Jim Moran

Mr. MORAN

Mr. MORAN. I yield to the gentlewoman from Illinois.

Mr. MORAN. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, despite my high regard for the ranking Democrat on this committee and what I know to be her intent, and from her perspective improving this bill, I think it is only the responsible thing to do to put on the record how the Democratic White House, the people who have worked on reinventing government, on attempting to streamline government, the people who, in fact, on a day-to-day basis, were vested with the responsibility of carrying out the contractual obligations of the United States receiving bids, granting contracts, and, in fact, carrying out the laws that we entrust with them. The Department of Defense, the executive branch, really need to be heard from on this bill. I think the most important sentence in the statement of administration policy, which is dated today, September 13, 1995, says, the very first sentence, the administration supports House passage of H.R. 1670 as reported by the Government Reform and Oversight Committee. So, Mr. Chairman, while I understand the good intent of this amendment, the fact is that this amendment would change the legislation as reported by the committee and, thus, the Clinton administration does not support this amendment. Mr. Chairman, I am going to explain in the White House's words why they do not support this amendment. In a letter from the Defense Department, which explains the support for H.R. 1670 and the opposition of this amendment, the Department of Defense explains that it will add significant bureaucratic burden without furthering the goal of acquisition streamlining. The Defense Department supports the concept that Government can no longer afford the time and the administrative burden associated with the requirement that every potential Government source must be allowed to compete even when not all of those sources have a realistic chance of receiving the contract. Thus DOD supports the enactment of the broad generic authority to downselect that is not hampered by excessive procedural detail. This will leave the executive agency free to implement the authority in a flexible manner, enhancing the effectiveness of the authority. In addition, allowing agencies to limit the number of offerers in the competitive range to three, the contracting officer determines the such action is warranted by considerations of efficiency which similarly enable agencies to expedite the procurement process and allow offerers that do not have a real chance of receiving the award to save time and money by being removed sooner rather than late in the process. That is a realistic, rational approach to Government procurement reform. So I agree with the administration. I think we need to continue procurement reform. The statement of administration policy, of Clinton administration policy, says that this is the one bill that continues the procurement reform that they have consistently supported. That is why, and I state again for emphasis, the Clinton administration supports House passage of this very bill before us as reported by the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight without amendment.

Mr. MORAN. Mr. Chairman, let me just say, I agree with the gentlewoman from California [Ms. Harman] that the statement of administration policy in the letter that we have could be clearer, but clearly it is authentic, because it is obvious that is written by Federal bureaucrats. I love Federal bureaucrats, as the gentlewoman knows I do, they are my constituents, but it clearly is authentic. If it was not authentic, it might be easier to read.

Mr. MORAN. Mr. Chairman, I would suggest to the chairman that we hand out the statement of administration policy to all of the Members. They can reach their own conclusion as to what it says, but I would also ask the Democratic Members of this House particularly to call the White House and to ask them their position both on this amendment as well as on passage of the bill. Executive Office of the President, Office of Management and Budget, Washington, DC, September 13, 1995. Statement of Administration Policy (This statement has been coordinated by OMB with the concerned agencies.)--H.R. 1670--Federal Acquisition Reform Act of 1995--(Clinger (R) PA and 16 cosponsors) The Administration supports House passage of H.R. 1670 as reported by the Government Reform and Oversight Committee. H.R. 1670 makes a number of important steps to simplify the procurement process, reduce bureaucracy, and make it easier for the Government to select suppliers committed to good performance. In particular, the Administration supports the provisions that authorize simplified procedures for use in commercial product acquisitions, streamline ``procurement integrity'' requirements, and eliminate statutorily mandated layers of review that slow down the procurement process without adding value. The Administration will continue to work with Congress to address concerns with: Title I, which redefines ``full and open competition'' and authorizes ``procedures other than competitive procedures'' where competitive procedures are ``not feasible or appropriate''. The Administration appreciates the Committee's intent to authorize the streamlined competitive methods the Administration has sought without micromanaging in statute. The Administration agrees with the conclusion embodied in Title I that significant reforms of the way in which competitions are conducted are needed. These would include (1) authorizing innovative ``two-phase procedures'' allowing elimination of uncompetitive bidders prior to full competitive proposals, and (2) allowing reduction of the competitive range, after receipt of proposals, in order to conduct an efficient procurement. However, the language in Title I has raised concerns about the Government's commitment to vigorous competition. The Administration therefore recommends consideration of its proposal to authorize the aforementioned streamlined procedures in statute. Title IV, concerning bid protests. While Title IV has been improved since its introduction, it still does not go far enough to reduce excessive litigation, intrusive discovery techniques, and adversarial relations between suppliers and the government customer. The Administration would support an amendment that would reduce the litigation burden associated with Federal procurement. The Administration also continues to have concerns about consolidation of claims and protests into a single forum. Finally, the Administration has a constitutional concern with the manner in which Appeals Board judges would be appointed. These officials should be appointed by the heads of the agencies in which the Boards are located--the Department of Defense and the General Services Administration--respectively.

Mr. MORAN. I yield to the gentlewoman from Illinois.

Mr. MORAN. Mr. Chairman, I thank my good friend from Massachusetts for yielding. Mr. Chairman, I wanted to speak before the chairman of the committee, because I want Members to be left with his remarks. But I do think it is useful to respond to some of the questions that have been raised with regard to the language that has come from the White House and from the Department of Defense. The bottom line is that the White House opposes this amendment and supports the bill. I will conclude with the point that I know, because I have spoken with the White House, that the White House does not support this amendment. It opposes this amendment. It does support this bill. It has supported this bill consistently. I think that is important for all the Members of the House to know, but particularly for the Democratic Members of the House who wish to support the continuing commitment to Government reform, and particularly to procurement reform as is accomplished by this bill.

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

Mr. MORAN. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will continue to yield, I did not make the statement or the point that I wanted to make.

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

Mr. MORAN

Mr. MORAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to one of the Nation's best known and most revered public transportation professionals, who is retiring after 25 years of service. Joe Alexander resigned from the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority Board of Directors on June 26, 1995. The Metro Board will honor him for his quarter century of service to Metro and the transit industry at a reception on September 15, 1995. Joe Alexander is synonomous with the planning, financing, and construction of the 103-mile Metrorail system. He was appointed to the Metro Board in 1971 and assumed a leadership role in persuading the citizens of Fairfax County to approve bonds to finance their share of the Metrorail system. He went on to become chairman of the Metro Board four times: 1975, 1981, 1987, and 1993. But those titles only scratch the surface of his achievements. On his watch, the Metrorail system took shape: the initial opening of service on the Red Line from Farragut North to Union Station (1976), followed by the Blue Line from Stadium-Armory to National Airport (1977); the Orange Line from Rosslyn to Ballston (1979); the Yellow Line from Gallery Place to the Pentagon (1983); the Blue Line from National Airport to Huntington (1983); the Orange Line from Ballston to Vienna (1986); and the Green Line from Ft. Totten to Greenbelt (1993). The Metrorail system now encompasses 89.5 miles and 74 stations and will add 3.3 miles and the Franconia-Springfield Station in 1997. This facility will add the last planned station in Fairfax County and the Commonwealth of Virginia, a 3,600-space parking garage and the only Metrorail station in Joe Alexander's magisterial district. Joe Alexander made sure his job was complete before he decided to move on. Metrorail has earned the nickname ``America's Subway'' for its unparallelled design, convenience, and the highest cost recovery ratio of any heavy rail system in the Nation--71 percent. Over 500,000 trips per day, including many Members of Congress, staff and most importantly our constituents, are taken on Metrorail. It represents among the highest level of accomplishment to which elected officials can aspire and is embodied by the career of Joe Alexander. Joe Alexander was not content, however, to confine his activities in the transit industry to Metro. He was a founding member of the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission [NVTC] in 1964. NVTC consists of the cities of Alexandria, Fairfax, and Falls Church and the counties of Arlington, Fairfax, and Loudoun and is responsible for coordinating the financial and service plans of these localities who are included in the Metro service area. He served as chairman of NVTC in 1970, 1971 and 1972. His chairmanship was highlighted by NVTC's receipt of the Shirley Highway Demonstration Project grant from U.S. DOT in 1971. This project was the first of its kind in the Nation to demonstrate the enormous benefits of express bus service on grade-separated high-occupancy- vehicle lanes and is now a common transportation demand management strategy in metropolitan areas around the country. In 1974, Joe Alexander was among the regional leaders to organize and implement the takeover of four private bus companies to form the Metrobus system. The Metro board acquired 600 new buses, restructured routes and fares and delivered great improvements for the regional bus system in a few short years. Joe Alexander was a major player at the State level, also. He served as chairman of the Virginia Association of Public Transit Officials [VAPTO] for 4 years. His tenure was highlighted by the VAPTO-created Commonwealth Mass Transit Fund at the 1986 Virginia General Assembly. This fund guarantees mass transit a fixed percentage of the Transportation Trust Fund and for the first time created a stable and reliable source of State funds for Metro and transit systems throughout Virginia. Joe Alexander did not stop there. He has been very active at the American Public Transit Association [APTA], serving as chairman from 1982 to 1984. There is no person in this country who knows, has worked with or enjoys the respect of as many people in the transit industry as Joe Alexander. And if all of this is not enough, Joe Alexander will finish out his term on the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors in January, 1996, after serving 32 years as supervisor of Lee District. When Joe Alexander took office in Fairfax, the beltway did not exist and Fairfax had more cows than people. Today, Fairfax is approaching 1 million in population and is the home of one of the highest-rated public education systems and high-technology business sectors in the country. Joe Alexander is an icon in the transit industry locally and nationally. His service has been marked by dedication; a commitment to excellence; and an unswerving determination to achieve the highest goals for public transit and government service. We recently celebrated the lifelong achievement of Cal Ripken, Jr. as he broke Lou Gehrig's record for consecutive games played in Major League Baseball. Joe Alexander's lifetime record in the transit field is no less worthy of the same recognition accorded Cal Ripken. Mr. Speaker, I know my colleagues join me in honoring Joe Alexander for his many years of service and contributions to the transit industry. We wish him and his family continued success in the years ahead.

Mr. MORAN

Mr. MORAN. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to introduce legislation today naming the new Eastern District Federal Courthouse at Courthouse Square South and Jamieson Avenue South in Alexandria, the Albert V. Bryan Courthouse. Appointed to the U.S. District Court in 1947 by President Truman and promoted in 1961 to the Appeals Court by President Kennedy, Judge Bryan is best known for his 1958 order that four black students be enrolled in Arlington's all-white Stratford Junior High School. Implementation of this order produced the first day of school desegregation in Virginia history. Judge Bryan was also a member of the judicial panel that ordered the desegregation of public schools in Prince Edward County during the height of Virginia's massive resistance to integration. The Prince Edward case later became part of the Supreme Court's historic 1954 decision in Brown versus Board of Education. In his 37 years on the Federal bench, Judge Bryan built a record as a legal conservative and a strict constructionist. He was renown for [[Page E 1763]] his fairness, firmness, and thoroughness. Of the 322 opinions written as a circuit judge and the 18 opinions written as a district judge, he was reversed in only 4 cases, a record few can equal. His colleagues knew him as a courtly, conservative Virginia gentleman whose personal style was low key, modest and polite, often with a dry wit. According to his son, U.S. District Judge Albert V. Bryan Jr., Judge Bryan, Sr. thought of the court as a jewel of the Constitution. Following through on the jewel metaphor, the Washington Post editorial marking the death of Judge Bryan, stated that: ``those who knew the senior Judge Bryan might well add that this appraisal came from a expert who valued that gem and protected it with integrity and eloquence.'' With great reverence and pride, I am pleased to introduce legislation today to honor and commemorate this distinguished Alexandria jurist.

Mr. MORAN

Mr. MORAN. Mr. Chairman, do you think for a moment that if men could get pregnant that we would be spending a moment here to discuss whether our men in the military would have the right to use their own money to go to military hospitals to have one of the most personal, private operations possible performed on their bodies? The answer is no. Mr. Chairman, we do not know the circumstance of pregnancy of these women. We do not know the health circumstances that are unique to them, and the reality is this ought to be left to them. They have a constitutional right, let us support it.

Mr. MORAN

Mr. MORAN. Mr. Speaker, I want to see Cal Ripkin break that record as much as anybody, but, you know, there are other people's lives at stake here in this bill. I rise in opposition to the bill. One reason is it eliminates the Office of Technology Assessment. I think it is important that the Members understand fully what this bill does. For one, it eliminates the Office of Technology Assessment, the studies they do, technical studies, studies that give us information we could not get otherwise. They are overseen by a bipartisan board. It is going to make us much more reliant upon the high-priced lobbyists that represent the billion-dollar telecommunications industry or whatever others may have a vested interest. It eliminates 25 percent of the General Accounting Office. Think of the millions of dollars that have been saved every year by GAO. Yet we are going to tell them that a quarter of GAO is expendable. I think that is penny wise and pound foolish. But most importantly, my friends in this Chamber, we need to know what this does to the lives of those people that have devoted their lives to serving this institution. I would like you to focus for a moment on someone like Nancy Glorius. She started working for this institution when she was 15 years old. She has worked for the House of Representatives for 34 years, helping the House buy anything from paper clips to computer networks, has always done a good job. You know what, she just received a form letter, pink slip, without so much as her name on it, after spending 34 years of her life serving this institution; people like Charles Hoag, who worked here 24 years and was let go just months before his retirement and replaced with higher paid employees. This is not right. This institution will not serve us, more importantly the American people, if this is the way we conduct ourselves.

Mr. MORAN

Mr. MORAN. Mr. Chairman, this is not a contest between liberals and conservatives or Republicans and Democrats. Frankly, this is a contest between parental control and corporate PAC's. There is no parent PAC to protect their interests. Ninety percent of parents in this country support what the V-chip amendment does. But they do not have the means to buy influence over us. They have to rely upon us to do the right thing for them and for our own families. We enable parents to get the kind of information they need so they do not feed toxic foods into the bodies of their children. Should we not enable them to control the poison that is being pumped into the minds of our Nation's children every single day? That is all this amendment does. What does the Coburn corporate amendment do that is not currently being done? It mandates an 18-month Government study and then encourages the broadcast industry. That is the extent of it. Our amendment does not control what parents see or anyone can see. All it does is enable parents to control what their children see. What we do is to ask the broadcast industry to rate their own programs. Government does not rate their programs. In fact, if a new technology that is as affordable as the V-chip and is as easy to use by parents as the V-chip comes along, fine, it authorizes that as well. Government does not block any programs. It does not even rate them. My colleagues, we have to vote against the Coburn amendment in order to be able to vote for parents by voting for the V-chip amendment.

Mr. MORAN

Mr. MORAN. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. MORAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, since it is such an important topic, I am going to make a few more remarks, and I appreciate the fact that the chairman is not opposed to this amendment. In fact, he would probably like me to speed this up as rapidly as possible and get on to more controversial amendments. I think it is important to recognize that with a $1 trillion health budget, 70 percent of the illnesses that we come down with are preventable, if we had a better concept of how to keep ourselves healthy, and that is largely what this is all about. It is determining how we can bring about the healthiest population possible and not rejecting things because they are not taught in traditional schools of medicine, even though they have been used efficaciously throughout the globe. So I would appreciate greater attention being given to what I think is an area at NIH that holds tremendous [[Page H 8330]] promise, that does not cost a lot of money. The rewards are going to be far more than what they cost for investing in the Office of Alternative Medicine. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. MORAN. Mr. Chairman, this amendment simply earmarks an additional $1.9 million within the Office of the Director of NIH for the Office of Alternative Medicine. It does not increase the budget. In fact, as I say, this is unallocated money, but I think it is terribly important that we put a little bit more money into the Office of Alternative Medicine. You know, 80 percent of the world's medicine is considered alternative medicine. It is amazing, the fact that 80 percent of the rest of the world uses different therapies than the conventional therapies that we use in the United States and that, in fact, 50 percent of the American people who are faced with a very serious illness like cancer try alternative medicines. In fact, they pay out of pocket about $10 billion. As much as they pay out of pocket for hospital care, they are paying out of pocket, uninsured, for alternative approaches to traditional medicine. Now, Mr. Chairman, I came across this issue because of a personal experience in our family. My child had a malignant brain tumor and had maybe a 10- to 20-percent chance of living up to the age of 5, we were told, and so it was recommended to take the traditional approach, which is surgery, chemotherapy and radiation. Essentially cut, poison, and burn. The surgery was not able to get all of the tumor and so we gave her chemotherapy. We soon realized, the debilitating effect that chemotherapy was having on her. She is only a 3-year-old, but it generally has an adverse impact on anyone taking chemotherapy. We also put off the radiation. A story was written about our situation, and we got thousands of letters from all over the world, primarily from the United States. We got boxes of them. I do not have the time to read them. My wife has been reading most of them. It is amazing the common experiences that are shared and the fact that the majority of people have tried alternative approaches and yet they do not have anywhere to go to determine the efficacy of these different approaches, because there are no random clinical professional trials done on most of these approaches. We are trying something that we found out about from hundreds of people who have had success with powdered shark cartilage. People wince when we mention it. We do not have anywhere to go to determine whether, and under what conditions, it is likely to be effective, but the reality is, it seems to be working with our daughter in combination with high doses of vitamin C and other nutrients. I only mention the personal experience because our experience is being shared by thousands of families, if not millions across the country. We need some professional analysis. We need random trials that are done in a professional, scrupulous manner. We have a new director at the Office of Alternative Medicine with the right kind of background in clinical trials. He was at Walter Reed. He is an extremely competent physician. He is going to direct this office, but we need to give him at least the minimal amount of resources to determine whether some of these alternative therapies work. They will be done in collaboration with what the other National Institutes of Health are doing, and so I would urge that this small amount of increase to the Office of Alternative Medicine, which would bring it up to $7.5 million out of billions we put into the total budget for the National Institutes of Health, be approved by this body and that we make some progress in giving the kind of professional analysis we have the ability to provide, to so many American families who are desperately in need of it. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon [Mr. DeFazio].

Mr. MORAN. Mr. Chairman, I know of no one who objects to the amendment. I would like to explain it, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. MORAN

Mr. MORAN. Mr. Chairman, this really boils down to one most basic question that I would like to ask all my male colleagues to ask of themselves: If your daughter, your sister, your mother, were raped and became pregnant as a result of that rape, do you really want us men in this body or the men that comprise the majority of every other State legislature around the country making that most personal decision for her? I know in your hearts the answer is ``no,'' and that is why you must support this amendment.

Mr. MORAN

Mr. MORAN. Would the chairman further agree that it is the Office of the Secretary is best suited to coordinate all prevention activities in the various health-related agencies?

Mr. MORAN. Mr. Chairman, I rise to inquire about the coordination of disease prevention and health promotion activities at the Federal level. H.R. 2127 eliminates explicit funding for the activities carried out by the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, including the aggressive implementation of the national prevention strategy, Healthy People 2000. Although the activities of this office are to be continued at the Secretary's discretion, no moneys were transferred to carry out this mandate. I would like to clarify with the chairman his intent on maintaining disease prevention and health promotion as an integral part of our national health policy and ensuring coordination of the array of Federal efforts in this domain. I understand the budget constraints that you faced in putting together this legislation and appreciate the considerable flexibility that this bill gives the Secretary of Health. I also appreciate the increased funding for specific, categorical prevention programs supported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, such as for breast and cervical cancer screening. However, I am concerned that we are abdicating a strong Federal leadership role in orchestrating and coordinating prevention policy. Would the chairman agree that a strong emphasis on disease prevention and health promotion must be part of our national health strategy?

Mr. MORAN. And so you would clarify your intent to ensure that funds are available for orchestrating disease prevention policy at the Federal level. amendment offered by mr. greenwood

Mr. MORAN

Mr. MORAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from California for yielding me this time. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the rule, and I will share with my colleagues two good reasons to vote against this rule: You know, 90 percent of America's parents have been asking us to give them greater control over what their children are seeing on television, the sex and the violence and the profanity. Enough is enough they say. They look to us to give them some relief. More than 50 colleagues, both Republicans and Democrats, cosponsored legislation to use the technology that exists today to empower parents to control what their children are viewing on television. Pennies is all it would cost to add it to every new television set. We have worked on this for months, and now, at the last minute, we have an amendment that was put together by the broadcast industry, which really is a sham, whose only objective is to kill the V-chip amendment. This rule makes it in order that if this amendment wins, and all it does is to encourage the broadcast industry to address this problem, if that amendment wins, we do not even get a vote on ours. The second reason is a real sleeper in this bill, and that is with regard to the siting of these control towers. There are about 20,000 of them around the country now. There are going to be about 100,000. Our amendment said on private property, if you try to site a commercial tower, then the people that own that property have a right to go to their local zoning board. Of course they have the right. Imagine if somebody tries to put a 150 foot tower on your property, and you object, and they tell you, ``Well, the Congress gave us the authority to put it on. It is a Federal law. It supersedes local zoning authority.'' That is the last thing we want to be doing. So I would urge a ``no'' vote on this rule.

Mr. MORAN

Mr. MORAN. Mr. Chairman, I greatly respect the point of view of the ranking Democratic member of the Committee on International Relations, which is the point of view of the President of the United States, that we ought to continue negotiating. I understand the implications of lifting the arms embargo. But we have been negotiating for 3 years, and the problem is we are dealing with a bully. Bullies to not negotiate. They react to the threat of force. We understand that in our own lives. Who among us, if we were walking down the street and saw someone clubbing to death a defenseless person, who among us would not do something? I am sure there are some who would shrug their shoulders and walk on, saying this is not my battle. I am not in my neighborhood. A lot of people get clubbed to death all the time. Life is unfair. But that is not very many of us. Some of us would take the club away, maybe punch them in the nose to create a level playing field, and then let them fight it out. Some of us might interrupt and give a club to the other person and say, okay, it is fair now. Go ahead. But I do not think any of us would stand there and watch it happen. And for 3 years that is what we have been doing. We have been complicit in this genocide. America is the moral leader of the world. We are not just the military leader. We have looked to as the moral leader of this world. Let us be that leader. Let us be that leader. Let us exercise that leadership. We have another choice then to do the right thing. Support the lifting of the arms embargo.

Mr. MORAN

Mr. MORAN. Mr. Speaker, there have been few situations in modern history that have been as cruel and unjust as this, when people who could have changed it chose not to. The United Nations designated six areas in Bosnia that were to be safe enclaves. In fact, when people came into those enclaves, they were disarmed. We agreed to that. We are the principal financial contributor to the United Nations. We contribute more than any other country. We have been contributing almost a third of all the money that supports the United Nations. So it was our word, as well as the U.N.'s word, that these people would be safe. Nine out of ten of them were unarmed. In fact, those who had arms had only small arms that were of no use against heavy artilleries that the Serbs have had in their possession and have used for the last 3 years. Mr. Speaker, it is a cruel irony, in fact, that the arms embargo was never intended to apply to Bosnia. It was intended to apply to those States within Yugoslavia that had as many heavy arms as they wanted to use; Serbia and Croatia and Slovenia. They all had access to arms, but we knew Bosnia did not, and yet we imposed an arms embargo on Bosnia as well. When it became clear it was only effectively applying to Bosnia, we would not lift it. Now, for 3 years we have stood by as tens of thousands of people have been slaughtered. We have almost 2 million refugees floating around Europe that have been displaced. About 40,000 women have been raped. That is a large number, but it has been a tactic of this war; to rape women, defile them, to shame the family, to break the spirit of the Bosnian people, partly because they are Moslems, partly because it is a multiethnic secular democracy, and that, of course, is a threat to any dictator like Mr. Milosevic who is a hard-line, old-line Communist. And so we set up six enclaves. Now, in the last few weeks, we have let those enclaves be overrun. In the process of overrunning them, hundreds of women have been raped, hundreds of people have been viciously tortured, thousands of people have been massacred. Let me just put a little flesh and blood on what this means, what some of these numbers represent. Mr. Speaker, the following is from the July 31, 1995, edition of Newsweek magazine: This past week at a crossroads in the mountains outside Srebreica, Sabaheta Bacirovic saw 500 men on their knees. They were Bosnian Moslem prisoners. Their arms were tied behind their heads and their Serbian captors forced them to march by shuffling along on their knees. The Serbs taunted Mrs. Bacirovic and the women traveling with her. They were all driven out of Serbrenica when the Moslem enclave fell on July 11. ``These are your husbands,'' she recalled them saying. ``There is your army. We will kill them all.'' Mr. Speaker, they can kill them, because they are unarmed, because we have insisted upon this arms embargo. Mrs. Bacirovic realized that her husband was not among them. He had already been executed. Other women who walked this trail of tears out of Srebrenica saw heaps of dead men, their throats slit, piled up beside the roads; 9 out of 10 of them were unarmed. They were shot at and shelled by the Serbs every step of the way, broken into segments. When the stragglers caught up, they saw piles of corpses with their throats slit. Mr. Speaker, 9,000 men were killed as a result of the Serb's overtaking this enclave. This death march was the worst massacre in Europe since the Nazi era. Trickery led some of them to their deaths. The Serbs had white tanks that were made to look like U.N. vehicles. They had ``U.N.'' painted on them, and with bullhorns they urged the Bosnian to come out of the mountains and surrender. One of the Bosnian Moslems said, ``We knew it was really the Serbs.'' Mr. Alija Omerovic watched as some of his companions walked down and tried to surrender and were shot down by the armored car's machine gun. Some of the victims were mutilated, often with noses and ears cut off. A company commander was found, Enver Alaspahic, lying on a path. This is the company commander. His face had been cut open to the bone in the shape of an Orthodox cross. He begged the scout to kill him. The scout said he could not do it and left him there. Many of the atrocities have been committed by the black-clad members of the Serbian Volunteer Guard. These are followers of a thug known as Arkan. A woman whose husband and brother were among the missing marchers said she saw Serbs in black bandanas pull a pair of 12-year- old twin boys off a refugee bus. This is a U.N. refugee bus that we finance, we are responsible for. They slit their throats, slit the throats of the two twins, as their mother tried vainly to trade her life for theirs. Later the mother tied herself to a tree limb and hanged herself. We saw that on TV. People at the time said they did not know why she had hanged herself. They have now found out. And who would not? These are the kinds of atrocities that are occurring. While it is awkward and makes us uncomfortable to talk about them, they are real, they are happening today, and we are complicit in their happening unless we act. General Arkan has a long history. He had eight convictions by Interpol, murders, and yet he was armed by the Serbs in Serbia. He rounded up the worst, most vicious thugs that they could find, sent them into Bosnian villages, told them, ``You can go into these homes, you can shoot the men, you can rape the women. I will not go into what they did to the women, but it boggles the imagination that people could be so vicious and inhuman. They threw these families out of their homes, took all the possessions that they could, and went through village after village, ethnically cleansing these villages. That was the policy, and it has worked. It never should have worked at this time in the 20th century, when the United States has the military power, has the moral power to prevent this kind of slaughter, this kind of ethnic genocide. We committed ourselves to do that, not just when we erected the Holocaust Memorial, but when we learned of the slaughter of 6 million Jews because they were Jews, and now we see the slaughter of over 200,000 Moslems because they are Moslems. Most of them are innocent civilians. It never, never should have happened. Let me just quote the last point that the gentleman from Maryland [Mr. Hoyer] made. This is a quote from Prime Minister Haris Silajdzic, who just today sent us a letter, all of us, addressed specifically to the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Smith] and the gentleman from Maryland [Mr. Hoyer]. It says: On behalf of our people, I appeal to the American Government, the American people, and their elected representatives to untie our hands and to prove once again why America is the leader of the democratic world. In the name of morality, lift the arms embargo.