, utterly corrupt international co-conspirators.

We in the world demand and deserve answers, Mr. Speaker, and yet we have been met by a stone wall of resistance and a wealth of stealth on the part of the United Nations. Excuses abound for the cover-up, the two most noticeable being that it is an institutional response. I am sure that they culled that from the old records of Tammany Hall. They also say that they will not release any of the 55 internal audits because of the, quote, sensitivity of member states. I think that the sensitivities of member states like the United States and the United States Congress which have repeatedly asked for these documents should be accorded as much as the purported sensitivity of states who may have something to hide.

If they do in fact have nothing to hide, if the intimidating letters to contractors and the untendered records to Congress may be belied, then to save its last lingering endangered chard of integrity, General Secretary Kofi Annan, with the stroke of a pen, can release all the requisite oil for food documents and shed transparency and truth upon this abominable fraud. And while the U.S. taxpayers might not hold our breath until he complies, we U.S. taxpayers must withhold our funding from the United Nations until he does.

Mr. Speaker, we are engaged in a great debate in a great and dangerous time. At the heart of this debate dwells the United Nations' scandalous Oil-for-Food program, for it constitutes not merely a matter of dollars and cents, but truly a matter of life and death.

I would like to quote to prove the point a copyrighted article by the writer Claudia Rosett, who is a Fellow at the Hudson Institute, in which she cites Claude Hankes-Drielsma, a British advisor to the interim governing council, in which he says of the scandal, ``It is expected to demonstrate the clear link between those countries which were quite ready to support Saddam Hussein's regime for their own financial benefit at the expense of the Iraqi people and those that opposed the strict applications of sanctions and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.''

Clearly this proves the scandal not only has disgraceful fiscal consequence but has also had dire martial consequences.

The resolutions regarding the weapons of mass destruction that the U.N. passed and yet lacked the resolve to fully and fairly and truly enforce, that lack of resolve will remain a question in the minds of many as long as this scandal lingers; for we will have to ask ourselves, did the U.N. come to their decisions, come to their lack of resolve with clean hands or with the money of Saddam Hussein in them? How much better would intelligence have been had the U.N. been actively and forcefully trying to get Saddam Hussein and Iraq to comply with those sanctions rather than finding one excuse or another not to do so?

In terms of our U.S. coalition and the buildup to the war, how many other countries would have been willing to join us had not many in the U.N. undermined our efforts to enforce those resolutions? And again, we ask ourselves, Did those countries that undermined our efforts to build a coalition come to that with clean hands or with Saddam Hussein's Oil- for-Food money in those very hands?

As for our soldiers, we now have to ask ourselves, how much of the potentially $10 billion that was skimmed, stolen, misplaced, misspent, gone, how much of that money wound up in the hands of contractors who were front groups, as the U.S. Treasury has just designated one, of contractors who did business under the Oil-for-Food scandal? How much of that money that was stolen is currently being used by Saddam's insurgents and terrorists to kill America's sons and daughters in Iraq?

So much of the debate that we have heard internally in this country cannot have a resolution or even properly be addressed until we determine the extent of the corruption, the venality and the moral bankruptcy that lurks at the heart of this scandal, especially because the great debate I mentioned in many quarters these days hinges on this.

There are those in this country who believe the United States should be more like the United Nations. I for one am not ashamed or abashed to say I believe the United Nations should be more like the United States. If they had been, perhaps the sanctions would have worked, perhaps the dictator would have been deposed through democracy and other soft means; but we were not given that chance to see that because we were not dealing with an ally at the United Nations. We were dealing with an adversary. We were dealing with an adversary bent on their own financial gain at the expense of the Iraqi people and democracy throughout the world.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in honor of Mr. Dale Freese and his 30 years of service to the City of Westland.

After serving honorably in Vietnam as an Air Force Staff Sergeant, Dale was approached by his family asking him to take over Norman's Market, a grocery market owned by his father, Norman Freese. Immediately after taking over, Dale expanded the store and improved the shopping environment, thus increasing sales. But Dale also used the store for the purpose of philanthropy, giving many organizations the use of his store for fund-raising purposes, including the March of Dimes and the Muscular Dystrophy Association. Dale has also given his own time for many worthy causes. In particular, he has provided his own resources to homeless shelters and has helped improve the job skills of local students through his participation in the Garden City High School co-op program. Above all, his generosity and civic activism have made him an important member of Westland.

Mr. Speaker, I extend my sincere appreciation to Dale Freese for all he has done and his fine example of how local business can make a difference in the community.

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

In many ways, it is with somewhat of a heavy heart that I rise in support of the amendment, especially as the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf) has been so helpful in restoring the Manufacturing Extension Partnership funds which will help my State of Michigan, and because of the enormous respect I have for the chairman of the Committee on International Relations on which I sit, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hyde).

But being from Michigan, my small businesses have asked me to come and support this amendment and ask that we not raise these fees at a time when the Fed is raising our interest rates. As the backbone of our economy, our small businesses deserve no less during difficult times, especially while, despite a recovering economy, pockets of persistent downturn remain, many of them in the industrial States, one of which I represent.

As for the National Endowment for Democracy, in many ways it is important to remember that democracy begins at home. It will be very difficult to continue to mobilize Americans' resolve to spread democracy abroad if in an economic downturn we are tempted to turn inward towards our own struggling economy.

The continued support of small business, the perpetuation of their entrepreneurial dreams, is the seed of democracy which we are endeavoring to sow throughout the world. Let us not forget them and turn our backs today.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in honor of Bill McSween upon his retirement after 26 years of service to our community.

After graduating from Brown University on a hockey scholarship, Bill McSween served our country in the United States Army. In 1978, the same year he was inducted into the Michigan Amateur Athletic Hall of Fame for his exceptional hockey career, Bill came to the Redford Township Parks and Recreation Department as Assistant Director. In 1992, Bill was promoted to Director of Parks and Recreation.

Over the past 26 years, Bill has left an undeniable mark upon our community. Citizen participation in recreation programs throughout the township has flourished under his direction. Bill successfully negotiated two projects involving school lands being leased to the township for one dollar, which fostered the creation of new recreational programs for both the township and the schools involved; and successfully passed on his passion for sports and recreation to our entire community.

Let there be no doubt: Bill McSween is a paragon of public service.

His wife, Marge, and his children, Katie, Kelly and Bill, should be rightly and extremely proud of the undeniable mark he has left on the life of our community; while, we all will sorely miss and always benefit from his dedication and leadership.

Mr. Speaker, I extend my sincere appreciation to Mr. Bill McSween, upon his retirement as Director of Parks and Recreation for Redford Township, for his fine service to our community and our country.

Mr. Speaker, on June 17 a friend to our community, Mr. Rolland B. ``Bob'' Lyons passed away following a courageous fight with cancer in which his courage never faltered or failed. Enduring and self-effacing, this entrepreneurial genius and civic leader, who used to like to call himself ``just a ditch digger from Ann Arbor,'' was a truly unique character.

He had a massive toy collection. He created a reproduction of a 19th century hardware store in his office. And most of all, he liked to wear some of the most outrageous seersucker suits and bow ties that you would ever see, at least back home in Michigan.

Bob was probably one of the people in life that you would meet that you could not but befriend. I would like to extend my condolences to his family and to all who, in knowing Bob Lyons, could not but love him.