Joseph Hoeffel

Mr. HOEFFEL

Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, we should have no more talk about resignations. We should not talk about Donald Rumsfeld resigning his office. We should not let him resign his office. He ought to be fired. He ought to be fired, and George Tenet ought to be fired. I do not know that there has ever been two Cabinet Secretaries in the history of this Nation that have given their President more bad information, more bad intelligence, more bad advice than Don Rumsfeld and George Tenet. And while the President is at it, he ought to clean house at the Pentagon. He ought to get rid of Paul Wolfowitz and Doug Feith, all of the architects of this failed policy in Iraq. It is astonishing to me that the President is so loyal to people who have given him such bad advice. If you look back on the failures in Iraq, and I speak as one who voted in favor of the military authority that the President sought a year and a half ago, I voted ``yes'' because I believed we had to disarm Saddam Hussein of weapons of mass destruction. I am now convinced that I was misled, that the Congress was misled, that the people of this country were misled. And you look back on the failures of intelligence and planning and advice from George Tenet and Don Rumsfeld and the list is very long. The weapons of mass destruction have not been found. The intelligence was bad coming from George Tenet, and the intelligence was hyped by Don Rumsfeld and the other civilian leadership of the Pentagon. Don Rumsfeld tried to do this war on the cheap. We did not send enough troops over there. General Shinseki said we needed several hundred thousand troops. He was virtually run out of the Army for saying so. He was right. We have got 135,000 troops in Iraq today, and we have not secured the country. The country is not secure. Clearly more security is needed. We tried to do this on the cheap without enough troops, without enough armor. The troops left their armor at home, and our soldiers have been sitting ducks killed by roadside bombs that armored personnel carriers and tanks would not have to worry about but unprotected Humvees, which is what our troops have been given, do have to worry about. There was no plan to deal with the looting. There was no plan to deal with the violent insurgency that has come up. We were told by Don Rumsfeld we would be greeted as liberators. Instead, we have become occupiers. Donald Rumsfeld believed Ahmed Chalabi and the other leaders of the Iraqi National Congress. Chalabi, one of the great four-flushers of all time. You ask me what a four-flusher is. I am not sure. It is a phrase my grandfather used to use. I think it has something to do with having four cards to a flush and that you cannot trust a guy who is a four-flusher. Well, that is Ahmed Chalabi. He is a spinner. He has not given us good advice. But our leadership believed him in the Pentagon and we have paid a heck of a price because of it. We have no notion of how long we are going to stay or any notion of how much we must pay. And now the prison abuse scandal has come. Clearly, the privates and the sergeants were completely wrong in the steps they took and they need to be punished, but I do not think the accountability stops with them. It goes up the chain of command. Because the training was inadequate; the supervision was inadequate. There has been no accountability in the chain of command at this point. Secretary Rumsfeld did not listen to the International Red Cross who apparently started complaining about this a year ago. He did not listen to the Secretary of State who began complaining to the Pentagon and to Mr. Rumsfeld several months ago. The Secretary of Defense did not read the report that he ordered. And he did not even tell the President. He did not even tell the President. We do not need to stay the course in Iraq, Mr. Speaker. We need to change the course in Iraq. We are not winning. We want to create a stable and peaceful Iraq with a representative self-government, hopefully a democracy. There can be no reconstruction without security. There can be no transfer of authority and government without security. There can be no elections without security. There can be no democracy without security. And there is no security in Iraq today. We cannot stay the course. We must change the course. We have three choices. We can pull out, declare victory, or say it does not matter and pull out; and I think that would be a great mistake. We cannot leave Iraq worse than we found it. We did get rid of a murderous tyrant, and I am glad we did, but we cannot leave Iraq in shambles. We can stay the course, but we are not winning. We won the military victory, but we are not winning the peace. Or we can mobilize more troops, international troops from NATO and Arab nations preferably, our troops if necessary, in order to stabilize that country and achieve our goals.

Mr. HOEFFEL

Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, I compliment the gentleman on his 10 opinions that opened the Iraq Watch tonight. I think the gentleman is right on the money, and I appreciate his summarizing the problems that we face. I want to thank the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt), the new Chair of Iraq Watch, for his leadership and his stalwart support for what we are trying to do here. The point that the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt) makes is a very good one. There has been no criticism of the military in any of the comments that I have heard or read about in the papers. We are not criticizing the military. That is the one good thing about what is happening in Iraq, is the performance of our young men and women in uniform. We are criticizing the civilian directors of the Defense Department. We are criticizing the administration, the policymakers, the politicians. I think we should criticize not just Mr. Rumsfeld and Mr. Wolfowitz and Mr. Feith at the Department of Defense, but I would throw in George Tenet as well at the CIA. I do not think any President has ever received more bad information in our Nation's history than George Bush has received from George Tenet and Don Rumsfeld. The information was wrong about weapons of mass destruction. I am summarizing what the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) has already summarized. They were wrong about weapons of mass destruction. They were wrong that we could do this on the cheap. We did not send enough troops in to Iraq to stabilize the country, and General Shinseki was right and he was run out of the Army for telling the truth, that we needed several hundred thousand troops, not the 120,000 that Mr. Rumsfeld thought he could do this with. If you will recall, in the spring of 2003 Mr. Rumsfeld said by August of 2003 we would only need 40,000 troops. There would be only 40,000 troops left four or five months after the invasion. Of course, in August of 2003 there were 120,000 troops. We are up to 135,000 troops now, and we still have not stabilized Iraq. Look what that means. You cannot have reconstruction without security. You cannot have a transfer of government without security. You certainly cannot have elections without security. And we do not have security in Iraq. After all this time, we do not have stabilized conditions in Iraq.

Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman. If we just focus on the prison scandal for a minute and see the failures of leadership there, as the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt) has been talking about, there are not enough prison guards assigned to Abu Ghraib or I am sure to the other prisons that were running as a result of the Iraq war. There simply are not enough guards assigned. Those guards are not properly trained. That is abundantly clear. They are not properly supervised, and there is no accountability up the chain of command. So we start off with a disaster waiting to happen. Then what does Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld do? Well, he ignores the Red Cross, who, apparently, for over a year, has been complaining about conditions and abusive activities in our prisons. He fails to respond. He does not read the report in a timely fashion that is finally done by his subordinate, and he does not tell his President what is at stake. He even hangs his own President out to dry who is embarrassed by the disclosure of this information to the media, rather than in the normal chain of communication between cabinet Secretary and President. One more failure. I think we ought to stop talking about resignation. I do not think Donald Rumsfeld should be allowed to resign. He should be fired for his failures to inform and properly advise the President. And the reality is, we cannot stay the course in Iraq. We have to change the course in Iraq. We cannot keep doing what we are doing, because we are failing, and we cannot achieve our goals of creating a stable and a peaceful country with a representative form of self- government. We cannot do that with the level of insecurity and instability in Iraq today. We have to get more troops in there. There ought to be international troops, NATO, Arab nations, Western European nations. They have a bigger stake in a stable Iraq than we do. But right now, 90 percent of the troops, 90 percent of the money is American; and it is not working. We have to change our course.

Mr. HOEFFEL

Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize and honor Weldon Volunteer Fire Company #3 on its one hundred years of service to Glenside, Pennsylvania and the surrounding areas. The fire company was established in 1904. Originally, it owned a single horse-drawn hose reel, which it had to house on a community member's property. From its difficult beginning, the company has expanded and moved into its current building, which provides space for its growing number of members and fire rescue vehicles. This expansion has allowed the company to serve over 55,000 people in Abington Township, including my family. The Weldon Fire Company holds strong values of volunteerism and community involvement. In my experiences with the company, I have seen its dedication to its past and present members and to the community. These basic principles will allow the company to prosper in the years to come. I thank the company and its volunteer members for their service to Abington Township. Again, I congratulate Weldon Volunteer Fire Company #3 on its 100th anniversary.

Mr. HOEFFEL

Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education. The United States Supreme Court case, decided on May 17, 1954, challenged the constitutionality of racial segregation in public schools. The landmark decision of Brown v. Board of education affected changes in national and social policy by putting an end to the legality of racial segregation. The achievements of early leaders continue today as Linda Brown and Cheryl Brown Henderson, daughters of Oliver Brown, the first of the 12 families to file suit, promote equality in education. Their foundation, the Brown Foundation for Education Equity, Excellence and Research, provides scholarships for minority students. In the spirit of equality, I am pleased to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education.

Mr. HOEFFEL

Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, I was absent for three votes on Tuesday, March 9, 2004 due to a family illness. Had I been present, I would have cast my votes as follows: Rollcall No. 42 (H. Res. 519), ``aye''; Rollcall No. 43 (H. Res. 392), ``aye''; Rollcall No. 44 (H. Res. 475), `` aye.''

Mr. HOEFFEL

Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize and honor the Hatfield Volunteer Fire Company and two of its outstanding volunteer fire fighters, who have each contributed in excess of 50 years of dedicated service to the community. The Hatfield Volunteer Fire Company was founded on March 10, 1910 after a fire destroyed a local business. The Hatfield Volunteer Fire Company had modest beginnings with 24 charter members and equipment that included a single horse drawn chemical truck. Presently the company has 68 active members and a ladies auxiliary. The current fleet consists of two fully equipped 1,500 gallon per minute engines, a Rescue/Cascade truck, and a 2,000 GPM pump with a special service six wheel pickup truck. The company serves the Hatfield Borough and Hatfield Township and provides mutual assistance across Montgomery and Bucks Counties in Pennsylvania. Robert Nolen is a lifetime member of the Hatfield Volunteer Fire Company, who at age 70 still drives trucks to active fire calls. Isaac Feusner, another lifetime member now 93, has devoted countless hours to his duties as a fire fighter. The dedicated volunteers of the Hatfield Volunteer Fire Company have provided critical services to citizens in need, oftentimes endangering their own lives in the process. I congratulate the Hatfield Volunteer Fire Company, specifically Robert Nolen and Isaac Feusner, for embodying the spirit of volunteerism in America through proactive service in the community.

Mr. HOEFFEL

Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, I am glad to be back on the House floor with my colleagues, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt) and the gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Abercrombie), and I think others will join us, for another installment of Iraq Watch. We have been coming to the floor one evening a week since, I believe, last May to talk about our policies in Iraq, to raise questions about the policies when we do not understand those policies, to suggest alternatives, to try to get information before the Members of the Congress and the members of the general public about what is happening in Iraq. Before turning to my colleagues for this week's installment of Iraq Watch, let me review a little bit what has been happening, and the last few weeks have been tough weeks for President Bush regarding his policies in Iraq. We know that the chief CIA weapons inspector, Dr. David Kay, returned from Iraq and said that stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction do not exist. He could not find weapons of mass destruction themselves. He doubts that such stockpiles existed before we went to war. He doubts they existed in 2002 or 2003. This, of course, is completely contrary to the White House assertions in the fall of 2002 and in the spring of 2003 that these weapons of mass destruction existed. The President continued to advocate his case and, in my judgment, hype the situation regarding weapons of mass destruction in the State of the Union Address where he talked about weapons of mass destruction-related program activities. I am still trying to figure out exactly what is a weapons of mass destruction-related program activity, but I can tell my colleagues what it is not. It is not a weapon of mass destruction, because we have not found those in Iraq, according to our chief CIA weapons inspector David Kay. Then, in his Face The Nation interview recently, the President talked about Dr. Kay's report and said that Dr. Kay came home and, number 1, made an interim report and, number 2, suggested that things were worse in Iraq than we thought. Well, in fact, may I say to my colleagues, Dr. Kay came back from Iraq not to make an interim report, but to quit. He said he has had enough. He is frustrated. He says he is not getting the support that he thinks the Iraq Study Group should get in order to focus on the search for weapons of mass destruction. He believes those weapons do not exist. And far from saying things were worse over there than he thought, he said we could not find the things that we were told we would find. Then, the President finally appointed a commission to study the intelligence regarding Iraq and the weapons of mass destruction. And I am glad that he appointed such a commission, but he made two big mistakes, in my judgment. One, he limited the time, or maybe I should say he expanded the time so that the Commission will not complete its work until well after this fall's election. Secondly, he limited the scope of the Commission. He asked them to look into the accuracy of the intelligence gathering. And I agree that accuracy must be reviewed, but he did not ask the Commission to review the use of that intelligence by the White House itself.

Mr. HOEFFEL. I am delighted to yield to the gentleman from Hawaii.

Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, if I may interrupt the gentleman for a moment, I am proud of the fact that last April in one of our very first Iraq Watches, I identified Mr. Chalabi in the words that my grandfather would have used as a four flusher. I have to explain what a four flusher is. A four flusher is a man whose word you cannot accept, and if it was good enough for my grandfather, it is good enough for me.

Mr. HOEFFEL. If the gentleman will yield, as bad as the situation is that the gentleman from Massachusetts has just described, it could be even worse, the impact of this faulty intelligence on this country. Think back on the military strategy that our Armed Forces used. We all understand that our Armed Forces fought bravely, with great courage. But remember that they rushed to Baghdad because they believed that weapons of mass destruction were there, in large measure because of the representations made by Chalabi and others, and the very false and misleading information that the gentleman from Massachusetts has identified tonight. Our troops did not protect their flanks. They figured the most important thing they had to do was get to Baghdad and stop any potential use of these weapons of mass destruction against the American troops or the British troops or against the Iraqi citizens; that the key was to get there as quickly as possible. And in that rush, which they successfully did, very bravely and courageously, they left their flanks exposed. The insurgency started, and we began to lose soldiers right away because they were not taking their time, they were not protecting themselves. They thought they had to rush in. I think you can put onto the heads of these folks that gave us bad information the loss of life, the loss of American life by our brave soldiers whose leaders thought they had to adopt one strategy based upon incorrect information, when it would have been a little safer for our troops to protect the flanks, move more carefully and cautiously, which I am sure they would have done if they were not worried about these weapons of mass destruction that did not exist.

Mr. HOEFFEL. The favorite of the State Department is Adnan Pachachi, who is another member of the current interim government in Iraq as Chalabi is. And, according to Roll Call, the favorite of the CIA is Ayad Allawi, also a member of the Iraqi Governing Council. We have got a three-headed monster here. The administration itself cannot agree on who should be the next leader of the Iraqi Government. There are three different agencies pushing three different people.

Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, we have talked quite a bit tonight about Ahmed Chalabi, and rightly so; but he is not apparently the only favorite of the American government involved in positioning themselves for leadership in Iraq. In today's Roll Call, one of the Hill newspapers, a fascinating front-page story titled ``Iraqi Money Flows'' detailing how four different Iraqis seeking power in Iraq are paying over $100,000 a month for lobbying costs and public relations costs here in the U.S. capital. It is a million-dollar-plus annual industry.

Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, I do not have a clue. Ahmed Chalabi and three others listed in the article are paying up to a combined $100,000 a month.

Mr. HOEFFEL. The principal source I know of is U.S. Government.

Mr. HOEFFEL. Before we get too carried away with Chalabi, let me just make the point that is in the Roll Call article. There were three others doing this. One of them is the favorite of the CIA to be the new Iraqi leader and a third the favorite of the State Department to be the new Iraqi leader. The gentleman from Massachusetts is right, the Defense Department has long wanted Chalabi to be the new leader of the Iraqi Government.

Mr. HOEFFEL. The gentleman from Massachusetts is making a lot of sense here, but the situation is made that much worse by the fact we are not just trying to hand-pick the next leader from Washington, but the Bush administration has three different favorites, one from the Defense Department, one from the State Department, one from the CIA.

Mr. HOEFFEL. Yes. All the firms are identified, the monthly retainers. It is an interesting article. It is a million-dollar industry.

Mr. HOEFFEL. I will be delighted to do it.

Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, there is something else troubling about this. The gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Abercrombie) is correct and he is right to be personally offended by the lack of disclosure. And it is also clear from this article that a lot of money is being spent to influence the gentleman from Hawaii and me and the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt) and every other Member of Congress, and we have a right to know who is being paid to influence us and what the subject matter is. But the fact that this article also demonstrates that the Bush administration is pushing three different people to be the next leader of the Iraq government leads to the following question: What does come next in the larger governance question? We know that Paul Bremer has been advocating on behalf of the Bush administration this concept of caucuses, that when the Bush administration leaves Iraq on June 30, at least the civil authority is pulled out, that Paul Bremer has been pushing for caucuses to take the place of direct elections and somehow lead to a representative form of self-government for Iraq. The problem is none of the Iraqis like that idea. The head of the majority Shiite Muslims do not like that idea. The Kurds do not like that idea. That is not going to happen. What is going to take the place of the American-appointed 25-member group of what most Iraqis think are American puppets, the Iraqi Governing Council, what is going to take their place, particularly if the Bush administration has three different favorites to lead the next government? What comes next? We have got an arbitrary deadline set by the President of June 30 to withdraw the civilian authority, a date that seems more based upon the upcoming election than any ability of the Iraqi people to actually conduct a self-government.

Mr. HOEFFEL. I could not have said it better. There is clearly no exit strategy. In fact, there are three different strategies, if the Roll Call article is correct, about who is supposed to lead the next government, and all of this is supposed to come to fruition by June 30. Iraq Watch has to come to fruition in 5 minutes tonight. I want to give my two colleagues an opportunity to make any closing comments.

Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, if I can add to the gentleman's comments, specifically about what appeared to be the distortions of information in Iraq. I am not speaking of Mr. Woolsey. I am speaking of the Iraqi Governing Council representatives, Mr. Chalabi and others. I do not want to see them benefit any more than they already have from their relationships if they have misled this country and this government, and I hope that Congress can figure out a way to deny those individuals, if we can show they intentionally misled us, from any further contract with the U.S. Government, benefit from the U.S. Government, promotion by the U.S. Government. If we have been intentionally misled, if we had gone to war in part under their false comments and under false pretenses, and particularly, as I believe happened, there have been additional American deaths because of that faulty information, we need to cut off those relationships and prohibit any further financial relationships with these malfeasors. I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt).

Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues for their comments. Iraq Watch will be back next week.

Mr. HOEFFEL

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

Mr. HOEFFEL

Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize and honor the Fox Chase Cancer Center for its 100 years of outstanding effort and achievement in the fields of cancer treatment and research. Chartered in 1904, the Fox Chase Cancer Center was the Nation's first cancer hospital. Since its inception, the hospital has provided quality care for patients and has developed and refined methods of cancer treatment. The Fox Chase Cancer Center has been recognized for integrating strong basic and clinical research programs with programs of cancer treatment and detection, cancer control and community outreach efforts, and cancer prevention research and services. These efforts have earned the center various honors including a Nobel Prize for medicine, a Lasker Clinical Research Award, memberships in the National Academy of Sciences, and American Cancer Society Medals of Honor. Founded on a spirit of optimism and determination, the center remains a national leader in cancer care. I congratulate the Fox Chase Cancer Center on its 100 years of dedicated service to the community.