Jim Leach

Mr. LEACH

Mr. LEACH. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the concurrent resolution (H. Con. Res. 469) condemning the attack on the AMIA Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in July 1994 and expressing the concern of the United States regarding the continuing, decade-long delay in the resolution of this case.

Mr. LEACH. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H. Con. Res. 469, the resolution under consideration.

Mr. LEACH. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, this past Sunday marked the 10th anniversary of the bombing of AMIA Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires, Argentina, a terrorist act which killed 85 innocent victims and wounded 300. Though a decade has passed, the investigation into this brutal attack has yet to yield one major conviction. It has failed to focus on the credible evidence linking this heinous attack to the international terrorist group Hezbollah, which is based in Lebanon, supported by Syria and sponsored by Iran. This lack of accountability should not be allowed to continue. We must work together to ensure that all those responsible for this horrific act are brought to justice, so that terrorists everywhere understand they will be held accountable for their violence. H. Con. Res. 469 is a bipartisan resolution which enjoys the support of over 50 cosponsors. It was introduced by the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Ros-Lehtinen) and the gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos). Among other provisions, this measure calls on the United States, the Argentine government, and international community to provide and utilize all necessary resources for a thorough, broad investigation of the AMIA bombing and other related activities in the Western Hemisphere. It further asks the international community to assist in the prosecution of the perpetrators of the AMIA bombing, including by extraditing to Argentina those who are suspected of carrying out and participating in the attack, as well as by providing access to witnesses and other evidence related to this terrorist act. H. Con. Res. 469, introduced by the Chair of the subcommittee and the gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos), focuses on the international connection to the attack, placing special emphasis on the role of Islamic militants and Iranian officials as the masterminds and planners of the AMIA bombing. It calls for the creation of a special task force of the Inter- American Committee Against Terrorism to assist in the AMIA investigation and encourages all OAS member nations to designate Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. In addition, it seeks multilateral cooperation in applying international pressure on Iran and Syria to immediately and permanently cease their affiliation with, and assistance to, global terrorists. For the sake of the victims and survivors of the AMIA attack, for the sake of hemispheric and global security, and for the sake of justice, it is important that Congress recall what happened 10 years ago in this hemisphere. In this context, the staff of the committee has produced a chart. It is a chart of names, and we present this to the Congress for the sake of remembering that these are real people, with real histories and real lives; and if we think about philosophies, as well as terrorism, it is interesting to note that the first great philosophical tome on terrorism by a Harvard philosopher named Hannah Arendt pointed out that the great tragedy of the Holocaust was the effort by governments not only to take people's lives but to make them into numbers, to make people unknown in their own fates, to make them anonymous. So it is important when people are subjected to terrorist kinds of circumstances that it be understood that these are real people with real histories, and this is a real tragedy. It is always awkward in any sense of crime to think of statutes of limitations; but when it comes to terrorism, there should be no statute of limitation, and 10 years is a long time for no progress. It is the obligation of civilized people to remember the people and to remember that accountability is important. It is for that reason that this resolution has been brought before the House, and I urge its unanimous adoption. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. LEACH. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. First, I would like to thank Yleem Poblete for her work on the subcommittee on this resolution, and I want to reraise this plaque of names. We are obligated to remember the victims of the AMIA bombing. We are obligated to remember the men, the women and children whose names are listed here, whose lives were abruptly ended by a terrorist assault simply because of their beliefs. We have no choice except to demonstrate our commitment to help bring murderers to justice. I urge unanimous support of this resolution of the gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos) and the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Ros- Lehtinen).

Mr. LEACH. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Payne).

Mr. LEACH. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. LEACH

Mr. LEACH. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of this amendment but must note a certain embarrassment that it is so modest. If it passes, resources for NEH and NEA will still be less than the President requested. Nonetheless, the dollars involved do represent a bit more help to the two institutions most responsible for advancing the creative impulses in society and expanding programs which provide historical and philosophical perspectives to issues of the day. I recognize that controversy swirls around the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities, and it is in the context of this controversy that a historical point of reference is in order. Government involvement in the arts was greater in the Great Depression than it is today. In a time of financial poverty, there was no poverty of spirit. I refer back to the WPA era, because when our country dissolved into social chaos, arts brought a sense of perspective and unity and courage. Ironically perhaps to some, an American solidarity of spirit was enhanced by artists who frequently highlighted social problems and who just as frequently lampooned institutions of the State. The WPA arts program under President Roosevelt and government programs in the arts today are designed to take arts from the citadel of the privileged and bring it to the public at large. President Roosevelt once noted: ``The arts cannot thrive except when men are free to be themselves and to be in charge of the discipline of their own energies and ardor.'' A corollary to this Rooseveltian precept is self- evident: freedom itself is constrained if the arts are shackled. Americans need to appreciate, rather than fear, artistic expression. This does not mean everyone needs to like everything defined as or alleged to be art. All citizens reserve the right to be critics. But it does mean that we should go to great lengths to respect dissenting perspectives in the arts and humanities, just as we need to respect them in politics. It also means we must understand that the arts play an increasingly central role in education. Of all the learning disciplines, they tap and expand the human imagination the most. In a world of exploding options for individuals and families, it is imperative that when there is no experience to serve as a guide, that the imagination be stimulated and perspectives be applied and that values be brought to bear. Nonetheless, it should not be surprising that the Federal agencies most responsible for advancing programs in the arts and humanities have their collective backs to the wall. After all, there is no issue more controversial than culture itself. In this regard, as a Republican, I would like to stress three ironies. Cultural iconoclasts suggest the endowments are elitist citadels. The facts suggest the opposite. The endowments were established to democratize the arts and humanities, to broaden access to and appreciation of diverse aspects of American culture. Cultural iconoclasts suggest that American education has been dumbing down. Yet the endowments have as their mission to instill American education with greater quality, to stimulate creativity, to ennoble the American spirit. Cultural iconoclasts lament the standardless sex and violence found increasingly on television and at the movies. By contrast, the endowments and their sister institutions, like NPR, are uplifting counterbalances to the commercialization of sex, pornography, and violence. The issue is how best to instill and transfer American values, how best to expand respect for the ``pluribus'' in our ``unum.'' Market forces have a powerful role to play, but civilizing instincts can sometimes be embellished by civil efforts of civil institutions. That is the mission of the endowments. Abolition of the endowments would lead to a marginally cheaper government, but if conservatism implies an emphasis on understanding, advancing and perpetuating our culture, endowment-bashing can hardly be conservative. It is true that out of tens of thousands of grants, a half dozen have proven offensive to large numbers of Americans. Yet, perspective would indicate it is impressive not how many, but how few, grants have resulted in serious social umbrage. Given the fact that the Federal Government today spends less than 5/100 of 1 percent of the GNP on the arts and humanities, elimination of their funding would more impoverish the American spirit than the American taxpayer. In this context, I urge support of this amendment and would like to express my particular appreciation for the leadership of the gentlewoman from New York and the subcommittee chairman from North Carolina.

Mr. LEACH

Mr. LEACH. Mr. Speaker. I rise in support of H.J. Res. 97, a measure to approve the renewal of import restrictions contained in the Burmese Freedom and Democracy Act of 2003. At the outset, let me express my appreciation to the leadership of the distinguished Chairmen and Ranking Members of both the International Relations and Ways and Means Committees for moving this resolution on a timely basis. On March 25, the Subcommittees on Asia held its third hearing in 2 years on developments in Burma. Unfortunately, it was made clear during the course of the hearing that Burma made little progress toward democratic reform in the past year, and in fact the country has yet to return to even the admittedly low, but hopeful status it had achieved prior to the May 30 attack on democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi and other members of the National League for Democracy (NLD). Indeed, as many suspected would be the case, Burmese Prime Minister Khin Nyunt's announcement of a seven-point ``road map'' for political reconciliation in the fall of 2003 has been revealed to be a sham. Burma's military junta, known as the State Peace and Development Council, has proceeded with a so-called National Convention despite the nonparticipation of the National League for Democracy (NLD), and without freeing the NLD's leader Aung San Suu Kyi. In so doing the Burmese military leadership has exposed for all to see its determination to push for a new constitution that would legitimize its dominance and control over the country's politics and governance, even under a future ``civilian'' administration. As my colleagues understand, Burma presents one of the most complicated and vexing foreign policy challenges in Asia for the United States and the world community. Numerous political prisoners remain in detention, including one of the most remarkable and courageous leaders of our time, Aung San Suu Kyi. The issue is how can the U.S. best secure their release and help start a meaningful political dialogue in Burma, while also endeavoring to advance a panoply of other priorities, including stable democratic governance, human rights, counternarcotics, regional stability, combating the HIV/AIDS pandemic, as well as economic and human development more broadly. In this context, it is self-evident that the U.S. is confronted by multiple dilemmas in pursuing our objectives in Burma. For illustrative purposes, I would note just a few: the strongly nationalistic, self- centered outlook of the ruling regime; the reliance by the military elite on an illicit, underground economy for power and survival; the inability of major industrial countries to agree on comprehensive sanctions as the basis for a common strategy; competition for geopolitical influence in Burma between China and India; and the ongoing humanitarian crisis for the people of Burma--including for the hundreds of thousands of internally displaced ethnic minority groups along the country's borders--that calls out for a more robust and humane international response. Nevertheless, in response to repeated efforts by the ruling military to thwart the democratic aspirations of the Burmese people as well as to ongoing serious human rights violations, the U.S. has been compelled to utilize sanctions and coercive diplomacy as the centerpiece of our policy. Given the deeply disappointing lack of progress in Burma over the past year, there is no credible option at this time but to renew current sanctions. Here it is critically important for Congress and the Administration to reaffirm our unflinching support for those who want freedom in Burma. We honor the leadership of Aung San Suu Kyi and her colleagues in the pro-democracy movement, including representatives of Burma's numerous ethnic minorities. The American people stand with the people of Burma in a common determination to see decent democratic governance and national reconciliation in Burma. I urge support for the resolution.

Mr. LEACH

Mr. LEACH. Mr. Speaker, Americans often measure history in Presidential cycles. When we look at the individuals who have served in the White House it is the conjunction of character and circumstance that defines and demarcates administrations. It would be misguided to suggest that any individual ``won'' the Cold War, but it was Ronald Reagan's inspiration--``Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall''--that symbolized American resolve. He gave hope to those oppressed and he gave voice to those who stood tall. Communism imploded, largely on his watch. Domestically, President Reagan articulated the values of the frontier. ``Government is not the solution, it is the problem,'' he said in his first inaugural address. But he was not a ``no government'' ideologue. While his administration contrasted in many ways with the social activism of Franklin Roosevelt, he did not favor undoing the New Deal. ``How can we love our country and not love our countrymen?'' he asked, ``and loving them not reach out a hand when they fall?'' Reared on the sweeping plains of the Midwest and, later, an adopted westerner, he loved open spaces--of the land and of the mind. He put his faith in freedom. Ronald Reagan understood the timber of the American character. With the most authentic voice in the history of democratic politics, he spoke to a world hungry for values. He succeeded because his was the voice of American optimism.

Mr. LEACH

Mr. LEACH. Mr. Chairman, let me just say this bill has a number of very commonsense provisions, but in the name of a relatively large number of minor commonsense issues, there is more than a small measure of regulatory mischief. This bill is about less regulation but it is also about more imbalance. It empowers a hitherto largely unknown charter in America called Industrial Loan Companies to have all the powers of commercial banks and, added with one of the amendments that is likely to pass today, a power to not only branch in all 50 States, but to do checking in a business kind of way, something ILCs were not hitherto empowered to do. We will be giving five States in America the right to offer a charter with less regulation than 45 States. We will be putting an inequity in law that relates to this charter versus all others; and then we are going to be putting in a very intriguing way inequity between the charters, that is, those that have existed for a while will have more rights than those industrial loan companies that will be empowered later. I would only like to stress to my colleagues, because there is some misunderstanding here, that one of the theories of the grandfather is to block a particular institution from getting an industrial loan company charter with full powers, which by the way indicates that those full powers are very significant. That particular company is unpopular with some of its competitors in the financial services industry. It is unpopular with organized labor. So there is a grandfather provision against that company; but the intriguing aspect of it is, it is a very enfeebled grandfather provision. It is enfeebled because it gives the States the power of interpretation. There is no tie-in to Federal statute; and so any new company can get a new ILC charter, can buy an existing ILC charter. Then there are rules about changing control, but States have different change-of-control statutes. Some change of control is 25 percent ownership; some over 80 percent ownership. So a company can buy an existing charter and take on all the powers of an ILC under the pre- grandfather provisions, even though there appear to be in this statute certain restrictions, for example, that relate to a percentage that is financial in nature of their current operating business. All this is being interpreted by State government which has a vested interest to give charters rather than to stop charters because it means more jobs for their States. The history of the ILC is that they were small institutions until 1987 when Congress, without much forethought, exempted them from the Bank Holding Company Act; and so the largest ILC charter had been less than $400 million, now the largest is $60 billion, and there are eight above a billion in size. If we give ILCs all the powers contemplated in this bill, there will be a pell mell run to the ILC charter. This will sweep assets from 45 States to five States. It will breach commerce and banking in ways that have never been breached in modern day, and it will create great pressure to move grandfather dates and change existing statute in other ways because of the obvious inequities that will almost immediately develop within the ILC charter itself. So I would like to suggest to this body that this was something that could be handled very simply, credibly, and that is simply to put ILCs like most other financial institutions of any size under the Bank Holding Company Act; but because of insider power, that amendment was not even allowed to be considered on this floor, and I cannot tell my colleagues that it would have passed. I can tell my colleagues that Chairman Greenspan thinks it would be very important to the security of the United States and, in many different ways, not only due to the fact that American ILCs can operate without oversight of the holding company but foreign companies can have ILCs. So the FDIC, which is a very credible regulator, can look at the bank; but let us say a foreign company in Latin America or in Russia gets Utah to give them a charter. They create jobs in Utah. They could operate the bank credibly, but they could also be money laundering from their host company abroad, and so this is an invitation as a charter to greater money laundering. I frankly urge my colleagues to think twice; and, unfortunately, I am in a position of suggesting opposing the bill.

Mr. LEACH. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. LEACH. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman is, of course, correct in part of what he says on regulation. But the reason that ILCs were exempted from the Bank Holding Company Act was they did not have all the powers of a bank. Now they are being given all the powers of a bank and also want to stay exempt from the Bank Holding Company Act. What the Bank Holding Company Act says is that the parent of an ILC will be examined in a consolidated way, the way Europe is moving to, the same as the United States has attempted to establish in principle. But with this bill we make a breach in principle of profound dimensions. It is that examination of the bank holding company that is critical to an understanding of how you protect the taxpayer and how you protect the financial system. That is what is so important in this debate.

Mr. LEACH. If the gentleman will yield on that point, as the gentleman knows there is a profound difference between the Federal Reserve and the FDIC on this point. The Federal Reserve holds the exact opposite position. The Federal Reserve is what is in charge of the payment system, and by this bill we are allowing people access to the payment system without thorough oversight of the parent company. All I am asking is that ILCs come under the same national law as everybody else that operates as the equivalent of a full service bank, nothing less, nothing more. But it does have the effect of devaluing all other financial institution charters. That is a concern, although the principal concern is protection of the public purse. In that regard, I agree that the FDIC has a different position. But I only make one final point. Under the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, the effort was to have coordination of all the Federal banking regulators. Here you have one banking regulator that wants to operate outside coordination of all the others. In that regard, I have some concerns about FDIC judgment which I believe is driven by a desire to regulate a greater body of institutions. That is a personal view. Maybe they have other motives. I do not know. But I want Federal coordination. I want public protection to the maximum degree possible.

Mr. LEACH

Mr. LEACH. If the gentleman will yield on that point, I think the Congress ought to be made aware that under law only five States can have ILCs. One is Utah, one is California, with Utah being the dominant one. But to vote for this approach means that people from 45 other States are going to see their institutions disadvantaged and devalued based upon our empowering institutions that can only operate in five States. It is really a quirk in the law that ought to be thought through.

Mr. LEACH. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time, and let me just say that it is with the greatest sadness and discomfort that I rise in opposition to the rule, and because of the rule, I am also obligated to oppose, with every degree of intensity I can, the underlying bill. Let me explain what is happening before this House. The underlying bill is a bill that is a deregulatory bill. It is good in many ways for virtually every sector of the financial community in parts. It is not necessarily good in all parts for the public interest. Some of this bill I very much support. Other parts of it I very much object to. But embedded in the bill is a new empowerment, an empowerment that goes to a charter that virtually nobody in the public has ever heard of called industrial loan companies. Industrial loan companies will now be able to offer virtually every feature and service of a commercial bank, but they will be able to offer it without the protections to the public comparable to that authorized for commercial banks. What this implies is that we have a breach of what is called commerce and banking; that is, industrial loan companies can be owned by commercial entities. We also have a breach of standards of regulation that have come to be commonplace in the United States and now in Europe, what is called consolidated regulation. In America, we do this in the Federal banking statutes in which the Federal Reserve Board is the consolidated regulator of holding companies. What we have here is an exception to that rule. What it means, and I think this Congress should understand this, is that there are a number of problems that occur in banking now and again, or financial services. One relates to incompetence, and so you have regulatory authority. In this case, the FDIC will be a partial regulator of these institutions. Then you have a problem that relates to very sophisticated new instruments of finance, particularly those described as derivatives kinds of products. Historically these are the province of larger institutions. Now they are increasingly used by smaller institutions. Industrial loan companies used to be very small, mom-and-pop in the financial services industry kinds of institutions. None up to 1987 was as large as $400 million in assets. Most were under $50 million. Now we have one that is $60 billion and we have eight that are over $1 billion in size. It is becoming the obvious charter of choice to a lot of companies. But then let me also mention that you have a problem of criminality and criminalities of many kinds. It can be American-derived; it can be foreign-derived. One of the roles of the Federal Reserve of the United States is the gatekeeper to access to the American financial system, which is the Federal Reserve system, and what this statute will say is that the Federal Reserve system can be tapped by institutions, foreign or domestic, which the Federal Reserve will not have the power to regulate. And so if you take a Latin American bank, a Russian bank, if they get chartered by one of the five States allowed to authorize industrial loan companies, they will be able to tap into the payment system and to Federal deposit insurance and without Federal Reserve oversight. I will tell you, this is a scandal. It is nothing less. It is an embarrassment to the committee of jurisdiction; it is an embarrassment to the Committee on Rules. Because all I asked the Committee on Rules to do was allow a single, short amendment that simply said if the new powers under this act come to be applied, an institution would have to come under the Federal banking statutes, meaning Federal Reserve oversight of the holding company. But the fix was in. The power groupings did not want this to happen. I will say to you in my time in the United States Congress, this is the greatest microcosm evidence of special interest reasoning that does not even allow debate on this subject in an amendment on the House floor. I happen to be the senior member of the committee of jurisdiction, a former chairman. I consider it not particularly uncivil to me that I am not allowed to offer this amendment, but I consider it an embarrassment to the House that this issue cannot be debated on the most important banking bill that is going to be before this Congress this year. Just so that no one is under any disillusionment, I am not on a hare. Chairman Greenspan and the Federal Reserve could not feel stronger about an amendment. Mr. Speaker, we have seen in finance over the last decade some difficulties that have arisen. They have arisen because we have empowered the big without appropriate oversight. A legislative body really has a great deal of difficulty of understanding the subtleties of modern day finance. That is why we establish institutions in America that are designed to be the experts in this area. Most particularly we look in finance at very large levels, for example, in derivatives products, in money laundering, to holding company oversight to the Federal Reserve of the United States. This Congress is saying that we do not want to see that oversight. This Congress is saying in this bill that we want to loosen things up. Here let me go to the structure of the bill because we have an interesting grandfather provision. We will say some will have these powers. Others after given dates of incorporation will not. Part of this is derived from a desire among some to stem a particular institution to get certain powers. I am not against any single institution. I am for everyone coming under the same law of the United States. This puts inequality under the law between financial institutions, ILC versus others, and then between types of ILCs. It is really preposterous. All I am suggesting to this body is let us have evenness of law, let us have credible law to protect the public, and let us also recognize that when you make it easier for people to tie into the payment system that are foreign, you are inviting money laundering, among other things. You are inviting criminality. You are making it easier for the national security of the United States to be jeopardized. It is in that context that I would say to the committee of jurisdiction, I am deeply disappointed that this simple amendment could not be offered on this floor and, therefore, I must oppose this rule. I hesitate to oppose rules of my political party, but I have no option except to do so. I have to oppose the underlying bill even though there are a number of provisions in it that I strongly support. But this jeopardizes the United States public and the United States national security and I am deeply appalled.

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

Mr. LEACH. The gentleman is correct. The FDIC will regulate the depository institution but it cannot regulate the holding company. And what the Federal Reserve would do is regulate the holding company and would leave the FDIC as the primary regulator of the institution as it would be under the current law.

Mr. LEACH. If the gentleman will yield further, what is being established by this law is the notion that comparable institutions in 45 States will come under Federal law and in five States will not in a very significant area of Federal law and, that is, holding company regulation. That is really bizarre. We are saying five States will not operate under Federal law; 45 States will.

Mr. LEACH

Mr. LEACH. Mr. Speaker, the measure before us contains many consentaneous American thoughts: Recognition that Saddam was a despot of tyrannical proportions; support for a process of democratic self- governance in Iraq; and, profoundly, appreciation for the sacrifice and commitment of Americans serving in our armed forces in these very troubling, indeed dangerous, times. But as widely accepted as these notions are, care must be taken in this debate to underscore what this resolution is not. It cannot be read either as a Gulf of Tonkin-like resolution giving the Executive a blank check for future actions or considered an indication of Congressional approval of executive action to date. Many in Congress, perhaps a majority, would be willing to vote for a more expansive resolution, but such is not before us today. Nonetheless, the subject matter of this resolution necessitates a review of what has transpired since the Congress, without my support, authorized military intervention in Iraq a year and a half ago. All of us recognize that Iraq is a judgmental quagmire. Thoughtful Americans are conflicted. The President has a case for the actions he has taken. But I feel obliged to make clear why I continue not to find it compelling and indicate, in as constructive a way as I am able, the problems that a lengthy occupation may yield and present a theoretical framework and the case for timely disengagement. Perspective is difficult to apply to current events or for that matter life itself. But it is important to attempt to frame the discussion of the war in which we are engaged in relation to our history, to the development of knowledge (particularly science), and to our relations with other countries. First our history. In the broadest sense the political history of America has encompassed four great debates. The first was the question of whether a country could be established based on the rights of man. The second was about definitions: whether the concept of ``man'' included individuals who were neither male nor pale. It took over a century, a civil war and suffrage and civil rights movements to bring full meaning to the universal language of the Declaration of Independence. With courage and sacrifice Americans finally came together to embrace the democratic notion that consent of the governed lacked legitimacy unless all individuals of all backgrounds had rights of citizenship. The third debate is about opportunity, whether individual rights can be protected if every citizen doesn't have a fair crack at the American dream. There are many on-going elements of the opportunity debate, which in the 20th century was symbolized by the New Deal initiatives of Franklin Roosevelt and the counter-weight of the Reagan revolution. But I would like to emphasize an aspect of this debate which gets little attention because it is taken for granted, and that is the role of public education. All young Americans not only have access to public education, they are required by law to attend public schools or comparable alternatives. As society becomes more complicated, educational opportunity becomes increasingly central to advancing social opportunity. And as we look at the narrow schooling provided by madrasses abroad it becomes apparent that how and what others teach has relevance to the security of Americans at home. The fourth debate is symbolized by Hiroshima and Nagasaki and revolves around the question of whether any right can be valid if it is not underpinned by a right to peace. In these debates the role of foreign policy is critical, and even when we've looked inward it has been with an eye to establishing a shining city-state on a hill, a beacon for all. The greatest legislated act in American and perhaps human history is the Declaration of Independence. The universality of its principles constitutes the cornerstone of historic American idealism in foreign as well as domestic policy. As architect of the Declaration, Jefferson--while never a member of Congress--was our greatest legislator. And as the architect of the Louisiana Purchase, he stands as our greatest diplomat-president. The precept implicit in the Declaration and the Louisiana Purchase is the notion of individual rights and collective decision-making by a people entrusted with the capacity to make sovereign decisions. Jefferson was the philosophical godson of John Locke, who borrowed from Thomas Hobbes the 17th century paradigm of a state of Nature where, according to Hobbes, life was nasty, brutish and short. Hobbes had a pessimistic view of human nature. Self-centered man could not escape from the jungle of human relations. Locke, on the other hand, was an optimist. He also assumed that man was self- centered, but, unlike Hobbes, he believed that individuals were rational enough to recognize the necessity of accommodating the self- interest of others. Civil society--the condition where rules would govern disputes and third-party arbitration would exist--was thus possible as well as necessary. Whether or not the theoretical constructs that political philosophers relied on three centuries ago have relevance to real life on the planet, then or now, the progress of science has made man's efforts to protect the rights of individuals and society more difficult today. In one of the most profound social observations of the 20th century, Einstein noted that splitting the atom changed everything save our mode of thinking. Physics has brought us nuclear energy and perhaps a way to help live a modern life without reliance on fossil fuels. Biology has brought us the capacity to extend the life of man by several and perhaps many decades. But just as splitting the atom has a dark side--nuclear weapons--splitting genes has ominous implications, too--the ability to manufacture diseases for which there may be no antidote. Hence the obvious: at no time in human history is there a greater obligation for people in public life to appeal to the higher rather than lower angels of our nature. This is particularly the case as the world has smallened and friction between peoples has increased in economics, politics and, most profoundly, religion. Perhaps the most thoughtful speech ever given in Iowa was delivered four decades ago by the Oxford historian, Arnold Toynbee. A decade earlier, Winston Churchill chose a small Midwestern college in Fulton, Missouri, to warn of the dangers of Soviet expansionism; an ``Iron Curtain,'' he said, had descended on Eastern Europe. Toynbee picked Grinnell College to chastise Marxists for shallowly looking at history through the lens of economic determinism and Americans for assuming, in part because of the civil rights movement then underway, that the most contentious issues in the world related to race. Toynbee argued that at this stage in history conflict would more likely erupt because of religious differentiations than economic or racial ones. As we look at the Middle East, at Northern Ireland, at the Balkans, at the divisions between Pakistan and India, Toynbee's observation appears to be vindicated. Expanding on Toynbee, Samuel Huntington of Harvard has propounded a theory of international relations over the past several decades that suggests that the next great wars are less likely to represent battles between countries than clashes between various civilizations. Given Toynbee's predictions and Huntington's civilization-clash paradigm, it is appropriate to return to Jefferson, who at the public level strove assiduously to protect individual freedom of religion and at the private level believed that what mattered most was not nuanced differences between religions or denominations, but the moral threads common to all creeds. In terms of guides to individual behavior, it is impressive, for instance, that the Ten Commandments underpin Islam as well as Judaism and Christianity. And the Confucian doctrine of ``shu,'' which asserts that moral behavior should be premised on not doing unto others what one would not have done to oneself, is an inverted kind of Golden Rule. Despite the fact that history is rife with examples where religious differentiations have caused and intensified conflicts, there is no credible substitute for the constructive role of faith-based convictions. Conflict may be envisioned, but it can be constrained if individuals are taught the most esoteric of precepts: loving, or at least not hating, one's neighbor. Ironically, genocide, which is disproportionately a 20th century phenomenon, is about weapons of lesser lethality: machetes, bullets, poisonous gas. But if mankind can't prevent killing up close, the question must be pondered whether there can be any optimism that the world can avoid a cataclysmic exchange from afar of weapons of mass destruction, which would make the greatest crime of mankind to date, genocide, the second- to-last crime in human history. It is simply a short stop from genocide--the killing one at a time of millions--to ``global-cide''-- the end in a single stroke of all life on the planet. In recognition of the 20th century's experience with Holocaust and other brutal genocides, from Cambodia to Rwanda, we have no choice except to change our mode of thinking. Man's instinct to hate must be curbed and social wisdom applied to the new challenges science has thrown at man. In this context, I want to stress a second challenge of science that has nothing to do with war and arms making but is clearly the largest foreign policy issue of our day. It is the problem of disease. In Iraq more than 500 Americans and perhaps as many as 20,000 Iraqis have been killed in the past year. But over the last two decades 20 million people have died of AIDS and 40 million are infected with HIV. In Africa, Southeast Asia, and Southern Russia, AIDS has hurdled well beyond the groups considered most vulnerable in the U.S. In many countries children are infected through mothers at birth and in several countries a 15-year-old girl is far more likely to have the disease than a 15-year-old boy. We simply must expand resources to stop this disease abroad before it stops our families at home. Not that everything in the world is dark or unraveling. Promising political breakthroughs are occurring between India and Pakistan; in the civil war in Sri Lanka; in Libya, where Muammar Khaddafi may be giving up a quest for nuclear weapons; and even with North Korea, as six-party talks unfold. Several of these bits of good international news are developing without a central U.S. role; several will require our leadership. My only advice to the Executive is to meet every positive step of others with at least two steps of our own. Progressive change from suspect leaders cannot be sustained if peoples of various societies are not convinced that America prefers extending carrots to applying bullying tactics. We simply can't wait for tomorrow to respond to good omens today. This is especially true of a country like Libya where backsliding is so easy. It may be more difficult with the hermit country--North Korea--simply because paranoia and anti-Americanism run so irrationally deep in the people as well as the government. But constructive steps, especially of a humanitarian dimension, can be taken. Iowa also has brought some good news to the world. In January I attended the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and a Conference on the Prevention of Genocide in Stockholm, Sweden. In conversations with Europeans the depth of anti-American sentiment becomes quickly evident. But when asked what state I represent, I was impressed with the sincerity of the positive responses when I indicated I was from Iowa. Everyone knew of Iowa because of the caucuses. In Iowa the caucus process seems a bit mysterious. In other states it is very mysterious, and in Europe it is a full blown mystery. But people in Europe were deeply impressed that individuals seeking the most important political position in the world had to come to the homes and schools and offices of private citizens who, with real care, reviewed their credentials and platforms. For many years I have had reservations about the caucus system because the ballot is not secret and because participation is not as large as in a traditional primary. But I feel obligated to reconsider and, as a Republican, must tip my hat to the Iowa Democrats for the thoughtfulness with which they advanced American democracy and spotlighted our values for the world. Abroad, people followed but did not necessarily identify with the individual candidates, but everyone was impressed with the process and the care with which citizens carried out their duties. It is instructive to put the current tension in transatlantic relations in historical perspective. With regard to the profoundest issue--war and peace--attitudes on each side of the ocean have come full circle over the five centuries of interaction. The U.S. was founded by immigrants seeking refuge from religious persecution and a spate of seemingly senseless wars among European countries and principalities. The new Americans sought to distance themselves from the violence and religious intolerance of the Continent. It was with the greatest reluctance that in 1917 a pioneer country, which had been convulsed with the magnitude of a westward moving Manifest Destiny, determined that blocking a Kaiser's ambitions called for intervention in European affairs. In the wake of a war trumpeted to end all wars, America retreated into political isolation in the 1920's. After inspiring its creation, we refused to join the League of Nations; and after expanding trade in industrial and agricultural products, we succumbed to economic protectionism in the 1930's. Only a direct attack on our territory caused us to enter World War II. Today, it is Europe which is looking inward, pre-occupied with its manifest destiny, political integration made feasible by a growing economic union. Increasingly secular Europeans desire to separate themselves from an America that appears to them to be too unilateralist and quick to go to war, too fundamentalist and thus blind to tolerance, and too simplistic to realize that conflicts with religious overtones are the most traumatic to manage. When speaking to constituents of the rationale for and against the Iraq War, I have over the past couple of years referenced a set of books that held particular currency in the 1960's: the Alexandria Quartet by Lawrence Durrell. Each of the four books describes the same set of events in inter-war Egypt from the perspective of a different character. While the events are the same, the stories that unfold are profoundly different, causing the reader to recognize that one person's perspective is at best a snapshot of reality. A clear picture cannot be pieced together without looking through the lens of a multiplicity of eyes and experiences. The Moslem experience gives substantially less weight than the Western experience to the two cataclysmic wars of the 20th century. Despite Lawrence's involvement in Arabia and the battles between Allied forces and Rommel's tanks, the engagements in the Middle East and North Africa were skirmishes compared with the struggles in Europe and the Far East. Not only do Moslems see the 20th century differently from Westerners, but Europeans and Americans have drawn different strategic parallels in the application of common experience to current challenges in the Middle East. In the immediate aftermath of the First World War, historians and political strategists in Europe rightly concluded that the European alliance system had been too rigid and the assassination of a relatively minor figure, an archduke, should not have precipitated a war of such devastating consequences. Hence European leaders in the 1930's falsely concluded that historical wisdom necessitated initial accommodation with Hitler's adventurism. Too little flexibility caused one war; too little spine led to Munich. In the current context, President Bush sees himself as Churchill rather than Chamberlain, but Europeans see 9/11 as more analogous to the shots fired at Archduke Ferdinand than as a cause for a doctrine of preemption or war with Iraq, a war that could too easily spring into a clash of civilizations. Second guessing is always conjectural because history gives few second chances. Unlike football, downs aren't repeated. Accordingly, the challenge today on both sides of the Atlantic is to put debate about going to war behind and work together to figure out how we proceed from here. A lot of polite observations have been made that European leaders seem less angry about American decisions related to Iraq this year compared to the differences expressed during the pre- war buildup. This may appear that way on the surface, but my sense is that European judgment, if anything, is more solidified and definitive today. Europeans may have become resigned that events have unfolded without their concurrence. By the same token, frustration that their advice has been discounted has caused anti-American anger to metastasize into anti-American smugness. Europeans believe that their skepticism has been vindicated by events. The stark good-versus-evil clarity that Washington policy makers seek appears to Europeans to be un-nuanced, unsophisticated, and unappreciative of differing judgments. Americans countenance criticism of our President and his policies by fellow Americans, but we are not so tolerant of foreign dissent. The assumption in Washington is that Continental leaders deliberately sought to undercut U.S. leadership in the world community and that, in particular, the refusal of the French and Germans to support the President's position in the Security Council and NATO has made matters more dangerous for our troops and reconciliation more difficult in the current post-war setting. On our side of the Atlantic, the sense exists that French and German political judgment has not only been at variance with American ideas but that a concerted effort was made on the Continent to triangulate the terrorist challenge and take advantage of America's dilemma. By distancing themselves from Washington, Paris and Bonn are seen to be encouraging the re-direction of Moslem discord. Whereas the rhetoric of Osama Bin Laden and other extremists was initially anti-Western, it is now more exclusively anti-U.S. The opportunity to transplant America's commercial as well as political position in parts of the world consumed with anti-Americanism appears not to have been lost on the European political-industrial elite. With all of the attention given to the new transatlantic tensions, the implications of the Iraq war on Russia have received short shrift. But the new European antagonism to America has not gone unnoticed in Moscow. The cleavage between Washington and Europe and the preoccupation of America with the Middle East clearly give Putin a freer hand to advance a less democratic and more nationalistic set of policies at home. This is one reason why it is so important that America and NATO demonstrate then can work together in such areas as Afghanistan, where strategic common ground exists. Likewise, the priority we have given to Iraq as well as North Korea, two charter members of the so-called ``Axis of Evil,'' means that we have been implicitly forced to subordinate trade and human rights issues with China. China's support, or at least not opposition, in international strategic affairs, has become so central to Administration policy makers that Beijing has been able to downgrade U.S. concerns about the historic shifts taking place in trade terms. A Chinese trade surplus with the U.S. that now exceeds $10 billion a month and an undervalued currency pegged to the dollar that makes flexible trade adjustments impossible are simply not being given the attention they deserve. Economics and politics have seldom been more intertwined. Yet underappreciated is the prospect that a protectionist backlash of 1930's dimensions could develop if our political policies fail and our government loses respect in the world. Analogously, a political backlash could sweep the country if Washington doesn't develop institutional reforms to protect the political system from vulnerabilities to single-issue and special-interest constituencies. At a time when our foreign policy appears too attentive to ideological forces and too prone to rely on proxy empowered corporations to advance the national interest, Congress has an obligation to aggressively provide oversight of the contracting as well as intelligence judgments advanced by the Executive. Just as committees to review a new intelligence inadequacies are in order, so is a new committee to oversee government contracting related to operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The professionalism and integrity of government decision- making about issues of war and peace must be above reproach. The country can afford neither ideological posturing nor war profiteering. As for the dilemma of the moment, policy makers have been caught philosophically short. As mistaken as the overestimation of Saddam's WMD capacities was, the greater judgmental error may relate to the political pressure applied to the intelligence community on the issue of Iraqi complicity in the plane strikes on 9/11. Initially, the CIA straightforwardly noted that there was no credible evidence of Iraqi involvement. Then, under obvious pressure, it changed its stance and in presentation after presentation to Congress ominously suggested they had an ``evolving'' view of the role of Iraq, despite, to date, producing nothing of a definitive nature to show why the community changed its initial representation. Hence, the decision to go to war was against the backdrop of public opinion polls showing 60 percent of the American people believed significant Iraqi involvement existed in the 9/11 attack. Compounding this lack of forthrightness, where the intelligence community knew the situation but refused publicly to differ with the political decision makers, was a judgment showing doubtful understanding of Moslem attitudes. The notion that American forces would be welcomed in Iraq as a liberating force with the well- intentioned option to reshape over time Iraqi political institutions was a mistake of profound proportions. Now, given the anarchy that has mushroomed in the country, Washington is swept by occupation analogies of World War II. Japan and Germany, it is noted, were occupied for more than five years after hostilities ceased. Hence, many are suggesting, we must be prepared to stay at least this long in Iraq. I have seldom been more apprehensive about an historical analogy. Japan and Germany were the instigators of war; their citizens understood this. Iraqis don't see it this way. They see the U.S. as the aggressor. Images form Al-Jazeera portray a country under siege. In the Moslem world Iraq looks more like a police-cordoned West Bank than a great and ancient society on the move to a better life. Outsiders are viewed as unwanted intruders acting out of great power self-interest, unrespectful of the culture and values of the country being occupied. The irony that it is Shi'a clerics, not American statesmen, who are pushing for democratic elections at this time is not lost on the Iraqis or the Moslem world. More profoundly, I am amazed that pundits haven't caught on to the possibility that the only thing worse than being wrong in our intelligence assessments of Iraqi WMD would have been if we had been right and thereby taken the risk of precipitating a retaliatory BW attack against Israel or possibly an American city. Biological weapons in the control of petty potentates is mad science in the hands of mad men. To go to war against a country with BW weapons, especially if the initiator has no knowledge where they are, is to hazard more than a clash of civilizations; it is to instigate a potential challenge to the maintenance of civilization itself. In any regard, if a WMD rationale for intervention can't be established, we must not allow the democracy case to founder. To authorize an additional $80 billion for Iraq and not be able to find the means to conduct timely elections is preposterous. Legitimacy is critical for all countries. There may be times and circumstances in which the U.S. national interest requires action without a U.N. sanction. But the U.N. is ignored at great risk, especially when the international community is at odds with a nation state's policies. The U.N.'s help, for instance, could be significant at this point in facilitating elections and helping legitimize new governing structures. If a commitment to a time frame for democratic elections isn't soon forthcoming, the Administration may see an escalation of violence in Iraq led by the Shi'a in the South, thus adding to the traumas precipitated by Saddam's old henchmen and foreign trouble makers in the Sunni triangle to the north, where disorder is so prevalent today. The judgment call Washington must make is whether to employ something closer to a ``get in/get out'' strategy or one of prolonged occupation. Each approach caries risk, with the likelihood of a certain amount of disorder developing whenever the American presence is reduced. Whether that disorder becomes less deep with time or whether time allows anarchist forces to organize more vigorously and lay claim to a legitimizing nationalist mantle is conjectural. In the realm of policy timing can often be as important as substance. Just as Senator Dirksen once noted that a billion dollars here and a billion dollars there and pretty soon you're talking about real money, in foreign affairs a week here and a week there can soon add up to a policy dilemma. The difficulty of timing was underscored this week when some in Washington charged the newly elected Spanish Government with ``appeasement'' for its announced intention to withdraw its forces from Iraq in the wake of last week's bombings in Madrid unless the U.N. role in Iraq is broadened. The language of appeasement may appropriately describe the lack of resolve of Western leaders when they refused to stand up to Hitler's growing power in the 1930s, but it may not be as fair to apply such a term to Spanish policy today. Indeed, doing so may carry irresponsible implications because fear of its connotations may make disengagement more difficult if the country or forces of an occupying power are ever under attack. For instance, if ``appeasement'' is considered the dominant potential issue, U.S. policy makers relinquish their sovereign discretion and instead could give terrorists the determinative say when we will disengage from Iraq. A few radicals could with relative ease launch a steady dose of terrorist attacks on our civilian and armed services personnel and ``force'' us to stay or then be in a position to argue when we eventually leave that they forced us out. That is why it is so critical that we lay out a basis for withdrawal that has nothing to do with the terrorist behavior of Iraqi radicals and everything to do with the establishment of a freely elected leadership. On the issue of the timing of the hand-over of civil authority I give less judgmental weight in the Iraqi circumstance to historical analogies to the post-war occupation of Japan and Germany and more to a personal anecdote about the manner the Vietnam war came to be concluded. Early in my career in Congress, I was invited to the Library of Congress to join a small group of historians to listen to a lecture by Henry Kissinger about the negotiations that led to the end of that war. The night before the lecture, I perused one of Secretary Kissinger's autobiographic tomes and came across a paragraph that so startled me that I asked him about it in the seminar that followed the lecture. Kissinger wrote that in December 1968, shortly after Richard Nixon had asked him to be his National Security Council director, he met with the President-elect to discuss the direction of the new administration's foreign policy. They determined together, he noted, that their policy would be to get out of Vietnam. So I asked him why they didn't just proceed to do that. Kissinger looked at me for a moment and then uttered words I will never forget. ``Young man,'' he said, ``we meant with honor.'' I then asked him if ``honor'' required escalation. ``Absolutely,'' he responded. In governance, judgment to be good must be timely. The course of history and attitudes toward America would be very different today if the Nixon administration had acted forthrightly on its own judgment. In Iraq, where we are fast becoming a magnet of instability rather than a force of stability, we must not hesitate. If the issue is democracy, let's hold elections with dispatch and use the democratic transition as the rationalization for deep troop reductions. If we maintain a heavy presence much longer our president could find himself in a dilemma of the kind Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon came to know too well. There are circumstances in life where the small can humble the powerful. This has the makings of one. Despite the overwhelming nature of our military victory and the courageous commitment and sacrifice of our armed forces, policies can fail if the timing of disengagement is wrong. This is why clarity of purpose and flexibility of response are so crucial. And why the neo-con mantra--``we must see this through''-- deserves review. Hasty withdrawal is problemsome; orderly, philosophically cogent decisions to wind down the military dimension of our presence in Iraq should, however, be our highest national interest priority. Democratic elections are the key. They can be held in relatively short order (at least by year's end; preferably earlier) if there is a will and commitment to do so. But the longer we heed the advice of those who want to hold onto power in Iraq, the harder it will be to avert increased terrorism here and abroad. Here I would like to return to what in most contexts must be considered a rather esoteric paradigm: the Hobbesian notion of a state of nature. Terrorism is a military or, more precisely, militant tool of anarchy. It is the desire of terrorists to make Iraqi society a social jungle, a state of nature where anarchy rather than law rules. Legitimacy of government in this setting can perhaps be precipitated but it cannot be imposed from the outside. Outside pressure is less convincing when it appears to be presented by a singular authority-- i.e., the United States. One of the reasons so many countries prefer a strong U.N. role is that such a role not only provides greater legitimization of intervention but greater legitimization of processes leading to a new government. U.S. slighting of the U.N. undercuts governmental legitimizing efforts and causes the entirety of the Moslem world to become more antagonistic to our country. For our part, we have gotten caught in a web of events we can influence but not control. In the end, legitimacy of any new government in Iraq will depend on consent of the governed. The only wise U.S. policy is to steamroll ahead with a constitutional framework of democratic elections with a pre-announced strategy of large-scale troop withdrawals commencing somewhat before or just after elections are held. In conclusion, let me suggest a corollary to Lord Acton's maxim that power corrupts and absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely. The Leach corollary is that military power tempts and excessive power tends to tempt excessively. America's enormous military strength is critical at this stage in history. But while we are obligated to recognize that its maintenance is imperative, we must also realize that its utilization may not fit, and may indeed be counter-productive, in certain strategic settings. We have to use more than just our own eyes and rely on more that just our own expertise if in turbulent times we are to manage prudently the affairs of state. Analogies between all wars exist, but comparisons between Iraq and Vietnam are frail. What must be understood is not that Iraq could be as bad as Vietnam; rather, that it could be far worse. Vietnam, after all, involved no WMD issues; and while the North was predominantly Buddhist and the South Catholic, there were no implications of a world-wide religious struggle; nor of a conflict that might last many decades, if not centuries. The issue at the time was Communism and fear that if Vietnam fell, neighboring governments would topple like dominoes. In retrospect, the real domino lesson of Vietnam was about political decision-making. Once the patriotic flag was raised, stands taken, words uttered, one doubtful decision precipitated another, and the pride of politicians did not allow a change of course until the people demanded common sense reconsideration. In this context, there is an aspect of this resolution that deserves reflective review. It is true, as the resolution asserts, that Iraq and the world are better off without Saddam Hussein ensconced in power. But it is not necessarily true that our country and the world are safer if the overthrow of one thug leads to the creation of millions of rebels with a cause. It would be a mistake of historical proportions if respectful relations not only between America and the Moslem world but between America and its traditional allies were to rupture. We are obligated to see that they don't.

Mr. LEACH

Mr. LEACH. Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the concurrent resolution (H. Con. Res. 15) commending India on its celebration of Republic Day.

Mr. LEACH. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H. Con. Res. 15.

Mr. LEACH. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, I rise in support of House Concurrent Resolution 15, a measure commending India on its Republic Day and reiterating congressional support for continued strong relations between India and the United States. This thoughtful concurrent resolution was introduced by the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Wilson), the distinguished head of the Indian Caucus, and our colleague on the Committee on International Relations, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Crowley). It was considered and adopted without amendment by the committee on February 25. As Members are aware, in recent years the relationship between the United States and India has been fundamentally transformed in exceptionally positive ways. Thankfully, the time has long since passed when it could be said that India and America are democracies estranged. Instead, in recognition both of the end of the Cold War and India's embrace of market economics, our two great countries have not only rediscovered each other but developed a remarkable degree of amity and rapport. The United States/India political relationship is rapidly maturing. We are having regular meetings at the highest levels of government. At the summit in Washington in November 2001, President Bush and Prime Minister Vajpayee articulated their vision of the relationship our countries should enjoy. The prime minister insightfully described it as a natural partnership. Our deepening government-to-government relationship is complemented by a rich mosaic of expanding people-to-people ties. In many ways, the more than 2 million Indian Americans in the United States have become a living bridge between our two great democracies, bringing together our two peoples, as well as greatly enlarging the United States' understanding of India and Indian understanding of the United States. In short, this timely resolution appropriately honors the world's largest democracy, a country with which the United States is enjoying increasingly warm ties and a people for whom Americans have a great and enduring affection. I urge the adoption of this resolution. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. LEACH. Madam Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Wilson), the chairman of the India Caucus.

Mr. LEACH. Madam Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from California (Mr. Royce) who is a member of the Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific, chairman emeritus of the India Caucus, as well as a leader in Congress on many Asian issues.

Mr. LEACH

Mr. LEACH. Mr. Speaker, I offer a resolution (H. Res. 553) and I ask unanimous consent for its immediate consideration.