Neil Abercrombie

Mr. ABERCROMBIE

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.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, on January 27 and January 28, 2004, I was unavoidably unable to vote. Had I been present, I would have voted as follows: Rollcall 6, H.R. 1385, Postage Stamp to benefit breast cancer research, ``yes.'' Rollcall 7, H.R. 3493, Medical Devices Technical Corrections Act, ``yes.'' Rollcall 8, Baldwin Substitute to S. 1920, federal bankruptcy law, ``yes.'' Rollcall 9, Motion to Recommit S. 1920, federal bankruptcy law, ``yes.'' Rollcall 10, Final Passage S. 1920, federal bankruptcy law, ``no.'' Rollcall 11, Motion to Instruct Conferees, ``yes.'' personal explanation

Mr. ABERCROMBIE

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, being detained in my district today on official business, had I been present and voting, I would have voted as follows: Rollcall 2, H. Res. 492, Honoring the contributions of Catholic education, ``yes''; rollcall 3, H. Res. 491, Regarding the benefits of mentoring, ``yes''; rollcall 4, H. Res. 490, Recognizing the achievements of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the Mars Exploration Rover Mission, ``yes''; and rollcall 5, H. Res. 489, Honoring the late Senator Paul Simon, ``yes.''

Mr. ABERCROMBIE

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. If the gentleman will yield, I will tell you what we are going to have to do in the meantime, then, to try and protect those troops that are already there and to try and find an exit strategy worthy of the name that can allow us the opportunity to turn over some kind of political capacity in Iraq. There is a bill going forward that hopefully will be signed on a bipartisan basis to increase the end strength of the armed services, the Army and Marines in particular, and I am afraid now we are going to have to include the Air Force. At one point I think if we had handled this, we would not have had to add the Air Force. Since 1995, I for one and others on the Committee on Armed Services and other interested parties have been urging, so this goes beyond the present administration. We are not trying to draw distinctions there. Since 1995, some of us have been urging an increase in the end strength. That is an inside baseball term in the Committee on Armed Services for increasing the number of troops in the Army and in the Marine Corps, because we could see the kinds of deployments that were taking place, whether it was in Kosovo, whether it was in Bosnia, in other words, in Eastern Europe, whether it was in the Philippines. No matter where it was and no matter what the reasons may have been, no matter how one felt about it one way or the other, the plain fact of the matter is that there was sufficient support to warrant these deployments, and we did not have the troop strength available to do it. We do not yet have a reinstitution of the draft. When people talk about the war on terrorism, most people are watching it on television. We are depending on a volunteer force to do that. What sacrifices have we made? Some inconvenience in an airport? Somebody running, as they did for me yesterday when I flew here, running their wands over your shoes? Having you hold your arms out so that they can check your watch? Examining your baggage? What kind of sacrifice is that? At most it is an inconvenience. The only sacrifice that we have made as a population since 9/11 is we postponed the Super Bowl one week. An inconvenience. That is the only sacrifice that has been made. This is being watched on television. This is being observed. We get the little tear in the eye and we get the flag being waved around those who are in Walter Reed or in Bethesda Hospital right now with grievous wounds. The sacrifice of the troops is not the point here. It is the sacrifice of those troops on a battlefield of corrupt political policy unworthy of the troops that are out there. And I tell you this, we cannot sustain with the existing Guard and Reserves that we have in this country the continual deployment into Iraq and still meet the necessities that we have outlined with respect to Afghanistan. That does not even begin to include questions about North Korea or any other place that United States troops may or may not be needed in the future as a result of some activity, other kinds of terrorist activity in other places around the world. We are not prepared. We are not able to engage in deployments with respect to terror in the rest of the world because of the failure of our policies in Iraq and our failure to understand the true nature of what was necessary in Afghanistan.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. The parallel, and I am not one to draw analogies to Vietnam because I think most of those kinds of comparisons tend to be inexact and then you end up in useless kinds of arguments as to exactitude, but the parallels are there. You may recall the rather infamous phrase associated with our pacification policy in Vietnam. We had to destroy the village in order to save it. Now in order to stabilize Iraq, we have to take barbed wire and surround whole villages with it. So I think the question here is, at this stage, what is to be done? How are we to regard the war on terror and what the relationship of the attack on Baghdad and the subsequent war which followed it, how is that to be handled? How is that to be addressed by the United States? We are told, and again these cliches and bromides come fast and furious, that we should not cut and run. I am going to have to presume, I guess, that I know what cutting and running means. It means that you stop doing what you are doing and you leave. I do not know whether anybody noticed it or not, I certainly noticed, about November 15, that is precisely what Mr. Bush and Mr. Bremer concluded, that the United States was going to cut and run. That is what we are doing right now. The problem is that we are not admitting that that is what we are doing and we are sacrificing the Reserves and the Guard and the active duty military that is there now and that which will be going there to this continued failed policy without admitting what we are doing. We are turning over supposedly conveniently, just before the election in 2004, turning over, supposedly, the present occupation to a government in Iraq. If that is not cutting and running, I do not know what is. Are we going to turn over control, such as it might be, to some governing entity in Iraq, or are we not? And if we are, what constitutes that governing entity, this farce of an advisory group that we have there? Shiite clerics? The ill-equipped and untrained police forces that we have cobbled together? Or perhaps we are going to turn it over to this new paramilitary army made up of armed members of various political parties in Iraq. A paramilitary force. And we have the gall to turn to the American people and say, ``Well, they are preparing to defend themselves.'' They are preparing to cut each other's throats. They are preparing to fight one another, not just politically but with guns and bullets. The fact of the matter is that there is utter and complete political chaos in Iraq that is not being addressed by existing military policy of the United States.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, we may not be financing what is necessary for either troop movements or political stability in Afghanistan, but I can assure the gentleman, I am sorry to say that financing is nonetheless taking place in Afghanistan except it is going to be for terror. We now have more poppies being grown, more heroin being processed, and more trading in heroin than ever before in the history of Afghanistan, than ever before in the history of any nation on the face of the Earth. I should say any region on the face of the Earth, because clearly Afghanistan does not rate the name of nation now in terms of commerce and stability and political equilibrium that we associate with the term. The only thing that is stable, the only thing that is growing, the only thing that is expanding, the only thing that is a sure thing in Afghanistan is there is more heroin being traded for more money that is going to find its way into the pockets of those who are financing terrorism.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. If the gentleman will yield, I will tell you where we do have a visible presence, where we do meet the criteria that is stated and enunciated by Representative Lewis and the good Senator. We now have barbed wire villages. Those images are going all around the world as we speak. We are now creating our own areas of concentration camps and villages complete with identification cards that have to be shown to American soldiers so that people, and I say people, I am talking women, children, men, entire villages now are being processed through barbed wire into their own villages.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, clearly this advertisement to which we are referring in which the phrase ``some are now attacking the President for attacking the terrorists,'' is meant to reestablish a link between Iraq, the attack in Iraq and 9/11. That is to say, there has been a constant drum-beat attempt by those who advocated this war in Iraq that this was somehow an extension or expansion or movement toward a more direct attack on terrorism, whereas no link has been established between the attack on the Trade Towers and the plane crashing in Pennsylvania, no link has been established between that and this attack on Iraq. To the contrary, there is more than ample evidence to indicate that there were policymakers around the President who wanted to have this attack on Iraq well before 9/11, and 9/11 became the excuse for them to bring this back up, move it into the forefront and, in fact, displace the war on terror, the response to the attack on terror. That is, in fact, not just what was implied in this ad, but this is clearly an attempt on a political basis to try to reestablish that in the minds of Americans across the Nation so that this becomes a defense of this failed policy in Iraq.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, this is precisely the point that we are trying to make, and have been trying to make here in Iraq Watch, over and over again. By engaging as we are in Iraq right now, we are actually undermining our capacity to confront terror, whether in its most physically manifest form in Afghanistan or in the recruitment and the propaganda that is now sweeping the Islamic world with regard to whether or not America is now an enemy that must be fought at all costs. We are increasing the number of people who can succumb to that kind of message because of what we are doing in Iraq and what we are not doing in Afghanistan.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, I think we see in the dialogue that has taken place between Secretary Powell and our NATO allies, the answer to that question. The NATO allies are not going to increase to the degree they have any troops there at all, and they do have some in insignificant numbers. The Italians, for example, have police officers, and so on, but insignificant numbers. They are reluctant at best, if not outright hostile, toward the idea of increasing their presence in Iraq for a simple reason, it is the NATO forces in Afghanistan that are bearing the brunt of trying to deal with the continuing battle that is going on there against terrorism. That war on terror was not won in Afghanistan, it is ongoing. It is ongoing as we speak. We do not have sufficient forces, let alone intelligence there, right now. The gentleman may know we now have to deal with the horrifying consequences and stories that will be going around based on what happened in Afghanistan within the last 36 hours where nine children were killed in an attempt to try to take a presumed militant, whatever the word is these days that is attached to anybody that we can presume to be an enemy. We do not have sufficient forces, we do not have sufficient assets, we do not have sufficient concentration of intelligence efforts in Afghanistan right now because we are diverted in Iraq.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. If the gentleman will yield, I think the answer is very, very clear. All of our assets, human and otherwise, are being concentrated in Iraq, or that area of the world which purports to be Iraq. As the gentleman knows, Iraq is a construct of the post-World War I colonial powers, particularly Great Britain and France. And so even the idea that there is a political construct there that can be referred to for elections or anything else is little more than fiction to begin with. The plain fact of the matter is that we cannot move forward in Afghanistan because the assets that are needed there, particularly financial, are being wasted right now in Iraq.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, the reason this has relevance is because these are the people who are formulating the policy. These are the people who are making the case for the foundations of the political policy that we find our troops having to bear the brunt of. That is the whole point here. The question is not whether we are against terror, the question is not whether there is support for the troops, the question is do we have a political policy that is worthy of their sacrifice.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. That goes without saying. Here on the floor of the House of Representatives, anyone, find anyone, who would be able to corroborate such an accusation. In fact, if one takes into account, and I am looking here at an article in the Wall Street Journal, in an opinion article, ``Politics and People,'' Albert Hunt, ``What Might Have Been,'' and it concerns our good friend and my good friend and fellow Hawaiian, General Eric Shinseki, former Chief of the Army, who, as you know, was vilified by people in the administration.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, the difficulty here, as the gentleman has outlined, is that we are now engaged in what can only be described as political hate speech. This is not an unusual circumstance, I am sorry to say, in this day and age. I have had occasion to pick up a centennial edition, I believe is the designation, by the original publishers of George Orwell's ``1984.'' A new introduction by Thomas Pinchon. My colleague may recall in ``1984,'' in Orwell's conception of what was taking place, there is a whole new conception of what speech would consist of and what the language would be. Ignorance is strength, slavery is freedom, hatred is love. Everything becomes its own contradiction, its exact opposite. The confusion is there. Let us read exactly what the advertisement said. We are now conducting political policy by virtue of advertising when issues of war and peace are concerned. Let me quote it directly: ``Some are now attacking the President for attacking the terrorists.'' Who? Some. Who? I suppose it is possible, if you look far enough and long enough and deep enough, you can find somebody, somewhere, not necessarily even within the boundaries of the United States, if we are talking about some, who would be attacking the President for attacking the terrorists. But I do not think that those of us who are taking this issue seriously and trying to engage in a dialogue on this issue can find anyone of a serious bent in the House, any of our colleagues, to come down and name anyone.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. I am not only talking about General Shinseki as a decorated war hero but as someone who came through the ranks to become chief of the Army, and who, in response to a congressional inquiry, gave answers, as a soldier should to those who are in charge of the country by constitution, gave answers with respect to what would be required in Iraq should an attack take place in order to avoid encouraging and in fact perhaps even seeing a situation take place in which terrorism would expand, rather than be contracted or defeated. What General Shinseki indicated was that we were not engaged in a serious ``troops to task analysis.'' That is what this is about. This is not about attacking the President about his opposition to terrorism; it is whether or not his political policies have resulted in military activity which is in fact not only succeeding but increasing the terrorism that exists in the world.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. As a defense adviser to the Secretary of Defense.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. If the gentleman will continue to yield, Mr. Speaker, we are spending not $87 billion, but as the gentleman indicated, upwards of $160 billion just in excess appropriations, or rather in additional supplemental appropriations vis-a-vis Iraq. Yet, when we bring home troops for rest and recreation purposes, they are taken to only three cities, and then they are on their own and they pay their own bills. That has not been changed. I believe the figure is $55 million approximately that the Congress has put forward for transportation in the area of recreation purposes. It is not going to be enough. We are not even prepared at this stage to have orderly transitions in terms of rest and recreation periods, let alone what will now take place with the transfer of troops.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. If the gentleman will yield for a moment on his latter point, I was looking through my notes for a moment, and the gentleman indicated Mr. Perle. Would this be the same Mr. Perle, quoting from the Financial Times of December 4, that ``the Boeing Corporation has taken a $20 million stake in an investment fund run by Richard Perle, a top Pentagon adviser, underlining the close links it has built to Washington's defense establishment. Boeing said it made the investment in Trireme Partners last year as part of a broad strategy to invest in companies with promising defense-related technologies.'' The Financial Times adds, ``Boeing said it had no knowledge that Mr. Perle had advised the company on a controversial $18 billion deal to lease refueling aircraft tankers to the U.S. Air Force or other Pentagon related matters.''

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. ABERCROMBIE

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, our colleague and friend from Guam has made manifest in her remarks the debt of gratitude that is owed to many individuals, some of whom are here and are represented, I think, on the whole by our colleagues who are in charge of the bill on the floor. This is an issue of little note for many Members. It would be easy, I expect, to say that the compact for Micronesia represents an area of forgotten people, but that would be incorrect, Mr. Speaker, because in many instances this is an area of the never noticed. It is something that is difficult for many people in the United States, let alone in the rest of the world, to comprehend that we have here a colonial vestige, a post-World War II anachronism. We have a situation in which responsibility exists for the United States which is scarcely understood, let alone taken into account, not because of design but rather by the default and omission of elementary understanding. Those of us who live in the Pacific, those of us who are aware of the human dimension that is involved here are particularly grateful to all of the individuals and committee staff members that have been noted by my good friend from Guam. I want to pay particular notice to my chairman on the Committee on Resources, the gentleman from California (Mr. Pombo) who has assumed these duties with this Congress. Some of the other Members mentioned are long familiar with the compact. The gentleman from California has exhibited a particular sensitivity and quest for understanding that I think has aided immeasurably in the accomplishment of dealing with what is, in fact, an unfunded mandate. The compact requires us to meet certain standards and, as has been mentioned by my good friend from Guam, Guam, Hawaii and the Marianas bear the brunt of the financial side of this as well. Free association means that people are able to travel freely and as a result of this compact, Mr. Speaker, I think we have taken an enormous step forward, and my gratitude and aloha to all those who helped to provide it and get us to this step today. Mahalo to all.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, I would like to express my wholehearted support for the final passage of H.J. Res. 63, the Compact of Free Association Amendments Act of 2003. Years of negotiations and the cooperative work of many people has brought us to this point, the reauthorization of the Compact by Congress. For the past 17 years, the United States has had a secure relationship with the Freely Associated States (FAS). The Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) and the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) have been able to transition from a United Nations trusteeship to sovereign governments. At the same time, the United States has had its security and defense interests in the Pacific fulfilled. H.J. Res. 63 will not only allow this critical economic and military relationship to continue, but will improve upon its successes and ensure that FAS citizens get the maximum benefit possible from this agreement. H.J. Res. 63 extends our military commitments in the Pacific by retaining certain defense rights as well as providing for continued access to Kwajalein Atoll, home of the Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site. This legislation also includes provisions affecting the health, education, and welfare of FAS citizens. They will continue to be eligible for funds from the Pell Grant Program and from the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, resources which are integral to their development of a competent and effective education system. They will also be eligible for funds to combat the spread of communicable diseases such as tuberculosis, cholera and Hansen's disease. FAS citizens can have complicated and severe health care needs and this grant money will go a long way toward easing these health difficulties. The Compact also allows FAS citizens to enter the United States and its territories as nonimmigrants. These provisions are being enhanced to include security measures and more dependable passports. In addition, due to the ability to freely migrate, Compact migrants have been entering the United States in ever increasing numbers. This migration is having an enormous impact on the education, health, public safety and social service systems of the areas receiving these compact migrants. These costs have a very tangible impact and collectively, are fast approaching the $100 million per year level. For the State of Hawaii alone, more than $32 million was expended in 2002 in order to support Compact migrants and help ensure their health and well-being. H.J. Res. 63 addresses this effect by creating a mandatory funding stream of $30 million a year in compensation for Hawaii, Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and American Samoa. These areas have borne the brunt of this impact since 1986 and although these funds will be divided among the four jurisdictions, it will be the largest compensation any of these jurisdictions has received to date. In addition, health care providers will also be eligible for the reimbursement of expenses arising from the treatment of Compact migrants. While these funds will surely cover only a portion of the total impact cost, its yearly distribution will undoubtedly have a great effect on the state and territorial departments and agencies that have spent untold resources and labor in providing for the Compact migrants. The scope of this Compact assures that every FAS citizen will be affected in some way and that is why I applaud the efforts to produce a bipartisan compromise with the input of all affected parties. Chairman Pombo of the House Resources Committee has been especially willing to listen to the voices of people in the Pacific and has bent over backwards to be fair and just. Chairman Hyde, Chairman Boehner and Chairman Nussle have also accomplished tremendous work in bringing this bill to the floor. Thanks to their efforts, I have no doubt that our relationship with these Pacific nations will continue to be productive and mutually beneficial. I urge my colleagues to support this important measure.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the conference report for the Fiscal Year 2004 National Defense Authorization Act. I would first like to recognize our Committee leadership, Chairman Hunter and Ranking Member Skelton, for the bill they have crafted to address the immediate needs of our Armed Forces. Our Committee has a long tradition of working across party lines to ensure the readiness and well-being of our Armed Forces, and I am pleased to have participated in yet another cooperative effort with my Armed Services colleagues. Unfortunately, this bipartisan spirit did not extend to the more controversial aspects of the Defense Authorization Act, especially the reworking of the civil service system and yet another compromise on the Disabled Veterans Tax. On the balance, however, this bill establishes good policy for our troops when they need it the most. H.R. 1588 offers the pay and benefit measures that our Armed Forces deserve. We put together another healthy across-the-board pay raise-- 4.15 percent--as well as targeted raises of up to 6.25 percent for mid- grade and senior noncommissioned officers and select warrant officers. We have also extended special pay provisions for the men and women deployed around the world. Hostile fire and imminent danger pay will be raised from $150 per month to $225 per month through December 1, 2004, while family separation allowance (FSAA) will increase from $100 to $250 per month. In an effort to address the issue of military readiness, H.R. 1588 also includes TRICARE health benefits for deploying Reservists. We have been undermining our own system by relying on Reservists to be ready to go when called but failing to provide them the required medical coverage to ensure deployment-level readiness. Through this new authorization, the Department of Defense can provide immediate medical and dental screening and care for selected Reservists who are assigned to a unit alerted or notified of mobilization. Non-mobilized Reservists currently without health insurance will also be able to enroll in TRICARE on a cost-share basis. With the burden on our Reserves at an all-time high, providing basic coverage is the least we can do for those called to serve. One of the worst aspects of this legislation is the wholesale dismantling of our Department of Defense civilian workforce. Under the conference report before us, some 700,000 federal employees will be stripped of their rights and protections in the current civil service system and placed at the mercy of political appointees in DoD. The Defense Authorization Act, as written, provides no guidelines for a new civilian personnel system; rather, it gives almost unchecked power to Secretary Rumsfeld to create a system of his own design. We have heard testimony about pay for performance and pay banding, but none of this is codified in the legislation. It opens the door to political patronage and cronyism--the very abuses which the civil service system was enacted to prevent in the first place. Our committee held exactly one hearing on the civil service portions of this bill, and that hearing was held only after Committee Democrats raised an outcry. The hearing was hastily organized with one day's notice and hardly allowed for the in-depth examination due such a sweeping proposal. Let me be clear--this process has been a farce and nothing less than a slap in the face to our DoD civilian workforce. We praise these men and women in one breath, and in the next, dismiss them as expendable. In passing this provision, Congress will abdicate its constitutional responsibility and cede our authority in this matter to the Executive Branch. I am deeply disappointed that the Administration felt it necessary to interfere in this conference and prevent us from adopting the much more moderate and sensible legislation crafted in the Senate under the leadership of Senator Collins. Likewise, I am dissatisfied with the partial rollback of the Disabled Veterans Tax. For years I have cosponsored and supported legislative efforts to allow disabled veterans to receive their full retirement annuity in conjunction with VA disability pay, and year after year, we are only able to come up with half-hearted measures. The so-called solution before us will take ten years to rectify the unfair penalty. Our veterans cannot wait until 2014 to finally see the compensation they rightfully earned, in numerous cases many years ago. It is shameful that our Republican colleagues are unwilling to budget the funding for those who have already made so many sacrifices in behalf of our Nation but yet are all too willing to send more young men and women down the same path in harm's way. I truly hope that we can reexamine this phased-in approach next year and accommodate all disabled veterans equally and immediately. As the Ranking Democrat on the Subcommittee on Tactical Air and Land Forces, I am happy to report that we have done well by the major Army and Air Force acquisition programs under our jurisdiction. The bill carefully balances current hardware needs with development and procurement of future systems. Modernization of our Bradley Fighting Vehicles and Abrams tanks will ensure the capability of our heavy armor divisions and our industrial base. I am particularly pleased that we have funded the Stryker Medium Armored Vehicles at the Administration's request for both procurement and research and development. Stryker represents the bridge between current Army legacy systems and the networked Future Combat System; through Stryker, our soldiers will hone the skills necessary for the transformation to the fast and lethal warfare of the 21st century. I would like to thank the Committee staff for their tireless work over the past several months in putting together the best bill possible. I would especially like to thank the Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee professional staff, J.J. Gertler, Bill Natter, and Doug Roach, for their dedication, professionalism, and invaluable expertise throughout the year's work. We have a bill that we can largely be proud of. Again, I urge my colleagues to support this measure.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Madam Speaker, I would like to express my wholehearted support for this legislation being considered today. For the past 17 years, the United States has had a successful relationship with the Freely Associated States (FAS). The Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) and the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) have been able to transition from a United Nations trusteeship to sovereign governments. At the same time, the United States has had its security and defense interests in the Pacific fulfilled. H.J. Res. 63 will improve this vital economic and military relationship by allowing our nations to continue the successes in our agreement while helping to resolve some of our differences. One of the issues which required a resolution is the impact that the Compacts of Free Association has had on U.S. areas in the Pacific. The Compacts allow FSM and RMI citizens to freely enter the U.S. and its territories to live, seek an education, obtain healthcare and find employment. For the State of Hawaii alone, more than $32 million was expended in 2002 in order to support Compact migrants and help ensure their health and well-being. These costs have been borne by Hawaii since the Compacts were first implemented in 1986. For the past seventeen years, the state has provided Compact migrants with the care and benefits that were promised to them by the first Compact, expending more than $140 million. In that time, the federal government has reimbursed a mere five percent of that amount. As a signatory to the Compacts of Free Association, I believe it is the United States, not the State of Hawaii that should bear its costs. For the first time ever, the Administration recognized this hardship and proposed a mandatory funding stream of $15 million a year for Hawaii, Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and American Samoa. H.J. Res. 63 has been amended to go even further to address this vast shortcoming by increasing the mandatory appropriations to $30 million a year. Although these funds will be divided among the four jurisdictions, it will be the largest compensation any of these jurisdictions has received to date. While these funds will surely cover only a portion of the total impact cost, its yearly distribution will undoubtedly have a great effect on the state departments and agencies that have spent untold resources and labor in providing for the compact migrants. The legislation has also been amended to include many other improvements. The inclusion of language authorizing discretionary appropriations, the extension of Pell Grant eligibility, the inclusion of a trigger for full inflation adjustment, and the restoration of language authorizing compensation for health institutions are a few of these changes. I am also gratified to see these provisions, as they will help the Federated States of Micronesia and the Republic of the Marshall Islands in their quest to become fully independent countries. At this time I would also like to thank Chairman Richard Pombo, Chairman Henry Hyde, Chairman Jim Nussle, and Chairman John Boehner for all of their hard work in bringing this bill to the floor. Thanks to their efforts, I have no doubt that our relationship with these Pacific nations will continue to be productive and mutually beneficial. I urge my colleagues to support this important measure.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, I want to take this opportunity to congratulate Master Sergeant Dennis Takeshita on his retirement from the Hawaii Air National Guard and thank him for 37 years of outstanding service to our Nation. Master Sergeant Takeshita served on active duty with the Air Force from 1966 to 1972, and he served in the Hawaii Air National Guard until October 1 of this year. During that time, Master Sergeant Takeshita received many citations and awards for his high level of performance and commitment to duty. He is a veteran of Vietnam and served in Operations Allied Force, Noble Eagle, and Enduring Freedom. Throughout his years of service Master Sergeant Dennis Takeshita demonstrated a spirit of steadfast patriotism, leadership, and professionalism. He embodies the qualities of honor, love of country, and dedication to the core values of the United States Air Force. He set a high standard of performance that challenges each and every one of us to give our very best in whatever we undertake. We join today in saluting Master Sergeant Dennis Takeshita for 37 years of dedicated service. Mahalo, Dennis, and best wishes for the future.

Mr. ABERCROMBIE

Mr. ABERCROMBIE. I do not want you to be discouraged because help is on the way. Where did I hear that phrase before? Help is on the way. I think back around 2000 help was on the way. Well, help is on the way. My understanding is that the Turkish Parliament has voted to send troops to Iraq. Why, that is wonderful. We are going to have assistance at long last. There is only one little problem and perhaps Condoleezza Rice can stabilize this while she is at it. The Iraqi Governing Council, our governing council, our appointees, the people we have chosen as the foundation of stabilization, political stabilization in Iraq do not want them. They told them to stay out. These people, ungrateful wretches that they are, apparently have a sense of suspicion that the Turks might have more than one agenda in mind. That if they cross over into Iraq, that perhaps the Turks might have something to do with what benefits Turkey. Now, where would they get that idea? Does the phrase Ottoman Empire ring a bell with anybody? It is all history that has been lost. The Iraqis have had some experience with Turkish soldiers before. I keep calling on the ghost of T.E. Lawrence. Where are you when we need you? I understand they show movies down at the White House. Maybe they ought to get Lawrence of Arabia and get that down there and show it to them. Wake up. Help is not on the way. Three more dead today, others injured. The media is reduced to saying, but nobody has been killed since last Friday. This is the kind of marginal gain, apparently, that we are making. This is the kind of measurement that is taking place now. The news hour in the evening on PBS, at the end of it, broadcasts in silence the names, pictures and fundamental data of the latest deaths. Is this the kind of ritual that we are going to assume in this country? We are going to watch this war on television. This is the kind of sacrifice supposedly being made. This is the kind of confrontation that needs to take place. And the reason we have Iraq Watch, the reason we are down here every week, the reason that we are speaking out now is that the American public has to know that not everybody has been buffaloed, not everyone is silent, not everyone is going to step back from speaking the truth.