Bill Delahunt

Mr. DELAHUNT

Mr. DELAHUNT. Government, with all due respect, and I do not disagree, but what government is about, it is about representing the people.

Mr. DELAHUNT. Well, we are paying for their education in China. We are paying for roads, 6,000 miles of roads in Iraq, 5,000 units of affordable housing, Mr. Speaker, in Iraq. We are paying for, you know, primary health care centers in Iraq; and you know what we are doing in the United States? We are cutting everything. We built a beautiful dam, a magnificent dam, an absolute ultimate in terms of engineering to prevent flooding. And we are familiar now with floods. Clearly, the people in New Orleans, Mr. Speaker, are very, very familiar with floods. There was a problem with a levee in New Orleans in terms of the structural defects. But the one that I am talking about, the dam that I am talking about, that engineering marvel that we built with taxpayer dollars, American taxpayer dollars, was not built in New Orleans. It was built in Mosul, Iraq. Where are our priorities?

Mr. DELAHUNT. If you think about it in terms of individuals and then extrapolate to nations, it is really easy to understand. We are borrowing a trillion dollars. Let us say we are borrowing, just for the sake of discussion purposes, half of that from the Chinese Central Bank, the Communist Central Chinese Bank. As you indicate, they are educating some 600,000 engineers. How do they pay for that? Well, you know how they paid for part of it? The American taxpayer, Mr. Speaker. When they pay the interest on the debt to the Chinese, that allows the Chinese to fund the education of some 600,000 students in technical schools in China.

Mr. DELAHUNT. Do you know what the tragedy of this is? Let us put aside for a moment indictments and a discussion of who might be indicted in the future or misconduct that violates criminal statutes. What is truly unfortunate here is that we have reached a point where there is a culture that exists here in Washington where if there is disagreement, if there is dissent that it is described as unpatriotic. We have heard that I think earlier this evening on the floor, the inference being that if there is any dissent or disagreement, somehow motives can be inferred that that courageous individual, in my judgment, who speaks out in opposition is somehow unpatriotic. There was an interesting article or column just recently by Jim Hoagland in The Washington Post where he said, Mr. President, he wrote a letter to President Bush, he said, Mr. President, would it not have been easier if you had just wrote a letter to the editor in response to the opinion piece that was produced by Mr. Wilson? Would that not have been welcomed by the American people, by Members of Congress? But what has happened is no, let us design a plan to impugn that individual's integrity. Let us try to destroy that individual. Let us try to discredit him or her. That is not what democracy is about. In fact, today I read the White House had prepared a series of talking points attacking the former National Security Advisor, Brent Scowcroft, who recently went public in saying that the policies of this Bush administration as it relates to Iraq and the Middle East are a failure. They were preparing, according to Mr. Hoagland's column, talking points to attack him. We have got to get away from this politics of destruction and ad hominem attacks and questioning individuals's patriotism. That is not what we are about.

Mr. DELAHUNT

Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, could I just for a moment speak on behalf of those who have white hair and are looking towards receiving Medicare. The United States Senate is sending over a budget to this body, and there will be a so-called conference committee that will reconcile the differences; and in that Senate budget is, for the first time in my experience, and I have been here 9 years, a significant cut not in Medicaid, but in Medicare. If my colleagues remember, there was a former Speaker of this body by the name of Newt Gingrich. He would come to this floor frequently at this hour of the night, have conversations that were noted by the American people, and he talked on one occasion about beginning to reduce Medicare and allowing it to wither on the vine. Well, every American who shares the color of my hair ought to be aware of what has happened in the other branch, in the Senate, in terms of Medicare, because I do not want to say it is the beginning of the initiative or the concept of allowing Medicare to wither on the vine, but every American should be aware that there is a cut to that particular program that has saved the lives and extended the lives of millions of elderly Americans.

Mr. DELAHUNT. Well, I cannot understand why anyone would ask about my accent, because I would submit that I am the only person in this Chamber tonight that does not have an accent.

Mr. DELAHUNT. He is going to own that interest rate, too, because that is interest rate is going up.

Mr. DELAHUNT. It was a Democratic motion. It would have increased the funding for that particular program, which allows low-income people, primarily elderly people, to benefit from a purchase of discounted energy, whether it be oil or gas, but primarily oil. While Exxon-Mobile is making $10 million, in the Budget Committee today, Mr. Speaker, the Republican majority said, no, we are not going to increase that program. And, by the way, the chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee said no to any rescission of the $16 billion that this Republican-controlled Congress passed in the form of subsidies for Big Oil this year. If you are investing in oil this year, it was reminiscent of the gold rush back in 1849. You really scored well. Now, is that what we are about as a people? Are we not violating a social compact, a covenant, where we all come together and get through the hard times?

Mr. DELAHUNT

Mr. DELAHUNT. The gentleman is a journeyman.

Mr. DELAHUNT. You are doing pretty good, though.

Mr. DELAHUNT. You are so right.

Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, I think it is important to understand that not only did the Vice President and his chief of staff, Mr. Libby, withhold information from the American people; they have made a decision to withhold from the Senate Intelligence Committee key documents. It was reported just this past week in a national magazine, the National Journal, that the Vice President and Mr. Libby overruled advice from some White House political staffers, some White House political staffers and lawyers, and decided to withhold crucial documents from the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2004. The withheld documents included intelligence data from Cheney's office and Libby in particular, that they pushed to be included in Powell's speech, referring to his presentation before the United Nations. The new information, and I am reading here, the new information that Cheney and Libby blocked information to the Senate Intelligence Committee further underscores the central role played by the Vice President's office in trying to blunt criticism that the Bush administration exaggerated intelligence data to make the case to go to war. They withheld it from the Senate. They withheld it from the Senate. And because there is no conduct of vigorous oversight either in this Chamber or in the Senate, our democracy is being shrouded in this cloud of secrecy. The gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz) earlier said, What did we do it for? Why? Why? Why, I guess, is going to be the question that people will ask far into the future. If you remember, first it was about the weapons of mass destruction. No weapons of mass destruction. It was about some alleged al Qaeda links, a haven for terrorism. No al Qaeda links. Saddam Hussein despises Osama bin Laden and vice versa because Saddam Hussein, albeit an evil individual, was a secularist. He is not one of these fundamental Islamists. He is just a regional thug. And then finally it was to bring democracy to Iraq. I think it is so ironic that we are bringing democracy to Iraq and simultaneously eroding democracy because of the secrecy in Washington, D.C. What a tragedy.

Mr. DELAHUNT. I would like to just follow up a point that the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) made about the rationale for the war. They did know, they meaning the cabal that was described by the Chief of Staff to Colin Powell. The cabal knew that they needed the threat of the mushroom cloud. What is fascinating is that after the release of the initial report of the Senate Intelligence Committee, the chairman of the committee, a Republican, Senator Roberts from Kansas, and Jay Rockefeller, the senior Democrat on the committee, said that they doubted that the Senate would have authorized the President to go to war if senators had been given accurate information regarding Iraq's programs on the weapons of mass destruction. The direct quote of the Republican chairman was this: ``I doubt if the votes would have been there.'' That is Senator Roberts. They would not have their war if they had opened up and provided all of the information. I am sure some of you read Bob Woodward's book, the reporter for the Washington Post, where he quoted Secretary of State Colin Powell as describing the Vice President as having a war fever. He is out of control, This is what Powell is saying. You talk about third-party validations. It is as if he had a war fever, and here we are today, rampant corruption in Iraq. We are losing billions of dollar over there, but, as the congresswoman says, the most tragic aspect of this is that we are less safe, and, painfully, we have lost more than 2,000 American men and women.

Mr. DELAHUNT. A point that you made earlier and you referenced the natural disaster, and I am thinking of Katrina. We are talking about whether America is safer today than we were prior to 9/11, and we all know and I am sure the American people that are listening to our conversation here tonight appreciate this, that those levees in New Orleans, they could have been sabotaged. They could have been victimized by a terrorist cell. It did not necessarily require a natural disaster. But here we are. We have spent billions and billions and billions of dollars on homeland security, and where are we? We are nowhere. But the American taxpayers are picking the bill up. As we discussed last week, not only are the American taxpayers spending money here and not effectively, not effectively, this has been an administration that spends the American taxpayers' dollars. But, by the way, we are also spending money to rebuild Iraq. But rather than, like every other major donor country in Iraq that loaned the money to the Iraqi government and said we will give you good terms but pay us back, this White House, in an act of unparalleled excess, in my judgment, made it a giveaway program: Welfare for Iraqis, but nothing for Americans. I mean, up is down and down is up. This is the Alice in Wonderland administration.

Mr. DELAHUNT. This just came in.

Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, let me just pick up on a point that I think all three of my colleagues made. And the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) and I, with our colleagues in Iraq Watch, Mr. Hoeffel and Mr. Abercrombie, always commented on the absolute lack of capacity to acknowledge mistakes, and we all commended and respected David Kay. If my colleagues remember David Kay, he was designated by this President, by President Bush, in the aftermath of the so-called major failures of combat in Iraq, to go find the weapons of mass destruction. He was an advocate for the war. He believed in the premise of weapons of mass destruction. He listened to that cabal that put out that information. And he came back and testified before that Senate committee, and those words that he said ring so true now: we were all wrong. We were all wrong. And you know what? If the President had made a statement similar to that, as all of my colleagues here have said in different ways, it would have been applauded and we would have respected it. But they do not want to share information. For example, this information, a Pentagon official in Washington confirmed Tuesday that al-Farouq, a top al Qaeda operative, escaped from a U.S. detention facility in Bagram, Afghanistan on July 10, months ago; and we are not informed. Some enterprising reporter presumably discovered this information; and here we are, five Members of Congress and I am sure our colleagues on the other side and members of the other branch on both sides of the aisle, unaware of this information. Why? Because it was an embarrassment. We all make mistakes. That is what we are saying. We acknowledge our imperfections. But the bottom line is that it is so tragic that we cannot come together, all of us, and make America better, go back to those genuine values that are the foundation for democracy of openness and transparency and accountability and the courage to stand up and say simply, I made a mistake.

Mr. DELAHUNT. Maybe somebody can help me, because this is a question that the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) posed, but this is directed to this specific case. What does it tell you about an administration that will not confront a direct challenge as former Ambassador Joe Wilson put forward? Why not just simply say he is wrong and we are confident that he is wrong? But, no, furtively, in the shadows, sneakily calling reporters, we have got something. His wife works for the CIA. Whether it was illegal, whether this indictment will result in guilty, whether Karl Rove is indicted, whether others are indicted, the bottom line is what does it say about the sleaze factor that exists here in Washington when you do it that way?

Mr. DELAHUNT. As a consultant.

Mr. DELAHUNT. The gentleman is right. You have all hit it.

Mr. DELAHUNT

Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, again, I think that Larry Wilkerson said it very eloquently. It is more characteristic of a dictatorship than a democracy. Tragically, the Republican leadership in this House has succumbed, if you will, to this insistence on secrecy that has really been embraced by the White House. Again, this is from last week's CQ Today: Republicans are resisting requests for congressional inquiries into a possible scandal linked to the Bush administration's rationale for invading Iraq. The debate over congressional involvement mocks a reversal for the GOP majority, which once had an appetite for layering congressional investigations of alleged executive branch wrongdoing atop criminal probes. What we have here is an abrogation of responsibility by the Republican leadership to conduct oversight; and they have become part and parcel of a cabal, if you will, of secrecy with this White House. And maybe this is what we get when we have a single-party State. Mr. Speaker, again, CQ Weekly, this is back in July. This is an independent publication, nonpartisan in nature; but it has become a topic of discussion and concern among people who are avid supporters of the concepts of free institutions in a democracy. It is classified. Subject: Secrecy in Washington. Date: July 18, 2005. Secrecy is becoming the rule, and there is a whole bunch of redactions, rather than the exception in the Bush administration. But it is hard to hold the Government accountable if no one knows what it is doing, and that is what is happening. And the American people ought to be aware that we do not know what is happening. We as Members of Congress do not know what is happening. And it does not just impact issues like this. Go back to when we had that Medicare vote. You remember that. We were not allowed access to the Medicare actuary's estimate of cost for the so-called prescription drug plan. Can you imagine that? Then the debate here on the floor, the issue of cost was some $395 billion; and many Members on the Republican side expressed concern. The White House knew all the time that it was far in excess of $500 billion, and they would not even disclose it to Members of their own party. Talk about secrecy. Talk about consultation. It is missing in Washington. We have become and we are making America a secretive society, and it is time together we take America and make it better for all of its citizens.

Mr. DELAHUNT. Correct. Let me suggest this: what is at risk here is not the Republican Party, not the Democratic Party, but the viability and the health of our democracy. That is why, along with some very good Republicans, we are insistent that transparency be reintroduced into the legislative process.

Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, I thank my friend, and again I want to congratulate the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) and the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz) and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek) for really doing a public service. But I think it is important for a moment to reflect not just on this particular case, but what has characterized this administration from the onset, and that is a total lack of transparency, a total lack of genuine consultation. Secrecy, if you will. What I find most fascinating are those members of the administration, people of good conscience, who have left the administration and are now speaking out. These individuals are good Republicans, good conservative Republicans who embrace genuine American values. One of them is a former colonel in our military service, Larry Wilkerson. He also happened to be the Chief of Staff for the former Secretary of State, Colin Powell. Here is what he recently wrote in a column that I think provides the context for why this occurred. It gives us an insight into what was happening on the road to war and how little information the American people were given, how little information Members of Congress were given. Here is what Colonel Larry Wilkerson, former Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, had to say on October 25 of 2005. One can go to the Los Angeles Times, and this same opinion piece was printed elsewhere. ``In President Bush's first term, some of the most important decisions about U.S. national security, including vital decisions about post-war Iraq, were made by a secretive, little known cabal. It was made up of a very small group of people led by Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Its insular and secret workings were efficient and swift, not unlike the decision making one would associate more with a dictatorship than a democracy.''

Mr. DELAHUNT. That is Colonel Larry Wilkerson, a Republican, former Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell. Let me just say, and this is an understatement, this is disturbing. But this is the atmosphere, this is the context, this is why we find ourselves in the situation where it is an embarrassment and it erodes the image of the United States. Whether you supported the war or you did not support the war, it is eroding the image of the United States all over the world, not just in the Middle East, not just in Europe, but in Latin America and in Asia.

Mr. DELAHUNT. If my friend from New Jersey would yield for a moment, I would direct my colleagues' attention to Wednesday, October 22, the Congressional Quarterly Today that you all know we receive once a week here. What is the headline? Just to reinforce and corroborate what Frank Pallone just said: ``GOP Says No to Probe of CIA Leak.'' Again and again and again, secrecy. Let us not look at it, because maybe we will find something ugly. Maybe we will find something that will embarrass the administration. Maybe we will find something that will embarrass the majority party and erode their power.

Mr. DELAHUNT

Mr. DELAHUNT. Because we are here to be honest, because in the previous hour I think what we heard tonight from our friends on the other side an attempt at humor. I do not think that they were being dishonest. I think that they were just demonstrating a great sense of humor because I heard the term ``fiscal responsibility'' as I was watching their conversation, and I really laughed out loud. I do not know if the gentleman from New Jersey saw it like I did, but if the Republicans in this House and in the other branch and the White House represent fiscal responsibility, we are in serious trouble. Because I remember when the gentleman and I were here during the Clinton administration when President Clinton left. My memory is, and the gentleman can help me because I am a little older, there was a surplus in excess of $5 trillion. And maybe the gentleman can tell us, is there still a surplus after the Republicans have run this government? What we have today is a single-party state, and what has happened? It certainly is not, in my judgment, and I think we probably share this conclusion, it does not reflect fiscal responsibility. What it does reflect is an appetite to borrow money and then to spend it.