Bill Delahunt

Mr. DELAHUNT

Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, I would just simply say that I think we are operating on a totally different understanding of the facts. I feel very comfortable with what we have reported here tonight and what others have said. I think over the course of time the kind of conversations that we are having will elucidate the facts for the American people; but again, every Member in this House is concerned about what is happening to this country. We do not want to make the mistakes of the past, and I am very concerned that we are; but we will leave that for a later time, and I am sure that it will be a feisty and contentious, but friendly, conversation; and I wish my friend a most happy birthday.

Mr. DELAHUNT

Mr. DELAHUNT. We can make it a 2-hour conversation. I think that would be informative and hopefully educational.

Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, I know we have very limited time left. But I think before we go we should wish a happy birthday to our friend and colleague from Indiana (Mr. Burton), because it is his 45th birthday today, is that correct?

Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee).

Mr. DELAHUNT. I continue to yield to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton).

Mr. DELAHUNT. I would remind my friend from Indian of the 11th amendment.

Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, I look forward to this continuing conversation this evening. Again, the report refers to contacts that were made back in 1994. If we talk about contacts, it was the Bush administration, the Bush One administration, that had contacts with Saddam Hussein that dated back from 1982 when he was removed from the terrorist list, when there was an embassy installed in Baghdad, when we provided him with intelligence, when we provided him with the ingredients for weapons of mass destruction, when we transferred to him, when we transferred to him, dual-use technologies. I have a chart behind me that would establish without any doubt whatsoever, it is a CRS report, that in the 1980s, we had multiple contacts, and we should not be surprised that in 1990, it was discovered that he had a nuclear weapons program because it was the then-Bush administration and its predecessor that provided the components to do exactly that. The contacts that the gentleman from Indiana refers to occurred in 1994, and it was as a result of a request from the government of Sudan, where Osama bin Laden was living. The Iraqi official that visited Saddam Hussein heard what he had to say, returned to Iraq, and there was no further contact.

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

Mr. DELAHUNT. If I may reclaim my time, the reality is that this administration, a week after the inauguration, according to a very fine Republican by the name of Paul O'Neill, former Secretary of the Treasury, had an extensive discussion about Iraq at the first meeting of the National Security Council and why it should be targeted. I have a long list of quotes from administration officials and others that were there that can provide firsthand evidence. What I found particularly disturbing, however, according to Paul O'Neill, a good, fine, conservative Republican who was the CEO of a fine American corporation called Alcoa, was that on February 27, months before 9/11, at a National Security Council meeting, there was a map laid out; and there was a discussion among the principals about how the oil fields in Iraq would be divvied up between nations and between various corporations. I commend to my friend, and I know he must have a copy of that book, it is called ``The Price of Loyalty.'' On page 96, I will not bore him and those who are watching us here tonight with reading it, but I believe somebody owes the American people and this Congress, Republicans and Democrats, an explanation of why months before 9/11, months before 9/11, months before there was any discussion about weapons of mass destruction or links, if you will, between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, we are talking about war.

Mr. DELAHUNT. I look forward to that. If I am not here in the Chamber, that does not mean that I am not watching it on C-SPAN. But I can assure the gentleman we will be back here tomorrow night to respond to his response and correct any unintentional mistakes that he makes in the course of his response. With that, I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania.

Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, it was approximately a year ago, in fact I think it was better than a year ago now, that myself, a number of my colleagues, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Hoeffel), the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee), the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland), and, of course, the gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Abercrombie) took to the floor to express our concerns about what was transpiring in the Middle East, with a special focus on Iraq. We have done that on a rather regular basis over the course of the past year, and we have come to call this hour the ``Iraq Watch,'' where we have a discussion among ourselves for the benefit of those that are viewing our conversation through C-SPAN. At the very beginning, we expressed our concern that American credibility was at stake, as well, of course, as providing an opportunity to observe the competence of this White House in terms of its conduct of the war in Iraq. And, tragically, unfortunately, many of our concerns have materialized. I think every American remembers rather clearly the multiple statements, not just from the President and the Vice President, but from every single official representing the administration, whether from the Department of Defense, the Department of State, clearly from the White House, wherein they articulated the rationale for the military intervention in Iraq based on two particular concerns. One, of course, was expressed by the President and others when he continued to state that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction and that a nuclear weapons program was underway and that at any time we could be faced with the vision of a mushroom cloud somewhere in the world, specifically in the United States. Well, I think there is a consensus among the American people and among Members of this institution, as well as a number of members of the administration that that particular basis for the military intervention in Iraq, the concern about weapons of mass destruction, did not materialize, and that the intelligence was faulty. It was the former United Nations' inspector, David Kay, who received plaudits and kudos and respect, and deservedly so, from Members on both sides of the aisle, when he was designated by this administration to travel to Iraq and to develop a cadre of experts to assist him in the discovery of where those weapons of mass destruction were located. I am sure many Americans remember the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, indicating that we knew where those weapons were; that they were around the Tikrit area and outside of Baghdad. Well, of course, again, that intelligence did not produce the location, and the statement of Mr. Kay later was that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction. In fact, he did not have a nuclear weapons program. In testimony before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, he made a statement that was emblazoned on the front page of Newsweek Magazine, which has been repeated again and again, and that statement was: ``We were all wrong.'' ``We were all wrong.'' There was also a statement from a newspaper published in Great Britain that I think is worth repeating, and it is a statement made by David Kay. ``The former chief inspector warned yesterday that the United States is in grave danger of destroying its credibility at home and abroad if it doesn't own up to the mistakes it's made in Iraq.'' And while there has been some acknowledgment that the weapons of mass destruction that purportedly existed in Iraq are not there, there never has been a definitive statement coming from the White House that would support the conclusion reached by Mr. Kay. In fact, the Vice President, Mr. Cheney, stated that the weapons of mass destruction might still be found in Iraq; and Mr. Kay's response was, ``What worries me about Cheney's statement is I think people will hold out for a hail Mary pass, delay the inevitable, looking back at what went wrong and believe we have enough evidence now to say that the intelligence process and the policy process,'' I repeat that, ``the policy process that used that information did not work at the level of effectiveness that we require in the age that we live in.'' Well, I think all Americans, or most Americans, know that there are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Of course the other most prominent rationale for the military intervention in Iraq was a purported relationship between Saddam Hussein and the terrorist organization that we all know so well, al Qaeda. In fact, in a letter sent to the Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate just prior to the invasion of Iraq and signed by the President, the President puts forth in what I would submit is rather clear and unequivocal terms that, ``I determine,'' this is President Bush, ``that reliance on the United States of further diplomatic and other peaceful means alone will neither adequately protect the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq nor likely lead to enforcement of all relevant National Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq, and acting pursuant to the Constitution and the public law,'' which this Congress passed authorizing that military intervention, ``is consistent with the United States and other countries continuing to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations,'' the clear implication being the nation of Iraq, ``organizations or persons who planned, authorized, committed or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, the date of our national tragedy.'' Well, recently a report was issued by the so-called 9/11 Commission, which was the subject of much debate and discussion over the course of this past weekend. I think it is important to explore in some detail that report and have a conversation about those allegations that were used by this White House as a rationale for the invasion of Iraq. Let me read from the pertinent section of the report. The report reviews the activities of Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda, and now I am quoting from the report: ``A small group of al Qaeda operatives subsequently traveled to Iran and Hezbollah camps in Lebanon for training in explosives, intelligence, and security. Bin Laden reportedly showed particular interest in Hezbollah's truck bombing tactics in Lebanon in 1983 that killed 241 United States Marines. We have seen strong, by indirect, evidence that his organization did in fact play some,'' as yet unknown, ``role in the Kobar attack.'' Let me repeat that again for emphasis. Osama bin Laden went to Iran, went to Iran and Hezbollah camps in Lebanon, in Lebanon. Now, again reading from the report, ``bin Laden also explored possible cooperation with Iraq during his time in Sudan,'' in Sudan, ``despite his opposition to Hussein's secular regime.'' Bin Laden in fact at one time sponsored anti-Saddam Islamists in Iraqi Kurdistan. The Sudanese to protect their own ties with Iraq reportedly persuaded bin Laden to cease the support and arrange for contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda. A senior Iraqi intelligence officer reportedly made three visits to Sudan, finally meeting bin Laden in 1994. This is some 3 years after the first gulf war. Bin Laden is said to have requested space to establish training camps as well as assistance in procuring weapons but Iraq apparently never responded. There have been reports that contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda also occurred after bin Laden had returned to Afghanistan, but they do not appear to have resulted in a collaborative relationship. Two senior bin Laden associates have adamantly denied that any ties existed between al Qaeda and Iraq. We have no credible evidence that Iraq and al Qaeda cooperated on attacks against the United States. Those two senior Iraqi operatives were captured. One was captured last July. He was a al Anni who reportedly had a meeting with Muhammed Atta in the Czech Republic, in Prague, back in April 2001. Much has been made of that particular encounter. Both the CIA and the FBI concluded that that meeting never occurred. Yet we continue to hear it, particularly from the Vice President. He cannot let go, it would appear.

Mr. DELAHUNT

Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, today, with my colleague Howard Berman (D- CA), I am proud to introduce legislation that will amend certain provisions of the PATRIOT Act. Senators Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA), Patrick J. Leahy (D-VT), Richard J. Durbin (D-IL) and Russ Feingold (D- WI) are introducing companion legislation in the Senate. In the aftermath of the terrible events of September 11th, our Nation needed to meet the challenge of finding additional ways to prevent terrorist attacks. Yet even in a time of crisis, the Federal Government must not sacrifice essential liberties in response to claims of national security. During the original debate on the PATRIOT Act, my House Judiciary Committee colleagues and I insisted that the PATRIOT Act include a provision to ``sunset'' many of the new intelligence and law enforcement powers granted to the Federal Government. Even at that time, we believed that as a country we should review our legislative response when the grief of the tragic events had somewhat subsided. In hindsight, we are not the only ones to believe this approach was sensible. A recent survey revealed that 95 percent of top criminal justice scholars believe that the Act was passed too quickly--without sufficient deliberation and analysis. In addition, across the country, cities and towns are increasingly uneasy about some of the PATRIOT Act's measures. Four states and 325 cities and towns--including more than 50 communities in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts--have passed resolutions to protect the civil liberties of over 51 million residents. Hundreds of more resolutions are still in progress and libraries and bookstores have launched a campaign to overturn the Act's ``sneak and peek'' provisions. The House Judiciary Committee should proceed with a series of public hearings to review the broad powers granted to the Executive Branch under the PATRIOT Act given that certain provisions are scheduled to expire in December 2005. Like any law, support for the PATRIOT Act should not be perpetual or unconditional, especially when courts have held that certain provisions of the original Act are unconstitutional. At the same time, the Department of Justice continues without pause in its enforcement of the PATRIOT Act--and is now pursuing a nationwide advocacy campaign in support of its expansion. This administration continues to resist cooperation with Congress in its oversight role and further refuses to answer questions from ordinary citizens about whether the PATRIOT Act undermines basic civil liberties. Some have observed that the Government is intent on prying into every nook and cranny of people's private lives--while, paradoxically, doing all it can to block access to Government information that would inform the American people as to what is being done in their name--by simply invoking the phrase ``national security.'' These actions reflect the unrelenting desire of this White House to conduct business behind closed doors--even if it risks undermining public confidence and trust. Many have commented that one of the unintended consequences of the PATRIOT Act is the loss of transparency in government. Government secrecy obstructs accountability and oversight. And Congress intended for the ``sunset'' provisions to ensure that a rational process would exist so that certain provisions of the PATRIOT Act would not be unlimited and unchecked. The Civil Liberties Restoration Act of 2004 (CLRA) seeks to balance the restoration of essential protections and basic freedoms without compromising our national security. Our bill would also reverse policies that weaken our constitutional commitment to due process before the law. Specifically, our bill would restore fundamental fairness to our Nation's immigration laws by ending secret deportation hearings and by ensuring that penalties associated with technical violations of immigration law are reasonable and fair. In addition, this legislation ensures that people charged with crimes under the PATRIOT Act are treated with the same due process rights as other individuals facing charges in our criminal justice system. Our bill further establishes that defendants should have access to the evidence used against them. To circumscribe overreaching prosecutorial powers, the CLRA would amend the provisions of the PATRIOT Act to limit the seizure of private databases and individual records to cases where the Government has shown there is a reasonable connection to a suspected terrorist or terrorist group. At the same time, the CLRA would improve the accuracy of information available to state and local law enforcement by establishing new standards for the National Crime Information Center database. As a former prosecutor, I know that mistakes can happen during criminal investigations. For this reason, the Federal Government must maintain minimum safeguards while investigating the most serious crimes. The CLRA is an important step to restore public confidence in government while setting forth legislative goals that reflect the need to repair our relations with other nations whose assistance we need in the fight against terrorism. I hope that my colleagues in the House and Senate will join us in this bicameral proposal to achieve the appropriate balance between protecting our national security and preserving fundamental civil liberties.

Mr. DELAHUNT

Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, I join today with a dozen national environmental organizations in opposing legislation rushed to the House floor to gut the National Environmental Policy Act, as well as three other shopworn legislative assaults on conservation statutes. In recent months, the Republican congressional leadership has packaged groups of bills--often proposals rejected in the past--for congressional votes to highlight a partisan rhetorical theme. This week's emphasis is on energy policy, bringing a battery of four measures before the House. These measures include provisions to open the Arctic National Refuge for energy exploration and to provide liability protection for groundwater contaminants. None of the bills will reach the Senate; none will become law. While none of these proposals will become law, they reflect the congressional leadership's obsession with private energy speculators over the public interest. In recent years the Congress has rubber- stamped Bush Administration proposals to defer stewardship of public lands to mining, grazing and timber interests. Today, the Leadership is offering an even bigger prize, the gutting of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The ``Renewable Energy Project Siting Improving Act'' is designed to weaken one of the bedrock federal environmental protection statutes, ostensibly to ``promote'' renewable energy. When enacted 30 years ago at the behest of President Nixon, NEPA was landmark legislation to create a coherent and predictable framework for responsible environmental decisions--among other things, guiding the scope and preparation of environmental impact statements (EIS). Many states, including Massachusetts, have used NEPA as models for their own statutes. The NEPA-related bill brought before the Congress today would: Effectively eliminate the EIS by forbidding public agencies from even considering alternatives to a project under review; Broaden the definition of a ``renewable energy project, potentially to include coal mines, oil shale, or even oil and gas drilling; and, Cut back the comment period on proposed projects to 20 days, making it virtually impossible for states or the public at large to participate. Given the sweeping nature of these proposed changes, it is particularly galling that the legislation reached the House floor within days of its original introduction--and without a single hour of committee deliberation. As the Medicare discount cards were a gift to the pharmaceutical industry, the energy siting bill would grant substantial new leverage to the energy industry developers of a wide range of projects, from hydroelectric dams to wood-burning plants to offshore wind farms. If this Congress has any real desire to promote renewable energy, a perfect place to start is with policies and standards to develop offshore wind power. Our oceans provide significant opportunities to develop renewable energy from the wind. Projects of all sizes are being considered up and down the east coast, as well as in Nantucket Sound-- nominated on several occasions by federal and state officials to be designated a national marine sanctuary, until Congress placed a national moratorium on that process. Even though the Congress has yet to authorize the use of federal waters for this purpose, developers are floating trial balloon projects in many locations. In the wake of all this interest, the consensus in Congress and among a number of federal, state and local officials is that we need new and better policies--not less scrutiny--to guide the siting and licensing of these projects. Even President Bush's Ocean Commission agrees. They were charged with developing practical recommendations to improve the management of our coast. They rightly condemn the current regulatory process led by the Army Corps of Engineers, but at the same time outline a number of constructive recommendations which could accelerate the development of responsible offshore wind farms. Yet not one of the commission's recommendations can be found in this proposal; and on occasion has the President's Ocean Commission cited NEPA as an issue of concern. At the very least, the Congress could consider my own bipartisan proposal, the Offshore Renewable Energy Promotion Act, which authorizes the use of our oceans for renewable energy projects. It creates a siting process that brings together states, fishermen, mariners and other marine interests to first identify the best sites, uses and scale of projects. It embraces the concept of ocean zoning, an approach similar to that used on land where local officials guide development to the best locations, protecting important natural resources and minimizing conflicting uses. The proposal I introduced with Republican Congressman Jim Saxton, builds on existing coastal zone planning efforts. It proposes a transparent bidding and licensing process that is open to all, even municipal or local utilities, similar to offshore oil and gas. Even the ocean task force established by Republican Governor Mitt Romney strongly criticizes the current first-come first-served approach, which rewards developers to exploit gaps in current law. It's bad enough that the Leadership insists on taking valuable floor time to rehash bills that the Congress has already debated and voted on. It's inconceivable that, in the name of renewable energy, we're asked to turn one of our most effective environmental statutes into one of the biggest loopholes in the U.S. Code. That's why this bill has earned the vigorous opposition of the Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth, the National Environmental Trust, National Wildlife Foundation, World Wildlife Fund, Defenders of Wildlife, Union of Concerned Scientists, National Resources Defense Council and countless others with genuine concern about environmental protection. On their behalf, I urge my colleagues to join with me in voting in opposition to H.R. 4513.

Mr. DELAHUNT

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

Mr. DELAHUNT. I mean, no one is questioning or raising at this point in time malice or inappropriate intentions on the part of those policymakers, but it is almost beyond comprehension to believe that they would have fallen for the likes of Ahmad Chalabi. I mean, in a recent Newsweek magazine, the May 31 edition, it says it all: ``Bad intel and broken trust. Ahmad Chalabi and the road to war. Our con man in Iraq.'' We were being conned, if you accept the validity of these allegations made by intelligence officers.

Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, if my colleague will yield to me, does this not just come down to basic incompetence?

Mr. DELAHUNT. Exactly. And that is pointed out in this edition of Newsweek. Again, let me quote: ``Chalabi has not always charmed his patrons. His first run as a CIA asset in the early and mid-1990s was a disaster. His case officer did not trust him. There was a lot of hanky panky with the accounting. Triple billing, things that were not mentioned, things inflated. It was a nightmare, says a former U.S. intelligence official who worked with Chalabi.'' His quote. ``His primary focus was to drag us into a war that President Clinton did not want. But he had more luck with a group of Republican hard-liners who formed a kind of government in exile, the so-called neoconservatives like Wolfowitz and Richard Perle and Doug Feith.'' As I said earlier, when we pause and think that we went to war in part because of information given by this individual standing with the President of the United States, and that we have lost how many men and women? The costs have exceeded already $200 billion, put aside the blood and the pain and the anguish that Americans serving in Iraq and their families have had to experience. This is outrageous. And now we find on the front page of The New York Times, Mr. Speaker, a story claiming that he provided the most highly sensitive information to Iran, which, according to reports, is developing a nuclear weapons program, is being accused by the President of the United States as being a member of an axis of evil. What is happening? This is incompetence. These people are not running or managing this issue except in the most incompetent way. They are blinded by ideology.

Mr. DELAHUNT. And look where we are now. The rest of the world does not believe us. A recent poll was taken in Latin America among the economic elite, not the poor, the disadvantaged, the down-trodden, if you will. It was done in seven countries. In five countries, the negative opinion of President Bush exceeded 90 percent. The average was 87 percent. This hurts us at many, many different levels. Now we are faced with a scandal of a magnitude that I dare say we have not seen since Watergate, where we paid somebody who was conning us, that was betraying us to a potential adversary in Iran that the President of the United States described as a member of the Axis of Evil Club. Now we have the President of the United States today, according to CBS, has sought the help of an outside lawyer to represent him in the probe into who leaked the name of a CIA operative to a newspaper columnist. Believing that Bush will be interviewed or asked to testify before a grand jury, White House officials confirm that the President has put a Washington attorney on hot stand-by, CBS reported tonight. The gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland) is now joining us, our other stalwart member of Iraq Watch. What we have here is a growing morass, if you will, of investigations, of embarrassment, of loss of prestige, of the erosion of our moral authority in the world. And, most importantly, in addition to costing the American taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars, we are now putting our men and women who have performed so valiantly and professionally in Iraq, we are putting our military at risk, we are putting our national security at risk. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland).

Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee).

Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, if I can just for a moment speak to the issue of America's standing in this world. I am reminded of DeTouqueville when he came to this country, a Frenchman who toured the original 13 States, and he made this observation. He spoke of America's greatness, and he said America is great because America is good. The world has always looked towards the United States of America, not just because of its military strength or its economic power, but because of our moral authority. Americans through the generations have earned that title, that title of ``American,'' because we are a moral and a good and generous Nation. But that perception of the United States is changing. We hear a lot about oil and our motives in terms of why we went into Iraq. I remember reading the book ``The Price of Loyalty'' that was done by an author regarding the experiences of Paul O'Neill, former Secretary of the Treasury. I would ask my friends on all sides of this particular issue to take the time to go to page 96, because I have been asking this question for months now, and I cannot get an answer. Maybe I am simply frustrated. But at a meeting of the National Security Council on February 27, some 7 months before our national tragedy on September 11, this is Secretary Paul O'Neill, a highly respected Republican who served in the Reagan administration, who served under this President Bush's father, let me just take an excerpt and read it to you: ``Beneath the surface was a battle O'Neill had seen brewing since the National Security meeting on January 30, which was about a week after the inauguration. There was Powell and the moderates at the State Department versus hardliners like Rumsfeld, Cheney and Wolfowitz, who were already planning the next war with Iraq and the shape of a post- Saddam country. Documents were being prepared by the Defense Intelligence Agency, Rumsfeld's intelligence arm, mapping Iraq's oil fields and exploration areas and listing companies that might be interested in leveraging the precious asset. ``This was occurring weeks after the inauguration. There was a document entitled `Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oil Field Contracts.' It lists companies from 30 countries, including France, Germany, Russia and the United Kingdom, their specialties, bidding histories, and, in some cases, their particular areas of interest. An attached document maps Iraq with markings for super-giant oil fields, other oil fields, and earmarks for production sharing.'' So we wonder, we wonder why the perception of this great and generous Nation is now being attacked, is now being questioned. Recently there was a survey done by the Pew Foundation, and it was particularly disturbing because many across the world doubt our motives and believe that our real intent is to control Mideastern oil. In Russia, 51 percent of that population believes that that was why we invaded Iraq; in France, 58 percent; in Germany, 63 percent; in Pakistan, 54 percent; in Turkey, 64 percent; in Morocco, 63 percent; and in Jordan, 71 percent. This, I submit to my friends, is most disturbing. Then we have a report in Time magazine, all Americans by now are aware that Dick Cheney, the Vice President of the United States, whom in Bob Woodward's most recent book, ``The Plan of Attack,'' is described as having a ``fervor for war.'' That was by Colin Powell. Colin Powell said that, not one of us. It now appears that Time magazine reports that an e-mail from the Army Corps of Engineers says that ``Douglas Feith, an Undersecretary of Defense, approved arrangements for the Halliburton contract, contingent on informing White House tomorrow. We anticipate no issues, since action has been coordinated with the Vice President's office.'' And we wonder why our bona fides and our motives are being questioned? What happens now when the rest of the world reads that information in a journal that is generally regarded with respect, that represents American thinking?

Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman has provoked a thought. What we have here is the absolute converse of what occurred back in the early 1950s. We have a professional military, a military that every American supports and a military that has conducted itself with valor and a military that all Americans can be proud of, but a civilian leadership that is incompetent. If we are ever going to win the war on terror, if we are going to defeat terrorism in this world, it is absolutely essential, as the gentleman said, for a new team. I was at a hearing today in the Committee on International Relations which the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Hoeffel) and I serve on. We all remember, it was a unanimous vote in this Chamber to go into Afghanistan and go after the real enemy, al Qaeda, the fundamental Islamists, eliminate them and reduce the threat. We had the support of the entire world. We had a genuine coalition. Oftentimes, the French are castigated and denigrated on this floor, but if Members remember, it was the French national paper Le Monde that on September 12 said, ``Today we are all Americans,'' and now we have gone in another direction. Members all know who Robert Novak is, an extremely conservative columnist, certainly not one who in most cases we would share the same viewpoint on a variety of issues, but here are his comments in a column he did recently. ``The handful of valiant American warriors fighting the other war in Afghanistan is not a happy band of bothers. They are undermanned and feel neglected, lack confidence in their generals, and are disgusted by Afghan political leadership. The overlooked war continues with no end in sight. Narcotics trafficking is at an all-time high. If U.S. forces were to leave, the Taliban or something like it would regain power. The U.S. is lost in Afghanistan, bound to this wild country and unable to leave.'' It is Special Services that is given the task of confronting armed narcoterrorists on a day-to-day basis. Mr. Speaker, we are losing; not just in Afghanistan, but we are losing everywhere. This is a highly volatile, highly dangerous moment in our national history.

Mr. DELAHUNT. Larry Lindsey, and the role of those who disagree, who were independent thinkers, there is a lengthening list. But I dare say that future generations could very well look back on this particular moment in our history and Ahmad Chalabi would have a very special status. Because, as the gentleman indicated, Mr. Chalabi is very skillful, has a sordid history, if you will; was convicted of embezzlement in the Nation of Jordan; was sentenced in Jordan, an erstwhile ally of the United States when it comes to the war on terror and an ally of the United States in an effort to resolve the Israeli- Palestinian issue; was sentenced in a Jordanian court to some 22 years. At a meeting that the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Hoeffel) and myself and others had with King Abdullah, I posed the question, was the king, our friend, our ally, ever consulted before Mr. Chalabi was named to the now-defunct Iraqi Governing Council? And his response was a terse no. I found that very disturbing because he went on to say that we, meaning the Jordanians, the Lebanese, have serious problems with Mr. Chalabi. Well, I think what we are discovering is that we have serious problems with Mr. Chalabi. Mr. Chalabi has become an embarrassment to this administration. The gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Hoeffel) indicated earlier that he sat in the gallery to my left while the President delivered the State of the Union address. He sat directly behind the First Lady. Mr. Chalabi has a relationship with the President of the United States. One only has to see, Mr. Speaker, this picture. It is my understanding that the President, who is dressed casually here, on his trip during Thanksgiving to visit the American servicemen there, and we applaud him for that, is pictured here with Mr. Chalabi, Mr. Chalabi who provided false intelligence, according to reports emanating from the Department of State and from the CIA, which led this Nation into war. It was defectors whom Mr. Chalabi brought to the administration's attention which talked about weapons of mass destruction, which talked about links with al Qaeda, which talked about links with Osama bin Laden, all of which have been proven to be patently false. It is very disturbing when we reflect and think that this false information was utilized in the course of the debate on the resolution authorizing war and was never questioned by the White House, by the President, by Vice President Cheney, by Mr. Wolfowitz, by Mr. Douglas Fife and by Mr. Pearl, who at that point in time served on the Defense Policy Board. That information was simply accepted because they were, in my opinion, looking for facts to support their desire to go to war against Iraq. And here we are. Today, a front page story in the New York Times that, if this is true, this will represent, in my opinion, a scandal that will rock this Nation. Not only, Mr. Speaker, were we given false information and false intelligence, but now we read in The New York Times that Mr. Chalabi, and let me quote for a moment before I defer to my colleagues: ``The Iraqi leader and former ally of the Bush administration disclosed to an Iranian official that the United States had broken the secret communications code of Iran's intelligence service, betraying one of Washington's most valuable sources of information about Iran, according to United States intelligence officials. They said about 6 weeks ago, Mr. Chalabi told a Baghdad station chief of Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security that the United States was reading the communications traffic of the Iranian spy service, one of the most sophisticated in the Middle East.'' If that be true, we have been betrayed. It was this President, George W. Bush, standing beside Mr. Chalabi in this very House during the course of a State of the Union address, who used that term ``axis of evil'' when he spoke of Iraq, when he spoke of North Korea, and when he spoke of Iran as being three members of that axis of evil. And here we have, according to The New York Times, and Mr. Chalabi has to be given an opportunity to respond, like the administration has to be given an opportunity to respond, to this absolutely outrageous potential alleged act of treason against the American people. It cannot stand.

Mr. DELAHUNT. And Paul O'Neill.

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

Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, we are here tonight, several of my colleagues will be joining me for our weekly hour that we describe as the Iraq Watch, which reviews issues of interest and concern to Members on both sides of the aisle as well as the American people. But before we begin talking about events of the past several weeks in Iraq, Afghanistan, in the Middle East, I was conversing earlier with my colleague from the State of Washington (Mr. McDermott) regarding some of the statements given earlier on the floor by our colleagues and friends from the Republican side of the aisle. And I want to commend them and congratulate them for taking this issue of waste and fraud and abuse seriously. I understand that they are describing themselves as waste watchers. I can assure them that we will work together with them. We will cooperate and we will collaborate. Because, as the gentleman who last spoke indicated, it is absolutely essential that we use taxpayers' dollars efficiently, honestly and bring the highest possible return on the investment of those dollars in the American people. In fact, I am really pleased that this is happening, and I dare say if our Republican colleagues reach out to Democrats that we will join with them and make this a bipartisan effort. I would simply note that it is late in coming, however, because I think it is important to underscore who has been running the government here for the past 4 years. I am joined by my friend from Pennsylvania (Mr. Hoeffel); as I indicated earlier, the gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott), my colleague and friend; and, of course, the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) and an original member of the Iraq Watch; and maybe I could pose a question to him. Is it the gentleman's understanding that President Bush, who is a Republican, has served in that capacity for some 3\1/2\ years?