Tom Harkin

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, the National World War II Memorial will be dedicated here in Washington on the Saturday before Memorial Day. It is a stunningly beautiful monument, located midway between the Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument. It is a long-overdue salute-- an expression of profound gratitude--to the millions of Americans who served their country with courage, sacrifice, and selflessness in that war. I would like to share with my Senate colleagues a remarkable story about how the small community of Walnut, IA, has expressed its gratitude to a local veteran of the Second World War, Erwin Arndt. Mr. Arndt returned from the war to serve his community as an electrician, a volunteer firefighter, a city council member, and commander of the local AMVETS unit. Just about everybody in Walnut knows and respects Mr. Arndt. And there was much concern when he suffered a series of strokes over the past year. All too typically, a man in Mr. Arndt's condition would have no choice but to become a dependent in a nursing home. But friends and neighbors in Walnut came to his rescue in a truly remarkable and inspiring way. They joined hands to give him the wherewithal and assistance he needed to continue living independently in his apartment. A local restaurant helped to provide daily meals. Several citizens helped Mr. Arndt to keep his apartment clean and orderly, and take him to medical appointments. Still others organized shifts to keep him company in his apartment. Several especially kind citizens got together to purchase a motorized chair to help Mr. Arndt get around. It was truly a community effort--an act of collective kindness that I find truly inspiring. As you can imagine, Mr. Arndt's daughter, Karen Dewinter, is overwhelmed with gratitude for what the people of Walnut did for her father. She told me that she was especially touched that on her father's birthday, the local AMVET auxiliary held a party at a cafe, where they brought cards from local elementary and preschool children. I express my own gratitude to the people of Walnut, IA, for their extraordinary caring and kindness toward Erwin Arndt. Like millions of Americans of what Tom Brokaw has labeled ``the Greatest Generation,'' Mr. Arndt served our Nation with dedication in both war and peace. In their own special way, the people of Walnut have said thank you to this veteran and beloved member of the community. I would like to add my own gratitude, not just to Mr. Arndt but also to the good citizens of Walnut.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. I thank Senator Gregg for his generosity in letting me close the debate. I also thank the Senator from New Hampshire and the Senator from Massachusetts for putting together a good bill. This is a good bill, except for the funding. There is a lot of good in this bill, and the Senator from New Hampshire and the Senator from Massachusetts have worked together, as we all have, to come together with a nonpartisan approach. As I have said, this is the way we ought to deal with disability issues. We have in our long history, and we have continued that again in this bill, too. When this Congress passed the Americans with Disabilities Act 14 years ago, we stated four goals. For people with disabilities we wanted equal opportunity, full participation, independent living, and economic self-sufficiency. Those were basically the same goals of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. We now see people working more in our society, people with disabilities being employed on jobs, but the basis of it all is education. That is where it starts. If families with kids with disabilities are not getting the supportive services and the kind of teacher training that is needed to be able to teach kids with disabilities, if they do not have the materials, say, in Braille for kids who are blind, or interpreters for kids who are deaf, or if they do not have some mental health providers who can help kids who have perhaps mental problems in school, then all of the promises of the Americans with Disabilities Act is for naught because these kids will not get the education they need that will give them equal opportunity, full participation, independent living, and economic self-sufficiency. The occupant of the Chair, my colleague and cosponsor of this amendment, Senator Hagel, stated in his comments earlier about this being an unfunded mandate. This is one of the largest unfunded mandates that we have in our country. We hear about it all the time from the schools, from the parents, from the school boards. We have mandated that they must provide these services and then we said we are going to provide up to 40 percent. That was 30 years ago, and we are only at 19 percent. So we have to ask ourselves about our priorities. This is an unfunded mandate. We made a promise; we have not kept the promise. Some say but the Harkin-Hagel amendment will add to the deficit. Well, it will add $2 billion on a budget next year of $2.3 trillion--less than one-tenth of 1 percent. When one looks at the whole national debt of $8 trillion, we are talking about a minuscule amount. For that minuscule amount, it means kids will get the services they need. It means we will have more Danny Pfiffers, the young man I knew in Iowa who went to school, who was mainstreamed, the manager of his football team, acted in a school play. Danny suffered from Downs Syndrome. He got out of school. He got a job. He lived by himself. He was a taxpayer. This is what we want. It saves our society countless dollars in the long run, but even more important than that it enriches Danny Pfiffer's life, and it will enrich more kids' lives. We have waited too long to make good on our promise. Now is the time to do it. It has to do with priorities. It has to do with integration. It has to do with all of us living together, sharing and caring about one another. We are all better off as a society when kids with disabilities are educated and mainstreamed in our public schools. Lastly, the Gregg amendment will be the first vote. I do not see anything wrong with the Gregg amendment. It is authorization as a statement of intent, purpose, and goodwill. To quote my friend from New Hampshire who used the words to describe authorization last year, there is nothing wrong with it. The Senator from New Hampshire is authorizing more money. That is fine, but it does not add one nickel to this unfunded mandate. So the Gregg amendment is fine as a statement of purpose and good will and intention, but statements of purpose and intention and good will do not get the funds out to meet our obligation. We said 30 years ago we would provide up to 40 percent. We are at 19 percent. This is the vote that will say to the families of kids with disabilities, we are going to meet our commitments and fund this unfunded mandate.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to add Senator Pryor as a cosponsor.

Mr. HARKIN. Yes.

Mr. HARKIN. I thank the Presiding Officer. I did not hear that. Mr. President, first, I would like to respond to my friend from New Hampshire who was in the Chamber earlier, and maybe some others, who talked about the GOP record. He had a chart that said Republicans have done more any way you slice it, and then went on to say that President Bush is attacked for increasing spending by $1 billion a year. I want to address that with my friend from New Hampshire in the Chamber. I never attacked President Bush for this. I have not heard anyone on this side attack Republicans or President Bush for this. In the 30 years we have been discussing, amending, and fashioning disability policy in the Senate and the Congress, it has never been a partisan issue. It was not when we first did IDEA. It was not when we did the Americans with Disabilities Act. We may disagree on funding and stuff and how we do it, but I have never known it to be a partisan issue. I have purposely not attacked the President, the Republicans, or anyone else for this. No one on our side has on this point, and we are not attacking anyone. So I refuse to look upon this as any kind of partisan issue. You can go back and look at who did what when, and all that, but what I want to focus on is the here and now. Where are we now? What did Congress promise? What kind of situation are we in? Let's look at the future. I am sorry somebody is trying to put this in a partisan framework. It has never been that way. It has always been a bipartisan issue. We ought to continue on that approach. Yes, we can disagree on whether or not it would be discretionary or mandatory, but not on a partisan basis. I want to talk also about the mix of mandatory and discretionary. There has been some talk that this is some kind of--I heard it said-- ``weird mix'' of mandatory and discretionary money. We have done that before. We have the childcare block grant. We have safe and stable families. We have some NIH funding. I have come up with this right now. There are probably a lot more programs for which we have both mandatory and discretionary funding. Also, my friend from New Hampshire said there is some kind of budget rule--I did not get this clear--that means our amendment would result in a reduction in discretionary spending. That is absolutely not so. It is only so if you move money from discretionary to mandatory. That is not what we are doing. We are adding money over and above discretionary. So there is no cut in any discretionary funding. So what the Senator from New Hampshire says is just not so. I responded earlier to a question from Senator Jeffords that on the discretionary side we have never cut funding for IDEA, and we are not going to do so in the future. Now, the Gregg amendment before us simply authorizes more money. But we have been doing that for 30 years--30 years--and we are still only at 19 percent of the 40 percent we had promised. The Gregg amendment does not change one thing. It does not change a thing--nothing. Kids, families, and schools will still be sold short. Now, if anyone wants to know what authorizations mean around here, I would just use a statement from the Senator from New Hampshire that he made last September on a Byrd amendment. The Senator from New Hampshire himself said: Now, let's go to another issue, this concept that the authorized level has to be funded. This is a very unusual concept for Congress because for all intents and purposes Congress does not fund anything to the authorized level. The Senator then went on to say: Authorizations simply are statements of intent, purpose, and good will. Well, that is exactly what the Gregg amendment is. It is a statement of intent and good will, but it does not do anything. The Senator from New Hampshire himself said we do not fund to authorized levels. And that is all he has done, just raised the authorized level. It does not do one thing. If we want to meet our obligations and fulfill our promise, we have to adopt the Hagel and Harkin amendment to provide for mandatory funding. Mr. President, let's get off all this talking about money and stuff and shifting it around. Listen to what Julie Reynolds said. She runs the Parent Training and Information Center in Iowa. She said to me that families and kids with disabilities are unfairly blamed for the shortfalls in schools. Parents are told not to ask for what the child needs because it costs too much. Parents are told their children with disabilities take away resources from other kids. Families with kids with disabilities are not to blame. If there is anyone to blame, it is us in Congress for shirking our responsibilities for 30 years and not meeting that 40-percent level. I am hopeful the Senate will step to the plate. I repeat, 2 years ago, this Senate unanimously--unanimously--adopted the same amendment that the Senator from Nebraska and I are offering today to provide for full mandatory funding up to that 40-percent level. Unanimously we adopted it. It was cut out in conference, and we were told we should come back when IDEA is reauthorized. Well, reauthorization is here. I hope the Senate will speak again with that same forceful voice. Mr. President, I yield the floor and reserve the time I may have.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I did not hear that. The Senator from Massachusetts yielded me?

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, if the Senator will yield, I respond by saying to my friend from Vermont that I appreciate his question. I want to assure him that, as he knows, I am committed to fully funding IDEA. This amendment--I know I can speak for my colleague from Nebraska also--presumes that the discretionary rates will remain dedicated to special education, and I am fully confident that will be the case. I have been on the Appropriations Committee now for 20 years and on the subcommittee that funds IDEA. My experience in 20 years is that it has never been cut. Maybe it has not been added to much, but I have never known anyone to try to cut it. Right now, Senator Specter is the chair of that subcommittee. I want to assure the Senator that no one has any intention of cutting IDEA. Those of us on committee would resist that. Again, Senator Gregg is also on the subcommittee, and I assume he doesn't want to cut IDEA either. There has not been a cut in IDEA funding in 25 years. There will not be any now on the discretionary account.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, we just voted--I did, and so many of us-- to say we want to get more money into special education. That is what the Gregg amendment says, that we want to increase authorizations. Right now, under present law, we can do whatever we want because it authorizes such sums as necessary. The Senator from New Hampshire put in there specific amounts, but it does not add one nickel to special education. The next amendment, the Hagel and Harkin amendment, does that. It adds real money in mandatory spending, $2.2 billion a year for 6 years to get to that 40-percent level we promised 30 years ago. This is one of the biggest unfunded mandates we have in our country. It is time that Congress lives up to the promise we made 30 years ago to help fund special education. I ask for an aye vote on the Harkin-Hagel amendment.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I move to waive the relevant portions of the Budget Act to permit the consideration of my amendment, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I am joined by my colleague from Nebraska, Senator Hagel, and many others to offer an amendment that will ensure at long last the Congress meets its commitment it made almost 30 years ago. At that time, we told children with disabilities, their families, schools, and States that the Federal Government would pay 40 percent of the extra cost of special education. We have never lived up to that commitment. In fact, we are not even halfway there. This is really about the credibility of the Congress. It is about the credibility of each and every one of us. We tell our children all the time to keep your promises, do what you say you are going to do. We teach them if they do not follow through, other people will be hurt. Yet the Congress has not kept its word. We have not done what we have told children, parents, schools, and States we would do, and people have been hurt as a result. People are harmed every time parents of children with disabilities are pitted against parents with children without disabilities for a limited pot of funds. They are harmed every time a family opts not to ask for what their child truly needs because they have been told it costs too much and other children will suffer. They are harmed every time a school district struggles to provide educational opportunities for all its students. Congress had two purposes when it passed the predecessor to IDEA in 1975. First, we wanted to codify the constitutional obligation to provide education to all children, including those with disabilities. There had been several Federal court cases, including the PARC case in Pennsylvania and the Mills case in DC, that challenged the exclusion of kids with disabilities from public schools. These cases held that if schools do provide for public education of their kids, then they must educate all children. So Congress passed a law, and we spelled out what schools have to do to meet these constitutional obligations. The other purpose of the law was to provide financial support for the education of children with disabilities. Congress recognized that serving additional students would cost substantially more money, and it committed to paying 40 percent of the excess costs of special education, which is known as the full funding amount. Almost 30 years later, we are reauthorizing this bill, and I say to my friends and colleagues that we need to think about what we originally wanted to do and promised to do. We wanted to show Federal support for the principle that all children deserve a quality education, and we wanted to help State and local governments meet the costs involved. The amendment of Senator Hagel and I will help us at long last to achieve these goals. Recent history leaves no doubt that discretionary increases will not get us to full funding. The charade is over. Educators, parents, children, and State and local government officials all know that we need mandatory increases. Promised increases on the discretionary side will not get us to full funding. They have not worked for 29 years; they will not work now. If Members of this body are still not convinced that we need mandatory full funding, they only have to look at the past 2 years. This chart shows that, in 2003, President Bush proposed a $1 billion increase for IDEA. The Senate increased it to $2.3 billion. And the final tally was $1.3 billion. Last year, it was the same story. President Bush wanted a $650 million increase. The Senate went up to $2.2 billion, and we came down to $1.2 billion, actually less of an increase than we had the year before. Again this year President Bush asked for $1 billion, and we do not know how it will come out next year. We can look at the last 2 years and say probably the same thing will happen again. The reason is simple, there are a lot of other important education programs that also need money. The President has consistently shortchanged the No Child Left Behind Act, especially title I. There simply has not been enough discretionary money to meet our obligations on IDEA while also funding programs to help schools meet the mandate of the No Child Left Behind Act. So special education funding gets squeezed. Again, we are on track for a similar situation this year. The President, as I said, has proposed $1 billion for IDEA. The Senate budget resolution includes the same amount. So, according to the Congressional Research Service, we will never reach full funding if we increase IDEA at the rate of $1 billion a year under current law. Under the revised funding formula in S. 1248, we will not reach full funding until fiscal year 2028, nearly a quarter century from now, 53 years after Congress first committed to that goal and made that promise. A child born today would not see full funding of IDEA during his or her entire education. That is unacceptable. Fully funding IDEA within 6 years, as we do in our amendment, takes $2.2 billion a year, not $1 billion as the President has proposed. Where is the additional money from IDEA going to come from this year if we do not use mandatory funding? Do my colleagues want to cut title 1? Do we want to cut afterschool centers? Do we want to cut teacher training? The money simply is not there in the President's budget to find $2.2 billion a year for special education unless we use mandatory funding. My colleague from Nebraska, Senator Hagel, and I have been trying to meet this goal for a long time now. We came close once before. When the No Child Left Behind Act passed the Senate, this body agreed unanimously to mandate increases for IDEA until we reached full funding in 6 years. But strong opposition from the President and the House leadership thwarted the will of the Senate. At that time, we were told in conference to wait until reauthorization of IDEA took place. Well, here we are. We are reauthorizing IDEA. So again I want to make this point very clear. Two years ago, this Senate unanimously approved mandatory funding for IDEA. It was only taken out in conference. It was taken out saying we have to wait until the reauthorization of IDEA. Well, as I said, we are on the reauthorization of IDEA right now and that is why Senator Hagel and I and others are proposing this amendment. We have waited long enough; children with disabilities and their parents have waited long enough; schools have waited long enough and, quite frankly, our property taxpayers have waited long enough. Back home, I have heard from parents, school administrators, teachers, State legislators, chambers of commerce, taxpayers' associations, and others about the need to fully fund IDEA. I am sure every Senator in this body has heard the same thing from his or her own constituents. These voices are unanimous in support of mandatory full funding because they know that is the only way we are ever going to reach that. Mandatory funding is also widely supported by all of the national disability and education groups. During this reauthorization, the education and disability communities disagreed on a lot of issues, but they are unanimous and united on mandatory funding. This chart shows a list of all of those who are in support. There are 36 organizations that are members of the Consortium of Citizens with Disabilities Education Task Force, plus 38 organizations that are part of the IDEA Funding Coalition. The National Governors Association also has a clear position supporting mandatory full funding. To quote the joint policy of the NGA and the Council of Chief State School Officers: Mandatory full funding of the Federal share of IDEA is essential. They further state: Congress should do the following: Provide mandatory full funding at the federally committed level of 40 percent of the average per pupil expenditure. The Governors support mandatory full funding because they know how much it will mean to each of their States. I have a chart that shows how much more each State will get under the amendment Senator Hagel and I are proposing as compared to what they would get if it is not supported. Again, I am not going to run through every State, but it is here for Senators to look at it if they would like. I urge each of my colleagues to look up their own State. My own State of Iowa stands to gain $2 billion over 10 years under this amendment, an increase of $460 million over what they would get with the annual $1 billion increases. I will talk for a minute about the investments IDEA funding pays for. It pays for the teachers who help children learn. It pays for occupational and physical therapy to help children grow stronger. It pays for interpreters and captioning for deaf and hard-of- hearing students, and Braille materials that allow blind children to read their textbooks. It pays for the behavioral health services that allow children with mental health needs to succeed. It pays for assistive technology, for example, software that helps a blind child use the classroom materials, or augmentative communication devices that help kids with cerebral palsy communicate with their teachers and their peers. IDEA is an investment in children's lives and in their future. We are investing money at the front end with early intervention, with interpreters, with behavioral health and other related services. The return on that investment is productive, independent, taxpaying citizens. We get individuals who are prepared to go on to higher education, to gainful employment, and to independent living in their communities. The unemployment rate for people with disabilities right now is about 70 percent. That is right, 70 percent. IDEA is critical to ensuring that we bring that rate down and increase the number of individuals with disabilities who are working. Our House colleague, former Congressman Tony Coelho, always liked to say people with disabilities are the one group that really wants to pay taxes. They want to work. They want to have the opportunity to contribute to our society and economy. IDEA has also cut down on the number of children who have to live in institutions. Dr. Charlie Lakin of the University of Minnesota estimates $6.5 billion a year is saved on institutional costs by making it possible for children with disabilities to live in their own homes and communities. The true value of this is impossible to measure in dollars. How does one measure the value of keeping a family together? In closing, when Congress first passed this law in 1975, we created a beacon of hope for children who previously had none. We said to children with disabilities and their parents that all children deserve educational opportunity, all children deserve to take part in the American dream, all children deserve to look forward to having a home and a job when they grow up. To that end, we made a pledge to these children and their parents. We promised the Federal Government would pay its fair share of the costs, up to 40 percent on average per-pupil expense, to ensure this dream becomes a reality. Today, nearly three decades later, it is time for Congress to make good on that commitment. So I urge my colleagues to vote yes on the amendment offered by Senator Hagel, this Senator from Iowa, and so many others. I see my colleague and cosponsor of the amendment, Senator Hagel. He is a great leader on this issue. I yield to him at this time.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk on behalf of myself and Senator Hagel and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. We are all upset about what happened. Our country was founded on the principles of democracy, the inalienable rights of individuals. We were right to condemn Saddam Hussein for his state- sponsored torture in Iraq. We are right to condemn anyone, whether it is in Uganda or those who led the Rwandan massacre, the generals who now run Burma, or those who set up the Soviet gulags during that long cold war where so many were tortured and killed by the Soviets. We have always been right to speak out against those and to do what we can to uphold the inalienable rights of individuals. We are not perfect. No country is; no individual is. But our obligation is to make sure that when this country makes a mistake, we right it. We don't try to cover it up. We don't try to excuse it. We bring it out, show it for what it is, and then institute policies, programs, procedures to make sure that human rights abuses under our watch will never happen again. The bravery of our men and women in Iraq, under intolerable conditions, is a source of pride to all of us. As Senator Kennedy said, what has happened with these pictures, these terrible human rights abuses, I believe, has to pain our wonderful young men and women in uniform more than it pains us. Most of them, I am sure, are as abhorred by this as we are. I know they are wondering how something like this could have happened. It has to be demoralizing for our military as it is demoralizing for us. That is why 34 years ago, when the pictures of the tiger cages came out, it led to reforms. I believe it helped lead to the end of that terrible conflict in Vietnam and brought our troops home. I hope these pictures, as awful as they are, about what happened in the Abu Ghraib prison, will now provoke us to act, to straighten out the system, to make sure this does not happen again.

Mr. HARKIN. I ask unanimous consent for an additional 5 minutes.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the time under the quorum call be charged equally to both sides.

Mr. HARKIN. Because of what has happened, and for our country, we speak of patriotism a lot, patriotism of our brave soldiers and airmen and seamen in Iraq and around the world, the patriotism of those in our country who fight for justice, fight for those less fortunate. Patriotism takes on a lot of different forms. I think Mr. Rumsfeld has to show some patriotism. He has to put the good of his country above his own self-interest and his own self-esteem. It is time for him to recognize that we need a new Secretary of Defense to change the policies and the programs that Mr. Rumsfeld instituted, that, as the Washington Post editorial said, led to this kind of a situation. I ask unanimous consent that the editorial in the Washington Post this morning, May 6, be printed in the Record.

Mr. HARKIN. I believe that our President has to apologize to the Iraqi people. He went on television yesterday. As I understand from all the articles I read, he gave a slight slap on the wrist to Secretary Rumsfeld and said he still supported him. I am sorry. Sometimes it takes a big person to admit wrong and to apologize. I believe that is what we need to do for the Iraqi people, to let them know, not by words but by deeds, that this does not reflect who we are as a people. We are better than that. We are bigger than that. Because of what has happened, because of the pall this has cast over our involvement in Iraq, for those reasons and for the history of John Negroponte and what he did during his tenure in Honduras during a time of gross violations of human rights, he should not be the highest ranking diplomat in Iraq. I suppose the skids are greased for him to get this appointment. But I don't think there are too many here who remember Mr. Negroponte and what he did in Honduras, but I don't forget. I don't forget what happened there. I don't forget that Mr. Negroponte was one of those individuals closely aligned with General Gustavo Alvarez and Battalion 316. I don't forget that it was Mr. Negroponte who turned a blind eye and a deaf ear to the human rights abuses in Honduras at that time. So to send Mr. Negroponte to Iraq would send entirely the wrong message at this time. Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry: Does the Senator from Iowa have a certain amount of time? And if so, what is that?

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

Mr. HARKIN. I appreciate that. Mr. President, I rise in opposition to the nomination of John D. Negroponte to serve as U.S. Ambassador to Iraq. I understand and agree America needs a representative there, more so now than ever. We need someone in Iraq who has a sterling record, an unassailable record in terms of his or her support for fundamental human rights and for the rule of law, someone who has no blot on their career record of having been involved in the kind of abuses that have come to light recently in Iraq under our military jurisdiction. After the terrible revelations of the abuses under our watch at the prison at Abu Ghraib--more is coming to light in Afghanistan, and we do not know what is happening in Guantanamo--I believe nominating Ambassador Negroponte to this vital post would send entirely the wrong message. He is not the right person for this job at this time. Why do I say that? Ambassador Negroponte served as U.S. Ambassador to Honduras from October 1981 through May of 1985. During this time, Mr. Negroponte showed a callous disregard for human rights abuses through his tenure as U.S. Ambassador to Honduras. I speak of this from firsthand knowledge. I traveled to Honduras during this period and I visited one of the Contra camps along the border of Honduras and Nicaragua with then Ambassador Negroponte. At that time, there were many allegations that a so-called Battalion 316--which was supervised and trained by our CIA and by some of our military personnel--had been involved in some very egregious human rights abuses, including the disappearances of people, including the disappearance and alleged torture and murder of a Catholic priest. At the time of my visit to the camp with Mr. Negroponte, I asked a number of questions about Battalion 316 and the alleged human rights abuses. I was told there were no such human rights abuses committed by the Honduran military. It became clear to me I was misled, and quite frankly I was not given answers to my questions about the human rights abuses being committed by Battalion 316. I believe Ambassador Negroponte knowingly misinformed me and knowingly misinformed the U.S. State Department about gross violations of human rights in Honduras during his tenure. I refer to a series of articles written in the Baltimore Sun in 1995. A June 19, 1995 article was talking about Ambassador Negroponte. An ambassador, someone cynically once said, is sent abroad to lie for his country. U.S. career diplomat John D. Negroponte confused that with lying to his country. As U.S. ambassador to Honduras during the early '80s, Mr. Negroponte systematically suppressed reports to Washington describing kidnappings and murders of political dissidents by a secret unit of the Honduran army. Instead he was responsible for false reports to Washington that portrayed the Honduran regime as committed to democracy and the rule of law. I will read further from this article: Why should an experienced U.S. diplomat send false reports to the State Department concealing damaging information about the nation he was assigned to? Simple. For one thing, some of his superiors wanted it that way. They weren't fooled. They were part of a conspiracy to mislead Congress and the U.S. public. The Reagan administration, which dispatched Mr. Negroponte to replace an ambassador who was reporting unwelcome facts, had an overriding policy objective in Central America: to stop what it perceived as a threatened communist takeover. Nothing else mattered. Mr. Negroponte later told a Senate panel he never saw any ``convincing substantiation'' that the notorious unit was ``involved in death squad type activities.'' If so, he outdid the three monkeys who saw no evil, heard no evil and spoke no evil. The evidence was all around him, including in his own embassy. A diplomat who tried to write a truthful human rights report was ordered to remove the damaging information. More than 300 articles about military abuses appeared in the Honduran newspapers that year alone. Hundreds marched through the capital in protests. A dissident Honduran legislator personally appealed to Mr. Negroponte. I ask unanimous consent to have the articles from June 19, 1995, printed in the Record.

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

Mr. HARKIN. Ambassador Negroponte's reports to his superiors in the State Department resulted in the Congress being misled as to the scope and nature of gross human rights violations that were committed by Battalion 316, an elite U.S trained unit of the Honduran military involved in some of the worst human rights abuses in Central America. In a letter to The Economist in 1982, Ambassador Negroponte wrote, it is simply untrue that death squads have made appearances in Honduras. This is from our Ambassador to Honduras at the very time death squads were openly operating in Honduras under Battalion 316. Yet he said it is untrue that they have made an appearance in Honduras. We now have history. We now know Mr. Negroponte was not telling us the truth. From 1981 to 1984, over 150 people disappeared in Honduras, including an American priest, Father James Carney. His body has never been recovered. All indications at that time pointed to Battalion 316. There had been reports that they interrogated him and he was severely tortured and killed. I am not suggesting Ambassador Negroponte was responsible for Father Carney's disappearance. What I am saying, however, is Ambassador Negroponte turned a blind eye and a deaf ear to the human rights abuses in Honduras during his watch. During that period, Ambassador Negroponte was in very close contact, perhaps almost on a daily basis, with GEN Gustavo Alvarez, the Commander in Chief of the Honduran military, and the architect of Battalion 316. For Ambassador Negroponte in 1982 to say it is simply untrue that death squads have made appearances in Honduras--this is going to be our Ambassador to Iraq at this time? In 1989, during a hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on his nomination to be Ambassador to Mexico, Ambassador Negroponte was questioned about the human rights violations by this elite battalion which became known as Battalion 316. His response was that he had ``never seen any convincing substantiation they were involved in death-squad type activities.'' Yet, as a Baltimore Sun article pointed out, the evidence was all around him, including in his own embassy. A diplomat who tried to write a truthful human rights report was ordered to remove the damaging information, and Mr. Negroponte was the Ambassador at that time. Mr. President, the Baltimore Sun, in 1995, devoted a series of articles on what happened in Honduras and what happened in terms of Mr. Negroponte's involvement at that time. For the benefit of those who might want to read the Record and catch up on Mr. Negroponte's past and what he did while he was Ambassador to Honduras, I commend these articles to them. Mr. President, I think it should be clear to all of us why human rights questions and concerns should be at the forefront of today's debate and why someone with the background of Mr. Negroponte is not the right person to send to Iraq, because it is going to come out, it will come out about Mr. Negroponte's involvement with Battalion 316. It will come out about Mr. Negroponte's efforts in Honduras to suppress information Congress needed at that time. It will come out that Mr. Negroponte was untruthful to his superiors at the State Department. It should be clear to us why he should not go there at this time. We are shocked and shaken by the pictures of abuse against Iraqis at the hands of U.S. personnel. Our image as a country is at stake. But it is not just our image, it is the very essence of our Nation, our fundamental respect for human rights, our fundamental respect for the dignity and worth of each individual, the essence of what we are trying to tell the world, that we are for freedom, that we are for individual liberties, that we oppose torture in all its forms. There is no reason why people should be tortured in prisons, and we should not be involved in it. The photographs we have seen also have a personal association for me. When I first saw these pictures, I was taken back in time--34 years to be exact--to 1970, July of 1970, when I was a staff person in the House of Representatives, and I was sent with a commission to Vietnam. We had heard all these reports about these tiger cages in which people were brutally tortured, killed. Our State Department denied their existence, our military denied the existence of them; these were all just Communist conspiracy stories. Well, I had heard enough about them and others had heard enough about them that I began to look into it, and because of some luck, because of the courage of Congressman William Anderson of Tennessee, and Congressman Augustus Hawkins of California, a young man by the name of Don Luce, and the bravery of a young Vietnamese man who gave us the maps on how to find this prison, we were able to uncover the notorious tiger cages on Con Son Island. Fortunately, I had a camera. Fortunately, I had a hidden tape recorder. Because when I came back and we reported on this, we were told they were not that bad. Well, then LIFE magazine published my pictures and the world saw how bad they really were. North Vietnamese, Vietcong, and civilian opponents of the war in South Vietnam were all bunched into these tiger cages, in clear violation of human rights, fundamental human rights, and in clear violation of the Geneva Convention. We had been asking the North Vietnamese to abide by the Geneva Convention in terms of their treatment of our prisoners in North Vietnam. Yet, here we were condoning, supervising, the very same kind of abuses of people, in clear violation of the Geneva Convention. Well, then I was told, well, as to what these people were telling me--because the interpreter was pro-Communist--that he was telling me the wrong things, because I did not speak Vietnamese, you see. I did not speak Vietnamese, and they said the person interpreting for me had a bias toward the Communists, so I could not believe what I was being told. So they sent another group over to hear all these glowing reports. What they did not know at the time is that I had a hidden tape recorder. No one knew that except me. I tape recorded everything that was said. I was fired from my job. I was told I would never again work in the U.S. Congress because of my actions in letting these pictures out and telling the truth about what was happening on Con Son Island. I was brought before a congressional committee and was charged that what I was reporting was false because I did not speak Vietnamese, and that my interpreter was a well-known ``Communist sympathizer.'' But I had my tape recorder and I taped everything that was said. I turned it over to the Library of Congress to transcribe, and they transcribed every single word. Not only what I had been saying was confirmed, but there was even more on the recording that was not interpreted for me, more evidence of the cruel, torturous conditions in these tiger cages, how people had been tortured and killed, and how we, the U.S. Government, had provided not only the funding but the supervision for these prisons. So when I saw these pictures from Iraq, it brought back Con Son Island and the tiger cages. I thought we had learned our lesson. Yes, war is not a nice thing. War is terrible. But that is why we have Geneva Conventions. That is why we have these international treaties. I thought we learned after Con Son and the tiger cages that we ought not to be involved in those things, that we ought to make sure whoever runs these prisons, whoever has charge of prisoners of war, treats the prisoners according to the Geneva Convention. Yet here we are back again--34 years later--and we see the same kinds of things happening in this prison. I do not know who took those pictures. I read in the paper today it was a young man and that he may be in some serious trouble. Well, whoever took those pictures, I want them to know they have a friend and an ally in this Senator from Iowa. I will do whatever I can to ensure that no harm in any way comes to them, that they are able to speak out without fear of any reprisal about what they saw and what went on in those prisons. We have to let the sunlight in--the best disinfectant. Let's show it for what it was. Let's show what happened there. And let's tell the world, once again, that we are going to make sure we have in place policies, programs, things that will never let this happen again. The lead editorial in this morning's Washington Post made it very clear when they said: Beginning more than two years ago, Mr. Rumsfeld decided to overturn decades of previous practice by the U.S. military in its handling of detainees in foreign countries. His Pentagon ruled that the United States would no longer be bound by the Geneva Conventions; that Army regulations on the interrogation of prisoners would not be observed; and that many detainees would be held incommunicado and without any independent mechanism of review. Abuses will take place in any prison system. But Mr. Rumsfeld's decisions helped create a lawless regime in which prisoners in both Iraq and Afghanistan have been humiliated, beaten, tortured, and murdered--and in which, until recently, no one has been held accountable. I agree with those who want a full investigation. I believe we should investigate. But I don't want to see this just pinned on a few soldiers at the bottom. Yes, they have to be held responsible, too. No military person has to follow an illegitimate order of anyone placed in authority above him or her. These were illegitimate orders. If they were ordered to do such things, who gave those orders? Who supervised it? How far up the chain of command did it go? The bottom line is, the Constitution of the United States puts a civilian in charge of our military. It is that civilian, by his or her actions, statements, policies, programs, that filter down to that private, that sergeant out in the field. Mr. Rumsfeld, because of his actions and his statements and his policies during his tenure as Secretary of Defense, is ultimately responsible. That is why I have called today for his resignation. If he doesn't resign, the President of the United States should dismiss him forthwith. Seeing no one else asking for time on the floor, I ask unanimous consent that I have an additional 5 minutes.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, first of all, in my 8 minutes let me try to clear up some points. A couple of Senators talked about my amendment. I listened to them and wondered what they were talking about, that somehow this is convoluted and problematic. Let's be clear. The amendment pending, which I have offered, does what the Department of Labor says they want to do. First, there will be two steps in my amendment. You check the old regulations. If the employee is required to be given overtime under the old regulations, that employee will continue to get overtime under the new regulations because the Department of Labor says they do not want to take overtime away from anyone now making it. My amendment clarifies it. Secondly, if the employee is not getting overtime under the present regulations, but the new regulations allow the employee to get overtime, the employee gets overtime. So we expand it. They want to protect and expand overtime, and that is exactly what my amendment does. It is very clear and very concise. Senator Specter is right, the new rule, at least what we heard about in the hearing this morning, is not a clarification. What we heard in the hearing is more ambiguous, and it is going to lead to much more litigation. Let me also talk about the pending Gregg amendment. First of all, I note that the pending Gregg amendment is an acknowledgment, a real acknowledgment, that there is a long list of occupations and people who are in danger of losing their overtime. Obviously, why else would he have listed those 55. So there is an acknowledgment that a lot of people will lose their overtime. I thank him for that acknowledgment. But he lists in his amendment 55 occupations. Senator Dodd said there are 889 occupations listed by the Department of Labor. Senator Gregg has picked out 55 and said they will get overtime. What about the other 800-some occupations? The Gregg amendment sets up a two-tier system: The 55 who are in and the 834 who are out. That is a big problem with the Gregg amendment. Secondly, it is definitional. For example, the Gregg amendment puts in team leaders, but we do not know what a team leader is because it has never been defined. What is a team leader? The Gregg amendment puts in refinery workers. Does that mean oil refinery or does that cover ethanol plants in Iowa? That is a refinery. Who is covered by that? We do not know. Technicians, what is a technician? There is no definition of a technician. The Gregg amendment covers funeral directors, but how about embalmers? We don't know. It looks as though the Gregg amendment was hastily put together. What they did was list 55 people we have talked about on the floor, but they exclude 834 others. That is a real problem. The other point is what is missing. I just sat down and started drawing up a list of people not in the Gregg amendment: Sheriffs deputies--how about juvenile justice officers? How about correctional officers? How about reporters, bookkeepers, retail clerks, police lieutenants, computer services employees? None of these are covered under the Gregg amendment. I guess they are just out. That is the problem with the Gregg amendment. It is a drastic change in the Fair Labor Standards Act. We have for 50 years said whether or not you get overtime is based upon the job you do, not upon what you are called. Senator Gregg now wants to say you will get overtime or not depending upon what you are called, not upon what you do. That is a big change. These 55 that have been listed, I don't mind listing them. That is all right. But it does not go far enough. It does not cover all of the people who are out there. It narrowly excludes from exemption of overtime 55 occupations, some of which are not even well defined and not defined at all in the Gregg amendment. I would say it like this: If you have a building and you have 10 entrances to that building and none of them are protected, but you want to protect the 10 entrances into that building, say, from terrorist activities--let's say someone comes along and says: I can't protect all 10 of them; I can protect 4. Fine, protect four, but I still have six others I have to protect. That is how I see the Gregg amendment. He protects 55, but there are 834 out there that are not listed. My point is, you can vote for the Gregg amendment--in fact, I will vote for the Gregg amendment. I don't see it is that big a deal. It is kind of ridiculous to list 55, but I will vote for it and move the process along. But if you vote for the Gregg amendment, you can vote for the Harkin amendment, too, because we come in and cover all 10 doors in that building. We make sure all workers are covered, not just 55, not a narrowly construed list of 55 workers. We cover them all. I hope my colleagues will support the Harkin amendment because it does, in fact, ensure that those who get overtime now will continue to get overtime, and it ensures if you don't get overtime now but the new rules allow you to get overtime, you will get overtime. The Harkin amendment covers all workers, not just the narrow list of 55. Mr. President, I reserve whatever time I may have remaining.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I understand I have 8 minutes.