Howard Berman

Mr. BERMAN

Mr. BERMAN. Mr. Speaker, this month marks the 88th anniversary of the beginning of the Armenian Genocide. I rise today to commemorate this terrible chapter in human history, and to help ensure that it will never be forgotten. April 24, 1915, the Turkish government began to arrest Armenian community and political leaders. Many were executed without ever being charged with crimes. Then the government deported most Armenians from Turkish Armenia, ordering that they resettle in what is now Syria. Many deportees never reached that destination. From 1915 to 1918, more than a million Armenians died of starvation or disease on long marches, or were massacred outright by Turkish forces. From 1918 to 1923, Armenians continued to suffer at the hands of the Turkish military, which eventually removed all remaining Armenians from Turkey. The U.S. Ambassador in Constantinople at the time, Henry Morgenthau, stated ``I am confident that the whole history of the human race contains no such horrible episode as this. The great massacres and persecutions of the past seem almost insignificant when compared to the sufferings of the Armenian race in 1915.'' We mark this anniversary of the start of the Armenian Genocide because this tragedy for the Armenian people was a tragedy for all humanity. It is our duty to remember, to speak out and to teach future generations about the horrors of genocide and the oppression and terrible suffering endured by the Armenian people. We hope the day will soon come when it is not just the survivors who honor the dead but also when those whose ancestors perpetrated the horrors acknowledge their terrible responsibility and commemorate as well the memory of genocide's victims. Sadly, we cannot say humanity has progressed to the point where genocide has become unthinkable. The ``killing fields'' of Cambodia, the Iraqi regime's gassing of the Kurds, mass ethnic killings in Bosnia and Rwanda, and ``ethnic cleansing'' in Kosovo remain recent memories. We must renew our commitment never to remain indifferent in the face of such assaults on innocent human beings. We also remember this day because it is a time for us to celebrate the contribution of the Armenian community in America--including hundreds of thousands in California--to the richness of our character and culture. The strength they have displayed in overcoming tragedy to flourish in this country is an example for all of us. Their success is moving testimony to the truth that tyranny and evil cannot extinguish the vitality of the human spirit. The United States has an ongoing opportunity to contribute to a true memorial to the past by strengthening Armenia's democracy. Through trade and aid, we can support the efforts of the Armenian people to construct an open political and economic system. Adolf Hitler, the architect of the Nazi Holocaust, once remarked ``Who remembers the Armenians?'' The answer is, we do. And we will continue to remember the victims of the 1915-23 genocide because, in the words of the philosopher George Santayana, ``Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.''

Mr. BERMAN

Mr. BERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise to pay tribute to my constituent, Anastacio A. Cisneroz, who celebrates his 100th birthday on April 15, 2003 at Pico Adobe Historical Park in Mission Hills. Born in Purandido, Michoacan, Mexico, Anastacio and his family fled to the United States in 1918 to avoid the hardships caused by the Mexican Revolution and to find a better life. Anastacio was 15 years old, and the hunger and suffering endured by his family remains fresh in his mind. During their journey to the San Fernando Valley, Anastacio's mother, Refujio Armenta, and youngest brother, Perfidio, died of a particularly virulent strain of influenza which also killed millions of others. His father, brother, sister and he continued by train through Ciudad Juarez to El Paso on December 25,1918. In 1932 he married Jessie Menjares and purchased a home in San Fernando where he lives to this day. He has nine children, 31 grandchildren, 52 great grandchildren and 5 great, great grandchildren--5 wonderful generations. Because of his determination, work ethic, and spirit, Anastacio thrived in the United States even though things were not always easy. In 1942, he began working for Lockheed. The hours were long and the work was hard, but Anastacio took pride in his efforts and was extremely successful. He retired with the respect and admiration of his peers and supervisors after 27 years of service. Today, Anastacio likes to travel, work in his vegetable garden, shop in supermarkets and walk to the barbershop. He attributes his longevity to hard work, good food, sleeping well and never smoking or drinking. He says that the secret of his long life is ``living with common sense.'' We respect and honor Anastacio and hopefully, we will all learn from his wisdom. Mr. Speaker, I am proud to ask my colleagues to join me in saluting Anastacio Cisneroz on his 100th Birthday.

Mr. BERMAN

Mr. BERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me time. Mr. Speaker, two points: In California we had much of the same issue that the country is now facing, rapidly escalating medical malpractice premiums, concerns that the health care system was broken, and we weighed the two approaches we had. One is the accountability for bad medical practices through the tort system versus a compromise that used a combination of tort reform, enhanced regulation of the medical profession and hospitals in terms of ensuring that bad practice would not be allowed to go unpunished and to continue, and insurance industry regulation legislation. Now, we have this crisis in many other States of the Nation. Without getting into the issue to the extent to which tort reform played a role in reducing medical malpractice premiums and without getting into the debate about why we would need to federalize the entire system rather than letting the States work this through the same way California did, I just wanted to draw the attention of the body to the fact that what you are being told is not true. This is not an effort to take the California law as passed in 1975, known as MICRA, and to pass it and federalize it and to have it apply to the country as a whole. This is a bald faced effort to cherry-pick certain provisions of that law, add many different people to the coverage of that law that were never included in that law, add additional tort reform provisions to that law that were not included in that law and then claim that we are doing MICRA. In MICRA we enacted a series of very serious tort reforms, including the cap of $250,000, which I opposed vociferously then and do now. But we also massively enhanced both the level of insurance industry regulation and the authority of the boards of medical quality assurance, the disciplinary boards, to discipline those few physicians who were truly bad doctors, whose record of malpractice was astounding. If there was not going to be the full accountability from the tort system for the conduct of those physicians, then their status, their licenses would be in jeopardy. We provided immunity to other physicians so that they would testify about the bad practices of those few doctors. We set up peer review committees in every area of this State. We significantly enhanced the powers of the boards of medical quality assurance. None of that, absolutely none of that appears here. This is a one-sided effort appealed to by certain interests, decrying other interests, to pretend they are taking the balanced approach of California when they are cherry-picking it to only limit its impact on one issue, the ability of injured patients to recover because of the negligence of another.

Mr. BERMAN

Mr. BERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise to commend the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights for producing the report entitled ``Fire and Broken Glass: The Rise of Antisemitism in Europe,'' which underscores the commitment of the Lawyers Committee to speak up against human rights abuses wherever they occur, and whatever form they take. In the report, the Lawyers Committee states forthrightly that ``antisemitism is racism. Antisemitic acts need to be confronted more forcefully and treated as serious violations of international human rights.'' The Lawyers Committee observes that the responsibility of reporting and confronting antisemitism should not be shouldered by Jewish organizations alone; ``their involvement does not relieve governments, the United Nations . . . or private human rights groups of their obligations to address antisemitism as an integral part of their work.'' In pointed remarks concerning the failure of European governments to address the problem, executive director Michael Posner writes, ``Too often European leaders have downplayed antisemitic acts as inevitable side-effects of the current crisis in the Middle East. We reject this reasoning as an abdication of responsibility. Criticism of Israeli policies and practices is not inherently antisemitic. But when such criticisms and related actions take the form of broadside attacks against 'Jews' or the 'Jewish State,' they become racist.'' The report cites recent instances of antisemitism in Europe, laments the failure of European governments to accurately report and engage in action to combat these hate crimes, and makes a series of recommendations for steps the European governments should take. The text of the report follows. Foreword A year ago the United Nations convened the third World Conference on Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, in Durban, South Africa. The conference was intended to highlight particularly serious patterns of racism and racial discrimination around the world and to shape appropriate global responses. The meeting succeeded in raising public attention with respect to some particularly egregious situations--not least the plight of 250 million victims of caste discrimination (among them the Dalits of India--the so-called ``broken people,'' or ``untouchables''). Further, the conference provided a long overdue acknowledgment of the criminal nature of slavery (``that slavery and the slave trade are a crime against humanity and should always have been'') and recommendations for the repair of its lasting consequences for people of African descent around the globe. The conference also made clear that racism and racial discrimination need to be placed more squarely on the international human rights agenda. But what was positive in the conference process was seriously undermined when the World Conference itself became the setting for a series of antisemtic attacks. Directed primarily against representatives of Jewish groups, these attacks were fueled by the heated debates at the meeting concerning Israeli practices in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. But the racist anti-Jewish animus displayed represented considerably more than criticism of Israeli policies and practices. Most of the offensive behavior occurred during meetings of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and individual participants in a forum that paralleled the intergovernmental conference. Throughout the five-day NGO forum, antisemitic cartoons and materials were distributed widely and on display, tolerated by the forums's nongovernmental organizers. Representatives from Jewish organizations were denied access to some meetings--either physically excluded or shouted down and attacked when they were present and tried to speak. Efforts to put antisemitism on the nongovernmental agenda were roundly defeated by an assembly of representatives and individual participants in procedures that were neither democratic nor principled. Rather than serving as a forum for correcting racial and religious intolerance and hate, the public meetings and exhibition halls of the Durban conference became a place where pernicious racism was practiced and tolerated. Important recommendations adopted by the conference despite this environment, with a real potential to advance the fight against antisemitism--and other forms of racism--have as a consequence received inadequate attention. Some of these recommendations, concerning government monitoring and reporting on racist violence, are discussed here. The outbursts at Durban reflect a growing trend toward antisemitic expression and violence in many parts of the world. As this report makes clear, there is an alarming rise in antisemitic violence in Europe: but it is on the rise in other parts of the world as well. Unfortunately, with the notable exception of Jewish organizations and a number of other human rights and antiracist groups and institutions, the world communiuty--governments, intergovernmental organizations, and nongovernmental organizations alike--has not responded adequately to this growing problem. Antisemitism is racism. Antisemitic acts need to be confronted more forcefully and treated as serious violations of international human rights. This report highlights the inadequacy of efforts by European governments to systematically monitor and report on antisemitic threats and violence--and to develop effective measures to stop it. We define antisemitism as hatred or hostility toward or discrimination against Jews as a religious, ethnic or racial group. Governments and intergovernmental organizations need to routinely incorporate facts about antisemitic assaults. arson, vandalism, desecration of cemeteries, and the proliferation of antisemitic materials on the internet into a wide range of existing human rights reporting mechanisms. Though some Jewish organizations, like the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee, are doing excellent reporting on these issues, their involvement does not relieve governments, the United Nations and its regional organizations, or private human rights groups of their obligations to address antisemitism as an integral part of their work. In the pages that follow, we outline the scope of antisemitism, in Europe and examine some of the efforts by European governments and institutions to monitor and confront the problem. In our view these efforts are insufficient. Too often European leaders have downplayed antisemitic acts as inevitable side-effects of the current crisis in the Middle East. We reject this reasoning as an abdication of responsibility. Criticism of Israeli policies and practices is not inherently antisemitic. But when such criticisms and related actions take the form of broadside attacks against ``Jews'' or the ``Jewish State,'' they become racist. In this report we make a series of recommendations as to how these abuses can better be investigated and reported in the future. These recommendations are intended as a starting point for a much larger discussion about how anti-semitism and other forms of racism can better be addressed as a more central element of the global human rights debate. At the end of last year's Durban meeting, we wrote that ``[t]he subjects of this conference are the human rights issues of the 21st century. Racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and intolerance affect each of us in our own communities. All of us--governments, the UN, NGOs--must find constructive way to discuss and combat these problems.'' Events of the last year only underscore the continuing importance of meeting that challenge, and, with regards to antisemitism, history emphasizes the urgency of doing so with force and with vigor. Michael Posner, Executive Director, August 2002.

Mr. BERMAN

Mr. BERMAN. Mr. Speaker, we rise today to pay tribute to our good friend, Doctor Francine Ratner Kaufman, recently named as the Woman of Valor for 2003 by the American Diabetes Association. During the past two decades, we have had the pleasure of working with Dr. Kaufman on numerous issues relating to health policy and we are delighted she has been chosen to receive this prestigious award. Dr. Kaufman has devoted her clinical and research career to improving the lives of those afflicted with diabetes. She is a clinician who heads the Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism at Children's Hospital Los Angeles; a scholar who is a Professor of Pediatrics at the Keck School of Medicine at USC; a researcher who has received NIH funding for over twenty years and a leader who is currently serving as the National American Diabetes Association President. In short, she is a remarkable woman with an extensive and diverse history of accomplishments. Dr. Kaufman, the principal investigator for several nationwide efforts to mitigate or eliminate the impact of diabetes, holds numerous patents on the formulation of ExtendBar, a snack bar designed to reduce glycemic excursion and episodes of hypoglycemia in diabetics. She has even developed an interactive, educational CD-ROM game designed for children with diabetes in collaboration with the Starbright Foundation. Dedicated to helping others, Dr. Kaufman served as the medical director at a summer camp for children with diabetes in the San Bernardino Mountains of Southern California for more than twenty years. She also helped establish standards of care for the American Diabetes Association. Using her influence to help in her cause, she has led many advocacy efforts at the local and national levels to increase insurance benefits and to reduce discrimination against people with diabetes. We ask our colleagues to join us today saluting our friend Doctor Francine Ratner Kaufman for her service and commitment to our community.

Mr. BERMAN

Mr. BERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate the AYSO, Culver City, Region 19, Boys U12 Division team, Tidal Waves. Headed by the superb leadership of Coach Steve Salazar and Assistant Coach Alfonso Espinoza, Tidal Waves finished the season undefeated. Coach Salazar and Assistant Coach Espinoza knew how to get things done. Their tireless commitment, boundless energy, no nonsense coaching and clear sense of direction are responsible in a large measure for the Tidal Waves success. Team members Austin Mott, Gregory Salazar, Henry Best, Joe Best, Mychal Cooper, Matthew Galvan, Austin Brasher, Giovanni Espinoza and Robin Clarkson played hard, tough competitive soccer. They gave their best effort at every practice. The players displayed a passion about improving their individual skills equal only to their determination to improve as a team. With every game played, they exceeded the skill of the game before. Tidal Waves always demonstrated good sportsmanship. The enthusiasm and zest for soccer expressed by the team was matched by the commitment and support of the parents. The parents of Tidal Waves dedicated time and energy and keep the team's spirit high. I ask my colleagues to join me today in saluting Tidal Waves for their outstanding achievement in the 2002, AYSO Region 19, Boys U12 Division, Culver City.

Mr. BERMAN

Mr. BERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I support this measure to give Federal Judges a cost-of-living adjustment. Just today, the Washington Post reported the findings of a non- partisan National Commission on the Public Service, led by former Federal Reserve chairman Paul A. Volker. One of the first steps the Commission recommends is to give federal judges an ``immediate and significant'' increase in pay. As it is, judges make far less than they could earn in private firms, and there is certainly no monetary incentive for top lawyers to accept nomination to the Federal judiciary. Though there is prestige in serving as a Federal judge, many of this country's best lawyers simply cannot justify leaving private practice during their prime earning years to serve on the bench. In the long run, this phenomenon will affect the quality of people we can attract to serve as federal judges. It doesn't mean that we ought to be matching partner bonuses dollar-for-dollar, but it does mean that we have to consider what the private sector offers if we want to ask our best and brightest to become public servants. Though a 3.1 percent COLA may not be all that ``significant,'' it is a small step toward creating enough incentive for Judges to remain on the Bench. I urge my colleagues to support this measure.

Mr. BERMAN

Mr. BERMAN. Madam Speaker, I rise to pay tribute to the life and work of Wayne Owens and to send my regards and sympathy to his wife, Marlene and his children and grandchildren. I had the privilege of serving with Wayne in the House, and I quickly developed a great admiration for his hard work, integrity and dedication to good public policy. We served together on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, where he focused his attention on the Middle East. Wayne was active on a broad range of issues, and while he spent much of his career focused on weighty matters of international affairs, he never lost sight of the issues that mattered most to people in his home state of Utah. Wayne was a very effective legislator, and he earned the great respect of Members on both sides of the aisle for his willingness to put politics aside and tackle the important issues of the day. After Wayne left Congress I continued to have the pleasure of working with him on the Middle East peace process. As President of the non-profit Center for Middle East Peace, Wayne worked tirelessly to promote continued dialogue between Arabs and Israelis in the Middle East. His goal was to help build economic interaction between Israel and her Arab and Palestinian neighbors and through that work, to support and promote the peace process. He spent much of the last decade meeting with leaders in the region trying to foster peace through economic development. He was very effective in this role because all sides accepted him as an honest broker. Even over the last couple of years, when many others gave up hope that Israelis and Palestinians would ever be able to resolve their differences, Wayne continued his work to find common ground. He was often frustrated--as we all are from time to time--and he understood the realities on the ground, but he never stopped believing that peace was possible. We will sorely miss Wayne, and his dedication and creativity. As we work toward a just, lasting, and comprehensive peace in the Middle East, may we remember Wayne's life and works and let every action we perform be a tribute to his memory.

Mr. BERMAN

Mr. BERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise to support House adoption of the Senate substitute amendment to H.R. 5649. This legislation provides important assistance to noncommercial webcasters, small commercial webcasters, recording artists, and owners of sound recording copyrights. Early last month, the House passed H.R. 5469 on voice vote under suspension of the rules. As passed by the House, H.R. 5469 provided small commercial webcasters with a discount on the webcasting royalties they owed. The House-passed bill actually specified the rates and terms of the discount these webcasters would receive. Unfortunately, H.R. 5469 was stalled in the Senate. Certain broadcasters expressed concern that the terms of the discount specified in H.R. 5469 would have a precedential effect in future webcasting royalty-setting proceedings. Noncommercial webcasters expressed the concern that H.R. 5469 did not give them a discount on webcasting royalties, as it did for small commercial webcasters. The Senate decided to amend H.R. 5469 to address these concerns, and the bill before us today reflects those accommodations. The Senate substitute delays the webcasting royalty obligations of noncommercial webcasters, which came due late last month, until June 20, 2003. The bill also allows the collecting agent to delay the royalty obligation owed by any 1 or more small commercial webcaster until December 15, 2002. Instead of specifying the rates and terms of the discount for noncommercial and small commercial webcasters, the Senate substitute delegates the ability to establish an industry-wide discount to the collecting agent for copyright owners and recording artists. The understating and expectation of both the House and the Senate is that the collecting agent will offer noncommercial and small commercial webcasters a royalty discount based on the terms and conditions set in the House-passed version of H.R. 5469. In other words, Congress expects that the collecting agent will offer noncommercial and small commercial webcasters the same deal represented by H.R. 5469. There is no doubt that this approach is unusual. Unlike the typical statutory license rate-setting process, this approach does not involve any governmental entity in the rate-setting process, except for the Copyright Office's ministerial task of publishing those agreements in the Federal Register. This should not be considered a precedent or model for future legislation. It is a response to the unique circumstances surrounding the reaction to the rates set by the Librarian of Congress, the ensuing negotiations between copyright owners and webcasters, and the opposition H.R. 5469 generated in the Senate. Again, I ask my colleagues to support the Senate substitute to H.R. 5469.

Mr. BERMAN

Mr. BERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to join musicians, artists and performers across America and around the world in saluting the life of Daniel Pearl and recognizing October 10, 2002--the day he would have celebrated his 39th birthday--as Daniel Pearl Music Day. Musicians worldwide, including Itzhak Perlman; the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra; Junoon, the number one rock band from Pakistan, and numerous others have joined this tribute, which will use the universal language of music to spread a message of tolerance, humanity, friendship and global cooperation. Communities from Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Washington, Paris, and Tel Aviv to Mumbai, Goa, Bangkok and Beijing will all celebrate Daniel Pearl's message of world harmony. Daniel, a talented violinist, fiddler and mandolin player, joined a band, orchestra or chamber group in every community in which he lived. Through music, he made friends out of strangers of all cultures. A Princeton, New Jersey native, Daniel Pearl graduated from Stanford University with a BA in Communications. He began his career in journalism in the late 1980's and won an American Planning Association Award for a five-part series on land use. He joined the Wall Street Journal as a reporter in 1990 in Atlanta and moved to Washington, DC. He then moved to London, then to Paris and finally to Bombay where he was named South Asia bureau chief. He was an accomplished journalist with an uncanny ability to uncover wrongdoing while never losing sight of the humanity behind the news. The extraordinary life of Daniel Pearl, a devoted son, a loving husband, a caring father and a loyal friend was tragically interrupted when he was kidnapped and brutally murdered by Islamic extremists in Pakistan while investigating a story for the Wall Street Journal. In the spirit of Daniel Pearl's love of music and commitment to dialogue, I ask my colleagues to join me in recognizing October 10, 2002 as Daniel Pearl Music Day.

Mr. BERMAN

Mr. BERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I was a fervent opponent of the Vietnam War and a strong supporter of sensible detente with the Soviet Union. But under today's circumstances, the best way to give peace a chance and to save the most lives, American and Iraqi, is for America to stand united and for Congress to authorize the President to use force if Saddam does not give up his weapons of mass destruction. Confront Saddam now, or pay a much heavier price later. We dismissed the first World Trade Center bombing as an isolated incident. When two embassies were bombed, we failed to see the broader implication of those acts. When the USS Cole was attacked, still we did not read the handwriting on the wall. It was irrational, we thought, that madmen would grow bold enough to attack America on her own shores. We wanted to give peace a chance. But then came 9/11, and it is time to say ``no more.'' The Democratic leader, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Gephardt), and many of my colleagues have told us why a yes vote is necessary. We have brought key members of the Clinton national security team to the Hill, architects of our past policy to contain Saddam. These foreign policy experts from the Democratic Party have told us to a person that containment will no longer do the job and that the policy we are asked to endorse today is the right one for a peace-loving people. On the issue of Saddam Hussein, I have some experience. I begged both the Reagan and first Bush administrations to stop selling Iraq materials and technology that could be used for weapons of mass destruction, to put Iraq on the terrorist list, to impose economic sanctions. Saddam, with a nuclear weapon, is too horrifying to contemplate, too terrifying to tolerate. As one who has watched this man for 20 years, let me pose an analogy. It is just an analogy, because I reject the unproven efforts to tie Saddam to the events of 9/11. We are on an airplane, and we know that a few passengers have smuggled box cutters on board. We know these passengers have taken courses to learn how to fly a jumbo jet. We know that their friends have already flown a small plane into a building, killing hundreds of their own neighbors. But those armed passengers have not yet lunged for the cockpit. What should a peace loving people do? We know that people sitting near these dangerous passengers could be hurt if we take aggressive action. Should we wait until they kill the pilot and take over the airplane before we act? Of course not. We admire those with the courage to surround the armed passengers and demand that they give up their weapons under threat of force. That is what this resolution does. Is the threat imminent? Well, surely Saddam has box cutters, Saddam has a history of using them, Saddam is in the process of upgrading the box cutters, Saddam has boarded the plane with the box cutters. Confront Saddam now, or pay a much heavier price later.

Mr. BERMAN

Mr. BERMAN. I yield to the gentleman from Maine.

Mr. BERMAN. Madam Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. McIntyre), a member of the Committee on Armed Services. (Mr. McINTYRE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. BERMAN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself 6 minutes. Madam Speaker, I would like to address the points made by my colleague and friend, the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Allen), who gave really a very intelligent and thoughtful presentation of his position in opposition to this resolution. There are a couple of points he made that I would like to respond to. One, the question of this being an open-ended grant of authority to allow the President to get the United States into the war and analogizing it to the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. I remember the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. This is not the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. At that particular time, based on an incident on the high seas, Congress quickly and without much discussion authorized a response that hardly anyone in either Chamber believed was an invitation to a massive expansion of U.S. participation in Vietnam. The subsequent use of that resolution to justify that action was not known at the time. Here it is totally different. We know what we are talking about. We are talking about authorizing the use of force, i.e., war, against Iraq, a major difference between now and the Gulf of Tonkin. This is what we are debating, this is what the American people understand this authorization to be, and the after-the-fact justification of the war in Vietnam based on that resolution is not what is taking place here. It is up front, and we know it. Secondly, it is not open-ended. The President's original proposal was quite open-ended, but H.J. Res. 114 is much more limited. The language authorizing the use of force to restore international peace and security in the region was deleted. The joint resolution and the report from the Committee on International Relations made quite clear that the threats that are the basis for using U.S. Armed Forces are Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and the missile programs, the means to deliver them, and its support for international terrorism, not all the different resolutions passed by the U.N. that Saddam has violated. Page 42 of the committee report provides that the President is authorized to use force against Iraq to defend the national security of the United States from the continuing threat posed by Iraq ``which primarily consists of its continued possession, development and acquisition of chemical and biological weapons and prohibited ballistic missiles, nuclear weapons and its continued support for and harboring of international terrorists.'' That resolution also provides that the authority is to be used against Iraq's continuing threat, that of yesterday and today, not of some potential and new threat at some point in the future. This is not a blank check; it is a broad, but circumscribed, authority to use the Armed Forces against a current threat.

Mr. BERMAN. I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey.

Mr. BERMAN. Madam Speaker, reclaiming my time, I indicated that this was a broad, but not unlimited, delegation of authority to use force for a specific purpose, the elimination of the weapons of mass destruction and the need to eliminate them and the supporting and harboring of terrorism. But we the American Congress and we the American people understand at the time, unlike the Gulf of Tonkin, just what we are discussing and debating; and no one has made a claim that this is not an authorization of the use of force, very specifically directed against Iraq for specific purposes.

Mr. BERMAN

Mr. BERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. The rule is a fair rule, and I rise in support of it. I simply want to address a few of the comments of my friends and colleagues who have spoken before me. The gentleman from Massachusetts and others, the gentleman from Ohio, argue that this is a resolution authorizing the unilateral use of force, and that is why they are against it. Literally, they are correct. A strict reading of the resolution makes that clear. However, it fails to put into context what we are trying to do. Everyone knows that multilateral is better than unilateral. Everyone knows that approval by the Security Council for the use of force is better than not having approval for the use of force by the Security Council. It is the passage of this resolution, the strong statement by the Congress of the United States that we stand with the administration in the effort to disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction, that maximizes the diplomatic and political chances of achieving the broadest possible multilateral support for a meaningful disarming resolution out of the United Nations, another resolution and, if necessary, and it may very well be, the right to use force on a multilateral basis. We will have allies, and we will go to the U.N. Our effectiveness there is directly related to the extent to which we here today speak strongly in favor of this course of action, and that is why I support the resolution. I do have to take issue with my very good friend, the gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier), the chairman of the Committee on Rules. We did not do what we did in the 1980s up through 1990 because we were trying to help the Iraqi people. We did not take Iraq off the list of countries supporting terrorism even though Abu Nidal was based there and was involved in terrorist activities using Iraqi passports and diplomatic pouches, bombing and killing civilians all over the Middle East because we wanted to help the Iraqi people. We did not provide dual-use equipment which had military as well as nonmilitary uses, including precursors to biological weapons, because we wanted to help the Iraqi people. We did not encourage our allies to send arms to Iraq during the Iraq-Iran War because we wanted to help the Iraqi people. We made a strategic and foolish decision that Saddam Hussein was someone we could work with, that we wanted to tilt to Iraq during the Iraq-Iran war, and President Bush the first acknowledged his error and many others have acknowledged the errors of those policies during the 1980s. So I think, as we come to terms with the past and what we have done wrong, we should acknowledge where our policies were wrong. Now that does not lead us to the conclusion that, because we had the wrong policies at one time, we do not take the decisive action we need to take now, but I think it is very important in the context of what is going to be a long debate that we stick to the historical record.

Mr. BERMAN

Mr. BERMAN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes. Madam Speaker, previous speakers have referenced the fact that supporters of this resolution, supporters of authorizing force as a way of maximizing our chances of putting together meaningful Security Council action and multilateral action for the use of force, if necessary, this is being done on a bipartisan basis. I simply want to reiterate that because I think our colleagues here and the American people should understand that this is not simply a position that the Bush administration or the Republican Party endorses, that a number of key people in the Clinton administration's national security team agree that an ``aye'' vote on this resolution is the right vote on this resolution. Each of the following people have indicated that to me and to other Members of Congress in their visits to the Hill in the last month: our National Security Adviser, Sandy Berger; the Deputy National Security Adviser, James Steinberg; our Ambassador in the Clinton administration to the United Nations and the man rumored as likely to have become Secretary of State if Al Gore had become President, Richard Holbrooke; the architects of the dual-containment policy in the early 1990s who recognized that at this particular time containment of Saddam Hussein is no longer a sensible policy, Martin Indyk, first with the National Security Council and then Assistant Secretary for Near East Affairs; Dennis Ross, Special Envoy to the Middle East; and Ken Pollack in charge of implementing the containment policy in the Clinton administration for the National Security Council; and Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, Walter Slocum. All of these top Clinton administration officials, dealing with critical national security issues, say that for us building the right vote is an ``aye'' vote.

Mr. BERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Ross).

Mr. BERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 5 minutes.

Mr. BERMAN. I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey.

Mr. BERMAN. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, we hear over and over again this reference to preemptive war. I reject the notion that this is under the legal doctrine of preemptive war. We are dealing with a country, Iraq, under the leadership of Saddam Hussein, that has violated resolution after resolution adopted by the Security Council of the United Nations, including resolutions adopted under Chapter VII, the peacemaking, peace-enforcing provisions of the United Nations charter. To engage in acts to seek to assure compliance with those resolutions and enforcement of those resolutions is not preemptive war in the traditional legal sense of the word; it is the enforcement. I would remind my colleagues in my own party that this body voted on, and 181 of my democratic colleagues supported, the authorization of the use of air strikes to bomb key targets in Yugoslavia in order to stop humanitarian slaughter of Kosovars without a Security Council resolution, after the bombing had already started, and thought, properly so, that we were engaging in the right position for the United States. I would suggest that not only the humanitarian arguments in favor of dealing with Saddam's regime but the national security arguments, which I would suggest are even greater than those that existed when we authorized the use of force against Yugoslavia, compel a very similar conclusion here in the name of enforcing U.N. Security Council resolutions.

Mr. BERMAN

Mr. BERMAN. I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.

Mr. BERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I rise in support of the manager's amendment to H.R. 5469. Last week, the Chairman introduced a bill which was scheduled for the suspension file, which I reacted initially to, assumed was a rather ham-handed effort to force the copyright owners, the recording artists, the backup musicians and vocalists to wait at least another 6 months before they receive the royalties they were entitled to under the performance right we legislated in 1995, as amended by the compulsory license in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. I was wrong. The Chairman had a method to the ham-handedness, and the result of his legislative effort was to pull the parties together, the webcasters, recording industry and the other affected parties, and put together an excellent proposal which, as adjusted by a few matters just today, I think builds a broad base of support for this proposal. The manager's amendment will greatly benefit small webcasters. Under this legislation, small webcasters will receive a huge discount on the webcasting royalties they are required to pay pursuant to a July decision by the Librarian of Congress. From the small webcasters' perspective, this legislation is particularly beneficial because it allows them to pay royalties as a percentage of revenue. Small webcasters vehemently objected to the Librarian's decision because it required them to pay royalties on a per song per listener basis. The terms of the deal are somewhat complicated, but the basic provisions are this. Small webcasters pay webcasting royalties that equal 8 percent of their gross revenues for the years 1998 through 2002, or a statutory minimum, whichever is greater. In 2003 and 2004, small webcasters will pay the greater of 10 percent of their gross revenues under $250,000 and 12 percent of their gross revenues over $250,000, or 7 percent of expenses. The criteria for eligibility as a small webcaster are reasonable and allow such webcasters to grow and yet still obtain the royalty discount provided by the legislation. A webcaster will be eligible for the discounted royalty rate for the past 4 years if it had less than $1 million in gross revenues over those four years. A webcaster will be eligible in the year 2003 if it has gross revenues under $500,000 for that calendar year and in 2004 if it has gross revenues under $1.25 million. While it drastically cuts the royalties to be paid copyright owners and artists, this legislation has the support of the recording industry. The legislation also requires that artists get direct payment of webcasting royalties and thus gives them something that they stated was necessary to garner their support; and it is a result of that that the American Federation of Radio and Television Artists, the American Federation of Musicians, the Screen Actor's Guild and the AFL-CIO are supportive of this legislation. The recording industry and small webcasters are to be commended for working so hard to agree on terms, and the Chairman is to be commended for driving them to this agreement. The recording industry and small webcasters are to be commended for working so hard to agree on terms, and the chairman is to be commended for driving them to this agreement. In sum, this legislation provides small webcasters with much better terms than the webcasting rates set by the Librarian of Congress. As such, it addresses the concerns that the Librarian's rate might drive many small webcasters out of business. Mr. Speaker, I was wondering if I might engage with the chairman of the committee in a colloquy.

Mr. BERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I would like to make one other point. It is my understanding that these two provisions in no way interfere with the long-standing U.S. legal doctrine that parties can voluntarily assign, transfer, or allocate through contracts and other marketplace arrangements the rights provided them under U.S. copyright law.