Jim McDermott

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to speak out of turn.

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, on November 7 the American people will go to the polls. As the New York Times reported this morning, only one in four Americans approves of the job being done by the Republican- controlled Congress. Seventy-five percent of American believes that Republicans have not governed in the best interests of the American people. That is a landslide vote of no confidence to the Republican Party, and I will include for the Record the New York Times story found on page 1. The American people have given up on the Republican Party because the Republican Party has given in to special interests. The Republican vision for America is to let the privileged few run the country. That's what the record demonstrates. As incredible as it is, the American people today are subsidizing oil companies. Democrats introduced legislation months ago to end the taxpayers' subsidy, but Republicans will not even debate it. At a time when the American people are paying $3 a gallon for gas, they are paying even more to Big Oil in taxpayers' subsidies. Republicans are out of touch with the American people. Their taxpayer subsidy pipeline flows your money to Big Oil. So does the doughnut hole that the elderly are beginning to fall through because Republicans care more about drug companies than they do about the American elderly. A report released by the House Ways and Means Committee Democrats concludes that 88 percent of seniors who bought a drug plan through Medicare bought one with a big financial hole in it, dug by Republicans. We are talking about 7 million seniors. Within a month, they will have to pay their drug bill even as they continue their insurance premium to big business. Under Republican rules, special interests got special treatment and the seniors fell in the hole. The Republicans have left no special interest behind. College tuition is up 57 percent at public universities since President Bush took office. What did the Republican- controlled Congress do for the middle class? They passed legislation cutting $12 billion in student aid, and they raised the interest rates on student loans. Republicans also passed sweetheart rules to indenture the American people to banks after personal bankruptcy. It is worth noting that the number one reason for personal bankruptcy in America today is staggering, unpaid medical expenses. What have the Republicans done? They have allowed the number of uninsured in this country to swell to almost 47 million people. They gave the rich a tax cut, called health savings accounts, out of reach for most Americans. Out of reach, out of touch. The Republican Party caters to the top 1 percent. The Republicans gave the superrich on average $100,000 a year in tax breaks while the average American gets 50 bucks. Then the Republicans held hostage the Democrats' proposal to raise the minimum wage for the first time in 9 years. They do not care about workers. And while Republicans talk a lot about being afraid, they fail to protect the American people by implementing the recommendations of the bipartisan 9/11 Commission. Republicans spend more effort instilling fear in the Americans than they do in fighting the war on terror. The President unilaterally chooses which laws he will enforce and which laws he just suspends. The President considers Syria our enemy, but his administration used flimsy Canadian intelligence to deport a Canadian citizen to Syria, where he was tortured. The man was innocent. Colin Powell, the former Republican Secretary of State for Mr. Bush, said, ``The world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism.'' This President answers to no one because congressional Republicans have surrendered oversight to the White House. So it should come as no surprise that the Republicans decided to erect a security fence throughout America, separating millions of Americans from their constitutional right to vote. They did it yesterday. Some say Republicans have given America a do-nothing Congress. But the record shows that the Republicans have done one thing after another over and over again. They have sold out the American people to the special interests. And payback is coming on the 7th of November. The American people will have an opportunity to change and reach for new directions where we will take care of student loans. We will take care of health care. We will take care of security. We will take care of the things that the middle class in this country wants taken care of, not the 1 percent at the top. [From the New York Times, Sept. 21, 2006] Only 25 Percent in Poll Approve of the Congress (By Adam Nagourney and Janet Elder) With barely seven weeks until the midterm elections, Americans have an overwhelmingly negative view of the Republican-controlled Congress, with substantial majorities saying that they disapprove of the job it is doing and that its members do not deserve re-election, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll. The disdain for Congress is as intense as it has been since 1994, when Republicans captured 52 seats to end 40 years of Democratic control of the House and retook the Senate as well. It underlines the challenge the Republican Party faces in trying to hold on to power in the face of a surge in anti- incumbent sentiment. By broad margins, respondents said that members of Congress were too tied to special interests and that they did not understand the needs and problems of average Americans. Two- thirds said Congress had accomplished less than it typically did in a two-year session; most said they could not name a single major piece of legislation that cleared this Congress. Just 25 percent said they approved of the way Congress was doing its job. But for all the clear dissatisfaction with the 109th Congress, 39 percent of respondents said their own representative deserved re-election, compared with 48 percent who said it was time for someone new. What is more, it seems highly unlikely Democrats will experience a sweep similar to the one Republicans experienced in 1994. Most analysts judge only about 40 House seats to be in play at the moment, compared with over 100 seats in play at this point 12 years ago, in large part because redistricting has created more safe seats for both parties. The poll also found that President Bush had not improved his own or his party's standing through his intense campaign of speeches and events surrounding the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. The speeches were at the heart of a Republican strategy to thrust national security to the forefront in the fall elections. Mr. Bush's job approval rating was 37 percent in the poll, virtually unchanged from the last Times/CBS News poll, in August. On the issue that has been a bulwark for Mr. Bush, 54 percent said they approved of the way he was managing the effort to combat terrorists, again unchanged from last month, though up from this spring. Republicans continued to hold a slight edge over Democrats on which party was better at dealing with terrorism, though that edge did not grow since last month despite Mr. Bush's flurry of speeches on national security, including one from the Oval Office on the night of Sept. 11. But the Times/CBS News poll found a slight increase in the percentage of Americans who said they approved of the way Mr. Bush had handled the war in Iraq, to 36 percent from 30 percent. The results also suggest that after bottoming out this spring, Mr. Bush's approval ratings on the economy and foreign policy have returned to their levels of about a year ago, both at 37 percent. The number of people who called terrorism the most important issue facing the country doubled to 14 percent, from 7 percent in July; 22 percent named the war in Iraq as their top concern, little changed from July. Across the board, the poll found marked disenchantment with Congress, highlighting the opportunity Democrats see to make the argument for a change in leadership and to make the election a national referendum on the performance of a Republican-controlled Congress and Mr. Bush's tenure. In one striking finding, 77 percent of respondents-- including 65 percent of Republicans--said most members of Congress had not done a good enough job to deserve re- election and that it was time to give new people a chance. That is the highest number of voters saying it is ``time for new people'' since the fall of 1994. ``You get some people in there, and they're in there forever,'' said Jan Weaver, of Aberdeen, S.D., who described herself as a Republican voter, in a follow-up interview. ``They're so out of touch with reality.'' In the poll, 50 percent said they would support a Democrat in the fall Congressional elections, compared with 35 percent who said they would support a Republican. But the poll found that Democrats continued to struggle to offer a strong case for turning government control over to them; only 38 percent said the Democrats had a clear plan for how they would run the country, compared with 45 percent who said the Republicans had offered a clear plan. Overall discontent with Congress or Washington does not necessarily signify how people will vote when they see the familiar name of their member of Congress on the ballot, however. Democrats face substantial institutional obstacles in trying to repeat what Republicans accomplished in 1994, including a Republican financial advantage and the fact that far fewer seats are in play. Thus, while 61 percent of respondents said they disapproved of the way Congress was handling its job, just 29 percent said they disapproved of the way their own ``representative is handling his or her job.'' The New York Times/CBS News poll began last Friday, four days after the commemoration of the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, and two weeks after the White House began its offensive on security issues. A USA Today-Gallup Poll published Tuesday reported that Mr. Bush's job approval rating had jumped to 44 percent from 39 percent. The questioning in that poll went through Sunday; The Times and CBS completed questioning Tuesday night. Presidential addresses often produce shifts in public opinion that tend to be transitory. The nationwide poll was conducted by telephone Friday through Tuesday. It included 1,131 adults, of whom 1,007 said they were registered to vote, and had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points. As part of the Republican effort to gain advantage on the war in Iraq, Republicans have accused Democrats who want to set a timetable for leaving Iraq of wanting to ``cut and run.'' But 52 percent of respondents said they would not think the United States had lost the war if it withdrew its troops from Iraq today. The poll also found indications that voters were unusually intrigued by this midterm election: 43 percent said they were more enthusiastic than usual about voting. However, with turnout promising to be a critical factor in many of the closer Senate and House races, there was no sign that either party had an edge in terms of voter enthusiasm. Evidence of the antipathy toward Congress in particular-- and Washington in general--was abundant: 71 percent said they did not trust the government to do what is right. ``If they had new blood, then the people that influence them--the lobbyists--would maybe not be so influential,'' said Norma Scranton, a Republican from Thedford, Neb., in a follow-up interview after the poll. ``They don't have our interest at heart because they're influenced by these lobbyists. If they were new, maybe they would try to please their constituents a little better. `` Lois Thurber, a Republican from Axtell, Neb., said in a follow-up interview: ``There's so much bickering, so much disagreement--they just can't get together on certain issues. ``They're kind of more worried about themselves than they are about the country.'' Incumbents and challengers nationwide are trying to accommodate this sour mood. Democrats are presenting themselves as a fresh start--``Isn't it time for a change?'' asked an advertisement by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee directed against Senator Jim Talent, Republican of Missouri. And Republican incumbents are seeking to distance themselves from fellow Republicans in Washington. ``I've gone against the president and the Republican leadership when I think they are wrong,'' Representative Christopher Shays, a Connecticut Republican locked in a tough reelection battle, said in a television advertisement broadcast this week. The Republicans continue to be seen as the better party to deal with terrorism, but by nowhere near the margin they once enjoyed: it is now 42 percent to 37 percent. When asked which party took the threat of terrorism more seriously, 69 percent said they both did; 22 percent named Republicans, compared with 6 percent who said Democrats. Voters said Democrats were more likely to tell the truth than Republicans when discussing the war in Iraq and about the actual threat of terrorism. And 59 percent of respondents said Mr. Bush was hiding something when he talked about how things were going in Iraq; an additional 25 percent said he was mostly lying when talking about the war. Not that Democrats should draw any solace from that: 71 percent of respondents said Democrats in Congress were hiding something when they talked about how well things were going in Iraq, while 13 percent said they were mostly lying. Robert Allen, a Democrat from Ventura, Calif., said: ``We're in a stalemate right now. They're not getting hardly anything done.'' He added, ``It's time to elect a whole new bunch so they can do something.''

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, the Republicans are so concerned about their own hides that today they voted to fence off the U.S. Constitution from the American people. There is nothing to do with borders between the U.S. and Mexico or between the U.S. and Canada. It has everything to do with the Republican Party fencing out ordinary Americans from participating in their own government. Why let everyone vote when they might actually vote for the Democrat or for the independent? Democracy is messy for the Republican Party these days, so they are going to short-circuit the process. Who needs to stay up late to watch the vote returns or worry about exit polls, when Republicans have come up with a plan to deny 7 million ordinary Americans the right to vote? Of course, they have targeted people they don't think will vote Republican: the disadvantaged, the disabled, the elderly, Native Americans, among others. Republicans like to say they are spreading democracy around the world. Here at home, they are using this bill to disenfranchise American people. Republicans have created a nonexistent crisis because their right- wing base is unhappy and in need of attention. Today the Republicans moved to solve a crisis they created. They want everyone to have an official government-issued photo ID before they could vote. So much for that Republican line about getting the Federal Government out of our lives. The Republicans want the Federal Government in your face, snapping pictures. Before you could vote, you would have to produce an official government-issued photo ID. A passport would work. You know, that is the kind of document that the rich have, because they take vacations in other countries. The poor don't take vacations at all. No passport, no vote. No problem for Republicans. Of course, the Republicans will rush to the podium over here to say that you can use your driver's license. They will not tell you that the National Commission on Federal Election Reform in 2001 estimated that up to 10 percent of Americans eligible to vote do not have official State photo ID, like a driver's license; no photo ID, no vote, no problem for Republicans. Now, in Georgia and Missouri, they tried this. It was thrown out in court. So today we do it at the national level. We are going to do it for everybody. They will be delighted if ordinary Americans stay home on election day. In fact, they would be relieved. They know that this bill will encourage it. That is why Republicans are behind it 150 percent. It is the latest step in the Republican strategy to hold on to power in the election of 2006, even if they have to dismantle the democracy to do it. They passed the Help America Vote Act, and then amended it to become the Help Republicans Stay in Power Act by underfunding the legislation. They said they were helping, but they put no money out there. It is reminiscent of Florida in 2000. Republicans are building a border fence inside our borders to keep the American people out of participating in their own government. This bill will prevent millions of people from casting a ballot, exactly what the Republicans want. Republicans want to replace the fundamental right in America, the government of the people, by the people and for the people with something else: government of the few, by the privileged and for the rich. This is the creed of the Republican 1 percent Party. The President of the League of Women Voters, Mary Wilson said, ``This is an attempt to politicize the voting process by erecting barriers to keep many eligible legal voters from participating. Congress should not be playing politics with our right to vote,'' closed quote. Yet the Republicans are hijacking the right to vote of an ordinary Americans. Why? Because they are afraid of losing power and afraid they can't scare the American people into submission any longer. Letting every eligible American vote means the American people might actually choose the person they want. That is something Republicans find truly frightening, so they are building a fence to keep the Americans out of America. But the fence won't go up in this bill till 2008, so the American people have a mid- term election ahead. You know what they are up to. You know what they want to do. But you have a chance to vote, still, everybody has a chance to vote, and the people can vote and protect their right to vote by voting against people who will put up this kind of legislation. We saw in 2000 the efforts to keep people away in indirect ways. This is a direct shot at Americans' right to vote.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Hastings).

Mr. McDERMOTT. I have 8 minutes. And my opponent?

Mr. McDERMOTT. Do we have the right to close?

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Republicans want to erect a fence around the right of the American people to vote. They have offered a bill that will restrict voting rights for Americans. In effect, the Republicans are trying to dilute the fundamental rights guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution. It fits right in with the Republican effort to suspend those rights they find inconvenient. The president of the League of Women Voters, don't take my word, Mary Wilson summed it up this way: ``This is an attempt to politicize the voting process by erecting barriers to keep many eligible legal voters from participating. Congress should not be playing politics with our right to vote.'' Yet this is exactly what Republicans are doing, creating a nonexistent problem to appeal to their base. This is basically a PR opportunity just before the election. Just yesterday, millions of Americans across the country voted, including those in my State, and today there is not a single story anywhere in this Nation about noncitizens voting illegally. In fact, last week, the circuit court in Missouri threw out the Harmful ID law, the real name of what Republicans are trying to give us. Republicans have the superrich, so they would like to disenfranchise everyone else, anybody who doesn't have a photo ID, Native Americans, the elderly, the disabled, people who don't have a birth certificate. They fear what happens when every eligible American gets to vote. Democrats believe that the Constitution is worth protecting. We surely wish that the Republicans would start spreading democracy in all of America, not just those who have a photo ID. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to section 426 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, I make a point of order against consideration of the rule, H. Res. 1015. Section 425 of the same act states that a point of order lies against the legislation which, number one, imposes an unfunded mandate in excess of the annual amount specified in that section against State or local governments; or two, does not publish prior to floor consideration a CBO estimate of any unfunded mandates in excess of the amounts specified annually for State and local entities or in excess of the amount specified annually for the private sector. Section 426 of the Budget Act specifically states that the Rules Committee may not waive this point of order. On page 1, line 2, and on page 2, line 1, of H. Res. 1015, all points of order are waived against consideration of H.R. 4844, the Federal Election Integrity Act of 2006. Therefore, I make a point of order that this rule may not be considered pursuant to section 426.

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I know the gentleman from Michigan, and he is an honorable man, but he is standing out here trying to sell snake oil to the U.S. Congress. This speech just given by the gentleman from Florida about the Help America Vote Act is living proof of the fact that this place promises all kinds of stuff and then doesn't deliver to the local government. We could spend a long time talking about the Leave No Child Behind Act. Over and over, after all that showboating you did when you took over the Congress about we're not going to have any more of those unfunded mandates, and then you come out here again and again and again, and you stick the States and the local governments with the cost. Now, if it doesn't make any difference to the Republicans that the State and local government are going to have a problem, it ought to worry them that 7 million people are affected. That is the estimate by the League of Women Voters about the people who will be affected by this bill. You don't worry about people who get on airplanes. All of us are rich. We've got money to fly on an airplane. There are 7 million people that don't go to the airport every week and have to show a photo ID. We get one given to us here in the Congress for free. None of us paid for that thing. And we show it. Our driver's license. We don't pay for the photo ID. We pay for the right to use the roads of our State. The fact is that there are millions of people in this country who you are going to make a serious problem for, and the States are either going to have to say you can't vote because you don't have a photo ID, or they are going to have to pay for it. And to count on you, the Republican appropriators, when you are wasting $400 billion in Iraq, to come up with even what is really a small amount of money, $77 million or $100 million or whatever the number is, it's not very much, is really betting on the tooth fairy. Now, I believe that the constitutional right to vote is preeminent. Everybody should have a right to it. Every year in Seattle, we bring in about 500 new immigrants on election day, or on the Fourth of July, and we send them up to register with the League of Women Voters because we tell them the most important thing in this country is to vote, that that is how you exercise your American rights. And now you want to erect a barrier. Thank God for the courts in Missouri who threw out the Missouri law; but that is not good enough for you guys. You say, oh, no, Missouri didn't write it right. We will write it so we will get them. We will get everybody in the country. The elections in this country have hung on a very few number of votes, and to eliminate 7 million people from the opportunity to vote because they don't have a photo ID and put it in the loving hands of State governments and county governments to make sure that they have what is necessary is to limit their right to vote. You show me one bit of evidence that somebody has illegally voted, because you haven't shown that. I believe that in reality you are really only trying to protect your own grip on power in this House by making it harder for ordinary Americans to have a say in who leads this country. In 2001, the National Commission on Federal Election Reform estimated that up to 10 percent of those eligible to vote do not have official State identification like a driver's license. Now these are people without cars, including the disadvantaged. Republicans are willing to leave those people behind. I am sorry if you can't drive a car and don't have a driver's license, your State is not going to have the money to pay for it. Where are they going to get it? They will take it out of the TANF program, or the schools, or somewhere. You can count on them to do that. That is what you are saying. Instead of finding ways to ensure that every American has a right to vote, the Republicans want to build a fence so it is harder and harder to get to the polls. Republicans would like you to believe that illegal aliens are a danger to the American political process, that they are sneaking in through the borders and then they are sneaking up to the polls and they are casting their ballots and are electing--come on, that is the fear tactic again. It is the fear tactic that you use over and over on the American people, and that is all this bill is about: the fear tactic. We are coming up to an election. The real danger is if the Republicans could put a fence around the Constitution, letting in their friends and keeping everybody else out. And it is not about protecting the right to vote, it is about subverting the right to vote for non- Republican Americans perhaps, people who they think won't vote for them. Why would the poor people vote for the 1 percent party, the party of the rich? We know what this is all about. People just don't want to say it straight out, but it is really going after those people least able to defend themselves in our society casting their vote. The vision of the Republicans is if you don't vote Republican, they want to make sure you don't vote at all. They don't want you to vote. Democrats will never stop fighting to protect the rights of people to vote, to run their government, even when they choose you. A democracy requires allowing everybody to have a chance to vote, even when I might say they made a mistake here and there. But nevertheless, they have a right to vote. This bill is a sham. It is a PR piece and it doesn't belong in a Nation governed by all of the people.

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, could you tell us how much time has been used on both sides?

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, President Bush and the congressional Republicans are failing America's middle class again. This is nothing new. Millions of Americans are struggling paycheck to paycheck, and falling deeper in debt. Under Republican rule, the rich are getting much richer, while the middle class are helpless to stop the decline in their purchasing power. America's companies are recording their best profits in over four decades, while wages remain stagnant for the overwhelming majority of middle-class workers. Workers are behind those record corporate profits, but the workers are left behind sharing the gains. The middle class deserves a pay raise, but Washington Republicans pay no attention to the needs of real Americans. They can't raise the minimum wage. They are too busy working for the rich. For 5 straight years, Republicans have said to the middle class, You don't count. We have got rising college costs, skyrocketing health care costs, crippling energy costs, but no help from the Republicans. The Democrats offer a new direction for America. Democrats will restore economic opportunity and economic stability for the forgotten middle class. In November, the middle class is going to get taken care of by the new direction of the Democrats.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Madam Speaker, the Iraq war is doing badly, and the President would like the American people to think about something else. With less than 2 months until the mid-term elections, the Republicans suddenly fear the democracy they claim to be spreading. A commentary in today's Asia Times sums it up. The article is entitled, ``Iraq, Trying to Spin the Unspinnable.'' Let me briefly quote from it: ``The power of spin is not infinite; however, as the administration is now discovering, bad news has cascaded out of Iraq at such an astonishing pace that it defies credulity to suggest that the war has not drastically worsened the lives of Iraqis.'' American soldiers have been fighting and dying in Iraq for years to prop up the same flawed and failed policy by the President who cannot win the war, cannot win the peace, and cannot lead the United States out of harm's way. The President says stay the course, and Republicans in the Congress refuse to say or do anything independent of the President. No oversight, just blind allegiance. The number of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq stands at 2,678. Every day in Iraq, on average of two more soldiers die. The number of U.S. soldiers injured in Iraq recently passed another grim statistic, 20,000 physical injuries. Every day in Iraq, 19 U.S. soldiers on average are injured as they try to survive in the middle of a civil war. And we have not yet begun to count the number of U.S. psychological casualties, the soldiers with PTSD. That could be another 20,000 to 30,000 from PTSD alone. But nothing will change as long as the President has a Republican Congress rubber-stamping his vision. Even Iraqi leaders and parliament get it. Just yesterday, Abdel al-Anisi, a member of the largest party in Maliki's government said, ``We have to determine the nature of our relationship with the Multinational Forces in Iraq, which is to support the role of the government, not to take over its role.'' We are seen as occupiers in Iraq trying to control their oil and trying to dictate their policies, and our presence provokes more violence. The President would like you to believe that terrorism is a new threat in a new century. The only new thing about the latest threat is how the President has mismanaged our response. Had Republicans in Congress provided any Iraq oversight, the truth would have emerged and we would have changed the course. But the Republican congressional leaders demand acquiescence by their members, so the President's flawed war just keeps getting worse. Throughout history, nations in the East and nations in the West have faced the threat of terrorism. A new book entitled, ``What Terrorists Want: Understanding the Enemy, Containing the Threat,'' by Louise Richardson, ought to be required reading for Republicans. The author analyzes history to show us that terrorists want three Rs: revenge, renown, and reaction. She doesn't stop there. The second half of the book is called ``The Counter-Terrorists.'' Armed with understanding, not rhetoric, not ideology, the author provides insights into successfully dealing with the terrorists. If only our President would listen. If only Republicans in Congress would demand the President stop the rhetoric and face the reality. But that can't happen as long as the special interests receive special treatment by the Republicans. Another new book, ``Imperial Life in the Emerald City,'' by a Washington Post reporter, offers a sobering assessment of the extent to which favors meant more than credentials in Iraq. I submit for printing in the Record a story published yesterday in the Christian Science Monitor entitled, ``Mistakes Made by U.S. in Staffing Iraq? The new book alleges it wasn't what but who you knew that determined who got the key jobs.'' As the newspaper story recounts, before anyone could go to Iraq, they were vetted by a Republican political appointee and his staff in the Pentagon who, quoted here, posed blunt questions to some candidates about domestic politics: Did you vote for George Bush in 2000? Do you support the way the President is fighting the war on terror? Two people who sought jobs with the U.S. occupation said they were even asked about Rowe v. Wade. The President sent a 24-year-old over there to open the stock market. That is how the President is running the Iraq war. The congressional Republicans are doing just as they are ordered. Over the next 7 weeks, the Republicans will offer the American people endless rhetoric. But that will only produce endless casualties until we replace a Republican Congress that merely takes orders. We have to have a Democratic Congress that is willing to provide oversight on what this President is doing. Election is about 50 days away, Mr. President. [From the Christian Science Monitor, Sept. 19, 2006] Mistakes Made by US in Staffing Iraq? New book alleges it wasn't what, but who, you knew that determined key jobs (By Tom Regan) In the early days after the fall of Baghdad in 2003, many Americans both inside and outside the government indicated a desire to go to Iraq to help with the war effort. But a new book by Washington Post reporter Rajiv Chandrasekaran, ``Imperial Life in the Emerald City,'' argues that ties to the Bush administration or to the Republican Party regularly trumped years of experience or knowledge in a particular field when key jobs were being assigned. The result, Mr. Chandrasekaran writes, is that under the leadership of L. Paul Bremer, the first administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority, many inexperienced or unqualified people were given key posts in the rebuilding of Iraq, and often found themselves in situations they could not handle. Before anyone could go to Baghdad, Chandrasekaran (who had spent six months in Iraq before the war started in March 2003, and then was the Post's Baghdad bureau chief from April 2003 to October 2004) reports, they first had to go through the office of Jim O'Beirne in the Pentagon. To pass muster with O'Beirne, a political appointee who screens prospective political appointees for Defense Department posts, applicants didn't need to be experts in the Middle East or in post-conflict reconstruction. What seemed most important was loyalty to the Bush administration. O'Beirne's staff posed blunt questions to some candidates about domestic politics: Did you vote for George W. Bush in 2000? Do you support the way the president is fighting the war on terror? Two people who sought jobs with the US occupation authority said they were even asked their views on Roe v. Wade. The result, Chandrasekaran says, was that officials in many key areas, ``lacked vital skills and experience.'' Many people involved in the effort to rebuild and stabilize Iraq now see this decision making process as ``one of the Bush administration's gravest errors.'' ``We didn't tap--and it should have started from the White House on down--just didn't tap the right people to do this job,'' said Frederick Smith, who served as the deputy director of the CPA's Washington office. ``It was a tough, tough job. Instead we got people who went out there because of their political leanings . . .'' One former CPA employee who had an office near O'Beirne's wrote an e-mail to a friend describing the recruitment process: ``I watched resumes of immensely talented individuals who had sought out CPA to help the country thrown in the trash because their adherence to `the President's vision for Iraq' (a frequently heard phrase at CPA) was `uncertain.' I saw senior civil servants from agencies like Treasury, Energy . . . and Commerce denied advisory positions in Baghdad that were instead handed to prominent RNC (Republican National Committee) contributors.'' In a review of the book in The Washington Post, Moses Naim, editor in chief of Foreign Policy magazine, writes that while common wisdom holds that ``the decision to invade Iraq and topple Saddam Hussein is still open to debate, American mismanagement of the country after the invasion is not.'' What caused the massive collapse of common sense that doomed the CPA and undermined the US gamble in Iraq? That is the question that every page tacitly forces on the reader. American ingenuity, pragmatism and practical approaches to problem-solving are legendary. But Chandrasekaran shows that what reigned in Iraq was massive incompetence, patently unfeasible schemes, naive expectations and arrogance fueled by ignorance. His book methodically documents the baffling ineptitude that dominated US attempts to influence Iraq's fiendish politics, rebuild the electrical grid, privatize the economy, run the oil industry, recruit expert staff or instill a modicum of normalcy to the lives of Iraqis. Nor are the book's complaints Monday-morning quarterbacking. The CPA's failings caused widespread grumbling at the time. Chandrasekaran tells of a message board on which some Marines had drawn a gravestone inscribed with the words ``COMMON SENSE.'' The caption underneath it read: ``Killed by the

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, the Republicans gave us their November 7 resolution last night. Five years ago, the Nation stood as one, but the Republicans have divided us ever since. They believe dividing America is the best hope for clinging to power in the November election. They can pass self-congratulatory resolutions that have more to do with November 7 than September 11, but patting themselves on the back is no substitute for protecting the American people by adopting the recommendations of the bipartisan 9/11 Commission. Republicans have not done that. Instead, Republicans have been ordered by the President to continue his fiction that Iraq and al Qaeda were connected. The evidence proves otherwise, so Republican leaders are trying to hide the evidence beneath their rhetoric. Just remember this: Republicans have propped up this President by spending more on the Iraq war than on domestic security. Republicans have given us fear and fiction around the fifth anniversary of 9/11. Just imagine what they have in store for us in the next weeks. Fear has never made America safer, but that is all the Republicans have to offer, and that is simply not enough to protect and defend America in the 21st century.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, What a week this has been. It began on Sunday when the President dispatched his Secretary of State and Vice President to the Sunday talk-shows to re-create the Administration's fiction that Iraq and al-Qaeda were connected. Their appearances came shortly after the Republican controlled Senate Intelligence Committee told the American people in a bi-partisan report that there were no ties between Iraq and al-Qaeda. No Ties. But, the Secretary of State and Vice President wouldn't let the facts stand in the way. In appearance after appearance, they kept telling the American people to be afraid, to believe their fiction about Iraq. The truth affirmed--again--that there was no national security interest served by invading Iraq. The President diverted the nation from Afghanistan and the hunt for bin Laden. And, the President diluted our resources by continuing to commit manpower and money to the wrong place, at the wrong time, without a national security priority. Instead of leading America back to the front line of the war on terror, the President continues to push America deeper into a civil war in Iraq. The fifth anniversary of 9/11 could have been marked by the President leading the nation in quiet, personal reflection. Instead, the President used a prime time television address to try to shore up his own faltering support among the American people. The Administration's singular focus today is to sustain a fiction about Iraq and al-Qaeda. They are trapped inside their own rhetoric and keep talking as if that will produce a different outcome. On Sunday the Vice President gave us fear. On Monday, the President gave us fiction. On Tuesday, the Republican Majority Leader gave us inflammatory rhetoric worthy of a nation without Democracy as its form of government. Terrified at the prospect of losing power, Republicans will say anything to make people afraid. In a meeting with reporters, the majority leader wondered aloud whether Americans who disagree with the President might be giving aid and comfort to the enemy, might be guilty of treason. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that we are a nation of laws, not men, even in a time of war, and that the President must follow the law like everyone else. Instead of affirmation, we got accusations last night from a Republican leader. The President, Vice President and Speaker of the House--all Republicans--were silent in response. We are going to need a lot of jail cells to house the millions of Americans, including the Supreme Court, who believe America is a nation of laws worth defending and upholding. The majority of the American people want their government to remain Of the People, By the People and For the People. Republicans have a different vision. They govern by accusation in order to obtain acquiescence. Since Sunday, Republicans have moved from fear, to fiction, from inflammatory rhetoric to closed debate. House Republican leaders are not interested in having America stand united. That's why they passed a resolution that has to do with clinging to power, not 9/11. The resolution will not make America safer, but it was passed in the hope of making Republicans safer. The Republican resolution was about November 7, not September 11 and Republicans sacrificed patriotism for political ambition. Trapped by their own rhetoric, and led by a President who has lost the trust of the American people, Republicans have retreated to their last stand--Making you afraid. Every time they rise, remember this: Republicans have propped up this President by spending more on the Iraq War than on domestic security. Many Republicans in this House know the truth. They just can't speak it, for fear of being outed by their own Party Leadership. Republicans will only say what the President wants you to hear. And it is not the truth. The American people are getting that somewhere else. Republicans gave us fear and fiction around the fifth anniversary of 9/11. Just imagine what they have in store for us in the weeks ahead. Fear has never made America safer. But that's all the Republicans have to offer. And that's simply not enough to protect and defend America in the 21st century.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, on Monday night, President Bush continued this difficult job he has of trying to connect the war in Iraq with al Qaeda. He said it is the most difficult part of his job. Because there is no connection. Even the Senate report this past week said, and it is a bipartisan report from the Senate Intelligence Committee, said there is no link between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. The Senators wrote: ``Saddam expressed only negative opinions about Osama bin Laden.'' Yet the President had the audacity on Sunday night to say that our Nation's safety depends on what happens in the streets of Baghdad. Now, Mr. Speaker, we have to ask the President, where were you when you set this war up and you told General Shinseki, head of the Army, we didn't need 350,000 people; we could go over there with a minimal force? You led us into this quagmire, and you have got to give us a way out. We need the strategic redeployment that Mr. Murtha is talking about

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Madam Speaker, across America yesterday, we paused to honor the innocent Americans who perished 5 years ago on 9/11. A memorial day is a time for reflection. It also can be a time for action. As a doctor, I know that grief can be debilitating, but it can also be motivating. There is something America can do to transform our grief into positive action. Right now, half a world away, there is incomprehensible pain and suffering going on in Darfur. Imagine human suffering on a scale 150 times worse than 9/11. Over 470,000 people in Darfur have gone hungry for the last 3 months. They are cut off from humanitarian aid. They are innocent victims in the middle of what can be described either as genocide or homicide. The estimates range from 200,000 to half a million innocent people who have been slaughtered in just 3 years. That is the equivalent of a 9/11 attack every single week for 3 full years. That level of death and suffering in our world today might be incomprehensible except that it is happening. It is a reality. Peacekeepers from the African Union have slowed the genocide, but they are slated to leave Darfur at the end of the month. No one doubts the killing will resume if the Sudanese Government is left without an outside force attempting to restrain them. Unless we intervene, there will be 200, 300, who knows how many times 9/11s in Darfur, to people just as innocent as the Americans who perished 5 years ago. It is true that the United Nations passed a resolution last month calling for a new peacekeeping force in Darfur, but the Sudanese Government responsible for the killings must approve deployment of these peacekeepers. Nothing more than lip service is going to occur unless we lead the world in demanding an end to the killings, backed up by a multinational force that can finally protect innocent people. Last year, I and other Members of Congress, Democrats and Republicans, traveled to the Sudan. We visited camps along the border with Chad and met countless refugees. These were people who lost their homes, belongings, and loved ones. Everything. A corrupt government says these are people guilty of being born with a certain color of skin and into a particular tribe. Punishment for innocence is death. The world has seen this before. We know what to do; we simply aren't doing it. The number of innocent people literally starving to death in Darfur is 150 times the number of Americans who perished during 9/11. Humanitarian aid cannot reach them, and that is the situation with soldiers from the African Union attempting to enforce a peace. What chance do these people have if modest peacekeeping efforts disappear at the end of September? First and foremost, the President should declare Darfur a global crisis and reinforce such a position with diplomacy aimed at uniting the world against evil. Other nations are better positioned diplomatically to demand that the Sudanese Government pay attention. In close cooperation with other governments, we should do everything from establishing a no-fly zone to keep Sudanese helicopter gunships grounded to serving notice on the Sudanese Government that innocent people should not be starved to death. Before 9/11, crises as far away as Sudan perhaps didn't find much room in the American consciousness. Post-9/11, we cannot help but see that death, poverty, and injustice anywhere in the world affects those of us who live in the United States. Yesterday across America, we stopped to remember 9/11. In Darfur, we can honor the Americans who died on 9/11 by preventing tens of thousands of innocent people in Darfur from dying right before our eyes. We have 21 days to unite the world against attacks as horrifying as 9/11. This can be a defining moment for our Nation. I hope the President sees it as just that and acts before it is too late.

Mr. McDERMOTT. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take Mr. DeFazio's time.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. We could go on with this for a long time, but we have got Major General John Batiste. He was the commander of the 1st Division in Iraq, and he said: ``Rumsfeld and his team have turned what should have been a deliberate victory in Iraq into a prolonged challenge.'' I mean, that is a guy who was on the ground, who was there when the war was going on. General Zinni, who was the central command of the whole forces, he served in every level of command, and he said: ``We are paying the price for a lack of credible planning, or the lack of a plan.'' Ten years' worth of planning was thrown away. That is why we are in the mess we are. Because Rumsfeld said we don't need these guys like Zinni, who is my number one guy in the U.S. Central Command. That means he headed everything in the whole area of the Middle East. Major General Swannack said: ``I do not believe Secretary Rumsfeld is the right person to fight that war based on his absolute failures in managing the war against Saddam in Iraq.'' Now, he was commander of the 82nd Airborne. We all know about the Airborne. We know these are real soldiers. These are people who follow the leader. They do not speak out until they cannot stand it any longer. And, finally, Lieutenant General Paul Riper said: ``If I was President, I would have relieved him 3 years ago.'' And he said that in 2006. Now, this man was wounded in action in Vietnam. He won the Silver Star medal with a gold star, the Legion of Merit, the Bronze Star. This man has been wounded, has stood up in the worst kind of war. And, remember, Rumsfeld never served. Bush never served. Cheney never served. Wolfowitz never served. You cannot find anybody who has ever been in a war. And the guys who know, who have done it, who sent people out to die and been right out there with them say things like, If I was President, I would have relieved him 3 years ago. That is 2003. That is when it started, when they started ill prepared without the battle armor, without the vehicle armor, without sufficient supplies. We are going to just run in and do it, and we are going to be out in 6 months. Remember when they told that lie? And all of us stood around and said, 6 months? Really? This is going to be a cakewalk. They didn't tell the truth to the American people or to their own troops. And that is why guys like this say get them out of there if we are going to have any change.

Mr. McDERMOTT. Thank you very much. As I sit here and I listen to this today, I think about the Katrina event. You saw the President go down and throw his arm around the guy who was fixing Katrina. He said, Good job, Brownie. I mean, that has become a laughingstock. Well, this President has done the same thing with Rumsfeld. Beginning in 2004, when Abu Ghraib came out, the President showed up and said the Secretary is doing a great job, right? This will not change as long as the President keeps Rumsfeld in that job, because Rumsfeld is the controlling power behind it all. As long as the President puts him out there and let's him run, you are going to continue to have this stuff. Rumsfeld went to Iraq in July while we were on vacation, right at the end, and they found the bodies of 20 kidnapped and murdered bus drivers the day he arrived. A bomber blew himself up and killed seven people. The Secretary of Defense made what I consider to be an interesting statement in response to that. He said, each time I come to Iraq, I see progress. Now, no one who has any kind of realistic view of this could say that kind of thing. You could not be watching what is going on, when it is to our troops who are dying, or the wounded who are coming home, or the thousands of Iraqis who are being killed and say, I see progress. There is simply, you have got your military people talking about the fact that it is coming apart, you had Rumsfeld this week say to some National Guardsmen from California, no, you can't go home, I know your enlistment is up, but you have got to stay here for another 120 days. We are going to send you into Baghdad to calm things down. It is a mess, and it has been a mess from the start because Rumsfeld would never listen. Like the President, he wouldn't listen. General Shinseki came in and said, you are going to need 300,000 troops. Rumsfeld said, you don't know what you are saying, you are out of here. Here is your retirement. Get out of here. That is the response to anybody who comes into this administration and talks. Unless the President will dump Rumsfeld, you are not going to get any change in the policy. What is the alternative to the people of this country? The only alternative they have is on election day to take the gavel away from the Republican majority so that we can have hearings run by Democrats where some questions will be asked, where there will be some accountability so that things will begin to come up into the public view. We have never found out what Halliburton's contracts are all about. We haven't found out who is responsible for Abu Ghraib. No, there isn't a soldier or a sailor or a marine or anyone near the military.

Mr. McDERMOTT. Only if you care about taxpayer money. I mean, the examples are so bald and so bad that it is almost laughable if it wasn't what was going on today and it was taking us down the wrong trail. What has been said here today is, I was reading the Middle Eastern papers today, everybody says that half of Afghanistan is now under control of the Taliban. That is universal in the press. The British general there is saying we are losing this thing; he is worried. We will not get a change unless we get some hard questions asked. We are never going to get them from the Republicans because they are going to rubber-stamp what Mr. Bush and Mr. Rumsfeld and all the rest of that bunch put together. I personally think this election is the most important election we have had in my lifetime. You say to yourself maybe I am getting old or something, but I went through Vietnam, and I went through a whole bunch of things. But this one, if we have 2 more years of ``stay the course,'' God knows where we are going to be economically and militarily and politically and diplomatically in the world. We have got to get some change, and Rumsfeld would be a start. There are some other people that should go, but if the President can't see that Rumsfeld cannot handle it; he threw out Paul O'Neill as the Secretary of the Treasury, and he threw out some other people, Colin Powell and some others went down the road, but he keeps the guy who got us in the mess because it means he would have to admit that he made a huge mistake, and he can't do it. He can't do it, and that is the biggest problem he has. As politicians, sometimes you have to say, ``I was wrong. I made a mistake.''

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, the Republicans went home for a month and listened to people and watched the decimation of Lebanon. They watched the continuing mess in Iraq. The President cancelled the return of 13,000 people, or Mr. Rumsfeld did, and they are keeping them in Baghdad because the place is in a shambles. But what do we do when we come back, the first week we are back? Do we discuss those issues, or do we discuss the slaughter of human beings? No, we are here to deal with horse slaughter. When I was in my district, I don't remember in the 18 years that I have been in my district that I have heard anybody come and say, why don't you stop the slaughter of horses? What is the matter with the Republican Party? Have you nothing to do? Can't you pass anything on port security? Can't you pass anything on immigration? Can't you pass anything about helping the President get out of Iraq? Or about the economy? Gasoline is $3 a gallon. You cut the Pell Grants, and you come out worrying about the slaughter of horses. I vote ``nay.''

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to speak out of turn.

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, you can always tell when the Republicans fear an upcoming election because they start apologizing for their past transgressions. So it should come as no surprise that the President finally acknowledged the presence and use of secret CIA prisons. The American people happen to think that the U.S. Constitution is a document that was never intended to be shredded and discarded like last week's newspaper, but that is exactly what is happening by the President and his rubber-stamp Republican Congress. We do not have to subvert the freedoms and principles that make us Americans so that the President can fumble his way through finding and fighting terrorists like bin Laden. We still believe in the rule of law, the first amendment, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. We believe in the Geneva Convention, and the President undermines the American credibility, power and leadership around the world by dismissing a document so important that it is incorporated into the manuals of the U.S. Armed Forces. America is not a democracy at your convenience, Mr. President. Without the protections provided by the first amendment, the American people might never have known about the abuses at Abu Ghraib; and without the first amendment, the American people would have never known about the unauthorized wiretaps of the American people, even when there is a secret court specifically set up to enable America to defend itself without destroying the Constitution and the Bill of Rights in the process. The American people still believe in the rule of law, and they can see that the President suspended the Constitution, the Geneva Convention, and the Bill of Rights because he finds them inconvenient. The policies of this administration and the Republican Congress have not made America safer, but America is in danger on a whole new front, Presidential indifference to the principles and ideals that we are fighting for. The President was given the tools and the resources after 9/11, but he pulled out before the job was done. He diverted our soldiers and resolve from Afghanistan to Iraq. It was a bad decision then, and it has become disastrous now in both places. But with an automatic rubber-stamp Congress in the House and the Senate, the President could tell them what to think, tell them how to vote and get whatever he wanted. There was no balance in our government to ask the tough questions and hold the President accountable. There still is no balance in our government that can protect the American people and our founding policies from the brute force of the Republican power machine. The President finally admitted he authorized secret CIA prisons, and in the next breath, demands the Congress authorize him to keep doing whatever he wants. And if the Republicans remain in power, they will do exactly what the President wants. No debate, no balance, nothing short of outright misrepresentation of the American people. The Republicans misrepresent the American people when they rubber- stamp everything the President wants. That is not how America works, and it is not how democracy works. America is all about balance, debating different points of view, coming together as one Nation, standing on common ground. But that fundamental approach requires accountability, and there has been none under the Republicans. For goodness sake, the Republicans could not even swear in Big Oil CEOs when they were called to Capitol Hill over skyrocketing prices. Republicans could not require these people to swear to tell the truth. Maybe they did; maybe they did not. We will never know. And that is what the midterm election is really all about. America is tilted not merely to the right, but off the map entirely. Neocons who no one elected are telling the President and the Vice President what they are expected to do and what the Republican Congress will pass. The American people may not understand the rules of Congress; but know this, Republicans delay every vote on the floor of this House until they can twist enough arms to get what the neocons behind the curtain want. Debate is gone. Accountability is gone. And that is why the Republican control should be gone. The Republicans have squandered their chance to govern. Republicans have shortchanged the American people for 12 long years. With free speech and free press, now the American people know it. November is about restoring democracy to the Nation best able to protect it. November is about restoring balance to a Republican Congress that has forgotten that it works for the people, not for the neocons. No democracy can survive without a Congress that looks at the President's policies and asks questions and sometimes says no. This President has had a free hand for far too long, and this election is a referendum on President Bush. If you want more, vote for a Republican. If you want to change it, vote for the Democrats

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to speak out of order.