Jim McDermott

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I come to the well tonight after a long day of debate on whether or not we should redeploy our troops from Iraq. A careful reading of the gentleman from Pennsylvania's resolution, had we debated it, would have pointed out that the fourth point that he raised was that we have to diplomatically pursue security and stability in Iraq. It is that issue I want to talk about because the question is always raised, If we leave, will it not get worse? Will it not just explode into civil war? We have already got that. And the question must be answered as we talk about deployment from out of the country. At the same time, we have to decide to call on the Arab League or the Egyptians, to call together all the members of the community of Iraq: the Sunnis, the Shiias, the Kurds, the Turkomens, the Assyrians. All of them need to come together in a conference to resolve this. We have the idea that we can go with a Western idea of a constitution and that because it works here, we can just insert it into an Arab culture that has never worked under those circumstances. What we need to do is recognize how Arabs have resolved problems for hundreds, thousands of years, if you will. It is called reaching an atwa. If two villages, and this story was told to me by an iman, a high ranking Iraqi, he said many years ago two villages had a brother and sister and they married across these two towns. One went to one village, the other went to the other village. In one village the wife was fertile and quickly had three children. In the other, the wife was barren and had no children. The village made fun of her. They ridiculed her. They said she was a terrible woman, and the social pressure was so great that she killed herself by throwing herself into the village well. Now under Arabic custom, that village that lost this woman has a right to go and extract blood within 24 hours. As those two villages came together for this bloodletting that was going to happen, they called and got them all to sit down and they decided how they were going to resolve this situation. The decision was made that the village that had had the young woman die in it would give $20,000 to the other village and that there would be no contact between those villages for 20 years. They reached an atwa, A-T-W-A. What that is in the Arabic culture is an arrangement, not a peace treaty. In the West we think of peace treaties where I agree with you and you agree with me, and we sign a bunch of pieces of paper. In the Arab culture where there is honor, people say I will stay here for 20 years and you will stay there. The gentleman who told me the story said I was there 20 years later when the money was brought back from the first village back to its original place. He said within 2 years, there were marriages between the young people from the two villages. Even though they were 6 kilometers apart, for 20 years there had been no contact. Now, Arabs have been resolving these kinds of things for thousands of years in the desert. There is a way for the Sunnis and the Shiias and the Kurds and the Turkomens to come together, but it cannot be driven by the United States. We cannot say you come over here and come to this conference that we are going to have in some hotel somewhere. It has to be called by the Arab League. This same thing could have prevented the gulf war back in 1991. When Saddam Hussein went into Kuwait, the Arab League said before the Americans attack, let us settle this among the Arab community. This is a fight among us. Saddam Hussein thought he had fought in Iran because he was defending Kuwait and the Saudis, and he thought that they owed him something. He said give me some money, and they said no. And so he said all right, then I am going to move in and take Kuwait. It could have been resolved if we had the patience to let this happen and the mentality in the White House that can allow Iraq to develop its own peaceful society. We have removed Saddam Hussein. We are all glad, but we now must let the Arabs resolve the situation in a way that makes sense to them.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Does he have any other speakers?

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 4 minutes. Mr. Speaker, Americans on the front line in protecting and defending our most vulnerable children have been sending out an SOS. They do not merely solve problems every day. They save lives. Their message is loud and clear. The child support provisions included in reconciliation undermine the Federal commitment to child support enforcement. Republican reconciliation is reckless disregard for safeguarding children. It is a license for people to break their promise of child support because enforcement will be lax. Eighty percent of the children receiving support live in low- and moderate-income families. The bill would reduce the share of child support enforcement costs that are paid by the Federal Government from 66 percent to 50 percent by 2010. Federal funding to the program would be cut by $5 billion over the next 5 years, a nearly 40 percent cut in funding for the program by 2010. We make the money go away, but not the problems or the needs. The CBO estimated that child support provisions in the reconciliation bill would reduce collections sent to families by $21 billion over the next 10 years. As a result, more deadbeat dads will be left off the hook, while more low-income families will look to State and Federal programs to make up the difference in lost income. But we will not be there, just like the deadbeat dads. In 2004, more than $4 was collected for every dollar spent in the program. Even President Bush's 2006 budget cites the program as ``effective'' and ``one of the highest rated block formula grants of all reviewed programs government-wide.'' A hard-working program will fall on hard times if we leave the reconciliation bill as it is. People will be hurt. Children will be hurt. Republicans will be responsible. And for what? Mr. Speaker, this is the season of giving, and Republicans are going to be very generous with those very few Americans rolling in dough. Republican leaders have scheduled their midnight express to roll through town again tonight. Republicans will climb aboard to run over the American people in the dead of the night. Child Support Enforcement, that is not even in the baggage car. Republicans like doing things in the dark, behind closed doors, in the dead of night, hoping the American people will not notice. Well, not today. Today's light shines on their darkness. If one candle can curse the darkness, we are going to use a search light. It is the Republican season of giving, and here is what it means: we take from the sack of the poor children in this country 330,000 child-care dollars and put it in the rich sock. It is Christmas time. Take $700 million from Social Security and put it in the rich stocking. Take child support, $21 billion from Child Support Enforcement and put it in the rich stocking. Take Medicaid from the poor, $10 billion, and put it in the rich stocking. Student loans, $14 million. I take $14 billion from student loans and give that to the rich stocking. And food stamps from 300,000 tables we take and put it in the rich stocking. Finally, foster children, $600 million from foster children in this country goes into the sock, later tomorrow, of the rich because we have taken it from the poor and we have given it to the rich. That is what this bill before us is all about. Tonight in the dead of night you are going to give to the rich who do not need it and take from the needy who cannot afford to lose it. You will disguise this as a Christmas stocking with presents, just in time for the holidays. But it is a heavy-handed club used on the American people. The heartland is not heartless. Not even the dead of the night will hide what you intend to do to the American people tonight. Even the rich will be ashamed. I wonder if the Republicans will. They should be. 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 the consideration of this rule, H. Res. 560. Section 425 of that same act states that the point of order lies against legislation which imposes an unfunded mandate in excess of specified amounts against State or local governments. Section 426 of the Budget Act specifically states that the Rules Committee may not waive this point of order. The first section of H. Res. 560 proposes to waive all points of order against consideration of the bill and against provisions in the bill, as amended. The legislation, H.R. 4241, brought up by the rule, includes provisions on child support enforcement, which the Congressional Budget Office informs us impose an intergovernmental mandate as defined by the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act. Therefore, I make a point of order that this rule may not be considered pursuant to section 426.

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Levin).

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Costa).

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from North Dakota (Mr. Pomeroy).

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I have the responsibility of closure, right?

Mr. McDERMOTT. He says a whole lot, but he has no one else to speak, Mr. Speaker, because they want the people to believe that this is a fight between Democrats and Republicans. But it is not true. In reality, Republican Governors oppose these child support cuts, including Governor Schwarzenegger of California. Republicans in the Senate oppose these cuts including Senator Cornyn of Texas. Religious organizations oppose these cuts, including the Conference of Catholic Bishops. All program administrators and poverty experts oppose these cuts. Cutting child support payments to needy families is a policy supported only by the extreme right wing which currently is running the House of Representatives. I urge the Members to vote ``no'' on this motion.

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, here we are with the rubber-stamp Congress again. Over the past 4 years, Mr. Speaker, the number of Americans living in poverty has grown by 5.4 million people. The number of Americans without health insurance has increased by 6 million people, and the number of Americans who are living in hunger has grown by 5 million people in the last 4 years. Now, this is the time that the Republicans chose to cut funding for programs that help families escape poverty, access health care, and put food on the table. Did we not learn anything from Katrina? The bill before us cuts Medicaid, food stamps, child support enforcement, foster care, student loans and every other plan that helps people on the bottom. It is lucky we are going to get to vote about this right after midnight. So in one day we can cut the living daylights out of the poor, and then we will bring out the gifts for the rich. We are going to have a bill tomorrow with tax breaks for capital gains and dividends. Over half of those benefits, as we just heard, uncontested by the other side, they stand there with a straight face and say we have to cut food stamps so we can give a tax break to people making more than $1 million. I mean, why do they have to give them a $100,000 tax break next year? What is that about, when you are saying to people we are going to take away your food stamps, we are going to take away your child care? Listen, lady, you leave your kids at home and you get out and get a job. But what about some child care? Well, that is not our problem. You figure it out, dear. 330,000 mothers are going to be sent out to work with not one thin dime of child care support. For a bunch who says leave no child behind, you are so shameless. I remember, what was it that Welch said to McCarthy, Don't you have any decency left over there at all, that you would come in on the same day and vote these cuts, and right behind it, or, well, you let us go home and sleep for 6 or 7 hours. I understand you think that will separate and the public will never know because it will all be wrapped up in one day. The American people are not stupid. They know we ought to vote this down.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, when it comes to Iraq, the President and his administration continue to act like cowboys in a western movie. When will they learn? And until they do, there will be no solution in Iraq. The President stampeded the American people into a flawed, futile, and fatal war; and this administration keeps applying B-movie mentality to real-life suffering. We have taken sides in a war-torn nation, inadvertently backing the Kurds and Shiites to the detriment of the Sunnis. This is not some clan fight on a movie set that will get solved with a new sheriff riding into town proclaiming peace and progress. But that is what the administration's current strategy seems to be. Despite demands by Iraqi Sunni leaders that American forces stop new military operations, the fighting continues unabated. And like Vietnam, the latest administration tactic is to announce body counts, as if that will promote confidence among the American people. That same tactic was used during Vietnam. It did not work then, and it will not work in Iraq. If anything, this latest tactic will only deepen American resentment to this war because the American people know they are only being told part of the story. The Rumsfeld command is happy to announce the number of insurgents killed or captured, but they do not talk much about the innocent Iraqi civilians killed or wounded. They are not announcing those numbers every day. Why not? If they killed or captured 80 insurgents, how many civilians were injured or wounded in the process? Why do they not tell us the whole story? Iraq is an urban guerilla warfare, and our brave soldiers should not be fighting a house-to-house war that puts them in maximum danger all the time. There is no front line in Iraq because every road is the front, every house is the front, and every footstep is along the front line. There is no safe haven for our soldiers. Danger is everywhere no matter where they sleep, no matter what they eat, no matter how much they try to forget this war for even a moment. And the administration calls this progress. The American people see it as a paralysis of leadership. The President stampeded the Congress into a do-or-die scenario, and now our soldiers keep dying in the wrong place at the wrong time and for the wrong reason. When was the last time the President even mentioned Osama bin Laden, the terrorist who is supposed to have started this whole thing, this war on terror? The White House has built an underground bunker to keep out reality. The truth cannot penetrate those walls of denial, fortified with Presidential speeches to carefully selected audiences. Now the President is beginning to say that he is not responsible for the war in Iraq. The record is clear, Mr. Speaker: this war was started by this President and his war cabinet. They got what they wanted. They got more than they can handle. And every new pronouncement from the White House bunker widens the gulf between administration rhetoric and Iraq reality. Reality may be missing in action at the White House, but reality is front and center with the American people. Another Presidential speech with yet another spin on why the President wants this war will not do anything to stabilize Iraq, promote peace, or create democracy. We are just learning about the latest catastrophe. Now Americans soldiers have to launch operations to uncover hundreds of Sunnis abused, tortured, and malnourished in a prison run by the people we put in power. Imposing our will is a prescription for civil war and ethnic scandals in Iraq. Imposing a Western blueprint on a Middle Eastern culture will undermine any attempt at real peace. Iraq needs the benefit of a Middle Eastern solution, a cultural process that has worked for thousands of years. Many in the Middle East know this. Many have tried to tell us. But we will not listen. Their will, not ours, will define democracy in Iraq. If we are serious about an election in Iraq, we have to stop the provocations. America is at a crossroads: stability or continued occupation of Iraq. The Rumsfeld command now admits American soldiers could be there for a decade or more. That is occupation, and nobody outside the administration favors it. Ten more years of house-to- house guerilla fighting is a failed mission and a guarantee of more U.S. lives lost. 2,056 flags draped over 2,056 coffins; 2,056 honor guards and 2,056 grieving families paying respects of a grateful Nation. And we are still counting. Mr. President, you have to change the course. There's a difference in a President leading the nation through a time of crisis and this President misleading the nation into precipitating a crisis. We have a crisis. We need a leader. We need a plan to return U.S. soldiers to U.S. soil, not a decade from now, but right now. Announce a pull-out date and pull back the troops to their camps.

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take my Special Order at this time.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I am here to make a public service announcement. The gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Scott) laid out the problems of the bill that has been floating around in the Congress, but I want him to be assured that the rubber stamp Congress is coming in on Thursday. Now, it says here, I approve of everything that George Bush does, and that is what this rubber stamp is we are going to use in here on Thursday. Last night, the Ways and Means Committee produced a tax cut bill. They will bring it over here, bring it up to the Rules Committee, roll it all together with the tax cuts and the tax giveaways and make the poor people pay for what the rich people get. They are going to bring it out here, and we are going to watch 218 Republicans march up and rubber stamp that baby. Whatever George Bush asks for, whether it makes sense or not, that is the responsibility of the Republican majority, and they all have to bring their stamp on Thursday, because if they do not bring it on Thursday, we are not going to get to go home for Thanksgiving to rejoice over how much we have been able to give to the rich. This is a very important week. Don't forget your rubber stamp on Thursday morning when you come to work.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to address the House for 5 minutes out of order.

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, who needs the first amendment when we have the Republican Party? Their view is that the American people just do not need to know what their government is doing in their name. We just do not need to know that this country now has secret CIA-un prisons around the world where prisoners are sent or sentenced because they get no representation. After all, Dick Cheney, our President of foreign policy, supports us looking and acting like Cold War countries we used to fear. We do not have any skills in building facilities to be ashamed of, so we rent those old Cold War prison camps in places where people went in and were never heard from again. Republican leaders just do not think this is the kind of information the American people need to know. After all, we might talk about it. Someone might write about it. Someone might question why we want to behave like the Cold War all over again. But this time, we are on the other side. The American people would not know any of this except for The Washington Post reporting about prisoners and policies that sound more like the enemy than the good guys. This did not sit well with Dick Cheney and he let Republican leaders on Capitol Hill know it, behind closed doors of course, his favorite location. Almost immediately Republican leaders fell in behind the President of Foreign Policy and carried out their orders. Find the person who dared let America know what is really going on behind those closed doors. Republican leaders intend to find out who let the American people know about the dirty little secret that the administration did not want us to know. It is detention at a whole new level where suspects simply vanish, and they did not want us to know. And we would not have known except for journalism's ability to report all the news thanks to the first amendment. Why do they want to keep us in the dark? Because Americans would be appalled, because American know that we can fight and win a war without sacrificing the principles that made us America in the first place. America does not need a mask over its face to beat the people wearing masks over theirs. And America does not need secret prisons hidden in other countries as if that somehow that absolves us from responsibility. This kind of perverse policy says a lot about how out of touch this administration is, especially its President of Foreign Policy, with the values and strengths of America. Do you think Americans will not be ashamed or that the world will not be appalled again by our actions? Did we not learn anything from Abu Ghraib? What will it take for this administration to stop acting in ways that cause the average American to shake his head and avert his eyes? What will it take for this administration to realize that every time it deploys another deplorable policy, it puts our soldiers in Iraq and everywhere else at greater risk. What kind of arrogance and abuse? This happened before in another Republican administration that became so flushed with power they forgot who they worked for. They too tried to hide black ops aimed at subverting political opponents and anyone who dared challenge their power. Nixon and his cronies almost got away with it except for the reporting of the same paper. In the end, the corruption ate away at the pillars of the Republican power until it all came crashing down around them. A Vice President and a President resigned from office. The country was appalled by their conduct. The first amendment of the Constitution was America's last defense against the Nixon administration and it is true again today. It is no wonder Republicans want to replace the first amendment with amendment 1-R. That is where one Republican will tell the American people what you are supposed to know and attack anyone who dares challenge them. Everything you need to know will come out only from the Republicans in power. That is what they want, government behind closed doors. We used to recognize the rule of law and the Geneva Convention. Now we are at the point that we do not recognize America's strengths and values. Dare to challenge these Republicans and they will out you one way or another. Prisoners are not the only ones vanishing under the policies and direction of the Bush administration, so is the truth. And the first amendment is America's last line of defense. Mr. Speaker, we cannot let the Republicans do away with the first amendment. It is our only hope in a democracy.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Houston, Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee).

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from California (Mr. Herger) brought out a harmless little bill here today, and some may wonder why we have taken so much time to whale away on the Budget Reconciliation Act which is coming down the road. The fact is that this issue of child welfare is an issue that we have absolutely neglected in this House, and we are talking about the whole issue of child care. This one little bill here has the title, which is the part that offends me: ``Fair Access to Foster Care Act.'' Well, advertising like that would be out of order, because that is misrepresenting what this is about. This is a technical corrections bill. But the Republicans want to come out here, and everything is a PR piece: ``Fair Access to Foster Care.'' You do not intend to give to anyone. You are not giving it in this bill. You are not going to give it on Thursday in the reconciliation bill. There is simply no concern about foster children in this Republican leadership. When they send people like the gentleman from California (Mr. Herger), a good, solid citizen, out here to defend this as ``fair access to foster care,'' people will say, well, I voted for the Fair Access to Foster Care bill, as though voting for a title meant something. Mr. Speaker, this administration is 6 weeks without picking up a pen and signing a letter to help the kids in Louisiana. That is a President who is leaving people behind. That is a Congress who is leaving children behind. You are not going to get away from it with the Fair Access to Foster Care Act. I urge all of my colleagues to vote for this bill. We will continue this discussion on Thursday when we have the Budget Reconciliation Act. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 6 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Doggett).

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, this bill, the Fair Access Foster Care Act, makes a minor technical change designed to broaden the agencies that can recruit and reimburse foster families to include private welfare agencies. The CBO, Congressional Budget Office, concludes that this modification would impact only ``isolated cases'' within the child welfare system. So it is not any big step forward. In short, we should not give the American people the false impression that we are actually facing the urgent and unattended needs for countless vulnerable children in this country, because we simply are not. ``Fair Access'' in the title still will not bring any access for over half of the abused and neglected children in America today. Over half of America's most vulnerable children are not merely left behind, they are left out of access, and that simply is not fair. Make no mistake, we know how to fix it. We could start by investing in prevention, providing sufficient resources for States to work with families to prevent child abuse and neglect. We could start by investing in the people on the front lines; we would do something about the fact that the average tenure of a caseworker in the foster care system is less than 2 years. We could start by investing in families. We could remove the obstacles in current law that prevent foster children from receiving Federal help if they are in the care of a relative because their parents' home is not safe. We could start by investing in compassion. Thousands of children are among the victims of Hurricane Katrina, but we ignore pleas for help in spite of what we know to be true. Study after study shows that child abuse and neglect rises in the months immediately after natural disasters, particularly hurricanes; that is happening today in Louisiana. But Republicans and the administration pretend to be deaf and blind to the truth. Mr. Speaker, I have a letter dated September 22, 2005, from the State of Louisiana. In it the State's Child Welfare Director asks the Bush administration for the same assistance that New York City received after 9/11, to meet the needs of abused and neglected children. And that is not all. The Governor of Louisiana has asked us to help them keep foster children in safe and stable settings and provide services like mental health treatment to counteract the trauma these children endured. Louisiana's leaders asked the administration to partner with them to prevent child abuse and to keep children and their families safely together. Who can forget the President going down to Louisiana and saying, We will do everything we can to help the people affected by this disaster? Louisiana has asked us to be an extended family in a time of need, Americans helping Americans. But 6 weeks later, the Governor is still waiting for an answer to that letter. Children remain vulnerable, without fair access, in fact, without any access. As bad as this is, the Republican leaders want their Members to make things even worse. Sometime soon, in fact, the notice on my BlackBerry says on Thursday, the House will consider what is known as the Budget Reconciliation Act. As it stands now, Republican leaders intend to cut resources dedicated to children in foster care. Cut, let me say it again so the Members can remember it: Cut the resources for children. They intend to reduce the number of children in low-income families eligible for Federal foster care. They intend to reduce the reimbursement for the oversight of foster care for children who live with relatives. And the Republican leaders intend to cut case management and rehabilitative services provided to foster children through the Medicaid program. If they get their way, Republican leaders will take away hundreds of millions of dollars in services for abused and neglected kids and give it away in tax cuts for the rich. Fair access is a false hope under this Republican leadership. They would like to zero out the problem as if all these kids who need us will simply vanish. I am not going to let that happen. Not today, not tomorrow, not the day when the so-called budget reconciliation bill comes to the floor. It is a kid-buster bill, and America is better than that. Ask anyone in Louisiana. Ask anyone in America. It is time to fund some compassion. It is time to care for Americans. Americans, not Iraqis, not Afghanis, not anybody else, Americans who need us to help them. We are making a technical correction today that will benefit a few kids, but Republican leaders need to make a titanic correction in reconciliation or we will all go down with the ship of state. A majority party that is deaf and blind to meeting the needs of our most vulnerable children is a party that has been in power too long. Mr. Speaker, not even the very rich would fault you and us for putting the children first. Do it while they still have a future we can save. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, across the country today, Americans are going to the polls to vote for candidates and issues. A year ago, the Americans went to the polls and voted for a President, but they got two instead. We have George W. Bush, the President of domestic policy, like appointing a self-described fashion God who left the gulf coast unprotected; and we have Dick Cheney, the President of foreign policy, including secret CIA presence around the world. Now, today the President of foreign policy is trying to round up votes in the Senate to exempt the CIA from an amendment that would ban the torture and inhumane treatment of prisoners. It is a sure sign that America has lost its way when we even have to talk about banning torture and inhumane treatment of prisoners. America has never had two Presidents until now, and America has never had a question about its moral integrity, until now. The President of foreign policy would have us believe that we must become the enemy to defeat the enemy. Like so much from this administration, this is not true. America's moral imperative is true enough, strong enough, and safe enough to keep this Nation a shining light of freedom without secret, black ops demanded by someone who was never elected President. Throughout our history, Presidents have led this Nation through wars at home and abroad by remaining true to America's principles and values. In the mid-19th century, America had never before faced a more ferocious enemy than the one from within that reduced us to the Civil War. President Lincoln never lost sight of what we were fighting for. He said: ``Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as a heritage of all men in all lands everywhere. Destroy this spirit, and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors.'' In the early 20th century, America had never before faced a ferocious foe like the one that plunged the whole world into war, but President Woodrow Wilson did not forget what America stood for. He said: ``The present and all that it holds belongs to the nations and the peoples who preserve their self-control and the orderly processes of governments; the future to those who prove themselves the true friends of mankind.'' In the mid-20th century, America had never before faced an enemy more like one that had plunged us again into a world war, but Franklin Delano Roosevelt never wavered in his defense of his country: ``The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.'' And with the world on the brink of nuclear terror during the Cuban Missile Crisis, John Kennedy kept America free and safe without subverting American values. JFK knew a lot about winning a war without losing the peace. He said: ``When at least at some future date the high court of history sits in judgment on each one of us, our success or failure in whatever office we may hold will be measured by the answers to four questions: Were we truly men,'' and I would add women, ``of courage, men and women of judgment, men and women of integrity? Were we truly men and women of dedication?'' Presidents Lincoln, Wilson, Roosevelt, and Kennedy knew a thing about freedom and liberty; and they knew a lot about America. We are the land of the free and not the home of the afraid. But the President of foreign policy would have it otherwise. His demands for black ops is a black eye on this Nation. American history, not the unelected President of foreign policy, should be our guide. Great American Presidents have led this Nation in times no less frightening than today. Ask any veteran of the Second World War what was at stake. They called it a world war for a reason. They did not shrink from their duty, and we must not forget that we did our best and we are the best hope of this world. We keep America free without losing America's moral integrity. The unelected President of foreign policy wants an exemption on an amendment that would ban torture and inhumane treatment of prisoners. He wants the CIA to be free to do whatever they want. We have come a long way from the days of great Presidents to arrive at the day of an unelected President. He acts not in the shadow of the White House, but standing in front of the person elected President. We used to shine light into the darkness of regimes where people disappeared into secret prisons, gulags. Now, the unelected President of foreign policy would have us become the custodians of gulags. For a long time, people have wondered just how President Bush could get it so wrong so often. Now we know: he has help. America has a second President we never elected. Mr. Speaker, I will include for the Record an article from the Village Voice. President Should Dump Cheney (By James Ridgeway) Washington, D.C.--Politicians across the political spectrum are hoping against hope that President Bush can take control of the nation and jumpstart a second term, kicking out chief adviser Karl Rove--who remains at risk in the Plame Affair-- and changing policy in Iraq, where U.S. soldiers continue to die. But as everyone in Washington knows, Rove isn't the real problem here. The real problem for Bush is Vice President Dick Cheney--it's Cheney's now former chief of staff, Scooter Libby, who has been indicted in the Plame Affair, and it's his pushing that has the administration taking a hard line on the handling of detainees. And the best way, perhaps the only way, for Bush to take charge of the country is to dump the vice president, forcing him into retirement before he can be charged by Plame Affair prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald with violating the espionage laws. These last few days, while Bush wandered around South America from one fruitless meeting to another and fended off charges of prisoner abuse in Iraq with bland statements such as ``We do not torture,'' Cheney was busily working away behind the scenes seeking to persuade Congress not to impose restrictions on the CIA torture interrogators. The Washington Post revealed last week the CIA was running interrogations in secret jails for suspected terrorists in eastern Europe. Cheney, even more than Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, is the man behind the Iraq war. Fitzgerald's indictment of Libby bluntly states that Cheney's top aide learned Valerie Plame, the covert CIA agent, was administration critic Joe Wilson's wife from Cheney. Given that, how can Cheney avoid testifying in a Libby trial? He does not have the immunity of a president. ``Libby is the firewall protecting Vice President Cheney,'' writes John Dean in his FindLaw column: The Libby indictment asserts that ``[o]n or about June 12, 2003 Libby was advised by the Vice President of the United States that Wilson's wife worked at the Central Intelligence Agency in the Counterproliferation Division. Libby understood that the Vice President had learned this information from the

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I rise to support the minority leader's attempt to get oversight. She stood here today and asked in a resolution, which was not voted on by the House, was not allowed to be discussed by the House, that the Republican leadership conduct oversight of an executive branch controlled by the same party which is in contradiction to the established rules of standing committees and the congressional precedent. It is time for this House to begin an investigation of the executive branch. Why is that? Well, there is a massive propaganda campaign beginning today, if you look in the Wall Street Journal and some of the other newspapers, to minimize the lies that led us into war. They are now saying, ``Well, everybody does it. Clinton did it. We did it. It doesn't make any difference how we got into war. It was the right thing to do. The fact that we got there is all that matters.'' That is what the defense is going to be. It is very clear that the office of the Vice President of the United States has emerged as the source of this national policy. Never mind, I am not talking about the intelligence on striods that proved that Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. It is now clear by his own admission that the Chief of Staff of the Vice President of the United States was willing to out the CIA agent whose husband had been sent by the Vice President's office, had been sent out to find out and had come back with a report that debunked the whole Niger yellow cake forgeries. Mr. Speaker, the Italian parliament is meeting even at this time on the issue of how those forgeries occurred. There is nobody interested around here. You would think it was nothing. But the Italian parliament is worried about how their secret service got involved in these forgeries. But really more worrisome than the forgeries and all of what went on there is the continuing influence of the Vice President's office to set policy. I will include in the record an article in the November 2 Slate magazine called Superiority Complex that is talking about what has gone on in the Vice President's office. This is another issue, but connected. Today we found out in the newspapers that we have secret prisons. We do not know where they are. Some people speculate they are in Poland, some say they are in Romania. We know we have Guantanamo. We have bases in other places. And we are unclear about how those people are to be treated. It was so unclear that the draft regulation was drawn up in the Department of Defense. Some people in the Department of Defense did not agree with it, so they let the Vice President's office know, and the next thing we know, they sort of say, why do you not hold up on that, and it never happened. The draft regulation never came out. It was to set a clear standard of how detainees should be treated, how prisoners of war should be treated, or whatever. The people who did that were Mr. Addington, who is now the Vice President's Chief of Staff, and Mr. Libby. They set about to veto the whole idea. Why is the Vice President's office making these decisions? Where is the White House? Where is the Oval Office? Where is the President? Well, he is missing in action. If you look in the last year and a half on that whole issue, the President said that these people would be treated humanely and, to the extent appropriate and consistent with military necessity, in a manner consistent with the principles of the Geneva agreement. He could not just say ``the Geneva Convention holds. We will treat them according to that.'' He gave weasel-words here, so he really has been no use at all. Basically, what this White House has done is kept that whole issue open to debate. Now, you ask yourself, why do we care about how we treat prisoners? Very simply, and the article says, ``The military cares about the Geneva protections because of the correlation that American intelligence officers increasingly see between Muslim anger at the United States and human rights abuses in Guantanamo.'' We are putting our own soldiers at risk by allowing this White House to keep this vague. We need some oversight. Mr. Speaker, I include the Slate magazine article for the Record. [From the New York Times, Nov. 2, 2005.] Superiority Complex (By Tim Naftali) Today's revelations in the New York Times about the Bush administration's internal debate over how to treat foreign detainees highlight the unprecedented role that Vice President Dick Cheney and his staff are playing in setting national security policy. In the Constitution, the vice president is the Nation's understudy. He is not supposed to be in the chain of command. Cheney knows this better than most: In 1989, when he was George H.W. Bush's secretary of defense, Cheney slapped down Vice President Dan Quayle for calling a meeting of the National Security Council about a coup attempt in the Philippines while the president was out of the country. Yet now the Office of the Vice President is dictating the rules by which the U.S. military interrogates and detains terrorist suspects. This is being done subtly. All the Office of the Vice President has to do is informally convey its opposition to complying with international law in this area, and any such effort is thwarted. This is what happened to an attempt by some officials in the Department of Defense, along with the lawyers of all the armed services, to write a new directive on the treatment of detainees. Since the Bush administration began sending foreigners captured abroad to Guantanamo Bay in winter 2001, its refusal to afford them all the protections guaranteed by the Geneva Conventions has been, to say the least, internationally contentious. Now the military and some Pentagon officials are increasingly aware that this refusal is making American troops vulnerable abroad by potentially provoking other countries to respond in kind. The current policy has also created confusion in the armed services among interrogators who were originally trained to follow Geneva and now don't know which standard to apply. The goal of the drafters of the new directive was to set clear standards that are consistent with international law and with the military's rules since 1949. The draft directive drew upon the language from Common Article Three of the Geneva Conventions of 1949, implying that the United States recognized the role of international law in governing how it treated detainees. Not everyone in the Pentagon was happy with this. Stephen Cambone, the undersecretary of defense for intelligence policy, and William J. Haynes, DOD's general counsel, apparently let the vice president's office know what was happening. In September, David S. Addington, who was then Cheney's general counsel, and former Cheney aide I. Lewis Libby did their best to veto the initiative. Cheney and Addington (and Libby) believe that there should be no limit on the president's right to authorize interrogations of terrorist suspects. The Office of the Vice President is contemptuous of the British and our other European allies, who have been reluctant to turn over suspects to the United States because of what they see as Washington's lawless approach. What does the Oval Office think about adopting a Geneva- friendly detainee policy? So far, there is no evidence that President George W. Bush has weighed in directly since February 2002 on applying Geneva's protections to the detainees. At that point, he said that al-Qaida and Taliban fighters would not have prisoner-of-war status but would nonetheless be treated ``humanely and, to the extent appropriate and consistent with military necessity, in a manner consistent with the principles'' of the Geneva Conventions. The ambiguity of Bush's 2002 statement--was he saying that the Geneva Conventions did not trump military necessity?--has encouraged advocates of a Geneva-based policy to argue that he intended to set a floor rather than a ceiling for the treatment of detainees. And what about Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, who is in the military chain of command? The reporting is still vague thus far on his opinion about the standards for detainees. Matthew Waxman, Rumsfeld's deputy assistant secretary of defense, was a champion of incorporating Common Article Three into the new interrogation directive. But Rumsfeld himself reportedly said nothing, even after the vice president's office shot down the draft directive. Rumsfeld and Cheney go way back; Cheney worked for Rumsfeld in the Nixon administration. Whatever else Rumsfeld's silence means, by ceding this area to Cheney, the defense secretary signals to the armed services that he doesn't much care that their lawyers want to bring U.S. policy in line with the Geneva Conventions. The military cares about Geneva's protections because of the correlation that American intelligence officers increasingly see between Muslim anger at the United States for human rights abuses in Guantanamo and elsewhere and the virulence of the insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan. In its secret brief in a case involving the ACLU's request for the disclosure of additional photographs of the abuses that took place at Abu Ghraib, the government acknowledged as much. Ordinarily presidents assign their vice presidents some projects, usually with consultation, of course. Yet once Cheney focuses on a policy, he dominates it. So long as his views prevail in how the Bush administration treats foreign detainees, the military's push to safeguard American troops by respecting Geneva will be stymied.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, November is National Family Caregivers Month. This month we celebrate those who care for America's vulnerable populations. As a physician, child psychiatrist, and the Ranking Member of the Human Resources subcommittee of the House Committee on Ways and Means, I have a particular interest in the way the Federal Government addresses the needs of abused and neglected children. There are abused and neglected children throughout our country. Sometimes we know who they are, but too often we don't. They live in big cities, small towns, rural areas and every suburb in between. There will always be too many abused children, and there will never be enough family caregivers who provide vulnerable children with the safety and stability they need to thrive. Family caregivers open their hearts and homes to our most vulnerable populations, and they often do so knowing they will not be recognized for their efforts, nor provided Federal support. If the Congress is as committed to promoting family values as Members of Congress often say, then we should fulfill that commitment by really valuing families and providing Federal support to every foster child in family care. When a child is removed from a home because of neglect or abuse, the Federal Government should have an interest in ensuring the safety and well being of those children. But today the Federal Government is primarily interested in vulnerable children who live in the homes of strangers. We should strive to do better, Mr. Speaker. In the meantime let us acknowledge and celebrate family caregivers around the Nation by using this month to draw attention to the many challenges that face them. Let us celebrate the hard work and commitment of those who care every day for vulnerable populations, our Nation's family caregivers.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, today is All Saints Day. It is a rather remarkable day. In the 18 years, 17 years I have been in the Congress, I have never seen the other body go into secret session to try and find out the truth of anything. The fact that they had a session over there where they closed the doors to try and get at the truth tells you how bad this situation is. This morning's New York Times has an article, an editorial by Nicholas Kristof. Now, he is a neocon, certainly from the right, no question about it; but he says, his title is, ``What Did Cheney Know and When Did He Know It?'' He asks several questions which, I think, although many people do not have the opportunity to read the New York Times, they ought to know about it. ``Did you ask Scooter Libby to undertake his inquiries about Ambassador Joseph Wilson? Why did you independently ask the CIA for information about the Wilsons? Did you know that Mrs. Wilson was a covert officer? Did you advise Mr. Libby to leak information about Mrs. Wilson's work in the CIA to journalists? When Mr. Libby made his statements in the inquiry, allegedly committing perjury, were you aware of what he was saying?'' Finally, and I think this is the question that really needs to be dealt with: ``Was Mr. Libby fearful of disclosing something about your behavior in the summer of 2003?'' This goes on to suggest that if he did so, ``was it a misguided attempt to try and protect you? The alleged lies shielded you,'' meaning Mr. Cheney, ``by indicating that the information you gave him about Mrs. Wilson instead came from reporters and not from him.'' Now, this is a question that the American people deserve an answer to. Several years ago we sat in this body and listened to a State of the Union address, and the Vice President of the United States sat right up here on the dais, behind the President of the United States, knowing that what the President was saying was not factual. He knew that. How can the President of the United States explain to the American people how he sent people out to find out all this information, found it out, and still was allowed to come before the American people and the Congress and the diplomatic corps and the Supreme Court and the whole administration and tell them something that was not true. Now, what this event does, and they may try and brush this off as a minor technicality, or it is just perjury; well, we impeached or tried to impeach President Clinton over just perjury, and that was about a sex act. No one died. Two thousand people have died, our people, untold numbers of Iraqis have died, and 10,000 of our people have come home badly, badly wounded. It has cost us $240 billion, money that we did not use to fix the levees in New Orleans or other places in this country where there are problems today. The question that comes up again and again: Is there no limit in this administration to what will be said or done to promote this war and to protect it? Will they say anything? Is there any limit on what they will bring here as evidence? The fact is that we hear there is a terror alert. If you look at those terror alerts, they always follow some disaster someplace to get people's mind off it. What has happened this week since the President was made aware of the fact that we had an indictment of the Chief of Staff to the Vice President of the United States? That man works in the White House or in the Executive Office Building right next to it. What do we have? Well, we certainly have a lot of things here. We today had a big expose about a flu epidemic. Now, did that just happen yesterday? That has been going on for a long time. The President said he had a flu shot. That flu shot had nothing to do with the avian bird flu from Asia. That is this year's strain of virus. We get them every year. Everybody gets a flu shot every year. They have nothing to do with this pandemic we are talking about. Yet the President makes a big expose in the White House. And the fact is that this kind of thing to divert people's attention will continually be done to keep them from focusing on the disaster of this morally bankrupt war we are in in the Middle East. It is time for us to call an end to this. The President has no plan to get out of it. We have no plans. There are no benchmarks for anything. They are going to stay there, and they intend to stay there. As long as there is chaos, they will be able to justify staying there, and that is what they want. They have wanted chaos. Why did they disband the army? Why did they disband civil service? Why did they not prepare? Because they were intending to have things be in turmoil. Because in turmoil they can keep justifying their existence in Iraq. They should come home. The Vice President, as Mr. Christoff said, should either tell us what was going on or resign.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I missed votes on October 28, 2005. Had I been able to, I would have voted: ``nay'' on H.R. 2744 (rollcall vote No. 555); ``yea'' on H. Res. 523 (rollcall vote No. 556).