Duncan Hunter

Mr. HUNTER

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong opposition to this amendment. We have been at war with the radical Islamic jihadists ever since they supported and fomented that storming of our embassy in 1979. They held Americans hostage and they held them for 444 days, and every President since President Carter has renewed the national emergency with respect to Iran, most recently on March 8 of this year. If you look at the War Powers Act, Mr. Chairman, it states that a national emergency does justify the President utilizing his constitutional powers as Commander in Chief. My reading of this amendment is that this proposal, this amendment, changes the War Powers Act and extracts that power from the President of the United States. We have had Democrat and Republican Presidents renewing that finding and that national emergency status with respect to Iran. Just to say further, Mr. Chairman, we all know, and I just talked about this, we know that Iran through its proxies helped and aided in the attack against Americans at Khobar Towers, which killed 19 Americans and injured 372 other Americans and other people who were in that area. We know that the Iranian-backed insurgents are killing American troops with IEDs, and some of that IED expertise and the materials themselves are being transferred from Iran. We know that they are assisting in attacks against Americans in Afghanistan. A couple of weeks ago the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Pace, said, ``We have intercepted weapons in Afghanistan headed for the Taliban that were made in Iran. The arms included mortars and C-4 plastic explosives.'' So, Mr. Chairman, every Member of this body should be strongly opposed to this particular amendment. Mr. Chairman, I would like to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Nevada (Ms. Berkley).

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. I would just offer to my colleague who just spoke and my other colleagues that there are the strongest statements for invasion of Iraq that took place before President Bush came into office, and those were the now famous speeches that were made by three Senators by the name of Kerry, Clinton, and Gore. Mr. Chairman, the War Powers Act clearly calls for the ability of the Commander in Chief to introduce American military force where an emergency with respect to a nation has been declared. That emergency with respect to Iran has been declared by every American President since President Carter in 1979. This is not extra-constitutional. The law as it presently exists is consistent with the Constitution. This would infringe. In fact, this would roll back the War Powers Act. Every Member should vote against this amendment.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, we are in strong opposition to this amendment. In fact, the Armed Services Committee under the very able chairmanship of the gentleman from Missouri has finished a number of oversight hearings. The subcommittees that are involved in the Armed Services Committee and in Defense Appropriations Subcommittee have undertaken extensive hearings and analysis of every weapons system that we have. And, of course, you have many weapons systems that were built 20-30 years ago that were highly relevant, like the C-130s that Members fly on, that are the backbone of the transportation system, the intratheater transportation system in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Bradley fighting vehicles, M-1 tanks. There is no weapon system that comes out of a production line with the word ``Cold War'' on it, so the relevance and the importance and the use of weapons has been carefully and closely analyzed by the important committees, the oversight committees, and we are aided in that by the Quadrennial Defense Review that is done by the administration where they make their case for what they think that we need, and the President makes that proposition which is manifested in his budget. And after hearings, the members of this committee and the full body, this House of Representatives, respond with our cut on what we think we should do with respect to arming and maintaining and equipping our military forces. So I would just strongly oppose the gentlelady's amendment, and say I have great respect for the gentlelady. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Boren).

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, I would just say we strongly oppose this amendment, and I yield back the balance of our time.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, I'm not in opposition to the amendment, but I ask unanimous consent to claim the time in opposition.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, if Mr. Israel had additional speakers, I'd be happy to defer to him and then take my time afterwards, if he has somebody ready to talk.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank Mr. Israel and Ms. Lee for bringing this amendment. We all have our eyes focused on the warfighting theaters in Iraq and Afghanistan, and if we turn our focus to Darfur and look at the history and the number of deaths which number, and the estimates I have seen are between 250,000 and 400,000, many of them inflicted by this so-called janjaweed militia which comes into villages in Darfur and ravages the village, burns them, we have seen the pictures that have been circulated by our own Member, Mr. Wolf, and by Senator Brownback from their recent trips, which show burned-out villages with the women abused, with many of the villagers killed, some of them killed by strafings, by helicopter gunships which have been purchased from China and from Russia, with small arms sales taking place specifically from the Chinese and the Russians. And we see a situation in which the Free World and the civilized world has not been able to have much of an effect. I'd ask Mr. Israel, my colleague, of your take on this very difficult situation.

Mr. HUNTER. I yield to the gentleman from New York.

Mr. HUNTER. I thank the gentleman, and let me make an offer to this gentleman. You have got this great idea of using this airfield, which is about 100 miles from the border, to bring in nongovernmental organizations which can bring in food, bring in medicine to the displaced villagers. We work in my office with a number of groups, one of them called Rescue Task Force, which has built medical centers around the world and brought in food and medicine in many very difficult situations. I'd like to offer to work with the gentleman with this nongovernmental organization, Rescue Task Force, and others to bring in food and medicine to that particular location. Let's see if we can't maybe help lead out by getting some NGOs to start using this particular airfield. And I'll be happy to join the gentleman; I know Mr. Saxton will be happy to join in this, Mr. Wolf and others. Let's get a letter, maybe a meeting with the State Department, with the administration, see if we can't get this review of this airfield immediately and start getting some supplies into it, and maybe we can lead the world, the humanitarian world, as Americans, as we do so often, in moving supplies into the airfield that you have identified. So I support this very, very strongly. And I didn't know if Mr. Saxton wanted to involve himself in this discussion, but I know he wants to help here, too. If the gentleman would take me up on that offer, and if he's got a nongovernmental organization in mind, let's move out on this one. It looks like an excellent, excellent opportunity for cooperating and helping. Mr. Chairman, I yield back my time.

Mr. HUNTER. Would the gentleman yield?

Mr. HUNTER. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Let me offer we have these great nongovernmental organizations, we have a lot of people who have been displaced and abused in Darfur. They desperately need food and medicine. I will commit to the gentleman that we will try to work with these NGOs that we know of and let's try to work together in a partnership and try to get a plane load of supplies into that airfield or another one by the first of July. That's a little more than a month from now. Let's work together. We will start working today to try to get this done. Let's prod the good old State Department and DOD to get out there and survey that airfield.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Saxton).

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Boustany).

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, how much time do we have on this?

Mr. HUNTER. Thank you. I just wanted to say that we strongly support this amendment on this side. We think it's an excellent amendment. We thank both of the authors, the gentleman from Louisiana and the gentleman from Oklahoma, for bringing this amendment to us. We support it very strongly. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of our time.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, I rise to claim the time in opposition to this, although I do not oppose the amendment.

Mr. HUNTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That's exactly what I wanted to do. I just wanted to get on the record that I support this amendment very strongly, the idea of saving energy. I would hope that the gentleman would agree that, wherever possible, the energy-saving devices, these light bulbs, should be made in the United States. They are paid for with Department of Defense funds. The average American worker spends over $1,000 a year out of his or her paycheck to support the defense function of government, and it is appropriate that American workers be allowed to make the new, innovative, energy-saving devices that we are using at bases throughout the country. I yield to the gentleman to ask him if he wouldn't agree with me that, wherever it is practical, that American-made bulbs should be used in this replacement program. I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. HUNTER. I thank the gentleman. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, although I don't oppose the amendment, I ask unanimous consent to claim the time.

Mr. HUNTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank the gentleman for his amendment. I think it is absolutely appropriate. We support it. Mr. Chairman, this is the provision that we put into the law last year when we saw that American fallen service personnel were being transported in what we thought was a less than dignified manner and escorted in a less than dignified manner to their final resting places. Of course, I went to the Department of Defense initially and had them involved in discussions with the committee with respect to effecting informally a policy that would have dedicated aircraft and would have a dedicated honor guard and military escort that would complete the transport of fallen American service personnel from Dover to their final resting places. We couldn't work something out, so we ended up putting that in law, and having the full support of the other body, that, indeed, is the practice. I have been around the country now to various places where American heroes have come home, and there has been an outpouring of gratitude from a number of communities and families that in fact the system is working well now with dedicated military aircraft, with the appropriate honor guard escorting the fallen American heroes, and the families now feel much better about the process. Now, I would hope that, in practice, the U.S. military is not, as a rule, taking people to a home of record when in fact their final resting place may be hundreds of miles away, but I understand that the gentleman has two cases where that, in fact, would have taken place if they hadn't made contact with the DOD and the DOD hadn't sorted that out. And so I think this is absolutely appropriate to put into statute what, essentially, they've been doing, as I understand, as a matter of practice in carrying out the mandate that we gave them last year with the new law that came from this committee. So I support the gentleman. I thank him for offering this amendment, and we certainly support it on this side. Mr. Chairman, I yield back.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, we support this amendment and think it will be very useful, and thank the gentleman for offering such an outstanding amendment, and we support it.