Jack Kingston

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. I am glad you mentioned that. We had a speaker previously today who was talking about a Democrat proposal. He kept saying, We give this, we give this. Well, you do not give anything. You take it away and then you redistribute it. That is all it is, redistribution of wealth. It is not our money to give. We just want to take less of it. And I think the folks back home, the families raising children, know how to spend this thousand dollars a heck of a lot better than any brilliance we have on any committee in Washington.

Mr. KINGSTON. It is amazing. One of the other common sense solutions we are doing to create jobs is ending the marriage tax penalty.

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I am certainly proud to be here this afternoon, and wanted to talk some about the issues that we are facing here in Washington. I am proud to say that while the national news has really focused, and rightfully so, on the war in Iraq, the House has not only supported our military efforts, but we have been working on a very good, pro- growth, pro-jobs domestic agenda. We have a good jobs package that will be voted on this week, we have passed a good energy bill, we have passed a good education bill, and we will be working on a Medicare reform bill very soon. So I am optimistic about the things that the House has been doing. We hear a lot of partisan politics and a lot of bashing. I guess one of the things that is frustrating to me is that while we hear people, as one of the previous speakers was talking about tax breaks for the wealthy, and that just seems to be the Democrat buzz phrase for hatred and division in society, what I have been curious about is tear down somebody else's policy or plan, if you want to, but offer your own. It is always curious, we do not hear too many alternatives from the other party. I say, look, hey, this floor is the great hall of debate. Whether you are liberal or conservative, urban or rural, bring your ideas to the floor. Offer your ideas in the form of amendments. Offer your ideas in the form of legislation, and let us see what we can do. Bring the best of the Democrats, the best of the Republicans, together to do what is best for America. It is always disappointing when you hear people just attack legislation when it is clear they have not even read the bill. Yet on the other hand, Mr. Speaker, you cannot take the politics out of politics, so what the heck, let us just move on with it. Mr. Speaker, I want to talk a little bit about the war in Iraq. I have to continuously brag about the 3rd Infantry Division in Hinesville, Georgia, Fort Stewart. I am wearing their patch on my lapel, which was given to me by the wives organizations down there. I am very proud of what they did. We followed them up the Euphrates River as they marched on to Baghdad. Also, Mr. Speaker, I am glad to say that I have had more constituents in the last month sleep in Saddam Hussein's palace than I have who have eaten in French restaurants. That is probably going to continue to be the case as the months and weeks pass by. But in terms of the mission in Iraq, liberating Iraq, one of the things that we have had in Congress is many former Iraqi citizens who have come to seek refuge in the United States of America, many women. And these are women whose fathers or brothers were abducted, sisters and cousins, and for very small offenses, such as starting peace movements or protesting this or that. And they lived under the oppression of Saddam Hussein's regime. And it was a common practice that if he had a critic he would take their wife or their daughter and videotape sexual abuses of them and show it back to the male members of the family and say, get in line, get behind our program, or we will continue it. What a harsh way to deal with enemies. We are, of course, finding mass graves. Amnesty International, which is not exactly a pro-American organization, estimated that there are anywhere between 70,000 and 150,000 Iraqis who have disappeared, unaccounted for, the highest number of any nation in the world. And now we are seeing these mass graves and trying to identify the loved ones of the Iraqi people. But all of these folks have told us over and over again, we need an outside force to liberate us; we cannot do it from within. That liberation has come. From the left we heard all kinds of criticism during the war: well, the war is just going to be a blood bath, thousands and thousands of people on both sides will be killed. Yet, this was one of the first, probably the first war in history where the regime was removed with as little damage as possible to the citizens. And that is very important, because ordinarily we go in and we wipe out a country as a way of removing the regime. In this case, historically, we were able to remove the regime with almost a surgical removal rather than just blowing up everything and everybody. Now, there was collateral damage, but very minimal compared to other wars in the past. The people there, again, have responded very, very positively; and the liberation has begun. But unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, we cannot just add water and have a democracy overnight. Many people now on the left are saying, well, it is going to be a long time. Well, there are nations in this world who do not want us to succeed. Unfortunately, many of them are democratic nations themselves who seem to be a constant thorn, a constant critic. But we want democracy, frankly, in all of the Middle Eastern countries, personally speaking. But I think it is very important to try to achieve that right now in Iraq, and we are moving in that direction. Who should rebuild it? Well, the U.N. again, not exactly a good catalyst for peace in Iraq, an organization that has spent a lot of time criticizing America. Incidentally, Mr. Speaker, I do not know if my colleagues have heard, but last Friday at the U.N., the food workers union went on strike; and they went on strike and closed down the cafeteria during Friday at lunch, and so some supervisor at the U.N. said, well, we are going to open up the cafeteria. Guess what happened? All of these high and mighty U.N. people decided to have a run on the cafeteria. They looted the food, they looted the wine, they even stole the silverware, and the damages and the food loss is anywhere from $7,000 to $9,000. These are supposed to be the people who have been criticizing America. That was reported by the Washington Times. So much for U.N. foolishness. It is probably in line with everything else. But if we would look at what the U.N. has done for Kosovo, we have been out of it; and officially there has been peace there since March 23, 4 years ago. Well, pre-war Kosovo used to export electricity. Now they have to have every 4 hours a mandatory blackout, rolling blackouts where they have to turn off all of their electricity for 2 hours. That is Kosovo under U.N. rebuilding. Elections, supposed to be free elections; and yet under the U.N. mandate, one has to have 30 percent of the candidates be women. Now, maybe it should be 100 percent. Maybe it is some other formula. But in a free country, you let the people, the electorate decide; you do not have some U.N. bureaucrat sitting in New York mandating the quota for Kosovo. Also in Kosovo under the U.N., interpreters are paid $300 and $400 and $500 a week, whereas former business people are paid $100 a week. The economy has not turned around at all. One of the reasons is the U.N. is not supporting the concept of private property and private investment and insurance and things that are fundamental to investment in an economy. The U.N. has not done a good job of that. So I think the U.N.'s role in terms of Iraq, they should be there for humanitarian assistance, should be there to complement the U.S. efforts; but I do not think they are any kind of organization that can lead. I frankly believe, Mr. Speaker, that it is time that the U.S. Congress has some hearings on the U.N. We pick up 25 percent of their tab. And yet, if you ask the people of America should we still be involved in it, I do not think they would pass muster, if we threw it out to the American electorate. I do not want to throw the U.N. out, and I do not want to give up on them yet; but I do think they are in dire, dire need of some reforms. We are going to be talking about our jobs bill and we have been joined by the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mario Diaz-Balart), and he has been a very hardworking freshman Member of this body who has worked to help create jobs in south Florida as well as the rest of the country. I would certainly be honored to yield any time to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mario Diaz-Balart), if he wants to talk about Iraq or the jobs bill or whatever else is on his mind.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I offer a resolution (H. Res. 205) and ask unanimous consent for its immediate consideration.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I want to say to my friend, the gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott), whose mother is watching him tonight, that she knows her own son. However, the IRS would define ``child'' five different ways under the current code. I know she is with us and appreciates the gentleman's ``yes'' vote. This bill supports this hearing, this bill supports that debate. It is my hope that we can get those of us who may or may not be on the right committee to introduce our bills. I am hoping that the Democrat Party will introduce a bill. To my knowledge, and I have been up here 10 years, I have never seen the Democrat Party introduce tax simplification. We have gotten a lot of criticism. I would like to see some of their solutions. Maybe we can do some bipartisan things together. The criticism about the length of this debate is valid, but we have spent a lot of time preserving Social Security and Medicare and reforming education. These things do, unfortunately, take decades to accomplish. Welfare reform, which we passed in 1996, actually was debated for 30 years before we actually got reform on it. I do not want this to be 30 years, Mr. Speaker. I am hoping that Members of Congress can use this resolution as a vehicle to encourage debate within this body, within this town, within the other body, within the executive branch, to bring the tax simplification debate forward. I ask Members to put their ideas on the table, whatever it is, Democrat Party, Republican Party, Independents, flat tax, sales tax, simplifying the current code. Let us do something, because what we have right now is not working. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3\1/6\ minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Ryan) so he can explain these charts.

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I rise today as millions of Americans are spending billions of dollars and countless hours trying to comply with the monster we call the IRS code. We all know it is that time of year when we should have done what we promised last year, that we would even do it in mid- January; but somehow all the stuff that we need did not come in the mail, the dividend accounts and all the data that we need, and we know we are supposed to put it together, but we just do not do it. So we postpone it. And now here we are almost on April 15, that dreaded day on the American calendar that we all have to pay our income tax, and we just cannot stand it. So all over the country right now people who would rather be doing other things are trying to figure out how much do I owe my favorite Uncle Sam. And they are sitting around trying to fill out these forms, and they cannot do it, and so many times they have to go to an accountant or a lawyer to get opinions, and it is even said often when one goes to two or three different accountants or lawyers and give them their tax information, usually they will come up with a different number which one needs to pay. So that is confusion even on the experts' part. But in 2001 the American taxpayer spent over $135 billion just trying to comply. I want Members of Congress to think for a minute what would we do if we had another $135 billion in the budget that we could use for education or for Medicare, for health care, for the war effort, for rebuilding Iraq or Afghanistan or so many other things. The irony is it is certainly not our money. It is the taxpayers' money, and we would not even be entitled to that money. It would be $135 billion in the economy that consumers would control; but, instead, it is, in fact, a hidden tax because if I have to spend $200 or $300 on an accountant figuring out what I owe Uncle Sam, then that $200 or $300 is a mandatory payment of taxes. We spend over 3 billion hours filling out form. That is 1 full day for every single tax return. I was giving a speech the other week to a leadership Georgia group about volunteerism and was proud to report that there are something like 94 million Americans who volunteer 4 hours a week, and it is worth millions and millions of dollars and billions of dollars to the economy if we figure it at $14 an hour. But the reality is these 3 billion hours do not help children. They do not help dropouts. They do not help confused pregnant teenagers. They do not help senior citizens and all the other groups who could use some volunteer labor. It just goes to Uncle Sam. The IRS itself spent $10 billion just trying to enforce this very complicated system. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, in the spirit of what my friend from Washington had requested, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Linder), to explain a solution to the problems of the onerous Tax Code.

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I just want to say, if we could get rid of the current Tax Code, we could get all those companies back. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay), the distinguished majority leader.

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, it is my proud opportunity to introduce the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Chocola), and I yield 2 minutes to him. He is one of our distinguished freshman Members.

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Burgess).

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Madam Speaker, this week we will be voting on our supplemental appropriations bill to help partially fund the war in Iraq. An important amendment, which was unanimously agreed to by the House that is on that bill, was called the Nethercutt-Kennedy amendment, and it has to do with the fact that the Congress has voted not to allow Germany, France, Syria and Russia to share in American taxpayer-funded reconstruction efforts in Iraq. The idea behind this is that Russia, France, Syria and Germany have not been on our side and, in many ways, helped accelerate the war in Iraq by seeming to side with Saddam Hussein. We believe that if the U.N. Security Council and these members were unified against the weapons of mass destruction and the regime of Saddam Hussein, perhaps we would be at peace today in trying to find diplomatic solutions; but now, it seems these very countries who are against U.S. action, who have made a 4-month national pastime of bashing the U.S., now they want to get U.S. tax dollars and help rebuild Iraq. The Nethercutt amendment speaks to this, and I hope that the conference committee will keep that in the legislation.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from California for yielding me this time. I rise in support of this very important amendment. I think the debate itself is a very important one. It has been said that this amendment is emotional. I am not sure where folks are coming from. A lot of what we do up here is certainly emotional, and certainly not everything we do up here is logical. But I will say this, in terms of the logic of this important amendment, if we can picture Baghdad and if we can picture the 3rd Infantry Division, the 3rd Infantry Division whose patch I am proudly wearing today because it was given to me by one of the military officer's wives back at Fort Stewart in Georgia, and I have the proud honor of representing the 3rd Infantry. Mr. Chairman, 18,000 troops right now are in the war theater who are my constituents. Now, they have gone up the Euphrates River and they are a little bit southwest of Baghdad. Now, in the original game plan, the war plan, the 4th Infantry was to be on the north of Baghdad. The idea was that they would come over from the Turkish border and then they would be ready, and we would have Baghdad in kind of a pincher movement. We would have troops on the north, heavy armor; we would have troops on the south, heavy armor. Instead, what we have because of Turkey's wishy-washy position, because Turkey could not make up their mind, we have the 3rd Infantry Division fighting basically the full force of Baghdad on their own. Now there are folks from the 4th Infantry Division getting in place, but there has been anywhere from a 2-week to a 1-month delay. So what I am saying to my colleagues is, you know what? Maybe if you were from Hinesville, Georgia, maybe if you were a member of the 3rd Infantry Division, maybe if you are looking at the Republican Guard in the face, maybe you have a right to show a little bit of emotion. For Members here to take kind of this intellectual high ground and suggest that the gentleman from California (Mr. Cunningham), who is one of our brave combat veterans of Vietnam, to suggest that he is not entitled to some emotion on a situation that regards troops in harm's way, I think that is somewhat of a slight. But I want to say this to the gentleman from California: The gentleman is entitled to be emotional anytime he wants, and by golly, I think our folks from the 3rd Infantry Division are. I want to say this. Back in the 1970s, when the gentleman was in Vietnam, I am glad the gentleman was emotional. But I want to address some of the logic here that people so proudly say they have. We have 49 countries in our coalition. I will ask Members, do my colleagues know how many of those are getting monetary support from the United States? Twenty-two of them. The reason why I point that out is many people are saying, this is no way to treat an ally. Well, wait a minute. If we are only giving money to 22, what about the others? Are they not entitled to it? Are they going to walk around saying, well, we have to question being allies of the United States of America because they did not give us money? Now, it has been suggested that this is the only money for Turkey. Remember, this is $1 billion. We gave Turkey money just a month ago in our regular fiscal year 03 budget. We will be giving Turkey more money in our regular fiscal year 04 budget. We have given Turkey aid money for the past 5, maybe even 10 years. I am not sure of the exact number of years, and I am not sure of the exact level. I think it is in the $200 million range. But people are coming up here acting like this is Turkey's one shot for money. It is not. It is a $1 billion support check. That is a lot of money. If we support the Cunningham amendment, we will get a second shot at Turkey, for those of us who feel that we should support them. They are allies and I think we should have some level of support for them, but we might not need to do it right here, right now. Let us wait until the fiscal year 04 budget and take a look again.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I want to say this to the previous speaker: I certainly agree with him, the French have had a great role in our history and I certainly am a proud fan of Lafayette. I want to say Lafayette was a man of freedom, and there is no question in my mind whose side in this conflict Lafayette would be fighting for, and that is for the liberation of the oppressed Iraqi people. And that is why his portrait is here. That is why we have a square named after him in my hometown of Savannah. That is why we even have a city named after him in the gentleman from Georgia's (Mr. Collins) district. Only we pronounce it the correct way. We call it Lafayette, if you all ever want to come to visit. The thing about the French, and I like the French but I dislike the French rhetoric that we have heard for the last 6 months. I dislike the French politics, which I think the rhetoric has fueled the politics and it is maybe some EU positioning that is going on. The things that Mr. Chirac has said about my country are offensive. And the reality is there were not that many French businesses that were standing up and saying, Mr. Chirac, tone it down a little bit. And there certainly were not any Russian companies or Syrian companies that were standing up for the United States over the last 4 months. And it is such a shame, because I think they could have helped prevent this conflict if they would have said, Saddam Hussein, we stand against you in a unified world, in the community of freedom and the community of common law; we think what you are doing to the people of Iraq is outrageous. But instead, for whatever reason, they chose to apparently be on the side of oppression and the side of Iraq, and therefore we have American and British soldiers and 49 different countries, a coalition, fighting Iraqi oppression right now. I had an interesting issue last week with a company from France that is actually providing food to the American Marine Corps. A French company actually caters to the American Marines. They have contracts worth $881 million. And I find it somewhat outrageous, and I have raised the question and many of you have joined me in raising that question to the DOD. But you know what, I will say, to that company's credit, they have written me a letter and said, you know what, we are on the side of America in this conflict. And I tell you what, they get it. And I am glad to see that they are exercising what I would say would be good corporate responsibility. I want to have further conversations with them. But there are also rumors, and it was reported by Sean Hannity, who is pretty doggone careful of what he reports, but he was saying that there are apparently and sadly some French companies who have been providing, up to the conflict, helicopter and jet parts to the Iraqi regime. There were Russian companies that were apparently selling night vision goggles to the Iraqis. Now, that is per one reporter. But I hope that as this conflict unfolds, we do not find that some of these countries who were opposing us in the Security Council had a profit motive of their own. I hope we find that their opposition to us in the Security Council was founded in idealism and passivism and not in, wait a minute, we have got some business deals at stake here; we got to stand for the sides of the Iraqis. I think that what the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Nethercutt) and the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Kennedy) have done is offer a reasonable amendment so that we can offer our objections as a collective body to these people who, when they had the chance to stand up for America and stand up against oppression, they chose instead the path of politics and rhetoric against America. And I hope that we pass this. And I hope down the road we have an opportunity to redress it. The gentleman from Washington (Mr. Dicks) who I think a lot of, was telling me, you know what, after the war is fought, that is the time to consolidate everybody and get them on the side of the new tomorrow to rebuild Iraq. And you know what? I think he has some good points to it because we do not want to have a fissure between us and Russia and Germany and France and Syria and China or any of these other countries forever. Indeed, we have 49 countries in our coalition right now. We do want to bring the world together to rebuild a democratic republic, a free republic of Iraq after this. And I hope that these folks will come on board. I hope that they not only bring their know-how, but I hope they bring some of their own dollars to the table. And if they can, and at that point, I think they absolutely should be welcome to help rebuild this country, the country of Iraq.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Madam Speaker, I had the honor of meeting the gentleman's former commanding officer. He said his years in the military did not wear him out nearly as much as being the gentleman's commanding officer.

Mr. KINGSTON. Madam Speaker, if the gentlewoman will yield, it is unbelievable when we talk to the soldiers who have that sense of mission, who have had the opportunity to talk face-to-face to the Iraqis who have been oppressed. There is a group in Washington, D.C., a women's Iraqi advocacy group. They talk about being arrested and having their family members killed, and having cousins and brothers disappear. They say over and over again that the only thing that is going to liberate them from this oppression is an outside intervention by a country such as America that has a moral high ground. It is unbelievable when we hear the Hollywood crowd, the blame- America-first people, who have done so well by the United States' system of capitalism and government. Yet, they are the first ones to jump up and down and blame things on America. What I would say to the gentlewoman from New Mexico (Mrs. Wilson) and the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter), I hear a lot of people say, I do not support the mission, but I support the troops. Tell that to the young soldier who wrote that letter. We cannot do it, we have to say, love me, love my mission. If we are going to support the soldiers, tell them we agree the mission is very important and what they are doing is the right thing.

Mr. KINGSTON. It does seem that in Washington, D.C. you go from maybe major to lieutenant colonel to colonel to general to journalist. And it seems that after you have turned in your uniform, you get more information and you are briefed in more top secret stuff than when you were active. Because it is amazing, the ex-generals who now can tell people what the plan is; where I would kind of think that if you do have a plan, which obviously you may need to deviate from, but you sure do not share it with everybody and his brother, as much as these embedded journalists like to think that they are in the Army. The reality is there are certain things they do not need to know. I wanted to say a little bit, one thing about this open society we have, this open war where the camera is right next to the rifle, it has got some good and it has some bad. But one thing that is seen over and over again is the United States' efforts to minimize collateral damage. And here you have Saddam Hussein who hides behind school children, who hides behind mosques, who takes his palaces into the civilian areas so that he can cower behind them. And even with that we minimize collateral damage. But you know, it is really bad when you have groups like the U.N. who have a role to play on the treatment of our prisoners of war, and all Kofi Annan has done today is say he is worried about the collateral damage because a missile hit a marketplace in Baghdad. We do not even know if it was an American missile or not. Does he say, America is bending over backwards to minimize collateral damage? That is a good practice. And is it not too bad that Saddam Hussein is hiding behind civilians and children and women? Is it not too bad? And is it not too bad that the Iraqis put out white flags of surrender and then turn around and ambush and shoot troops? And is it not too bad that they parade American POWs out on worldwide television and even show executed prisoners of war on TV. Not one word from the U.N. on that, but let them come back one more time with one of these veiled criticisms of America. I think one thing you have mentioned is people can do all the anti- American talk they want, when there is a problem in the world it goes to the United States of America to solve. And the biggest criticism we get is people do not like the way we try to solve problems. But can you imagine trying to turn to France, trying to turn to Germany, trying to turn to Russia, trying to turn to China to solve problems in the world today? What kind of world would we live in if Saddam Hussein could have continued to gain the U.N. and America blinked and backed down from the action that we are having right now?

Mr. KINGSTON. Madam Speaker, I want to say as the proud Representative from the part of Georgia that has not just Fort Stewart and Hunter, where the 3rd Infantry division is headquartered, but we also have Kings Bay Naval Base and Moody Air Force Base and Robbins Air Base, we are very proud of what the 3rd Infantry and all of our soldiers and all the branches of service are doing. I have had the opportunity to meet with the wives' groups at Fort Stewart. It is incredible, the strength these people have. As we often are sitting in our hearings in Washington, we can tell that most Members and most members of the public do not realize that many of these soldiers have already been in the theater area for 6 months. They are not on a 6-month rotation that some people seem to think, or a 3- month rotation. Many said good-bye to their loved ones back in September or October, and they have no idea when they are going to be coming home. Our friend, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Gilchrest), who is a Marine veteran and a veteran of Vietnam, raised that issue today among us, about how much time until these folks are getting off. We do not know the answer to that question, because war is imminent. Nobody is talking about, you have Saturday off. The reality is our soldiers have been fighting and training in the theater for many, many weeks and months at this point. It is key for them to have a good support group back home, and to have the families saying, Everything is okay, honey. Don't worry about us, just come home alive. That means so much to them. Today, I have an e-mail from one of our staffers, whose husband is deployed, about an Easter egg hunt that the families are putting together at Fort Stewart. Everybody is going to be joining in, and it is going to be an Easter egg hunt like we have never seen before. There will be lots of big and little kids looking for Easter eggs. We cannot have the soldier in the battle without the family support group back home. I will say also that our Reservists who have come to man these bases and posts while the actives are gone, they are doing a very vital thing for the war effort. It is amazing to see the unity of people coming together. I had mentioned to the chairman today, one of the distressing things is some of our weak-kneed supports from groups in the U.N. that we thought were going to be with us. I was wondering if it would be appropriate to bring up some of those thoughts.

Mr. KINGSTON. Is that the one up here last week?

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, also, are they not making a buck or profit, things like that, but they have had a lucrative oil contract in Iraq they did not want to disturb. That it is clear France is not after some noble or high ground about peace, but it simply boils down to profit. If the gentleman would like to make any closing comments, I need to actually make an engagement.

Mr. KINGSTON. There is another example. Another company called Sedxho, S-E-D-X-H-O, it is a French company. It is a publicly-owned French company, but they have $1 billion worth of food service contracts with the United States Department of Defense. Recently, they signed an $881 million contract to feed the U.S. Marines in 55 different garrisons. We are working on a letter to the Secretary of Defense, Mr. Rumsfeld, to say he needs to renegotiate this, he needs to cancel it, he needs to look into it. But can my colleague imagine, here is a French company, and France, I do not remember one division in the country of France in terms of their stance against America in the last 3 to 6 months. I do not remember anybody moderating. In America we had division. We had a pro-war and an anti-war group, and the world knew that. But, in France, it seems like they were all united against the United States and against this war. Apparently, that is not a problem to Sedxho, because they are a French company. And yet here are the Marines, the brave and the honorable Marines who are the ones who discovered this hospital today, allegedly a hospital, and yet 55 different garrisons in the United States of America, when an 18-year-old Marine sits down for lunch, a French company is making a profit from that. That is unbelievable, and I call on the Department of Defense to cancel that contract. Listen, there are reasons sometimes we have to buy from an enemy. There are reasons that somebody has something unique, but we are talking catering. I am sure there are good companies in Florida and Georgia and all over America that can do the catering service for the U.S. Marine corps, but a French company, it is unbelievable.

Mr. KINGSTON. I thank the Speaker. I am still in quotes, Mr. Speaker, and probably it is very appropriate for the Speaker to point out that I am reading a letter, open letter to Hollywood written by Mr. Charlie Daniels, one of America's most popular entertainers. I am going to continue with that, back to the quoted letter. Well, I'm going to exercise some freedom of choice of my own. If I see any of your names on a marquee, I'm going to boycott the movie. I will completely stop going to the movies if I have to. In most cases, it certainly wouldn't be much of a loss. You scoff at our military whose boots you are not even worthy to shine. They go to battle and risk their lives so ingrates like you can live in luxury. The day of reckoning is coming when you will be faced with the undeniable truth that the war against Saddam Hussein is the war on terrorism. America is in imminent danger. You're either for her or against her. There is no middle ground. I think we all know where you stand. What do you think? God bless America. Unquote, Charlie Daniels. Mr. Speaker, my colleagues can get this off the website. However, due to technological ethics, I am unable to give out that website number, but if somebody would call my office, I would be glad to give it to them. Mr. Speaker, here is a guy who is one of the American-dream-type success stories, came up the hard way. I believe Charlie Daniels went to the University of Chicago, so he is not exactly just this country boy from back home on the farm that Hollywood would scoff at. But this is a guy who has really made it pretty big in the entertainment world, knows the Hollywood bunch because he calls them up front and he writes a letter like that to give us an idea of what he thinks. Now, Mr. Speaker, I am going to read another letter by a woman named Katrin Michael. She is member of Women for a Free Iraq, a Washington- based advocacy group. She wrote this for Newsday, but I read it in the Savannah Morning News. I am going to again quote from this. As an Iraqi woman who wages peace and has fought in war, I am compelled to support a U.S.-led action to remove Saddam Hussein. After 26 years of resistance against Saddam, I have come to the conclusion that only forces from outside Iraq can bring an end to the nightmare of his rule. The stories of Saddam Hussein's brutality are all true. Ethnic cleansing, summary imprisonment and execution, torture and rape are all part of the nightmare. I know this from personal experience. My father founded an Iraqi peace movement, a crime for which he was murdered. At the time I was 14 years old. I was arrested by the regime merely because I joined the Iraqi Women's League. I was not the only young girl arrested for such a trivial offense. Later, I joined the Kurdish resistance, even though I was, in their eyes, a mere woman and a Christian. I traveled in disguise to Baghdad and around the country to organize opposition to Saddam. When I was injured in one of his chemical bombardments against hundreds of Kurdish villages in 1987 and 1988, I was forced to flee to a refugee camp in southern Turkey where I stayed until I finally reached freedom in the United States in 1997. I continue to suffer to this day from lung, nerve and eye damage caused by these weapons. No one in Iraq is immune from Saddam's brutality, not even the closest members of his own family. He even executed two of his own sons-in-law in 1996. A commonly used form of torture is to bring a detainee's female relative, preferably his wife, daughter or mother, and gang rape her in front of him. Members of the Iraqi opposition in exile receive videotape of tapes of their female relatives in Iraq being raped. Women who criticize or merely offend Saddam are accused of being prostitutes and regularly beheaded in public. His son, Uday, often leads these beheadings. They occur in Baghdad as well as in smaller villages throughout Iraq. The heads of the executed women are hung on the doors of their houses for all to see. I am saddened when I see people who sincerely care for the fate of the Iraqi people resist the American-led effort to remove Saddam and restore hope for the Iraqis. We cannot do it alone. Iraqis had their closest brush with freedom in 1992 during Operation Desert Storm. I regret, as do most Iraqis, that the United States and its allies allowed Saddam to squash this resistance and remain in power. Those who care about peace and justice for the Iraqis should not make the same mistake again. Saddam will never leave power willingly. He will never give up his weapons and allow the Iraqi people to live in freedom. That is the end of the letter, Mr. Speaker, but I want to restate one more time that this was written by an Iraqi woman who was raised in Iraq, who was part of the peace movement, who has come to the conclusion that only a U.S.-led action will remove Saddam Hussein, and that is the only way that the world will be rid of him. I think that is so important, Mr. Speaker, because there are a lot of well-meaning people who are against the United States action. There are a lot who are not so well-meaning. A lot of people just have a gripe with George Bush, and they find the war a convenient vehicle to air their opinion. There are a lot of people who do not like the United States of America and, again, they find the war a convenient excuse to air their opinion on that. But then there are a lot of people who are absolutely sincere: peace first, peace only, negotiations. Yet what this Iraqi woman is saying, who has been there and has been injured by Saddam Hussein, is we cannot do it alone, we have to have a U.S.-led coalition. Today, Mr. Speaker, in Basra, we did find out that there was an uprising and at this point it has not continued, but I think that it will, and I think in the days and weeks ahead we are going to see more and more Iraqi citizens coming out of their hiding places and facing Saddam Hussein and joining the resistance against him. Now, I have been joined by our friend from Miami, Florida (Mr. Mario Diaz-Balart). I want to yield some time to him. I have a couple of other topics I want to talk about surrounding Iraq. One of them has to do with a French company that has a lucrative contract with the Department of Defense feeding 55 garrisons throughout America. I also want to talk about the House Resolution that we passed today urging Iraq to comply with the Geneva Convention. But the gentleman has been a very active freshman Member of Congress and has a lot of issues he has been working on, too. So I yield to him to jump in on this or switch topics or whatever pleases him.

Mr. KINGSTON. I want to thank the gentleman for those words, Mr. Speaker. It is interesting, today we had a great moment where all Members, Democrat and Republican, came together on the issue of Iraq complying with the Geneva Convention, which of course they are not doing. Each day there is a new revelation. There was a very tender moment today as we in Congress saw the pictures of the prisoners, the American POWs, that Iraq had filmed. As the gentleman knows, it was very gruesome. First, the cameras panned on some dead soldiers, soldiers who at least three of them had a shot right in their forehead; young men, strong men, men in uniform, men with their dog tags around their necks and the blood that was on their chests, in some cases. It was a very sobering, very gut-wrenching scene to see. Then, apparently in the same room, but it was not clear, were the live prisoners. Iraqi TV or whoever the reporters were were interviewing them and asking them a lot of questions. There seemed to be some pushing and shoving in the room. It seemed that there were a lot of people. We could tell by the look in these American prisoners' eyes that they did not know if they were going to be alive the next minute, or make it through the night, or what was going to happen to them. It seemed like utter confusion. What struck me, among other things, is that even in Somalia, and we all have read or seen ``Blackhawk Down,'' which I think was a great depiction of that battle. When they had the captive helicopter operator, he was still allowed to get the International Red Cross to come in. Yet in Iraq they do not even let the Red Cross in to see our prisoners. Today, on a bipartisan basis, we debated, and we will vote on it tomorrow, House Concurrent Resolution 118, which I had, I guess I am not going to say the honor, which would be the usual word, but I offered it, along with the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Reyes). I represent the Third Infantry in Hinesville, Georgia, and he represents Fort Bliss in Texas, where the members of 507th Maintenance Division were from, supporting the Third Infantry. Just to see the House come together and say, you know, this is absolutely not right, and we are going to put the folks from Iraq on notice that they will be tried as war criminals as soon as possible. If that means waiting until the war is over, fine; but if we can get them out of there before then, they will be tried as war criminals. We made that statement to them, number one. Number two, we assured our troops that we are watching and we are with them in thought and in spirit, and we are going to do everything that we can to get them out of there alive. Number three, we sent a signal to the international community, the French, the Germans, the Chinese, the Russians, those who were so quick to denounce the United States of America and this action. Well, there are 164 countries that have signed the Geneva Conventions going back to 1949. Let these countries now step forward and denounce Iraq, who incidentally is a signer of the Geneva Conventions; and let the world community find something that they can agree on in the form of these seven soldiers who are captured as we speak tonight.

Mr. KINGSTON. That Russian equipment sold to Iraq, Mr. Speaker, that is radar-jamming or missile-jamming technology. Is that not the case?