Duncan Hunter

Mr. HUNTER

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

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Buyer).

Mr. HUNTER. We just have one other speaker, then I am going to reserve the balance.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Buyer) for a response.

Mr. HUNTER. I want to take 30 seconds, Mr. Speaker, just to remind my friend who just spoke that this bill is largely the product of not only this body but Senator Warner, Senator McCain, and Senator Graham. Shortly, they are going to be introducing the precise same bill in the other body. And, Mr. Speaker, in this bill, military commissions, if you will check on page 7, to answer the gentleman who just spoke who thought his wife might in some wild circumstance be prosecuted under this bill, this bill gives jurisdiction and military commissions, on line 24, page 7, to alien unlawful enemy combatants. It does not take away the habeas rights of U.S. citizens. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, at this time I reserve the balance of my time, which I believe is 2 minutes, and move to the Judiciary Committee.

Mr. HUNTER. Yes, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I do rise to oppose this motion. First, let me thank my colleague, Mr. Skelton, an outstanding gentleman and friend and a guy who cares about our country, and all the folks who have really worked this issue and participated in the hearings and the briefings that we have had and the discussions with military experts. Let me tell you why I oppose this. First, Mr. Speaker, the Supreme Court not only gave permission but invited the Congress to put together this new system to try terrorists. And I want to direct my colleagues to the opinion of Justice Breyer, where he said: ``Nothing prevents the President from returning to Congress to seek the authority he believes necessary.'' So the point is the Supreme Court has not only given us permission. They have given us the obligation of putting this together. The American people have given us the obligation of putting this together. The idea that we are going to pass this legislation with an uncertainty, with a lack of confidence, sending a message that somehow we need two permissions, is, I think, exactly the wrong message to send to the world. And I just remind my colleague Mr. Skelton that when we had our initial hearings and our initial markup, Mr. Skelton, you held up Senator Graham in the Senate and Senator McCain as having the gold standard with respect to this legislation and you offered their legislation. Let me tell you that this legislation will be introduced by them. The gentlemen that you said had the gold standard and judgment on what is fair, they will be introducing this in the other body very shortly. So, my colleagues, this is not a time to seek a second permission before we have passed the first legislation that actually sets into force and effect this important structure with which to try terrorists. Let me just go to the second problem with what Mr. Skelton has. Mr. Skelton has a sunset provision. This sunsets a very important part of the bill. It sunsets the commission. So it says we have to go back and redo it, that we don't have confidence in what we have done, and we have to redo it after 3 years. The other bad part about this motion to recommit is it sunsets section 5 and section 6 which protect American troops. They say that you cannot sue American troops under Geneva article 3. You can't sue them civilly. Now that is a bad thing. That means that you would have, if this sunset goes into place that Mr. Skeleton is asking for, that you will have American troops exposed to civil suit by terrorists in American courts for alleged violations of Geneva article 3. It also does away with this distinction that we have made between grave offenses under Geneva article 3. The real grave offenses, the murder, the torture, all of those things, goes away with the cleavage between that. And maybe an American female colonel interrogating a male Muslim, and therefore being construed as having degraded him and his culture by having an American female interrogate him, that distinction between that and a bad offense would now be erased and American troops would be exposed to civil liability and civil suits under Geneva article 3. I would just ask my colleagues, if you have confidence in what we have done, and this has been a product of this body, of the other body, and of the administration working night and day to put together a solid package, if you have confidence in that, and you have confidence in this list of rights that we have enumerated, that we give to the defendants, that we give to the people who designed the attack on 9/11: the right to counsel, the right to proof beyond a reasonable doubt, the right to a secret vote in the jury so that a colonel cannot lean on a lieutenant to get a guilty verdict, the right against self- incrimination, all of the basic rights. If you look at that package of rights and you think that is enough for the terrorists, then vote ``yes'' on this bill, vote ``no'' on this motion to recommit.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman. I want to thank him for his valuable contribution.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds. Mr. Speaker, I want to set the gentleman straight who just spoke. Every single person held in Guantanamo has the right and will have the right under this legislation to contest whether or not they are, in fact, combatants and the status of their being swept up on the battlefield inadvertently or being, in fact, true enemy combatants. They will have that right. That is, in my estimation, an important type of habeas corpus. That is preserved in this bill. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Boustany).

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Saxton), the chairman of the Subcommittee on Terrorism.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 6166, the Military Commissions Act of 2006. I can't think of a better way to honor the fifth anniversary of September 11 than by establishing a system to prosecute the terrorists who on that day murdered thousands of innocent civilians and who continue to seek to kill Americans, both on and off the battlefield. Our most important consideration in writing this legislation is to protect American troops and American citizens from harm. The war against terror has produced a new type of battlefield and a new type of enemy. How is it different? We are fighting a ruthless enemy who doesn't wear a uniform, an enemy who kills civilians, women and children, and then boasts about it; a barbaric enemy who beheads innocent civilians by sawing their heads off; an uncivilized enemy who does not acknowledge or respect the laws of war. Justice Thomas put it best in the Hamdan decision. He said, ``We are not engaged in a traditional battle with a nation state, but with a worldwide hydro-headed enemy who lurks in the shadows conspiring to reproduce the atrocities of September 11, 2001, and who has boasted of sending suicide bombers into civilian gatherings, has proudly distributed videotapes of the beheadings of civilian workers, and has tortured and dismembered captured American soldiers. So how is the battlefield new? First, it will be a long war. We don't know if this enemy will be defeated this decade, the next decade or even longer than that. Second, in this new war, where intelligence is more vital than ever, we want to interrogate the enemy; not to degrade them, but to save the lives of American troops, American civilians and our allies. But it is not practical on the battlefield to read the enemy their Miranda warnings. Finally, this is an ongoing conflict, and sharing sensitive intelligence sources, methods and other classified information with terrorist detainees could be highly dangerous to national security, and we are not prepared to take that risk. So what have we done to develop a military commission process that will allow for the effective prosecution of enemy combatants during this ongoing conflict? Without this action, the United States has no effective means to try and punish the perpetrators of September 11, the attack on the USS Cole and the embassy bombings. We provide basic fairness in our prosecutions, but we also preserve the ability of our warfighters to operate effectively on the battlefield. I think a fair process has two guiding principles, Mr. Speaker. First, the government must be able to present its case fully and without compromising its intelligence sources or compromising military necessity. Second, the prosecutorial process must be done fairly, swiftly, and conclusively. Who are we dealing with in military commissions? I have shown the picture of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who is alleged to have designed the attack against the United States that was carried out on 9/11. We are dealing with the enemy in war, not defendants in our domestic criminal justice system. Some of them have returned to the battlefield after we let them out of Guantanamo. Our primary purpose is to keep them off the battlefield. In doing so, we treat them humanely, and, if we choose to try them as war criminals, we will give them due process rights that the world will respect. But we have to remember that they are the enemy in an ongoing war. In time of war, it is not practical to apply to rules of evidence the same rules of evidence that we do in civilian trials or court martials for our troops. Commanders and witnesses can't be called from the front line to testify in a military commission. We need to accommodate rules of evidence, chain of custody and authentication to fit what we call the exigencies of the battlefield. It is clear, Mr. Speaker, that we don't have crime scenes that can be reproduced, that can be taped off, that can be attended to by dozens of people looking for forensic evidence. We have in this war against terror a battlefield situation. If hearsay is reliable, we should use it. And I might add that hearsay is utilized and has been utilized in tribunals like the Rwanda tribunals and the Kosovo tribunals. If sworn affidavits are reliable, we should use them. And, Mr. Speaker, we have not expanded the use of hearsay beyond what is being used in those tribunals, Rwanda and Yugoslavia. The Supreme Court has tasked us with an adjustment, but in doing so let's not forget our purpose is to defend the Nation against the enemy. We won't lower our standards; we will always treat detainees humanely, but we can't be naive either. This war started in 1996 with the al Qaeda declaration of jihad against our Nation. The Geneva Conventions were written in 1949, and the UCMJ was adopted in 1951. In that sense, what we are required to do after the Hamdan decision is broader than war crimes trials. It is the start of a new legal analysis for the long war. It is time for us to think about war crime trials and a process that provides due process and protects national security in this new war. So what do we do with these new military commissions? We uphold basic human rights and state what our compliance with this standard means for the treatment of detainees. We do this in a way that is fair and in a way that the world will acknowledge is fair. First, we provide accused war criminals at least 26 rights if they are tried by a commission for a war crime. While I will not read all of them, here are some of the essential rights we provide: The right to counsel, provided by government at trial and throughout appellate proceedings. An impartial judge. A presumption of innocence. A standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. The right to be informed of the charges against him as soon as practicable. The right to service of charges sufficiently in advance of trial to prepare a defense. And, Mr. Speaker, I am going to insert the balance of those 26 basic and fundamental rights in the Record, so I won't read them all at this point. The right to reasonable continuances; Right to peremptory challenge against members of the commission and challenges for cause against members of the commission and the military judge; Witness must testify under oath; judges, counsel and members of military commission must take oath; Right to enter a plea of not guilty; The right to obtain witnesses and other evidence; The right to exculpatory evidence as soon as practicable; The right to be present at court with the exception of certain classified evidence involving national security, preservation of safety or preventing disruption of proceedings; The right to a public trial except for national security issues or physical safety issues; The right to have any findings or sentences announced as soon as determined; Right against compulsory self-incrimination; Right against double jeopardy; The defense of lack of mental responsibility; Voting by members of the military commission by secret written ballot; Prohibitions against unlawful command influence toward members of the commission, counsel or military judges; 2/3 vote of members required for conviction; 3/4 vote required for sentences of life or over 10 years; unanimous verdict required for death penalty; Verbatim authenticated record of trial; Cruel or unusual punishments prohibited; Treatment and discipline during confinement the same as afford to prisoners in U.S. domestic courts; Right to review of full factual record by convening authority; and Right to at least two appeals including to a Federal Article III appellate court. We provide all these rights, and we give them an independent judge, and the right to at least two appeals, including the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia and access to the Supreme Court. Nobody can say this is not a fair system. I know some of my colleagues are concerned about the issue of reciprocity. Look at this list of rights. And we are going to put it up here, Mr. Speaker, so that all the Members can see this. And also keep in mind that these are the rights for terrorists. These are the rights for the people who struck us on 9/11 and killed thousands of Americans. If we are talking about true reciprocity, then we are only concerned about how the enemy will treat American terrorists. These are not our rules for POWs; these are how we treat terrorists. We treat the legitimate enemy differently, and expect them to treat our troops the same. How do we try the enemy for war crimes? In this act, Congress authorizes the establishment of military commissions for alien unlawful enemy combatants, which is the legal term we use to define international terrorists and those who aid and support them, in a new separate chapter of title 10 of the U.S. Code, chapter 47A. While this new chapter is based upon the Uniform Code of Military Justice, it creates, Mr. Speaker, an entirely new structure for these trials. In this bill we provide standards for the admission of evidence, including hearsay evidence and other statements, that are adapted to military exigencies and provide the military judge the necessary discretion to determine if the evidence is reliable and probative. And he must find that it is reliable and probative before he allows it to be admitted. I want to talk a little bit about how we handle classified evidence. We had three hearings on this bill in addition to briefings and meetings with experts. I asked every witness the same question: If we have an informant, either a CIA informant or an undercover witness of some sort, are we going to tell Kalid Sheikh Mohammed who the informant is? The legislation does not allow KSM to learn the identity of the informant. After several twists and turns in the road, after meeting with the Senate and the White House in marathon sessions over the weekend, we have crafted a solution that does not allow the alleged terrorists to learn the identity of the informant, yet provides a fair trial. And, Mr. Speaker, that is critically important to all of us in this Chamber, because that American agent or informant may have information that saves thousands of lives. He may be of enormous value added to the security of this country. We can't divulge his identity, and we can't divulge it to the alleged terrorist, and doing so would allow that information to go back quickly, as it has on two occasions: one coming out of the first bombing of the World Trade Center where we now have established that Osama bin Laden did come into possession of classified evidence that was moved up through those court proceedings, and once in Guantanamo. So it is very, very important that we protect classified evidence and that we protect the identity of our agents. We address this in section 949d, subsection (f) of section 3. Classified evidence is protected and is privileged from disclosure to the jury and the accused if disclosure would be detrimental to national security. The accused is permitted to be present at all phases of the trial, and no evidence is presented to the jury that is not also provided to the accused. Section 949d(f) makes a clear statement that sources, methods, or activities will be protected and privileged and not shown to the accused. However, and this is how you move the essence of an undisclosed agent's testimony to the jury without disclosing the identity of the agent, the substantive findings of the sources, methods, or activities will be admissible in an unclassified form. This allows the prosecution to present its best case while protecting classified information. In order to do this, the military judge questions the informant outside the presence of the jury and the defendant. In order to give the jury and the defendant a redacted version of the informant's statement, the judge must find, one, that the sources, methods, or activities by which the U.S. acquired the evidence are classified; and, two, that the evidence is reliable. Once the judge stamps the informant as reliable, the informant's redacted statement is given to both the jury and the accused. It removes the confrontation issue. And this, again, to my friends who said we want to follow the UCMJ and we want to give these people all the rights that we give our uniformed servicemen, our analysis is that we would not be able to keep from disclosure the identity of our special agents if we followed the UCMJ. That is designed to protect American uniformed servicemen, and it is not something that we should apply in the case of alleged terrorists. I think that these rules protect classified evidence and yet preserve a fair trial. One other point I want to make for the record. As I mentioned earlier, we have modified the rules of evidence to adapt to the battlefield. One of the principles used by the judiciary in criminal prosecutions of our citizens is called the fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine. This rule provides that evidence derived from information acquired by police officials or the government through unlawful means is not admissible in a criminal prosecution. I want to make it clear that it is our intent with the legislation not to have this doctrine apply to evidence in military commissions. While evidence obtained improperly will not be used directly against the accused, we will not limit the use of any evidence derived from such evidence. The deterrent effect of the exclusionary rule is not something that our soldiers consider when they are fighting a war. The theory of the exclusionary rule is that if the constable blunders, the accused will not suffer. However, we are not going to say that if the soldier blunders, we are not going to punish a terrorist. Some rights are reserved for our citizens; some rights are reserved for civilized people. Mr. Speaker, this is a complicated piece of legislation. In addition to establishing an entire legal process from start to finish, we address the application of common article 3 of the Geneva Conventions to our current laws. Section 5 clarifies that the Geneva Conventions are not an enforceable source of rights in any habeas corpus or other civil action or proceeding by an individual in U.S. courts. Mr. Speaker, this protects American troops. Section 6 of the bill amends 18 U.S.C. section 2441, the War Crimes Act, to criminalize grave breaches of common article 3 of the Geneva Conventions. As amended, the War Crimes Act will fully satisfy our treaty obligations under common article 3. This amendment is necessary because section C(3) of the War Crimes Act defines a war crime as any conduct which constitutes a violation of common article 3. Common article 3 prohibits some actions that are universally condemned, such as murder and torture, but it also prohibits outrages upon personal dignity and what is called humiliating and degrading treatment, phrases which are vague and do not provide adequate guidance to our personnel. Since violation of common article 3 is a felony under the War Crimes Act, it is necessary to amend it to provide clarity and certainty to the interpretation of this statute. The surest way to achieve that clarity and certainty is to define the list of specific offenses that constitute war crimes punishable as grave violations of common article 3. And, Mr. Speaker, this is very important. This protects our troops, it gives them certainty, it gives them clarity. You don't want to have our troops so paralyzed by what they see as prosecutions arising out of common article 3 that you will have a situation where a female officer in the U.S. military will not interrogate a Muslim male on the basis that she is afraid that that action may be defined or projected as being a humiliation of that particular prisoner being interrogated and therefore subjecting that female American officer to a war crimes accusation. So what we have done is we have taken the offenses that are considered to be grave offenses under article 3, and then I have enumerated several of those, and we define those as the offenses which will be applicable upon which prosecutions can be brought, and then we give to the President on what I would call infractions of Geneva article 3 or lesser violations of Geneva article 3, we give him the right to put together regulations that account for and treat actions that are defined under those minor offenses. Section 6 of the bill also provides that any detainee under the custody or physical control of the United States will not be subject to cruel, inhumane, or degrading punishment provided by the fifth, eighth, and fourteenth amendments to the Constitution as defined by the U.S. Reservations to the U.N. Convention Against Torture. This defines our obligations under common article 3 by reference to the U.S. constitutional standard adopted by the Detainee Treatment Act that we passed in 2005. And, Mr. Speaker, all parties, both Houses, decided that it was appropriate that we define this type of treatment, degrading treatment, especially under the reservations to the convention that is mentioned, the U.N. Convention Against Torture. We decided that that was good enough for putting together the Detainee Treatment Act; it should be good enough for this particular body of law. Section 7 of the bill addresses the question of judicial review of claims by detainees by amending 28 U.S.C. section 2241 to clarify the intent of the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 to limit the right of detainees to challenge their detentions. The practical effect of this amendment will be to eliminate the hundreds of detainee lawsuits that are pending in courts throughout the country and to consolidate all detainee treatment cases in the D.C. Circuit Court. However, I want to stress that under this provision detainees will retain their opportunity to file legitimate charges to their status and to challenge convictions by military commissions. Every detainee under confinement in Guantanamo Bay will have their detention reviewed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. So what we are doing here is channeling the suits to a particular court which has great expertise in this area, rather than let them be put in rifle-shot fashion or form-shot fashion to other courts throughout the United States. Mr. Sensenbrenner and my other colleagues are going to speak on the rest of the bill. But, before I finish, I want to make one point very clear. This legislation does not condone or authorize torture in any way. In fact, we make it a war crime punishable by death for one of our interrogators to torture someone to death. Let me emphasize that again. In section 6 of this bill, we amend 18 U.S.C. 2441, the War Crimes Act. In this amendment, we explicitly provide that torture inflicted upon a person in custody for the purpose of obtaining information is a war crime for which we may prosecute one of our own citizens. While most of this legislation deals with how we handle the enemy, I want to make it crystal clear that nothing in what we are doing condones or allows torture in any way. Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, I heard at least one Member on the Democrat side say that this gives the President the right to define what torture is. That is not accurate. Torture is forbidden, and there are specific criminal penalties for torture. In summary, I think this legislation is the best way to prosecute enemy terrorists and to protect U.S. Government personnel and service members who are fighting them. Let me make one final statement with respect to the right to Miranda warnings and all of the evidentiary rulings that accompany an application utilizing the UCMJ, the Uniform Code of Military Justice, in battlefield situations if we had done that, which we did not. In the hearings we had, we had at least one experienced officer in the Judge Advocate Corps state that it was his opinion, having tried hundreds of cases, that if you applied the UCMJ, as a number of Members on the Democrat side said they would like to do, to constitute the body of law under which we are prosecuting terrorists, in this officer's opinion once a corporal had captured a terrorist on the battlefield, maybe seconds after that terrorist had shot at him, and threw that terrorist over the hood of a Humvee, if you used the UCMJ, he would at that point have to give him the Miranda rights and then call up a lawyer and assign that lawyer to that alleged terrorist, and then all of the statements and all of the evidentiary rulings that could flow from that activity would then trigger. Mr. Speaker, we can't have a battlefield where platoon leaders and company commanders are bringing up fire teams and with those fire teams they are bringing up teams of lawyers. That is why we needed a new type of structure for this new type of battlefield. Mr. Speaker, I think we have responded to the mandate of the Supreme Court that Congress involve itself in producing this new structure to prosecute terrorists. I think we have done a good job. We have worked hard with the Senate and White House. We have made dozens and dozens and dozens of agreed provisions in here that have been carefully looked over by the Senate, the White House, and the House of Representatives. I think we have a package that will allow us to leave this body in the next several days having put into place a system under which we can try individuals who are now waiting at Guantanamo, people who are alleged to have designed the attack against the United States on 9/11 and which we can now begin the prosecution of those individuals. I want to thank everybody who has participated in this long and arduous procedure. We have had lots of hearings in the Senate and in the House. My good colleague, Mr. Skelton, was involved himself in these hearings and on the original markup that we did on the bill. We have differences of opinions. I think this is a time when we should come together and pass what is an excellent body of law that will be a very important part of fighting this new war against this new type of enemy. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield 3 minutes now to the gentleman whose subcommittee oversees the policies for our 2.5 million folks in uniform, Mr. McHugh of New York. (Mr. McHUGH asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, at this time I would like to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman who sits on both the Armed Services Committee and the Intelligence Committee and has put enormous focus on this particular bill, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Thornberry).

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on H.R. 6166.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 1042, I call up the bill (H.R. 6166) to amend title 10, United States Code, to authorize trial by military commission for violations of the law of war, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, at this time, I would like to yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Granger).

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield at this time 2 minutes to a gentleman who is himself a veteran and a former JAG officer and the chairman of the Veterans' Affairs Committee and a gentleman who has paid a lot of attention to this important subject, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Buyer).

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Buyer, that is correct. It is the intent of the legislation that the detailed military counsel shall act as an associate counsel during the course of self-representation. As you stated, should this right be revoked, the military counsel will then proceed to represent the accused throughout the rest of the trial.

Mr. HUNTER

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, let me make a point about an error that was just made in the statement of my good friend, the gentlewoman from California. The President cannot redefine torture. The grave offenses are prohibited and defined as war crimes. You cannot do them, and torture is defined as one of the grave offenses. The President cannot redefine torture. All the President can do is do administrative regulations with respect to offenses that are not grave offenses, and that includes torture. The President cannot redefine torture.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. HUNTER. I thank the gentleman for yielding. My colleagues, let's get this straight, the Supreme Court did not say that Congress did not have the right to prescribe this new structure under which we are going to prosecute terrorists. They said we had the obligation. They said that the President couldn't do this himself, that it had to be participated in by Congress and we should put together these rules and regulations. We have put together a structure that will allow us to prosecute terrorists efficiently and effectively, and at the same time, understand the exigencies of the battlefield. If you use the UCMJ, which I know a lot of folks on the other side want to do, under the testimony of our experts, and that means JAG officers who have tried hundreds of cases, you would have to give Miranda warnings to an insurgent who shot at you outside of Kabul, Afghanistan, at the moment you captured him and threw him over the hood of your Humvee. You can't do that. You can't follow the UCMJ in that respect. We have given a boatload of rights. We have given the right to counsel, the right to an impartial judge, presumption of innocence, standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt, right to be informed of the charges as soon as practicable, right to service of charges sufficiently in advance of trial, right to reasonable continuances. This list goes on and on. So Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who was alleged to have designed the attack on 9/11 that killed thousands of Americans, will have a greater body of rights, as Mr. Lungren has said, in his trial than anybody under a similar tribunal system has ever had.

Mr. HUNTER

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I raise today to recognize Luan Rivera, a devoted and inspirational leader who has dedicated her life to the education and development of America's youth. As the 2005--2006 President of the California School Boards Association, CSBA, Luan has worked tirelessly to promote and strengthen educational opportunities in California's public schools and I would like to commend her for her efforts. Luan was elected to the Ramona Unified School District Board of Education in 1994 and served seven years on CSBA's Delegate Assembly. Her impressive credentials include a master's degree from Roosevelt University in Chicago, completion of CSBA's Master in Governance Program, a multiple-subject teaching credential and an English as a Second Language certificate. She is also the former youth coordinator of the Yellow Ribbon Suicide Prevention Program and has participated in numerous activities designed to enhance tolerance amongst California's culturally diverse youth population. Adding to this long list of achievements, Luan has also been active in the San Diego County Inter-Agency Coalition for Human and Civil Rights and, in 2001, she attended the United Nations World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa. These experiences and qualifications enabled Luan to serve as CSBA President with a high level of insight and an acute understanding of California's educational challenges. Luan recognizes that stimulating and encouraging our children to learn is an investment in America's future. Her incredible devotion to improving California's education system has set a new precedent for CSBA's top leadership position and it is my hope that leaders like Luan will continue to step forward in the future. Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me in thanking Luan Rivera for her service as a member of the Ramona Unified School District Board of Education and CSBA President. Thanks to Luan, California's public schools are a better place and she can take special pride in knowing that her contributions are improving the lives of children and families throughout the State.

Mr. HUNTER

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding. My colleagues, since 9/11 border enforcement became not an immigration issue primarily but a national security issue primarily. We have to know who is coming across our borders and what they are bringing with them. That requires a fence. The fence in San Diego works. When we built that fence, we had border gangs robbing, raping, murdering, killing mostly the illegal aliens who came through, preying on those people. We had 300 drug trucks a month ramming across the open border, coming through the sagebrush. We had a border that was out of control. It was the primary smuggling corridor in the world for smuggling of people and narcotics. We built the double fence. We stopped the drug trucks cold. We stopped the murderers. We stopped the border gangs. And the crime rate in the City of San Diego dropped by more than 50 percent, according to FBI statistics. The fence works, and moving this fence across the Southwest before the next hot season, before the sun gets to be 110 in the shade, which will happen next summer, getting that first stretch of fence across the hot Arizona desert will save many lives because about 400 people a year die in that desert of dehydration or sunstroke after their smuggler tells them it is just a few miles north to the road and it turns out to be 10 or 20 miles. The fence works. Let's replicate this fence across the Southwest border so we know who is coming into the country and what they are bringing with them.

Mr. HUNTER

Mr. HUNTER. I think that comment that somehow this is a neat, tidy package and if we just confined ourselves to Afghanistan, somehow we would win the war against terror and we wouldn't have to worry about Iraq is a naive position. The facts are that we learned after 9/11 that if we didn't change the world, the world was going to change us. And having an Iraq that has a modicum of freedom, that is not an enemy of the United States and will not be a springboard to future terrorism accrues to the benefit of generations of Americans. It is not something you can put on a bumper sticker, but having some change in that part of the world. And one manifestation of that change that was little noticed was when, during the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, Hezbollah sought rearmaments from Iran, and Iran, according to reports, sent off a plane full of new missiles to throw at the defenseless civilian populations in Israeli cities, and Iraq would not let them fly over. So they said, okay, we will try to fly over Turkey. And Turkey said, You can come into our aerospace but only if you land and we can search your plane. And Iran then turned the plane around and took it back home and did not deliver the missiles. Now, that is only a small thing. On the other hand, it could be a big thing for the people who might have felt the impact of those warheads in Israeli cities. But that was an Iraq whose government was not friendly to terrorists. That was an Iraq whose government was supportive of free people. And that was because of the American position in Iraq and the fact that we have changed the face of Iraq. Now, there is something I think all American troops should see because they are hearing this constant drumbeat now from the Democrats that the casualties have been in vain, that their efforts have been in vain, that this is all a terrible fiasco. I think that every American who serves should be shown the excavations that are taking place in Iraq right now, those mass graves wherein if you watch the History Channel, you might have seen some of this about a month ago where American anthropologists and scientists are excavating the mass graves, where Saddam Hussein's people would herd hundreds and thousands of people and in many cases would shoot the mother holding her baby in the back of the head. And then when the scientists would examine the skull of the little baby, they would notice it too would have a pistol bullet hole in the back of its head. Double execution, mother and baby. I think all Americans that serve over there should see the photos of those Kurdish mothers whose bodies are strewn out across the hillsides still holding their babies, killed in mid stride by Chemical Ali. And I am reminded of a Democrat President who stood on the west steps of this Capitol many years ago and said, Let the word go out, let friend and foe alike know that America will bear any burden to support the cause of freedom. And I am paraphrasing, of course, John Kennedy. What happened to those Democrats? What value do they place on those thousands of people who were pushed into mass graves? In fact, I think one farmer testified about Saddam Hussein's executioners that they had an execution squad that would show up at about 9 o'clock on his farm. They had an excavation squad or team that would show up with construction equipment, and they would dig these big trenches on his farm in the morning, and then the execution squad would arrive, and then they would truck in the unfortunate villagers who were going to be executed. They would line them up and shoot them in the back of the head, push them into this big cut that they had made in the Earth, and then they would cover them up with bulldozers. As I recall at one point, the farmer said that one day the execution squad, the logistics guy did not show up so they did not have any bullets. So he said, what the heck. They just pushed the people in alive and covered them up without shooting them. It did not make a lot of difference to them. Those historical excavations, and that record of human suffering and human tragedy that was visited on those people, that should be shown. Because that is the work of Saddam Hussein. That should be shown to every GI, every marine, every navy corpsman that serves out there in that tough Fallujah area, and al Ramadi with the marines, every airman who flies those long lifts, bringing and keeping that logistical train going between American bases and that area of operation. Every one of them ought to be shown the full story of what Saddam Hussein did and what he was. And the idea that we can turn that country where the ruler did that to those people, to a country who, when Iran says we want to fly these missiles over your air space so we can kill people in Israel says ``no, we are not going to let you do that. Go back''. To me that is a remarkable thing. Now, you know, the freedom of the Iraqi people is not guaranteed by this operation in perpetuity. Nobody's freedom is guaranteed in perpetuity including our own. We are developing them, a freedom for that country. We are giving them a running start at freedom. I think it was Ben Franklin one time who said, we have our freedom, now if we can keep it. It will be up to them to keep it. But we learned after 9/11 that if we did not change the world, the world was going to change us. This is far-reaching. This is visionary. This is going beyond Fortress America that somehow we must have said something wrong to these extremists to come after us and bomb us and do these things to us. And you know, I have thought about this idea that somehow what did we do wrong to invite this strike against America? I thought about that. I thought about the last couple of wars we fought. Two wars ago it was the invasion of Kuwait by Saddam Hussein. Kuwait is a Muslim country. We saved it. And then we went in and we saved hundreds of thousands of Muslims in the Balkans, in Bosnia. We had that record. And the reward that we got from the extremists was for them to attack the United States of America. So what more could we do? So this idea of this flagellation of America is something that is reviving in the Democratic party. I think you probably noticed that. It is coming to the fore. It is, we did something wrong. And it is not Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, the real devils in this operation, according to the Democrats, are not these people that we are going after who have tried to kill thousands of Americans, it is really our leaders. Those are the people that they say are the bad people. And it is not the guys that our great intelligence agencies and military people manage to bring to justice that we will soon see in a court of justice being tried I believe for murder, among other things. But it is the methods of these uncomfortable methods that were used to get them to tell about people that were planning to kill Americans and fly planes into our country loaded with explosives and do the other things that the President talked about today. This blame America first thing is reviving on the Democrat side of the aisle. I do not think the American people are going to buy it.