Neil Abercrombie

Mr. ABERCROMBIE

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. That was never revealed to me. I must say, and I want it on the record, that I resent that. If I knew that at least, that is okay. I am an adult. I am perfectly capable of differentiating between someone's sincerely held views and business associations they might have. If somebody represents to me that, look, I just want to tell you that we have a business relationship with this person, but I hope you will grant me that I am speaking to you, giving you my best and sincerest personal judgment regardless of my connection, I can accept that, and I would have, surely, because I like to think that I am a person, I hope, of some integrity, and I would do the same. If I have strong views about something, I will certainly tell people the whys and wherefores of it. But as a Member of Congress and having had conversations with Mr. Woolsey concerning some of these issues, not to have that kind of information, I think, is a subterfuge. I am sorry to say it. It pains me. It pains me to say that. What you just said to me is, in fact, shocking. If people want to be cynical about it or think that I am just making some rhetorical flourish, they can think so, but it is not. I do not conduct my affairs that way. I do not deal with other people that way. I feel personally offended, to tell you the truth, that such a thing could take place. I had no idea that there was that kind of relationship, because I think that might have colored what was said to me.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. If the gentleman will yield, I want to make sure I understood really, because I have had some conversations with Mr. Woolsey. They were affable. I considered them informative and straightforward. I just want to make sure. You mean when he was talking to me about these issues, he was part of a firm that was being paid $10,000 a month by one of the individuals, by Chalabi himself?

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Perhaps the gentleman can enlighten me by answering that question.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, I have never seen a picture or any film of Mr. Chalabi when he was not smiling and when he did not have the smuggest look on his face and when he did not have the demeanor of someone who had pulled off a coup, when he did not have a patronizing attitude towards those doing the interview. I can understand why. He has played us for saps and suckers, and the result is we have dead and wounded, grievously wounded. The result is the sacking of the Treasury of the United States, and the result is that we have had people whose ideological bent in the administration was such that they wanted to go to war using each other, Chalabi using them, them using Chalabi, in the most cynical fashion, the result of which we now see before us. He said, and I remind Members and those listening to us, what was said before is not important. That which became the justification for what we did is not important. He got what he wanted. Those who wanted to have war with Iraq got what they wanted. They are not paying the price. They are not the ones who have to suffer for the rest of their lives either by having grievous wounds or by having the irretrievable loss of someone that they love as a result of this. The question for us and the question that we have to ask not just ourselves but the American people are going to have to ask, is, is this going to be allowed? Is this going to be something that we are going to pass off? The fact that the Newsweek cover that the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt) referred to in his remarks just previously could have a headline, ``How Dick Cheney Sold the War,'' the crass indifference of a headline like that in terms of its implications, as if you sell a war, not that you are driven into it, not that necessity forced you to come to that sorry and reluctant conclusion, but rather how you sold the war. Nothing, I think, could be a commentary more persuasive to me of how this has been manipulated, how this has been maneuvered in a way that discredits this administration, discredits Mr. Cheney in that role. He has yet to come to grips with it, and the White House and the administration as a whole has yet to come to grips with it, because if my information is correct and the information given to The Washington Post is correct, and this is something that one would have the opportunity to see whether it is correct unless it has changed since its publication on February 22 was that the Web site for the White House, the White House official Web site cites the same false information today. It has not changed since March. I quote from the Web site of the White House as of February 22: ``The United Nations and U.S. intelligence sources have known for some time that Saddam Hussein has materials to produce chemical and biological weapons, but has not accounted for them: 26,000 liters of anthrax, enough to kill several million people; 38,000 liters of botulism toxin; 500 tons of sarin mustard and VX nerve agents; and 30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical agents.'' And finally: ``He recently sought significant quantities of uranium in Africa, according to the British Government.'' These are the same lies and the same fabrications, the same prevarications, the same falsehoods, the same misleading directions that took us into this war and continue to be repeated in the face of the knowledge that we know them not to be true. How could it be that these continue to be repeated? Is it any wonder that Mr. Chalabi laughs at us? Is it any wonder that he adopts a smug disposition when we continue to support him, we continue to pay him, we continue to support the policies that he espoused, and he is able to say what was said before is not important because obviously there are no penalties attached to it?

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, if I may ask the gentleman from Massachusetts, who did the hand picking? Who did the hand picking? He did not pick himself. Is there someone in the administration, are there a group of people in the administration?

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, where does the money come from?

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, if Mr. Chalabi and his cohorts are paying this kind of money, what is the principal source of income that we have already enunciated for Mr. Chalabi and his friends?

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will continue to yield, the question now then becomes, unless I missed something, this Chalabi is a hired gun. This Chalabi is a creature of the administration. He has no executive authority here. He has no voting power. He does not make recommendations to the President of the United States as an adviser, other than as a hired hand. Where was the verification? This man has a vested interest in getting this country into war in Iraq. What bothers me, what distresses me is that what he was saying fits very conveniently into the ideology and the philosophy and the foreign policy desires of some of the people who have been most adamant in advocating war with Iraq before the weapons of mass destruction principle was laid down as the foundation for war with Iraq. It is not as if it is a conspiracy. It is not as if it is a hidden plot. It is not as if it is some diabolical machination taking place in secret. Matter of fact, we have had dialogue. I have had dialogue and discussion personally with those who advocated this, like Mr. Perle, Mr. Kristol, Mr. Boot, Mr. Woolsey, who himself was head of the CIA. They published their articles. They have their books written. They have had this position for some time. So it is not as if this is something that I have suddenly discovered or others have suddenly discovered and now are shocked. I am not. What shocks me is that people would take ostensible information or intelligence and assume it to be true without checking it out thoroughly, precisely because it fit what they would like it to be. I know when somebody is telling me something I want to hear, something I would like to be true, something I hope is going to take place, I know that a little bell goes off, a little tremor takes place in me saying, wait a minute, let us make sure that I am not being told something because I want to hear it, because I would like to believe it, because I want it to be so, particularly when the consequences are going to be those of life and death. When you are making a recommendation and have the authority, particularly as President of the United States, as the Commander in Chief, have the capacity and the authority to act on that recommendation and to make it in turn to the people of this country, then it is incumbent upon you, more than perhaps any other person in this Nation, to be absolutely sure you know what you are talking about, what your sources are and how reliable they are, not just because someone has told you what you want to hear, but because you know it to be factual and the implications to be clear in terms of war and peace.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield again to me, the newspaper article, again, I am presuming that it is accurate. Does it indicate that this is a current relationship?

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, I realize I am taking time up here, but I am genuinely upset and shocked by this because I feel personally used. I mean, some of these conversations took place on official trips of the United States Government.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. On that exact point, if we were just reciting a litany of errors made in the sense of an honest misreading after a genuine inquiry, that would be one thing, but the really shocking evidence to the contrary is now coming out. In fact, we even see reports about where was the press? Why was this taking place? And it turns out the source for much of this information, not just for those in the intelligence agencies, but from those reporting on it, was coming from the same sources. The general public listening to us might say, well, that is all well and good for you folks in the Congress to be mentioning these things now, to be commenting on it now, but we had no access to that. We were not privy to that kind of inquiry on the basis of a position in the Congress where we could actually ask in depth in closed briefings and hearings as to what the source of this information was. Yet we find now in the Washington Post just 2 days ago a report taken from the London Telegraph on commentary from Ahmad Chalabi. That name has been on this floor previously. The gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt) has examined Mr. Chalabi's career in detail. The gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Hoeffel), I believe, has done the same.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, let me explain what Mr. Chalabi admitted to. He is now on the Governing Council. This is the body upon which the United States is presently relying. This is the body upon which the United States is presently conducting policy in terms of their being able to take over on June 30, this arbitrary date that has been set by the Bush administration. He now lays claim to the following. He was accused of peddling phony tips about Iraq's weapons, the very thing that the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Hoeffel) has been speaking of. Again quoting from the Washington Post, he shrugged off charges that he had deliberately misled U.S. intelligence, We are heroes in error. He told the Telegraph in an interview Wednesday in Baghdad, As far as we are concerned, we have been entirely successful. Our objective has been achieved. That tyrant Saddam is gone and the Americans are in Baghdad. What was said before is not important. Quoting it now from the Washington Post, not even to the families of all the killed and wounded?

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, let me repeat then for those who may be tuning in and trying to get the context here. Let me repeat exactly what Mr. Chalabi said, our champion in Baghdad, the person upon whom is the principal resource apparently for the intelligence that was delivered to the President, delivered to the Congress, and apparently delivered to reporters who were all supposed to be checking sources. Part of the thing that we need to remind ourselves and remind the public of is that we are dependent upon the professional integrity of journalists as well. We are dependent upon it. We are certainly the object of it often enough. We are dependent on them checking their sources to make sure that they are reliable. Let me repeat what he said. The reason I want to do that is that this is as cynical and sinister a pronouncement as I have heard in my political lifetime. I am quoting Mr. Chalabi, as reported in the Washington Post, We are heroes in error. As far as we are concerned, we have been entirely successful. Our objective has been achieved. That tyrant Saddam is gone, and the Americans are in Baghdad. What was said before is not important.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. In other words, the U.S. taxpayers are paying this guy to in turn pay lobbyists in Washington to advocate his position and influence Members of Congress.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, I would just like to say in that regard that this is my 30th year in public service. I have made friendships and conducted business, legislative business, and evolved personal relationships over those 30 years with a great number of individuals. I have particularly valued those who are sometimes disparagingly referred to as special interests or lobbyists as if that is seen by many people as a derogatory term or a term of denigration. And I do not see it that way. I want to make it clear in terms of my expressed disappointment with regard to this revelation about Mr. Woolsey; and now I guess I am going to have to wonder about everybody else too that I have a conversation with, I am not trying to keep people from making a living. It does not bother me any. As I say, I have friends who lobby on behalf of what are called special interests. We all have special interests. We are a multiplicity of special interests. One has only to read the Federalist Papers to understand that. In fact, it can be seen as the bulwark of a democratic republic because we do have factions and many interests competing with one another for attention and for approbation. There is no question about that. The only question to be answered in that is do we know that, do we know who they are and what they are and why they are and so on so we can discern what the difference is? I have no problem with people who are our friends, personal and otherwise, making their positions known to me or to anyone else in the Congress or anywhere else in public office. What bothers me is when positions are represented to us and we do not know that someone, in fact, is a paid representative, particularly on issues of war and peace, life and death. The folks know and the Speaker knows that I am a member of the Committee on Armed Services and those are the kinds of things we vote on every day, and I think every member there, regardless of party, takes seriously, deadly seriously, I might say without any sense of irony attached to it, take seriously their responsibility. But we are dependent in the Congress on getting good information. The President of the United States is dependent upon getting good information and making solid judgments based on that information. Anybody who fails to give the best possible information with the fullest knowledge behind it and the resources is undermining the Constitution of the United States and failing their responsibilities as a citizen. In this regard, then, I feel ill used in this process by Mr. Woolsey, and I feel very definitely that the press and the Congress need to make inquiries of everybody who comes before us presenting that information and perspective to us upon which we have to act in matters of life and death. Everybody has to have the fullest inquiry made of them as to what their sources of income are and what their sources of information are, whether they are tainted.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. If the gentleman would yield, I think I can provide you with an answer of what a weapons of mass destruction-related program activity was.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, is he aware that when Ayatollah Seestani sent people into the street or encouraged people to go into the street in these demonstrations, that the cry was one man one vote?

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, oh, yes, I can tell the gentleman right now, there are women's groups organizing all over Iraq at the present time, demanding that they get their rights back from the group that we are supporting which is supposedly bringing them democratic freedom. So the plain fact of the matter is that not only is this call out in the street for direct elections, but they are, in fact, utilizing the concept of a single person and a single vote, hopefully.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, it is very difficult for Mr. McClellan or anyone else to do that when the President himself in the space of the last week or so has indicated at least twice that he did not know the facts, that he was anxious to find out what the facts were, that he too, presumably meaning ``in addition'' would like to find out what was going on or what had happened. Now, this is the President of the United States. Hundreds of people are dead, thousands of people have been grievously wounded. Speaking of the prestige that the gentleman referred to, that has been literally destroyed the world over. We now have the Secretary, the spectacle, the spectacle of the Secretary of the State now wondering whether or not he would have made the same recommendations had he had other information, at the same time when many of us here were saying, let us take a deep breath, let us be sure we know what we are doing. The inspections are working; the inspections were underway. We were not getting the information back that the administration wanted to hear. That is the difficulty. My memory is not in such difficult straits that I cannot recall what happened during those times. I realize we are now at a point that would understand only too well where inconvenient thought is shoved down the memory hole. We simply put it out of sight and pretend it did not happen. The plain fact of the matter is that there were cries all across this country, an outcry all across the country saying that the inspection process has not yet completed its task. We need to do that at a minimum before we go to war. It is one thing for people to talk about supporting the troops. It is one thing to talk about whether the definition of imminent is the same for everybody across the spectrum, but you cannot say that a political policy which has failed to do the minimum necessary before there is a commitment to war is something that needs to be defended in the name of defending the troops. Mr. McClellan or the President, neither Mr. McClellan speaking for the President nor Mr. Bush can get off that easy, nor can they claim that this is a situation that needs now to be explored in the aftermath of this tragedy. I submit that we are now in a situation that needs further explanation. My understanding now is that we have announced that we are going to be leaving on the 30th of June of this year. We are now in February. March, April, June. We are talking about in 100 days we are ostensibly going to turn over authority to somebody or something in Iraq. Is there anybody here who can tell me who is going to have authority, what institutional framework or structure is going to exercise that authority? I cannot find out who it is. Is it going to be United Nations inspectors? No, they have been told they were inadequate. Is it going to be United Nations observers or administrators in some form? They left. I understand that the United States now in some fashion is in discussions with them as to whether they will come back in. To do what? With whom? It is very interesting, one need only go to this issue of the New York Times Magazine for February 1, this past Sunday, and this article on what the Shiites really want. A quote from a U.S. official, ``We can fight the Suunis, but we cannot fight the Shiites, not if they organize against us. There are too many of them.'' Is that what we have been reduced to? Is that what the policies are involved here? If you want to talk about imminent danger, how about the imminent danger of people demanding direct elections so that they can conduct their own affairs. This is the situation that we find ourselves in today. This is the situation that we have to confront. This is a situation that will not allow us to continue to merely stand on the side and observe the President trying to get the facts. He should have had the facts before he committed us into war. And he should get the facts now on what it takes in order for us to be able to exert such influence as we can in a positive way now that we have entered into this imperialist dream of imposing our authority on Iraq in the wake of Saddam Hussein's capture.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, I am suggesting there is a direct parallel. I am suggesting that the history of the Middle East is not something that just suddenly occurred in 1990, or 1989 and 1990, with Saddam Hussein moving into what is now Kuwait. I suggest that there is a history here, a long history here, a detailed history here. I suggest that mistakes were made in the past as to what could and could not be done in the Middle East, particularly in the area known as Mesopotamia; in other words, modern-day Iraq. And they are well on the way to making the same mistakes over again for the same reasons that they were made before, because we think that we can impose a United States' version of a 21st-century imperialism, and that all of the cards will fall on the table in place, that everything will operate as we wish it to operate and that we can in fact control events.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. And none likely to come.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. I will be happy to do so. What we have discovered, we said if we can only get to those Iraqi scientists, they have the answer, which was just what was going to happen with the U.N. inspectors. What did we find out when we got to those scientists? The scientists told us that they were destroying the weapons of mass destruction and that the program activity was destroying the weapons of mass destruction. That is what the activity was, and these scientists were doing it, and they had papers to show it. If we could just get to the papers of those Iraqi scientists, that would tell us what happened. Yes, they destroyed the weapons of mass destruction. What Saddam Hussein was doing, a ruthless lying dictator, was ruthlessly lying about what he was doing. He wanted to give the illusion that there were these weapons, because he wanted to give the illusion that he was some great and powerful dictator, and we were buying it. That is the problem here is that we are actually relying on the veracity of a lying, ruthless dictator. Maybe part of the reason for that is we have been relying on his goodwill all along anyway. If I have to hear one more time about weapons that were used on his own people, I would like to ask the President, was that before or after the Secretary of Defense in another capacity was congratulating him for it and getting his picture taken with him and shaking his hands? Was that before or after this country was giving approval to Saddam Hussein to use those weapons and making certain that he knew that that was not going to interfere with our support, tacit or otherwise, for his war against Iran? So, yes, there were program activities all right, program activities that we needed to know about in detail so that we could present an accurate and truthful picture to the American people.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, I do think it deserves a bit of reiteration that the Iraq Watch has been meeting some months now, and that the record is fully available, not only through the normal aspect of the Congressional Record, which is available to the population of the United States nationwide, but it is also available, I know, on the Web site that I have set up, and I believe other Members can do the same should they wish. What I am doing now for those who are listening and have an interest, it now is on my Web site. The Iraq Watch in its entirety appears. So we have a kind of cyber-archive now of what we are doing with Iraq Watch. And it will be interesting, I think, in time to come to go back over it and see where we were, where we were going. Not because we are standing here on the sidelines, merely commenting as we go along, but rather we are trying to stimulate debate, trying to stimulate discussion, trying to stimulate the body politic through the means available to us here in the House. We are the people's house. For those who just may be tuning in now, going down the cable channels and seeing C-SPAN, what are they talking about tonight, we are talking about our sons and daughters. We are talking about the blood and treasure of the United States. We are talking about the basic values of this country. We are talking about whether we are falling into the trap of a neo-imperialism, a 21st- century version of imperialism that would be anathema to values of the United States, the United States as we have known it and as we have wanted it to be. And in that context, I would like to read an excerpt from David Fromkin's new book called: A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East.'' Again, for those who, and I will repeat it at the end of my excerpt as well, David Fromkin's ``A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of a Modern Middle East.'' And I am quoting: ``Churchill, when he took office as Colonial Secretary [1921], brought with him a broad strategic concept of how to hold down the Middle East inexpensively. While he was still Secretary of Air and War [1919-20], Churchill had proposed to cut Middle East costs by governing Mesopotamia,'' which essentially is modern-day Iraq, ``by means of airplanes and armored cars. A few well-protected air bases,'' he wrote at the time, ``would enable the Royal Air Force to operate in every part of the protectorate and to enforce control now here, now there, without the need of maintaining long lines of communication, eating up troops and money. ``Viewing imperialism as a costly drain on a society that needed to invest all of its remaining resources in rebuilding itself, the bulk of the British press, public, and Parliament agreed to let the government commit itself to a presence in the Arab Middle East only because Winston Churchill's ingenious strategy made it seem possible to control the region inexpensively. ``Thus the belief, widely shared by British officials during and after the First World War, that Britain had come to the Middle East to stay at least long enough to reshape the region in line with European political interests, ideas, and ideals, was based on the fragile assumption that Churchill's aircraft-and-armored-car strategy could hold local opposition at bay indefinitely. In turn, that assumption was another expression of the underestimation of the Middle East that had typified British policy all along. It had shown itself when [Foreign Secretary Edward] Grey disdained the offer of an Ottoman alliance in 1911; when [Prime Minister Herbert] Asquith in 1914 regarded Ottoman entry in the war as being of no great concern; and when [War Minister Horatio] Kitchener, in 1915, sent his armies to their doom against an entrenched and forewarned foe at Gallipoli in an attack the British Government knew would be suicidal if the defending troops were of European quality, Kitchener's fatal assumption being that they were not. ``In 1922 the British Government had arrived at a political compromise with British society, by the terms of which Britain could assert her mastery in the Middle East, so long as she could do so at little cost. To British officials who underestimated the difficulties Britain would encounter in governing the region, who indeed had no conception of the magnitude of what they had undertaken, that meant Britain was in the Middle East to stay. In retrospect, however, it was an early indication that Britain was likely to leave,'' unquote, from David Fromkin's ``A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottomon Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East.''

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. We would be up to our eyeballs in it.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, having been a probation officer at one time in my checkered career, I can tell my colleagues a little bit about con men and how they operate. I will tell you how a con succeeds. A con succeeds not because of the special insight of the one perpetrating the con. The person who does that, the con man, is not depending even on his own skill. He is depending on the desire of the other person to have the conclusion that they want to have come out. It is preordained they want the con. You cannot succeed with a con unless the other person is playing into it with you. They think they are getting something for nothing, or they think that something they want very much to be real is actually going to happen. You are going to win; you are going to succeed; you are going to be able to work the angle; you are going to be able to get something that somebody else does not have. All you have to do is look at the record of the desire of the advisers to Mr. Bush and their determination to reenter the Middle East along the same lines as I read from the Churchill imperial era, and to come back into with their version in the 21st century, they want those weapons to be there. They wanted to take any scrap of information that came in and turn it into proof positive that what they wanted to do and the policies they wanted to follow of going in there and having a war with Iraq was something that was substantiated by the information that they were getting. It did not matter that it may have gone the other way. It did not matter it was ambiguous, tenuous, or that it was fragments. What mattered was, is something was being said about it, and they were bound and determined to turn that into information which could be construed as being supportive of having to go to war. No matter what happened, they were going go to war. I find it very, very instructive that the Secretary of the Treasury's book that has just come out has been denounced along with him. He apparently has turned into an apostate, too, in the process simply by saying that these impressions and his honest impression as related in his book was that from the moment he entered service to the Bush administration, that they were determined to go to war; that no matter what happened they were going to go to war. So as we take a look at this and see what happened in the past, that, it seems to me, is prelude to the future. And so I suggest for our upcoming Iraq Watches that we take up the question, then, of what is going to happen on June 30; who are we going to be dealing with; what are the circumstances under which authority is to be turned over in Iraq by the United States; is this going to be yet another election ploy? Because the Bush administration is trying to use support for troops being synonymous with support for the war for election year purposes now, and I am very anxious to find out whether this transfer of authority is also going to be used for election purposes or are we going to actually be able to do something that will advance democracy in Iraq. I think we need to concentrate on that.