Robert Bennett

Mr. BENNETT

Mr. BENNETT. I thank the Senator. I think his experience at his cocktail party is one that would be repeated by every one of us if we were to gather people of that kind of income in any one of our States. So why don't we all join with the Senator from Delaware? Why am I not saying I agree with him? If I may illustrate the reasons with a personal example, not all of the tax returns that are filed and that are in the statistical sample the Senator described represent income to individuals. I do not know the current number. I would have looked it up if I had known I was going to get in this exchange. But other numbers have said 75 percent, 80 percent, or some very high figure of percentage of those tax returns that show $400,000 in gross income are, in fact, not income to the individual. Let me give you my personal example to illustrate this. Before I came to the Senate, I was CEO of a company that was an S corporation. S corporations as opposed to C corporations are exactly the same thing except for the way they are taxed. The ``S'' refers to that section of the Tax Code that is appropriate and ``C'' refers to that section of the Tax Code that is appropriate. In an S corporation, the earnings of the company flow through to the shareholders and are reported on the shareholders' personal tax returns. Therefore, they show up as income to the individual. I will again use myself as the example. I was the CEO of this company. I was earning $140,000 a year as the CEO of the company. The company started to do really very well. It was growing very rapidly. Sales were more than doubling every year. We were bringing on new people. We were building new buildings. We needed every dime of capital we could put our hands on. Fortunately for us, we were doing this during what the New York Times called ``The Decade of Greed;'' that is, when the top marginal tax rate was 28 percent. By putting the income of the company on my personal tax return and those of the other shareholders, the company was paying an effective rate of 28 percent which meant we got to keep 72 cents out of every dollar we earned to finance the growth of that company. We created that company with internally generated funds. We didn't do it by going to the stock market. We didn't do it by going to the banks. Of course, we had a line of credit at the bank. But it was not part of our capital. That meant one of the last years before I left the company and decided to run for the Senate, my compensation from the company was $140,000. Let us go through these numbers. My compensation from the company was $140,000. My share of the company's profits which was reported on my 1040 was $1 million. As far as the IRS was concerned, I was a very rich man who was earning $1.14 million a year. All I got was $140,000. The rest of it, while reported on my tax return, was kept in the company to pay for the growth of the company.

Mr. BENNETT. I am happy to yield to the Senator.

Mr. BENNETT. Of course. The net amount I reported after the deductions was $1 million. So as far as the IRS was concerned, my income was $1.14 million. Under the Tax Code, the deductions to which the Senator from Delaware referred that go to people in these categories were all wiped out by the $1 million. All of my credits, all of my deductions--everything was wiped out. If we were to take the numbers the Senator from Delaware was talking about, and say, OK, you have someone with a $400,000 gross income, and that means his after-tax income is $312,000 because of the standard deduction, if he has a chunk of 401-K income on this from either an S corporation or an LLC corporation, or a partnership, all of those standard deductions go away very quickly as the number goes up. The point of this is not to argue one way or the other about how the tax structure is; it is to say the Senator is inadvertently targeting a large number of small businesses where profits and growth money are being reported on individual returns rather than through corporate returns. The S corporations were made substantially worse after the Reagan years because of the summit at Andrews Air Force Base, and then what was done with the Clinton tax increases. There are not as many people using the S corporations as there used to be because the advantage is not as great. But there is a still a very substantial amount of small business income that will be hit by the Senator's amendment. We are not just talking about Donald Trump and Jennifer Lopez. We are not talking about Michael Jordan. We are talking about people who are building businesses for whom $400,000 a year for the income of the business is a demonstration of a struggle. It is not a demonstration of the kind of opulence you find at the Delaware country club. It is survival. We didn't get to the point with the business I have described where we felt comfortable in cash flow until our earnings were well into the $10 million, $12 million, or $15 million area because of the demand for capital.

Mr. BENNETT. I thank the Senator from Delaware not only for his courtesy and friendship, which is reciprocated and, as he has said on the Senate floor, is genuine and real, but I thank him for the clear manner in which he has described this whole situation. I agree absolutely with the overall conclusion that he has come to with respect to loans versus grants. I am running this year, and I am going to have to defend the grant situation, but I am perfectly willing to do so for all the reasons which the Senator from Delaware has outlined. But there are a few comments I would like to make in the spirit of our friendship and the seriousness with which the Senator from Delaware has approached this issue--at random. The Senator from Delaware is often at random so he can understand. The references to the Marshall plan and the difference between World War I and World War II are accurate, but I would like to just add one factoid.

Mr. BENNETT. I am listening with great interest. I agree with much of what the Senator said, but before the Senator from Massachusetts gives a major speech I would like the opportunity to engage in a colloquy.

Mr. BENNETT. I would ask the Senator to make his point and then I would appreciate it if we could do that.

Mr. BENNETT. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. BENNETT. I think the possibility is extremely, extremely small.

Mr. BENNETT. I agree with the Senator we have overworked it and I want to back away from it with this fact. The country that received the most money in the Marshall plan was Great Britain. It was not rebuilding destroyed countries, destroyed by virtue of our actions in the war. It was rebuilding Europe that was exhausted by the struggle that really began in the First World War and never ended. I think that is the appropriate analogy here. I do not view Iraq as a defeated nation. I view Iraq as a victorious nation that has won a struggle of almost four decades in length with our help.

Mr. BENNETT. I would be happy to.

Mr. BENNETT. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that a vote in relation to the pending Biden amendment occur at 3:15 p.m. today with no amendment in order to the amendment prior to the vote, provided the debate before the vote be 30 minutes under the control of the Republican side and the remaining time under the Democratic leader or his designee.

Mr. BENNETT

Mr. BENNETT. On behalf of the Senator from Texas, Mrs. Hutchison, I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from Oklahoma.

Mr. BENNETT

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, one of the anecdotes about politics I enjoy the most and that I think is most illustrative of some of the situation that is going on now with respect to Iraq relates to the late Pauline Kael. She was the movie editor for the New Yorker magazine. In 1972, when Richard Nixon won an overwhelming and historic victory in the Presidential election, carrying every single State except Massachusetts and the District of Columbia, Pauline Kael was terribly surprised. She said when commenting on this: Nixon can't possibly have won. I don't know a single person who voted for him. There might be some who will say that speaks well of her circle of friends, but it demonstrates that she lived in a very tight intellectual circle and had no real contact with what was happening in the country as a whole. I cite that because I think that is what is happening with respect to reporting in Iraq right now. I had an experience over the weekend which I will share briefly before I yield the remainder of our morning business time to the Senator from Texas. An old friend from Utah and his wife came to Washington on a tourist visit, and I took them around to the various monuments. This man and his wife expressed great concern about Iraq. The wife said: We have real problems in Iraq. I said: Yes, we do. Tell me what they are, from your perspective. She said: People are dying all the time, and we are making no progress whatsoever, and we have no plan of making progress. We are in real trouble in Iraq. I said to her: Let me ask you a few things. I said: Are you aware of the fact that about 90 percent of the country is peaceful and that the attacks on Americans are taking place only in what is known as the Sunni Triangle, which goes from Baghdad to Tikrit, and that outside of the Sunni Triangle Americans are not being attacked and killed? She said: No, I didn't know that. I said: Which country do you think is providing the most troops other than America to help fight for security in Iraq? She said: I guess it is the British. I said: No, it is not the British. Not the British? Is there another country that has more troops in Iraq fighting for Iraq besides the British? I said: Yes. It is the Iraqis. She said: What do you mean? Why, there are close to 50,000 Iraqis under arms providing security support for Americans. She said: I didn't know that. I said: How many schools do you think have been reopened since the war? She said: I assume probably none. I said: No. I said: 90 percent of the schools and hospitals are now operating. She said: I didn't know. I will not prolong the time because the Senator from Texas wishes to speak. But the point is that we have in the American press today a lot of Pauline Kaels, someone who said, I don't know a single person who voted for Richard Nixon, in the face of the most historic landslide we had with Richard Nixon. We have press people who are telling us what is going on in Iraq who don't know anybody who has anything good to say about what is going on in Iraq. I have said before and I will conclude with this: During the height of hostilities in Iraq, to watch television, it was clear we were losing the war on CNN. But, fortunately, we won it on Fox. Ultimately, the fact that we won came through even to the CNN executives. I think the good things that are happening in Iraq will eventually come through, even to the people at CNN and the New York Times and some of the other places that are living in a Pauline Kael world. I yield the remainder of our morning business time to the Senator from Texas.

Mr. BENNETT

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I rise to introduce the Uintah Research and Curatorial Center Act. This bill would authorize the National Park Service, NPS, to construct a research and curatorial facility for Dinosaur National Monument and its partner, the Utah Field House of Natural History Museum (Museum), in Vernal, UT. The facility would be co-located with the Museum while helping to preserve, protect, and exhibit the vast treasures of one of the most productive sites of dinosaur bones in the world. Since the first discovery of Jurassic era bones by the paleontologist Earl Douglass in 1909, and the subsequent proclamation as a national monument in 1915 by President Woodrow Wilson, the Dinosaur National Monument has been a haven for both amateur and expert dinosaur enthusiasts. At present, Dinosaur National Monument has more than 600,000 items in its museum collection. Unfortunately, these items are currently stored in 17 different facilities throughout the park. Many of these resources are at risk due to the failure of the scattered facilities to meet minimum National Park Service storage standards. A new research and curatorial facility is greatly needed to bring the park's collections up to standard and to ensure its protection. The curatorial facility will also fill a critical role as a collection center for the park and partners' fossil, archaeological, natural resource operations and collections, and park archives. Moreover, in these days of limited budgets, the decision to co-locate this facility with the State's museum will also save taxpayer dollars. The State of Utah is nearing completion of their new Field House Museum at a cost to the State of $6.5 million dollars. Because of the co- location, NPS staff, visiting scholars, interns and volunteers would have access to the State museum's space for exhibit, classroom, conferencing, education, restrooms, public access, parking, and other needs not included in the curatorial facility. The 22,500 square foot facility will be built outside the boundaries of the park on land donated to the Park Service by the City of Vernal and Uintah County. The legislation will also permit the Park Service to accept the donation of the land, valued at approximately $1.5 million dollars. The Park Service estimates the total cost of adding the research and curatorial center to be $8.7 million dollars. Other Federal agencies, such as the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service, who are also in need of collections storage, have become minor partners and would utilize a small portion of the storage facility. An additional partner in the project, the Intermountain Natural History Association, has agreed to fund and carry out the soil and environmental testing necessary to permit the Park Service to accept the donation. It is imperative that we care for these paleontological resources and ensure their availability to future generations, both for scientific study and the enjoyment of the public. This legislation is a proactive approach to accomplishing those objectives and is an excellent example of a cost effective partnership between the National Park Service, the State of Utah Department of Natural Resources, the City of Vernal, and Uintah County of which this Congress ought to applaud and support.

Mr. BENNETT

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I rise to introduce the Uintah Research and Curatorial Center Act. This bill would authorize the National Park Service, NPS, to construct a research and curatorial facility for Dinosaur National Monument and its partner, the Utah Field House of Natural History Museum (Museum), in Vernal, UT. The facility would be co-located with the Museum while helping to preserve, protect, and exhibit the vast treasures of one of the most productive sites of dinosaur bones in the world. Since the first discovery of Jurassic era bones by the paleontologist Earl Douglass in 1909, and the subsequent proclamation as a national monument in 1915 by President Woodrow Wilson, the Dinosaur National Monument has been a haven for both amateur and expert dinosaur enthusiasts. At present, Dinosaur National Monument has more than 600,000 items in its museum collection. Unfortunately, these items are currently stored in 17 different facilities throughout the park. Many of these resources are at risk due to the failure of the scattered facilities to meet minimum National Park Service storage standards. A new research and curatorial facility is greatly needed to bring the park's collections up to standard and to ensure its protection. The curatorial facility will also fill a critical role as a collection center for the park and partners' fossil, archaeological, natural resource operations and collections, and park archives. Moreover, in these days of limited budgets, the decision to co-locate this facility with the State's museum will also save taxpayer dollars. The State of Utah is nearing completion of their new Field House Museum at a cost to the State of $6.5 million dollars. Because of the co- location, NPS staff, visiting scholars, interns and volunteers would have access to the State museum's space for exhibit, classroom, conferencing, education, restrooms, public access, parking, and other needs not included in the curatorial facility. The 22,500 square foot facility will be built outside the boundaries of the park on land donated to the Park Service by the City of Vernal and Uintah County. The legislation will also permit the Park Service to accept the donation of the land, valued at approximately $1.5 million dollars. The Park Service estimates the total cost of adding the research and curatorial center to be $8.7 million dollars. Other Federal agencies, such as the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service, who are also in need of collections storage, have become minor partners and would utilize a small portion of the storage facility. An additional partner in the project, the Intermountain Natural History Association, has agreed to fund and carry out the soil and environmental testing necessary to permit the Park Service to accept the donation. It is imperative that we care for these paleontological resources and ensure their availability to future generations, both for scientific study and the enjoyment of the public. This legislation is a proactive approach to accomplishing those objectives and is an excellent example of a cost effective partnership between the National Park Service, the State of Utah Department of Natural Resources, the City of Vernal, and Uintah County of which this Congress ought to applaud and support.

Mr. BENNETT

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I had planned to come to the floor at this hour and discuss the issue of vouchers for the District of Columbia. I will still go back to that topic. However, having listened to my friend from Massachusetts and the comments he has made about Iraq, I will divert from the discussion of vouchers for long enough to make a few points with respect to the situation in Iraq. I will go back to my first experience with respect to the issue of terrorism. It happened shortly after I was elected. It was back in the early 1990s. I was elected in 1992, and I took office in 1993. One of my staffers who has foreign policy experience said to me: There are some people you ought to meet. I said: Fine. What is the subject? He said: Well, there is something you ought to understand, and these people will come in and brief you on it. I can't sit in on the meeting because my security clearance has expired, and I am not cleared at a high enough level to be present when they brief you. But I think you, as a U.S. Senator, should hear this briefing and understand what it is they have to say. So not really understanding what was going to happen, I had this briefing take place in my office. Two officers from the CIA came in and sat down with me and talked about the attack on the World Trade Center that occurred in 1993. As they outlined the forces behind that attack, they gave me my first glimpse of international terrorism. I won't go through the details of what they said other than this particular comment. They said: From our point of view, harsh as it may sound, the main thing wrong with the attack on the World Trade Center is that it did not kill more people. I said: That is a very harsh judgment. What do you mean by that? They said: Because it killed only six people and the physical damage was cleared up in a relatively short period of time, the American people have been lulled into a false sense of security that they are not at risk. Then they outlined the full description of international terrorism, where it was, how it operated, and what its goals were. We talked about the religious aspect. We talked about the ideological aspect. I remember saying, as they described the way it was organized: Let me see if I understand exactly what you are telling me. As I understand it, this is basically a church without a pope; that is, there is no hierarchical structure with a single individual or group of individuals at the top calling the shots all the way down. Instead, it is a series of cells of people who have the same ideological fervor but report to no one. They coordinate but they are not controlled. These two briefers said: Yes, Senator, you have that about right. Now, we know there was a center for training for indoctrination and for finance. It was run by Osama bin Laden, and it had as its headquarters, physically, the training camps in Afghanistan. But that does not mean Osama bin Laden or any other central group controlled or coordinated everything that was done worldwide. These are freelancing people, in many respects on their own. They would send people to Afghanistan to be trained and indoctrinated. They would contact Osama bin Laden for funds. But they would develop their own operations and their own initiatives of how they would attack Americans. And this early briefing made it very clear to me that their target was, in fact, Americans. It has always been fashionable to think the primary target for people in the Middle East is Israelis. No, the primary target is Americans. Israelis are seen as surrogates for Americans, but the primary target is Americans. The concern is that the Americans somehow have entered that portion of the world where these people have previously been dominant, and the Americans have contaminated that world with American ideas. The ideas that are so repugnant are the ideas of freedom, the ideas of equality for women, the ideas of education for children in secular ways to teach them skills so that they can survive in the modern world rather than education that is concentrated entirely on indoctrination of ideas that go back centuries if not millennia. I came out of that first briefing very disturbed. I tried to ask those who came to brief me if they could give me any timetable. They said: No, we don't know when this will erupt. No one does. But it is there. It is growing. It is powerful. We are the target. They also said--I remember very clearly--that the primary challenge to Americans would be in chemical and biological weapons. This was before the attempt was made to put a chemical agent into the subway in Tokyo and raised the specter of that kind of thing being done in America. Well, the years went by. Nothing happened. I tended to forget that briefing and put it aside. I focused, as many in this Chamber know, on the issue of cyber-terrorism and attacks through computers. I held a hearing where I asked the CIA witness who appeared before us: Isn't it likely that the next attack on this country will come in the form of a computer attack because you could do more damage to the economy if you could shut down the computers than any other way? The CIA witness said: No, Senator, I don't think that is true. It is true that you could do more damage to the economy with computers, but I don't think that is where the attack will come from. The terrorists want something dramatic that will show on television around the world. Television pictures of computers not working just won't cut it for that purpose. That hearing was held less than 60 days before September 11, 2001, when we saw that particular prophecy--they want something dramatic on television--fulfilled enormously. What does that have to do with the issues raised by the Senator from Massachusetts as he is complaining that there is no plan in Iraq? He is complaining that the reservists are going to be held too long in Iraq, that we have not leveled with the world, that we don't have enough allies in Iraq, that everything is going terribly wrong in Iraq. It has everything to do with what the Senator from Massachusetts was talking about because the Senator from Massachusetts--and others like him who have chosen to focus on difficulties that America is having in Iraq-- has turned his gaze away from the overall challenge of terrorism in the world. That which I was told in that first briefing is still true. The primary target of terrorists throughout the world is Americans. The primary purpose of terrorism around the world is to drive America out of the Middle East. And the lesson that those terrorists have learned from America's activities since the Vietnam war says that if they just keep chipping away at our resolve, if they just keep bloodying our nose a little bit, Americans will tire, Americans will decide to pull back, and Americans will withdraw. That happened in Somalia. That happened when the first al-Qaida attacks occurred against American Embassies. That happened after the attack on the USS Cole. We protested; we made a brief military gesture, and then, afraid of American casualties, afraid of what public opinion might say in America, we pulled back. Thus emboldened by that kind of history and particularly encouraged by the rhetoric in the United Nations, the terrorist groups are convinced that if they can just hang on in Iraq long enough to cause us to lose resolve at home, we will withdraw our troops from Iraq, we will say it wasn't worth it, we will say, yes, there was some faulty intelligence, and therefore we must correct that by withdrawing altogether, and then we turn not only Iraq but ultimately the entire Middle East over to the terrorists. If we think we have a lot of problems with terrorists now, just wait until they are encouraged by America's lack of resolve. Of course, things are not going well in Iraq, according to the rosiest of scenarios. They never do in wartime. Think back to the other wars America has fought--more traditional wars to be true, but nonetheless wars that were for our survival. Did the Second World War start out with a series of American victories? Did the Second World War start out with a series of American bungles because we didn't have an adequate plan to deal with the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor? There was a great deal of second-guessing about Pearl Harbor. Franklin Roosevelt was heavily criticized for not having known Pearl Harbor was coming, and some even suggested the conspiratorial theory that he looked the other way in order to provoke a Pearl Harbor. I don't believe that for a second, but that was a part of the political rhetoric of the time. We did not, as a nation, respond to that rhetoric. Instead, we said: Let the books about what may or may not have been done be written later; let us concentrate now on the task at hand. We refused to be distracted or diverted from the task at hand. My primary challenge and my primary problem with the position enunciated by the Senator from Massachusetts is not that he lacks patriotism. There are those who say that by challenging him, I am challenging his patriotism. I don't do that for a moment. It is not that I challenge his motives or his integrity. I don't for a moment. I challenge his focus. He is focusing on everything that might be challenged as not going correctly and perfectly from the beginning, and he is ignoring the big picture. He is ignoring the primary threat that has been with us for decades, finally exploded on our shores on the 11th of September, and has not gone away. And the question must be asked: If we in fact refuse to put up the money for the $87 billion that has been requested, if we refuse to proceed with the effort to establish a stable and free market-oriented economy and government in Iraq, if we refuse to stay the course and pull back now, all in the name of some abstract sense of balance because the intelligence might not have been perfect, what will be the result? If we lose focus on the war on terrorism, the terrorists will win. If we decide that short-term political advantage is more important than long-term success, the terrorists will win. It has been said--perhaps it is a cliche, but it is very true--that America is better off fighting terrorists in the streets of Baghdad--yes, even if soldiers die--than we would be fighting them in the streets of Detroit or New Orleans or San Francisco. One of the reasons we have not had successive events to the bombing of the World Trade Center with airplanes and the attack on the Pentagon since September 11, 2001, is that we have been focusing on destroying the terrorist infrastructure, hunting down their leaders, and disrupting their financial networks. We came to the conclusion that one of the key factors in doing all of those things was an attack on Iraq. Oh, some say, you cannot prove any connection between the people who flew into the World Trade Center and Saddam Hussein and, therefore, you made a mistake in going into Iraq. Is there anyone looking at the results of what happened after we went into Iraq who would say the Iraqi people would be better off if we had not done it? Two-thirds of the Iraqis are saying over and over again in various polls and surveys that are done that their lives are better now than before the Americans came in. Those who say the intelligence was faulty should look at all aspects of the intelligence we didn't have. I will acknowledge that there were many things we did not know until we got on the ground and perhaps the intelligence people should have told us. One of those, about which we hear nothing from the Senator from Massachusetts and others who hold his same position, is that we did not know there was a holocaust going on in Iraq that, percentagewise, was almost as great as the one that went on in Nazi Germany. Tom Korologos, a friend to many of us in this Chamber, is now serving in Iraq. He takes the congressional delegations that go there to visit the mass graves. He said that is the first place they go, and it gets very quiet very quickly. We didn't know Saddam Hussein was systematically murdering, torturing, and burying his people in tremendous numbers. The intelligence didn't tell us that. If we had known that, would it have said to us, stay out? If we had had the correct intelligence, would we have said, oh, we cannot go in there if that is going on? There are those who criticized Franklin Roosevelt for not focusing on the Holocaust during the Second World War and not doing more to prevent it. If we had known that, I believe it would have made us go in more quickly and more powerfully than we did. Now we know. There are those who say we have no plan for the reconstruction of Iraq. Look at how badly it is going. Look at the number of people who are without power and water, and look at all of the damage that was done. Then we realize from the reports on the ground that the lack of power, the lack of water, and the lack of services in Iraq was because of Saddam Hussein, not because of anything the American bombs did. Many Iraqis are saying they have more food, more power, and more water now than they did before the Americans came. But you didn't hear that on this floor from people who are complaining that we have not solved all of the problems in the time we have been there. Mr. President, as I say, I did not come prepared to talk about that. I have more I want to say on that in a more prepared fashion. I will do that later in the week when we get into the actual debate over the $87 billion supplemental. The point I want to make--and I will make it again--is that the true story of what is really happening in Iraq is not being told to the American people. That is primarily because those in control of the media, for whatever reason, are not anxious to tell that story. Maybe they consider it as not news. Maybe they consider it will not get as many viewers to show the progress that is being made in Iraq, as compared to what they are showing now, which are the difficulties that are being created in Iraq. I will talk about that also later in the week. I believe that when the truth comes out, when everything that is really happening in Iraq is truly known, the American people will discover this is an effort of which we can be enormously proud. This is an effort of America at its best. We have not gone into Iraq for territory; we have not gone into Iraq for economic advantage; we have gone into Iraq for the highest possible humanitarian motives, and with all of the difficulties and all of the problems, and all of the guerrilla attacks, we are daily increasing our ability to fulfill those humanitarian motives. Let me close with this final comment. I was in this Chamber when the proposal was made that America invade Haiti. I was opposed to that. I voted against it. But we were told it was our duty to invade Haiti, not because there was an imminent threat from Haiti, not because Haiti was developing any weapons of mass destruction, not because Haiti was harboring terrorists, not because Haiti was financing terrorists, all of which applied to Iraq. No, we were told we had to invade Haiti because there was an illegitimate President in charge; that that alone was sufficient reason for American military power to be applied to the situation in Haiti. Obviously, there was no military challenge worthy of the name awaiting us in Haiti. That was an easy decision to make in terms of a military activity. Colin Powell, then a private citizen, along with former President Jimmy Carter and Senator Sam Nunn, went to Haiti in advance of the invasion and essentially talked the Haiti regime into abandoning their posts and leaving peacefully. Sam Nunn reported to those of us in the Senate after that experience what went on, and basically the individual who convinced the Haitian leadership to give up without a fight was Colin Powell. He sat down with the leader of the Haitian armed forces and convinced him that military chivalry did not require that he die at his post; that he had a responsibility to his troops and if there was, in fact, a shootout with the American military, his troops would be destroyed for no good purpose. The man, responding as one military man to another, agreed with Colin Powell and left the country. We can look back on that event and discover the following: We replaced a brutal dictator, much beloved of American conservatives, with a man who had the claim of being the legitimately elected President. So technically we replaced a usurper with a President who was legitimate. I remember raising the question on the floor of what would happen if we put this man in charge because his past history suggested that he would become just as brutal a dictator. Oh, no, I was told, no, because the Haitian Constitution does not allow him to run for a second term. We will put him back in power with the military might of America behind him. He will serve out the balance of his term, and then he will step aside because he is a democrat who responds appropriately to democratic institutions and his constitution says he cannot serve a second term. You need not be concerned that he will seize power in a way that will be dictatorial and brutal to his people, Senator Bennett, because the Haitian Constitution forbids it. The Haitian economy was in terrible shape at the time the American military invaded Haiti, and we were told: We will have to do something about that; we will have to rebuild Haiti, so we will turn that responsibility over to the United Nations. Now, not quite a decade later, looking at Haiti, what do we find? Yes, we replaced a brutal dictator who was much beloved of American conservatives, with a brutal dictator who is much beloved of American liberals, and he is still there, the Haitian Constitution to the contrary notwithstanding. He is going to be dictator for life, as long as he can maintain his military power. How has the United Nations done in rebuilding Haiti? How has the United Nations fared in bringing democracy and prosperity to Haiti? The average Haitian at best is no worse off than he was prior to the American invasion. And at worst he is considerably worse off economically. The island's economy has continued to deteriorate. Brutality, government murder, and assassination has continued to thrive. Nothing is better; a great deal is worse. I am not suggesting that Iraq is a perfect analogy with Haiti, but I find it interesting that people who are now complaining that we went in to remove a brutal dictator should consider leaving quickly and, thus, open the door to replacement by a brutal dictator and turn the responsibility of seeing that the country is rehabilitated over to the United Nations. I think the track record demonstrates that the Americans do a better job than the United Nations and, indeed, if the United Nations is to succeed, should we do that in Iraq, the only way they could do it, and Kofi Annan and others realize this, would be to plead with the Americans to provide the security forces, to provide the money, to provide the expertise to see that it happens. If we are going to provide that, we should be in charge of it. Mr. President, now I return to the subject I came to the Chamber to discuss, and I will do that much more expeditiously than I would have otherwise, having taken that time to respond to the Senator from Massachusetts. The issue is the question of whether or not we should allow a voucher pilot program to be tested in the District of Columbia. Let me make it very clear the implication of what I have just said: a voucher pilot program to be tested in the District of Columbia. By voting for this pilot program and the funds that would support it, I am not voting for vouchers in Salt Lake City, I am not voting for vouchers in Cleveland, Detroit, St. Louis, or Los Angeles, and I am not voting for a national voucher system. I am voting for a pilot project to be tested in the District of Columbia. Once we have tested that pilot project and learn how well it works in the District of Columbia, then we can have the debate of whether or not it belongs in other cities around the country. Then we can have the debate as to whether or not it works. Right now we hear all kinds of rhetoric about how terribly irresponsible it will be. Do we know? No. Let's test it. We can't just turn the whole school system in the District of Columbia over to private schools. No, we can't. Let's have a pilot program. A pilot program to be tested in the District of Columbia does not threaten public education across the country, does not threaten the budgets of school boards around the Nation, does not threaten anything except those who are in love with the status quo. What is the status quo in the school system in the District of Columbia? On a per pupil basis, it is wonderful. On a per pupil basis, more money is spent in the District of Columbia than any other jurisdiction in the United States. That sounds terrific. We are spending more money per pupil to educate kids in the District than anyplace else. We are spending about a third more than the national average, and we are spending about two-thirds more than we spend in my home State of Utah. From a spending per pupil point of view, nothing is wrong with schools in the District. The only problem is the vast majority of kids who are being educated in those schools are not being educated. The vast majority of the kids on whom that money is being spent are coming out of the system badly shortchanged. They can't read. They can't figure. There are whole gaps in their knowledge of things they don't understand. There are those who say we are just not supporting them enough; we are just not spending enough money. The late Senator from New York, Pat Moynihan, once said half facetiously, but also to make a point, that if you drew a chart with one line being spending and the other line being accomplishments, you could draw the inference that the more money we spend on education, the worse it becomes because, he said, as the spending line has gone up, the accomplishment line had gone down. He didn't want to suggest there was a cause-and-effect relationship there, and I don't either, but I do think from that chart, particularly with respect to the District of Columbia, we can understand that more money for the present system is not the answer. The people who are most concerned about the education in the District of Columbia have come forward with a request. By that I mean the Mayor, I mean the president of the school board, and I mean ultimately the people most concerned. The parents of the children have said: Will the Congress please give us the opportunity to do a test of a pilot program in the District of Columbia to see if it works? We in the Congress, in the Appropriations Committee so far, have said: Yes, we will give you the money to test a pilot project in the District of Columbia. From the rhetoric we heard in the committee and the rhetoric I expect on the floor, one would think we had challenged the entire structure of public education in America from the time of Thomas Jefferson forward. We are not. We simply want to have the money to test a pilot project in the District of Columbia, a pilot project which the leaders of the District of Columbia and the parents in the District of Columbia have asked for. I think it is time we gave them what they asked for. I am perfectly willing to hold out the possibility that after 3, 4, or 5 years of experience, if we determine that it is a failure, I will vote to cut off all funds for it. I am perfectly willing to stipulate that I don't guarantee in any way that this is a silver bullet that is going to solve all of the problems. I anticipate that at the end of 4 or 5 years, reading scores are still going to be lousy in the District, mathematics skills are still going to be lousy in the District, but maybe, just maybe they will get a little better as the District schools decide they want to compete with those private schools that are educating the children a little better. I am assuming that will happen. Yes, but we are only providing this for a small percentage of the students in the District of Columbia, and therefore we are shortchanging the others if it is going to work. Again, we don't know if it is going to work. We are just providing money for a test of a pilot project in the District of Columbia to see what will happen. I believe, as I say, that it will demonstrate better things and more important things. But I say to those who say you are not doing it for all of the kids, it is like the old story which I first heard from an educator. I know it is almost a cliche now that others have used it, but it is appropriate here, and it is the proper way for me to conclude this presentation. People are walking along the beach and they are seeing on the sand, away from the ocean, starfish that have been washed ashore by a heavy wave, and the wave has then receded and the starfish are in danger of dying outside of the water. One of the two picks up a starfish and throws it into the water, and the other says: Why are you wasting your time? Look at all these thousands of starfish that are going to die out here and you can't make a difference. It won't make any difference what you do. And as the first one threw another starfish back into the ocean he said: It will make a difference to this one. I suggest that there are many children in the District of Columbia for whom this will make a very significant difference. Just because we can't, here, make a difference for them all, we can at least make a difference for this one, and for that one, and for the next one. Let's have the courage to test a pilot project for the District of Columbia and see what happens.

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. BENNETT

Mr. BENNETT. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, the Senator is the military historian and has served as Secretary of the Navy. Could the Senator confirm my recollection that General Eisenhower once said, before the attack: The plan is everything? After the attack starts, the plan goes out the window. Is that a correct quote? And does that apply in this situation?

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, over the weekend the country heard one of the more senior Members of this body, the senior Senator from Massachusetts, make a charge against the President of the United States, particularly with respect to the war in Iraq. The senior Senator from Massachusetts said the war in Iraq was ``hatched in Texas'' in a conversation between the President of the United States and the Republican leadership and that the purpose of attacking Iraq was to help the Republicans politically in the congressional elections of 2002. The Senator from Massachusetts summarized the President's position with respect to the war in a single word. He called it a ``fraud.'' To quote a comment from the Washington Post in another situation dealing with Iraq, this is a serious charge and it deserves a serious response. It is my attempt today to give a serious response to this charge. If the charge made by the senior Senator from Massachusetts is accurate, then the President is deserving of a serious rebuke. If in fact the charge is not accurate, the senior Senator from Massachusetts is deserving of a serious rebuke. I intend to examine whether or not the charge could be substantiated and give it the attention that I think it does in fact deserve. I will turn not to sources that are friendly to the President of the United States; I will go in my analysis to those who have been critical of President Bush with respect to Iraq and to his Presidency generally. Let me start by quoting a Presidential statement with respect to Iraq: Saddam Hussein's priorities are painfully clear, not caring for his citizens but building weapons of mass destruction and using them--using them not once, but repeatedly in the terrible war Iraq fought with Iran, and not only against combatants but against civilians, and not only against a foreign adversary but against his own people, and he has targeted Scud missiles against fellow Arabs in Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Bahrain. Nobody wants to use force, but if Saddam Hussein refuses to keep his commitments to the international community, we must be prepared to deal directly with the threat these weapons pose to the Iraqi people, to Iraq's neighbors, and to the rest of the world. Either Saddam acts, or we will have to. As I say, that was a Presidential quote, but it was not from George W. Bush, and it was not after a meeting in Texas between George W. Bush and Republican leaders. That was a statement made by President William Jefferson Clinton on February 20, 1998--long before the congressional elections of 2002 and 2 years before George W. Bush became President of the United States. The suggestion that President Bush created the fraud or the specter that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction does not stand up against that statement by President Clinton. I make reference to the Washington Post. This is a newspaper that is not known for its support of either Republicans or President Bush. But they were a supporter of attacking Iraq and, as I have said, there were those who charged the Washington Post editors with a ``jingoistic rush to war,'' and the paper said, as I have noted: That is a serious charge and it deserves a serious response. Then the paper goes on to make these comments: In fact, there is nothing sudden or precipitous about our view that Saddam Hussein poses a grave danger. Quoting further: In 1997 and 1998, we strongly backed President Clinton when he vowed that Iraq must finally honor its commitments to the United Nations to give up its nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons, and we strongly criticized him when he retreated from those vows. Again, that was a comment made after the supposed meeting in Texas and made after the congressional elections of 2002. If, indeed, President Bush made the decision to go into Iraq for purely political reasons, why would the Washington Post, which is not one of President Bush's supporters, be commenting after those congressional elections in a way that makes it clear they came to the same conclusion that President Bush did? Would the Senator from Massachusetts suggest that the Washington Post was part of the conspiracy that went on in Texas prior to the congressional elections, and that the Washington Post was complicit in the fraud visited on the American people by the decision to go ahead in Iraq? The Post editorial goes on, and this was February 27, 2003: When we cite Mr. Clinton's perceptive but ultimately empty comments, it is in part to chide him and other Democrats who take a different view now that a Republican is in charge. But it has a more serious purpose, too. Mr. Clinton could not muster the will, or the domestic or international support, to force Saddam Hussein to live up to the promises he had made in 1991, though even then the danger was well understood. We need not stay within our shores to find those who believe the President made the right decision in Iraq. Let us go overseas. I had occasion to visit with a group of European Parliamentarians. One of them, who came from Great Britain, made this comment to me. He said they have never had a politician in Great Britain who is as poll-driven as Tony Blair, and they never had one who pays so much attention to focus groups. The man said Tony Blair almost allows focus groups to determine what kind of tie he will wear in the morning. Yet when we come to this Iraq business, said this particular Parliamentarian, Tony Blair is going against all of the polls and all of the focus groups. He is acting in a manner that is completely uncharacteristic for him as a politician. He is actually willing to risk his position as Prime Minister in order to make sure we go after Saddam Hussein. He said they cannot understand it, except on one possible basis, and that is that Tony Blair must be completely convinced that the information is correct, that the intelligence is right, and that Saddam Hussein does indeed pose a threat. He said that there is otherwise no explanation for the way he is behaving, that it is contrary to his entire political experience. Would the senior Senator from Massachusetts suggest that Tony Blair was part of a conspiracy in Texas prior to the 2002 elections, and that Tony Blair was convinced by the President of the United States he should help him win a Republican victory in the congressional elections by supporting the action in Iraq? It is interesting when we are talking about Tony Blair we can once again turn to the words of William Jefferson Clinton. On March 18, 2003, once again, after the congressional elections had taken place, President Clinton had this to say in the Guardian Newspaper, published in Great Britain. He talked about those in America who were calling for action. Then he says: On the other side, France, Germany and Russia are adamantly opposed to the use of force or imposing any ultimatum on Saddam as long as the inspectors are working. They believe that, at least as long as the inspectors are there, Iraq will not use or give away its chemical and biological stock and therefore no matter how unhelpful Saddam is, he does not pose a threat sufficient to justify invasion. Here is President Clinton using a phrase that is now current in the Democratic Presidential race: ``He does not pose a threat sufficient to justify invasion.'' Then President Clinton goes on and responds to that statement by saying this: The problem with their position is that only the threat of force from the US and the UK got inspectors back into Iraq in the first place. Without a credible threat of force, Saddam will not disarm. Then President Clinton goes on to conclude: If we leave Iraq with chemical and biological weapons, after 12 years of defiance, there is a considerable risk that one day these weapons will fall into the wrong hands and put many more lives at risk than will be lost in overthrowing Saddam. . . . Prime Minister Blair will have to do what he believes to be right. I trust him to do that and hope the labor MP's and the British people will, too. This is President Clinton supporting Prime Minister Blair in his support of President Bush after the congressional elections of 2002 have taken place. Are we suggesting again that President Clinton and Prime Minister Blair and the Washington Post were all part of the conspiracy to perpetuate a fraud on the American people? I don't think so. Now, I come to my final comment that I wish to make, again, from a source not friendly to the President. Once again, it is the Washington Post. I began with them and I shall conclude with them. This is an editorial published on August 10, 2003, almost a year after the congressional elections are over. They are referring to a speech made by the former Vice President, Al Gore: The notion--that we were all somehow bamboozled into war-- is part of Mr. Gore's larger conviction that Mr. Bush has put one over on the nation, and not just with regard to Iraq. That is essentially what the senior Senator from Massachusetts said, and which the former Vice President said, and the Washington Post repeats that. This is the comment they make, referring to that proposal President Bush ``put one over on the nation.'' The Washington Post says of that idea that it is: . . . one that many Americans might find a tad insulting: The administration has developed a highly effective propaganda machine to embed in the public mind mythologies . . . Again, that is Vice President Gore's comment, and that was the gist of what the senior Senator from Massachusetts said. Back to the Washington Post: Thus, Mr. Gore maintains, we were all under the ``false impression'' that Saddam Hussein was ``on the verge of building nuclear bombs,'' that he was ``about to give the terrorists poison gas and deadly germs,'' that he was partly responsible for the 9/11 attacks. And because of these ``false impressions,'' the nation didn't conduct a proper debate about the war. But there was extensive debate going back many years; last fall and winter the nation debated little else. Mr. Bush took his case to the United Nations. Congress argued about and approved a resolution authorizing war. And the approval did not come, as Mr. Gore and other Democrats now maintain, because people were deceived into believing that Saddam Hussein was an ``imminent'' threat who had attacked the World Trade Center or was about to do so. They conclude: It would certainly be fair now to argue that the logic was wrong. There was a cogent case to be made against the war, and even those who supported it might now say that the absence of any uncovered weapons of mass destruction, or the continuing violence against Americans, gives them, in hindsight, a different view. There's plenty to criticize in the administration's postwar effort, too. What isn't persuasive, or even very smart politically, is to pretend to have been fooled by what Mr. Gore breathlessly calls the Bush ``systematic effort to manipulate facts . . .'' From these sources outside of the Republican base and outside of the administration, it is clear the senior Senator from Massachusetts has made a charge he cannot substantiate.

Mr. BENNETT

Mr. BENNETT. My question is very simple: I ask the Democratic leader if at any time in my presentation did he find where I attacked the motives, the patriotism, or the rights of the Senator from Massachusetts? My intent was--and it is my belief that I stood up to my intent--to challenge the accuracy of the statement of the Senator from Massachusetts, never having made any reference to his motives, his patriotism, or his rights. If the Democratic leader has instances where I did that, I would appreciate it if he would point that out to me so I can make the appropriate response.

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I asked unanimous consent that the exchange between the Democratic leader and myself not be charged to their time, if he would be willing to yield for a question.

Mr. BENNETT. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. BENNETT

Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. BENNETT. I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to proceed for 15 minutes on the Republican time.