Bill Delahunt

Mr. DELAHUNT

Mr. DELAHUNT. With all due respect to my good friend from California, I have read the report. I have read it in considerable detail. I agree with the chairman of the 9/11 Commission after my review of that report that was done by an independent commission comprised of five Republicans and five Democrats. In fact, this past June the chairman of the commission, a former Governor of New Jersey, Tom Kean, had this to say in an interview that was broadcast over one of the networks. The report concluded that there was no operational link between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, that it was absolutely not borne out by any of the evidence that was available to them. In fact, the former Governor, and let me underscore the fact that he is a highly respected member of the Republican Party, had this to say. These are his words, not my words: ``We believe that there were a lot more active contacts frankly with Iran and Pakistan than there were with Iraq. Al Qaeda did not like to get involved with states unless they were living there. They got involved with Sudan. They got involved where they lived. But otherwise, no,'' he said on ABC's ``This Week.'' I think it is rather clear from the 9/11 report that there were no links between Saddam and Osama bin Laden. But again that does not seem to deter the Vice President from continuing that fiction. But again that does not appear to be unusual for the Vice President, because it is clear that the Vice President was one of the more significant influences in the determination to seek the military intervention with Iraq. In a review of the book by Bob Woodward that was posted, by the way, on the Bush-Cheney campaign Web site, there was a particular excerpt that I thought was very informative about the role of the Vice President in the effort to convince the American people about the need to go to war in Iraq. Again, I am reading from an excerpt from that book by Bob Woodward. It describes the differences between the Secretary of State, Colin Powell, and his observations and that of the Vice President. I am now reading: ``Powell thought that Cheney had the fever. The Vice President and Wolfowitz kept looking for the connection between Hussein and September 11. It was a separate little government that was out there, Wolfowitz, Libby, Under Secretary of Defense Douglas Feith and Feith's `gestapo office,' as Secretary Powell privately referred to it. Cheney now had an unhealthy fixation. Nearly every conversation or reference came back to al Qaeda and trying to nail the connection with Iraq. He would often have an obscure piece of intelligence. Secretary Powell thought that Cheney,'' he is referring to the Vice President obviously, ``took intelligence and converted uncertainty and ambiguity into fact. Cheney would take an intercept and say it showed something was happening. `No, no, no,' Powell or another would say. `It shows that somebody talked to somebody else who said something might be happening.' A conversation would suggest something might be happening and the Vice President would convert that into a `we know.' Secretary Powell concluded we didn't know and no one knew.'' I think it is unfortunate that, to use the words of Secretary Powell, that the Vice President had the fever, had a fixation about Iraq and some sort of operational link with al Qaeda when none existed. And unfortunately, it has been repeated over and over and over again so that many Americans accept it, despite the conclusion reached by the 9/11 Commission. It simply did not exist. My friend from California talks about 1990 and Iraq, and I would remind my friend from California that, back in 1990, the President's father, George Herbert Walker Bush, made every effort to forestall sanctions that were passed by this House prior to the Gulf War that would have been imposed on Iraq and the Saddam Hussein regime. Not only is there inconsistency here, but please do not talk about 1990 and prior to the Gulf War when this government, the United States Government, under the President's father, George Herbert Walker Bush, had what only can be described as a special relationship with Saddam Hussein. Saddam Hussein was taken off the terrorist list in 1984. It was that administration that installed an embassy in Baghdad in 1986. It was that administration that provided, if you will, the dual-use technologies that could be utilized in the development of a nuclear weapons program to be shipped to Iraq. I mean inconsistency is not a strong enough word. But maybe this is what prompted Richard Cheney, the Vice President, to be so obsessed and fixated with Iraq. The last time we were here, we discussed the need to be forthright and to acknowledge mistakes and not paint a picture that is simply not matched by the reality on the ground in Iraq. It is important to heed the advice of a former member of the administration, David Kay, who was responsible for finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, who was appointed by the Bush-Cheney administration to do so, and came back and testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that we were all wrong. Well, we were wrong about the weapons of mass destruction. We were wrong about links between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. And it is dangerous, let me suggest, to continue to attempt, for whatever purpose, and I am not impugning the motives or suggesting that there is a political reason that the Vice President continues to try to maintain that link because far be it from me to question his motives, but, again, to quote David Kay, former member of that administration, when told that the Vice President continued to suggest that weapons of mass destruction might still be found in Iraq, said the following, ``what worries me about Cheney's statements is, I think people who hold out for a hail Mary pass delay the inevitable looking back at what went wrong.'' I believe we have enough evidence now to say that the intelligence process and the policy process that used that information did not work.

Mr. DELAHUNT. Yes, I will. Of course.

Mr. DELAHUNT. I thank my friend for yielding. Here we are once more this evening for the next half hour to talk about the situation in the Middle East. It seems that we have been doing this now for, I think, 15 or 16 months. We describe it as the Iraq Watch. I understand, also, that tomorrow night we will be back here shortly before the conclusion of the legislative business for the day prior to the Vice Presidential debate which is scheduled for tomorrow night between Vice President Cheney and Senator Edwards. Speaking of the Vice President, I remember being somewhat taken aback by the continued allegation by the Vice President relative to the relationship between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. Of course, just recently I read again where the Vice President makes allusions to some sort of link between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein.

Mr. DELAHUNT

Mr. DELAHUNT. Madam Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. DELAHUNT

Mr. DELAHUNT. Madam Speaker, I would simply add to that is what we have now is the President in terms of world opinion that has very little credibility. Let us just state the truth, the reality: If we are going to internationalize, we have to have an administration that has credibility and respect throughout the world. There was a recent survey of some nine Islamic countries, and in fact Secretary Powell just indicated that the magnitude of anti-Americanism throughout the world and specifically among Muslim nations is growing at a fearful rate. But the survey that was done of these nine countries indicated that the vast majority of those people in those nations believed that we went there for oil; for oil. I would like to leave you with this question: Before September 11, according to an anecdote that was related in a book by the former Secretary of Treasury, a Republican, a conservative who served in the Reagan and the Nixon administrations, indicated that on February 26, 2001, months before our national tragedy, he saw a map. It was prepared by the Secretary of Defense, Secretary Rumsfeld, with markings for a super giant oil field and earmarked for production sharing and dividing the largely undeveloped southwest of the country into nine blocks for future exploration. In other words, in February of 2001, according to Secretary of Treasury Paul O'Neill, the administration had a map, and the map is to my left. This was before any issue of weapons of mass destruction or links to al Qaeda came up. Now, where did this map come from? Well, it was produced as a result of a lawsuit, a lawsuit by a group called Judicial Watch, which certainly is no fan or ally of partisan Democrats. They secured it as a result of discovery proceedings in a lawsuit against the vice president of the United States, Dick Cheney, because of the secrecy surrounding his Energy Task Force. That is where it came out. And here is the map of Iraq. We need some answers and the rest of the world needs some answers about this map, about Secretary O'Neill's reference to it, so that we can clarify, once and for all, what the real motive of our military intervention in Iraq was all about, because it is stories like this that lead the rest of the world to doubt our motives and our proclamation, Madam Speaker, that we are bringing democracy to the rest of the world.

Mr. DELAHUNT. Madam Speaker, not only was he wrong, but what the administration did, and we have heard much about $87 billion, and the White House attacks John Kerry because he voted against the $87 billion, but what they failed to do was tell the other half of the story, like we all voted against the $87 billion also, because not only did he fail to tell the truth about the cost of reconstruction but rather insisted that the monies that were to be utilized in rebuilding Iraq were to be a gift, a giveaway. So all of those American taxpayers who are out there who were misled about the cost of the war being paid for by the Iraqis in the first instance, they should understand that all of the money we are pouring into Iraq is not a loan. It is a gift. It is a giveaway. It is welfare, if you will. We heard today about welfare, welfare to work. We are providing welfare for the Iraqi people. We are building them 6,000 miles of roads. We cannot get a transportation bill through here to help build American roads and repair them. We are building schools in Iraq, and we are rehabilitating schools in Iraq, thousands of them. But there is no money to rebuild and rehab schools in America. And do my colleagues know what else we are doing? We are building affordable housing, 25,000 units, for Iraqi people. In the United States, with our population, which is ten times that of Iraq, we are building 5,000. And do my colleagues know what? Mr. and Mrs. Taxpayer are not going to get a dime of it back. Sure, there are other nations that are giving something, nowhere near what we are, but their governments insisted it be a loan. So, in short, Madam Speaker, we were misled, and the American taxpayer has been duped, and the American taxpayer is not going to get a dime back.

Mr. DELAHUNT. Madam Speaker, here we are again late at night asking questions. Madam Speaker, it is a rare commodity, unfortunately, in Washington, D.C., when one speaks of courage. We witness courage all over America. We witness courage in terms of our men and women overseas risking their lives. We observe courage every day in our streets, particularly with our public safety officials. We clearly witnessed an extraordinary level of courage and heroism on September 11, but we seem to have a paucity of political courage because I believe and I think that most Americans share the view that political courage involves admitting that you are wrong when it is clear that you have made a mistake. Madam Speaker, all of the questions that the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) posed to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland) elicited an obvious answer, that the President was wrong. But what I find most disturbing is the inability of this President to summon the political courage to acknowledge that he was wrong. It is certainly no disgrace to make a mistake, to be wrong. We have all done it. I do it every day. But what I think is particularly un-American, undemocratic, is a reluctance to be forthright and honest about your failures. We do not hear that from this President. That is sad. Because that kind of courage would be the earmark of genuine leadership, of leadership that would be embraced by all of us, irrespective of partisan differences. But it is so sorely lacking at this moment in our history. We need a leader with political courage. I think it became clear to me last March when David Kay, the man who led this White House postwar effort to find the weapons of mass destruction that were purportedly in Iraq, called on the President to come clean with the American people. I think when he made that call, he felt that the President was receiving poor political advice and that what was necessary was to acknowledge that a mistake had been made. I know that the two of you remember his appearance before a committee in the other branch that appeared on the front page of, I think it was Time magazine, but it was eloquent in its courage when he said, ``We were all wrong.'' It is not a sin to be wrong, but it is not being patriotic and American to lack the courage to admit a mistake was made. David Kay said, and I am quoting from a story that appeared in the Guardian, a highly respected English magazine. He said that the administration's reluctance to make that admission was undermining its credibility at home and abroad. He called for a frank admission, even though it was embarrassing. Not only are we losing our prestige, not only are we losing our claim to moral authority but because of this President's failure to admit he was wrong, let me suggest we are losing the war on terror, because we are losing allies every day and the American people should know that. Because when you review the hard evidence that shows that incidents of terror are increasing dramatically every day all over the world, particularly in Iraq and in Afghanistan, I fear that we are losing that war, a war that every American wants to win. I thank the gentleman from Washington for enumerating that list of mistakes. But I could even forgive this President if he could accept responsibility, but he cannot. That is a failure of courage.

Mr. DELAHUNT

Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the Motion to Instruct. As this debate goes on, the memory is still fresh of the vicious attack on the Jewish Community Center in Los Angeles, and the brutal slayings of Matthew Shepard in Wyoming, James Byrd in Texas, Arthur Warren in West Virginia, and Joseph Ileto in California. These episodes are tragic illustrations of the price we pay in human lives for hatred and ignorance--and powerful testimony of the need for hate crimes legislation. Some have said that hate crimes legislation punishes thoughts rather than deeds. I disagree. It punishes neither thoughts nor words, but actions. Actions whose defining characteristic is that the victim is selected--singled out--as a proxy for the social group to which he or she belongs. Actions whose express purpose is to send a message of hatred and intolerance to an entire community. When such actions take place in other countries--when individuals are persecuted because of their membership in a ``social group''--U.S. law recognizes that it is no ordinary crime and grants them a remedy. We entitle them to petition for asylum. Why would we do less to protect our own citizens from the very same crimes? Some have said we shouldn't pass this law because hate crimes are a local matter. I agree. The authors of this legislation agree. The vast majority of these crimes are investigated and prosecuted at the State and local level. And if this measure is enacted they will continue to be. Federal hate crimes laws have been on the books for 36 years. All this legislation will do is ensure that when local authorities request assistance, or are unable or unwilling to act, Federal law enforcement agencies will have the ability to come to their aid. That's why the legislation is supported by the National Sheriff's Association, the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, and other major law enforcement organizations. And that's why we need the Hate Crimes Prevention Act. For all the Matthew Shepards and James Byrds and Joseph Iletos who can still be saved.

Mr. DELAHUNT

Mr. DELAHUNT. A give-away.

Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I think what we are saying is please, Mr. President, just give it to us straight, okay? Try a little bit of Harry Truman. Lay it out there, the good, the bad and the ugly. The American people can handle it. The American people deserve to know. Unfortunately, this particular White House has an obsession with secrecy. We know that. Everybody knows that. But if I can, just for one moment, get back to that $87 billion that has emerged as an issue in this election. I voted against the $87 billion. I do not know how either of my colleagues voted; they voted against it. I dare say we voted against it because rather than providing the money to the Iraqi government as a loan, this White House, this President, insisted that we just give it away to the Iraqi government. It was a big give-away. There is no other major donor to the reconstruction effort in Iraq that did not require the monies that are donated or given to be done on a basis of a loan so that their taxpayers would be repaid.

Mr. DELAHUNT. Reclaiming my time, of course it does. The gentleman talks about our soldiers. I do not think there is any community in this country that expected the need to call upon our National Guard and our Reserves to the extent that they did, particularly when the Deputy Secretary of Defense, Mr. Wolfowitz and Secretary Rumsfeld dismissed General Shinseki, who at that point in time was the head of the United States Army, his estimate that 200,000 to 300,000 troops would be needed. They said that was a wild exaggeration. Mr. Wolfowitz, that neoconservative who in many ways was the intellectual author of this adventure, dismissed it, because as Dick Lugar said, we were going to be treated to flowers and the Iraqi equivalent of champagne and dancing in the streets. How long did that last? But now, but now, oh, no, now we are calling up on a regular basis for deployment after deployment our Reserves, to the point where Lieutenant General James Helmly, who heads the U.S. Army Reserves, said just this past week that the war in Iraq is creating great stress on the Reserves, and he is concerned that they will have a tough time meeting their recruiting goals next year. He also noted that the Reservist jobs in Iraq are just as dangerous as regular troops. There is no more a secure rear area. Our truck drivers and our military police have become frontline troops, again underscoring the incompetence of the planning in terms of the military planning and the reconstruction phase of this inept administration.

Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I think I would suggest this, that what we are seeing in Iraq, because of the incompetence of this White House and this administration, is a burgeoning number of safe havens for terrorism. Yet we hear that there is progress being made on the war on terror. How absolutely false that is. Again, if I can just take 2 minutes, I do not want to leave the impression that we are speaking here in partisan tone, because so many prominent Republicans, colleagues of ours, share this view. If I may, just indulge me for a moment to read some quotes. From the former vice chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Doug Bereuter, highly regarded and well-respected. Upon leaving here he sent a letter to his constituents. In it he said, ``I have reached the conclusion now that the inadequate intelligence and faulty conclusions have been revealed; that, all things being considered, it was a mistake to launch that military action, especially without a broad and engaged international coalition. Our country's reputation around the world has never been lower and our alliances are weakened. Now we are immersed in a dangerous, costly mess, and there is no easy and quick way to end our responsibilities in Iraq without creating future problems in the region and in general in the Muslim world.'' That is somebody who served on the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in this House. A former advisor to Mr. Bremer, who was personally recruited by Dr. Condoleezza Rice, the National Security Advisor, had this to say about 3 weeks ago. His name is Larry Diamond. ``We are significantly worse off strategically than we were before. There are really no good options.'' Another Republican. Let me quote William Buckley once more. ``If I knew then what I know now about what kind of situation we would be in, I would have opposed the war.'' Someone who works in this building on the other side, ``Our committee heard blindly optimistic people from the administration prior to the war and people outside the administration, what I call the dancing in the street crowd, that we just simply will be greeted with open arms. The nonsense of all that is apparent.'' The lack of planning is apparent. What we had here was a volatile combination of the ideology, the so-called neoconservative influence in this administration, combined with a magnitude of incompetence that if it occurred in the private sector, heads would have rolled, people would have been fired and a new team would come in.

Mr. DELAHUNT. I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.

Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman means no-go zones.

Mr. DELAHUNT. I yield to the gentleman from Washington.

Mr. DELAHUNT. I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.

Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, does the gentleman know what they call those large swaths of territory?

Mr. DELAHUNT. And, Mr. Speaker, we would not have to pay for it.

Mr. DELAHUNT. I yield to the gentleman from Washington.

Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, they say that now. But they were not saying that during the course of the major combat phase. They were saying that we were going to be greeted as liberators, that people would be dancing in the streets. That is absolutely false. And yet they insist on maintaining the message. But it is not an honest message.

Mr. DELAHUNT. I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.

Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, let me suggest this as an answer. Because if one repeats it often enough, a large number of people, unfortunately, will accept it. That is why it is important to have in a leadership role during these very dangerous times an administration that will be forthright, that will be honest, that will admit mistakes, and that will listen to others. That is what is important.

Mr. DELAHUNT. I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.

Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, when we talk about failure, from the beginning, after our resources were diverted from the military action that was achieved in Afghanistan, the policy that has been promulgated by this administration can only be characterized as a sequence of failures and, additionally, a refusal to accept responsibility. It would be so much more credible for the President to stand up and acknowledge the serious consequences that occurred as the direct result of this policy. I thought it was interesting that the individual that he appointed to conduct the survey in Iraq to determine where at that point in time, because we were told that there were weapons of mass destruction, where they were located, called on the President and that man's name is David Kay, as many of us know, called on the President to come clean with the American people because he was concerned that if we did not do so, if the President did not do so, then the credibility of the United States would be eroded and that when another international crisis erupted and we had to seek out support from other nations, this time we would be looked at as having misled not only the American people but the rest of the world. And that is exactly what has happened. If anyone has traveled abroad, the antipathy and the hostility that has been expressed about this President and, tragically, about our Nation because of the errors and the lack of willingness to accept responsibility has hurt our national interests and our national security, when his own appointee who was highly regarded and highly respected was the chief weapons of mass destruction inspector appointed by this President said, Mr. President, come clean, tell the American people that we were all wrong. He said that here in this building in a hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. And what does this White House do? They continue to shuffle. They reluctantly say, well, maybe that was a mistake. And then the Vice President continues to suggest that somehow there are links between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. The only link is that Osama bin Laden despised, despised and hated, Saddam Hussein, whom he considered a corrupter of Islam.

Mr. DELAHUNT. I yield to the gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Speaker.