David Price

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H. Res. 811, to offer a message of solidarity to the people of Afghanistan. The House Democracy Assistance Commission, which I chair at present and which our colleague Mr. Dreier chaired in the previous Congress, has worked in partnership with the Wolesi Jirga, the Afghan Parliament's equivalent of the House of Representatives, for the last 2 years. In the course of that partnership, we have had the opportunity to travel to Afghanistan and meet with a range of Afghan leaders, including numbers of members of the Wolesi Jirga. We have been profoundly impressed by the courage and commitment of the Afghan people, who are striving against long odds to radically transform their society. Their nation has been at war or under attack for nearly all of the last 30 years, and yet they have faced down those who deny them their personal and political freedoms and have continued on course, to build a democratic and secure nation. None have demonstrated this dedication more than the members of the Wolesi Jirga. Afghan voters have selected individuals representing every aspect of the Afghan culture--Islamic scholars, western businessmen, former communists, progressive women, and everything in between, for this remarkable assembly. They have approached their differences in a truly democratic fashion, settling disputes through debate, rather than violence. As their Speaker, Yunus Qanooni, likes to say, they now settle their differences by holding up voting cards instead of guns. And now they stand together, conservatives and progressives, men and women, Tajiks and Pashtuns, all working for a better Afghanistan. Mr. Speaker, one week ago today, the Afghan democracy suffered its deadliest terrorist attack since the fall of the brutal Taliban regime. Over 50 Afghan citizens, including school children, tribal elders and other bystanders, were killed, and over 100 more were injured. The main target of the attack was a delegation of members of the Wolesi Jirga, a delegation that strongly represented the new democratic spirit I have just described. The 18 members of the delegation represented diverse ethnic groups and religious affiliations. They included men and women, and covered the full political spectrum. It was a delegation traveling to Baghlan province to reach out to the constituents that the members have sworn to serve. After the bombing, six Wolesi Jirga members lay dead. Sayed Mustafa Kazemi, Chair of the Economic Commission of the Wolesi Jirga and former Minister of Commerce; Engineer Abdul Matin, a member from the province of Helmland; Sibgatullah Zaki, a member from the province of Takhar; Haji Sahib Rahman Hemat, a member from the province of Kunar; Nazik Mir Sarferaz, a member from the Kunduz province; and Mohammad Arif Zarif, a member from Kabul. Many more were injured. Some of the members killed and injured were members that our House Democracy Assistance Commission met with only last fall. We offer our deepest sympathies to the families and friends of these members who died in service to their country. But I rise to say to those behind these attacks that despite your cowardly actions, Afghanistan's democracy remains strong, and our support for Afghanistan remains unwavering. The resolution before us condemns this horrific attack and expresses our deep condolences to the Afghan people, who have sacrificed so much for the cause of a free and democratic nation. It also calls upon our Nation and the international community to redouble our efforts in support of Afghanistan, to turn back the forces within that country and beyond that are capable of the barbarism we witnessed last week. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this resolution.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. I thank my colleague for yielding. That map before us is an all too familiar scene, I'm afraid. We have seen the drought areas growing and growing each week in the newspaper depictions of our weather pattern. It is very, very dry up and down the eastern seaboard. In the Washington, D.C. area, this is a serious situation as well. But my colleague is right; no State has been hit harder than North Carolina. And the devastation started in the western part of the State at first, but has now swept across the State, and we have severe drought conditions, I think, in every one of our North Carolina counties. The situation is dire. The gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Etheridge) who serves so well on the Agriculture Committee and also the Homeland Security Committee, has done us a service in organizing this Special Order tonight and bringing this serious problem to the attention of our colleagues and to the attention of the country. If anyone has spent any time at all in the Southeast this summer and fall, it would be difficult for the enormity of the drought not to catch your attention. We see it daily during our time in North Carolina. We are not simply talking about brown suburban lawns or needing to take shorter showers, although both of those are realities. The hot and dry conditions of the past several months have dried up our lakes and killed our crops. They are threatening the water supply of many communities, and they are irreparably damaging this year's agricultural output. It is that damage to agriculture that brings us here tonight. North Carolina boasts one of the most diverse arrays of agricultural products in the Nation, yet crop yields in North Carolina and other southeastern States are down across the board. There is not a crop that is not affected. Last month, following our Governor's recommendation, the U.S. Department of Agriculture designated 85 of North Carolina's 100 counties as disaster areas, and all 85 of these counties have lost at least 35 percent of at least one major crop. Such losses are not confined to farming in rural areas. They may hit the smallest farming communities the hardest, but they inflict serious pain on the entire economy of an agricultural State like ours. They are felt throughout the country, seriously affecting the Nation's food supply and prices. This may be a regional drought, a disaster that is centered in the Southeast and in North Carolina in particular, but there is no doubt it is a national problem and that national attention is called for. We need to focus attention on this challenge in this body. Congressional attention and action are demanded. That is why we signed a letter to the President requesting that he include disaster assistance in any supplemental appropriations request. I am disappointed that yesterday's request failed to do so. I know my colleague shares that disappointment, and I suspect he has talked about it a good deal tonight already. I am hopeful that the Appropriations Committee will pay attention to tonight's remarks and understand the scope of this problem and take appropriate action. I am a member of that committee, and I plan to press for disaster relief wherever and whenever it can be achieved. I urge all of my colleagues to do the same. Again, I commend my colleague for calling this Special Order and for his dogged persistence in looking out for our farm communities, but also understanding the implications of this disaster for the economy as a whole.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Virginia has offered a motion to recommit H.R. 2740 the MEJA Expansion and Enforcement Act, to the Judiciary Committee and to amend the legislation with regard to intelligence activities. I will support this motion, but with two important qualifications. The motion to recommit would amend H.R. 2740 with a rule of construction, stating, ``nothing in this Act shall be construed to affect intelligence activities that are otherwise permissible prior to the enactment of this Act.'' This amendment does not at all modify the force of my legislation, does not limit the scope of the MEJA jurisdiction, and does not grant immunity to anyone, including contractor employees of the intelligence community. Put simply, I am voting in support of this motion because it in no way alters the underlying bill before us. With that said, let me attach two qualifications to my support. First, the amendment is unnecessary in the context of both current law and this legislation. Second, the amendment raises serious questions about the activities its proponents may be seeking to protect. My legislation would indeed place contractor employees of non-defense related agencies under the extraterritorial jurisdiction of United States federal law, granting the Department of Justice authority to prosecute felony offenses committed by non-defense contractors. Defense contractors are already covered by MEJA, a point that seems lost on the authors of this motion. Given that the majority of the intelligence community falls under the Department of Defense, it stands to reason that many--if not most--contractors engaged in intelligence-related activities are already under the jurisdiction of federal law. Not only that, employees of the Defense Department intelligence agencies, including agents of the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, and intelligence services of the different branches of the Armed Forces, among others, are covered by MEJA, and this coverage has not endangered our national security in the least. So concerns about my legislation, which deals with non-defense contractors, seem ill-founded in the context of current law. To my knowledge, there have never been significant concerns raised about the coverage of these Defense Department intelligence agents and contractors, for one major reason: prosecutorial discretion. The Department of Justice always has the discretion to refrain from prosecuting a case if it will endanger our national security interests. My legislation does not compel prosecution and it does not interfere with the prosecutor's discretion. If a prosecutor ever has concerns that prosecution of a contractor under MEJA would endanger state secrets, expose clandestine networks, or otherwise undermine our security interests, the prosecutor has the discretion not to prosecute the case. It's as simple as that. Let me also point out that this bill only affects contractors who commit felony crimes. So long as private contractors, including those who are engaged in intelligence-related activities, are conducting themselves within the bounds of the law, this legislation is irrelevant to them. However, if there are private, for-profit contractors tasked with duties that require them to commit felony offenses, Congress needs to know about it. Such a revelation would point to a need for a serious debate about whether we are using contractors appropriately. My second qualification is that this amendment raises serious questions about the activities it may be intended to protect. The question here is, given that my bill only targets activities that are unlawful, why do my colleagues feel the need to clarify that it does not affect activities that are permissible? What activities are contractors carrying out that are permissible but not lawful? I have great apprehension about what might be meant in this context, but first let me state clearly: the law is the highest authority in the land, other than the constitution. The law trumps executive orders, memorandums, and policies in all cases. I am voting for this motion with the understanding that there is no activity a contractor might be performing that could ever be permissible but not lawful. The activities that we assign to private contractors must be in accordance with the law on the books. Therefore, I interpret this motion simply to mean that nothing in my bill will have any effect on contractors working on lawful, permissible, appropriate intelligence activities. I raise this concern because, as my colleagues well know, Congress-- including members on both sides of the aisle--and this Administration have been at significant odds about the activities appropriate for our military and intelligence community to perform in certain contexts relating to the war in Iraq and the broader war against terrorism, especially with regard to the treatment of suspects in interrogations and detentions. There is rampant evidence that this Administration believes certain activities to be ``permissible'' which are clearly illegal under several statutes in United States Code. Just today, for example, the New York Times reported that the Department of Justice has issued secret memorandums that, in direct contrast to the policies they have publicly avowed, amounted to ``an expansive endorsement of the harshest interrogation techniques ever used by the Central Intelligence Agency'' and ``for the first time provided explicit authorization to barrage terror suspects with a combination of painful physical and psychological tactics, including head-slapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures.'' I submit the full article for inclusion in the Record. The harshest forms of physical and psychological tactics outlined in this article are inappropriate and illegal for our military personnel and intelligence agents, to say nothing of private contractors, and it is abominable that this Administration continues to work to circumvent our time-honored values and laws to authorize behavior that is un- American to its core. There are clear laws on the books prohibiting torture, including the War Crimes Act (18 U.S. Code 2441) and the federal anti-torture statute (18 U.S. Code 2340). Moreover, torture is prohibited by the Uniform Code of Military Justice (articles 77-134). And the United States is a ratified signatory to international treaties, including the Geneva Conventions (Common Article 3) and the Convention Against Torture, which specifically outlaw torture. Most importantly, the United States Constitution (amendments 5, 8, and 14) explicitly prohibits cruel, unusual, and inhumane treatment or punishment. The kinds of activities that, to the great shame of our nation, have been carried out at Abu Ghraib prison and Guantanamo Bay detention facilities are not, in any circumstances, permissible. Let us be clear that, in the passage of this motion, we are in no way authorizing or legitimating these behaviors. Let us also be clear that, in this passage of this legislation, we are providing federal prosecutors the tools to arrest and prosecute any contractor working for this government who commits such abominable acts to the full extent of the law. [From the New York Times, Oct. 4, 2007] Secret U.S. Endorsement of Severe Interrogations (By Scott Shane, David Johnston and James Risen) Washington, Oct. 3.--When the Justice Department publicly declared torture ``abhorrent'' in a legal opinion in December 2004, the Bush administration appeared to have abandoned its assertion of nearly unlimited presidential authority to order brutal interrogations. But soon after Alberto R. Gonzales's arrival as attorney general in February 2005, the Justice Department issued another opinion, this one in secret. It was a very different document, according to officials briefed on it, an expansive endorsement of the harshest interrogation techniques ever used by the Central Intelligence Agency. The new opinion, the officials said, for the first time provided explicit authorization to barrage terror suspects with a combination of painful physical and psychological tactics, including head-slapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures. Mr. Gonzales approved the legal memorandum on ``combined effects'' over the objections of James B. Comey, the deputy attorney general, who was leaving his job after bruising clashes with the White House. Disagreeing with what he viewed as the opinion's overreaching legal reasoning, Mr. Comey told colleagues at the department that they would all be ``ashamed'' when the world eventually learned of it. Later that year, as Congress moved toward outlawing ``cruel, inhuman and degrading'' treatment, the Justice Department issued another secret opinion, one most lawmakers did not know existed, current and former officials said. The Justice Department document declared that none of the C.I.A. interrogation methods violated that standard. The classified opinions, never previously disclosed, are a hidden legacy of President Bush's second term and Mr. Gonzales's tenure at the Justice Department, where he moved quickly to align it with the White House after a 2004 rebellion by staff lawyers that had thrown policies on surveillance and detention into turmoil. Congress and the Supreme Court have intervened repeatedly in the last two years to impose limits on interrogations, and the administration has responded as a policy matter by dropping the most extreme techniques. But the 2005 Justice Department opinions remain in effect, and their legal conclusions have been confirmed by several more recent memorandums, officials said. They show how the White House has succeeded in preserving the broadest possible legal latitude for harsh tactics. A White House spokesman, Tony Fratto, said Wednesday that he would not comment on any legal opinion related to interrogations. Mr. Fratto added, ``We have gone to great lengths, including statutory efforts and the recent executive order, to make it clear that the intelligence community and our practices fall within U.S. law'' and international agreements. More than two dozen current and former officials involved in counterterrorism were interviewed over the past three months about the opinions and the deliberations on interrogation policy. Most officials would speak only on the condition of anonymity because of the secrecy of the documents and the C.I.A. detention operations they govern. When he stepped down as attorney general in September after widespread criticism of the firing of federal prosecutors and withering attacks on his credibility, Mr. Gonzales talked proudly in a farewell speech of how his department was ``a place of inspiration'' that had balanced the necessary flexibility to conduct the war on terrorism with the need to uphold the law. Associates at the Justice Department said Mr. Gonzales seldom resisted pressure from Vice President Dick Cheney and David S. Addington, Mr. Cheney's counsel, to endorse policies that they saw as effective in safeguarding Americans, even though the practices brought the condemnation of other governments, human rights groups and Democrats in Congress. Critics say Mr. Gonzales turned his agency into an arm of the Bush White House, undermining the department's independence. The interrogation opinions were signed by Steven G. Bradbury, who since 2005 has headed the elite Office of Legal Counsel at the Justice Department. He has become a frequent public defender of the National Security Agency's domestic surveillance program and detention policies at Congressional hearings and press briefings, a role that some legal scholars say is at odds with the office's tradition of avoiding political advocacy. Mr. Bradbury defended the work of his office as the government's most authoritative interpreter of the law. ``In my experience, the White House has not told me how an opinion should come out,'' he said in an interview. ``The White House has accepted and respected our opinions, even when they didn't like the advice being given.'' The debate over how terrorism suspects should be held and questioned began shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, when the Bush administration adopted secret detention and coercive interrogation, both practices the United States had previously denounced when used by other countries. It adopted the new measures without public debate or Congressional vote, choosing to rely instead on the confidential legal advice of a handful of appointees. The policies set off bruising internal battles, pitting administration moderates against hard-liners, military lawyers against Pentagon chiefs and, most surprising, a handful of conservative lawyers at the Justice Department against the White House in the stunning mutiny of 2004. But under Mr. Gonzales and Mr. Bradbury, the Justice Department was wrenched back into line with the White House. After the Supreme Court ruled in 2006 that the Geneva Conventions applied to prisoners who belonged to Al Qaeda, President Bush for the first time acknowledged the C.I.A.'s secret jails and ordered their inmates moved to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The C.I.A. halted its use of waterboarding, or pouring water over a bound prisoner's cloth-covered face to induce fear of suffocation. But in July, after a monthlong debate inside the administration, President Bush signed a new executive order authorizing the use of what the administration calls ``enhanced'' interrogation techniques--the details remain secret--and officials say the C.I.A. again is holding prisoners in ``black sites'' overseas. The executive order was reviewed and approved by Mr. Bradbury and the Office of Legal Counsel. Douglas W. Kmiec, who headed that office under President Ronald Reagan and the first President George Bush and wrote a book about it, said he believed the intense pressures of the campaign against terrorism have warped the office's proper role. ``The office was designed to insulate against any need to be an advocate,'' said Mr. Kmiec, now a conservative scholar at Pepperdine University law school. But at times in recent years, Mr. Kmiec said, the office, headed by William H. Rehnquist and Antonin Scalia before they served on the Supreme Court, ``lost its ability to say no.'' ``The approach changed dramatically with opinions on the war on terror,'' Mr. Kmiec said. ``The office became an advocate for the president's policies.'' From the secret sites in Afghanistan, Thailand and Eastern Europe where C.I.A. teams held Qaeda terrorists, questions for the lawyers at C.I.A. headquarters arrived daily. Nervous interrogators wanted to know: Are we breaking the laws against torture? The Bush administration had entered uncharted legal territory beginning in 2002, holding prisoners outside the scrutiny of the International Red Cross and subjecting them to harrowing pressure tactics. They included slaps to the head; hours held naked in a frigid cell; days and nights without sleep while battered by thundering rock music; long periods manacled in stress positions; or the ultimate, waterboarding. Never in history had the United States authorized such tactics. While President Bush and C.I.A. officials would later insist that the harsh measures produced crucial intelligence, many veteran interrogators, psychologists and other experts say that less coercive methods are equally or more effective. With virtually no experience in interrogations, the C.I.A. had constructed its program in a few harried months by consulting Egyptian and Saudi intelligence officials and copying Soviet interrogation methods long used in training American service men to withstand capture. The agency officers questioning prisoners constantly sought advice from lawyers thousands of miles away. ``We were getting asked about combinations--`Can we do this and this at the same time?' '' recalled Paul C. Kelbaugh, a veteran intelligence lawyer who was deputy legal counsel at the C.I.A.'s Counterterrorist Center from 2001 to 2003. Interrogators were worried that even approved techniques had such a painful, multiplying effect when combined that they might cross the legal line, Mr. Kelbaugh said. He recalled agency officers asking: ``These approved techniques, say, withholding food, and 50-degree temperature--can they be combined?'' Or ``Do I have to do the less extreme before the more extreme?'' The questions came more frequently, Mr. Kelbaugh said, as word spread about a C.I.A. inspector general inquiry unrelated to the war on terrorism. Some veteran C.I.A. officers came under scrutiny because they were advisers to Peruvian officers who in early 2001 shot down a missionary flight they had mistaken for a drug-running aircraft. The Americans were not charged with crimes, but they endured three years of investigation, saw their careers derailed and ran up big legal bills. That experience shook the Qaeda interrogation team, Mr. Kelbaugh said. ``You think you're making a difference and maybe saving 3,000 American lives from the next attack. And someone tells you, `Well, that guidance was a little vague, and the inspector general wants to talk to you,' '' he recalled. ``We couldn't tell them, `Do the best you can,' because the people who did the best they could in Peru were looking at a grand jury.'' Mr. Kelbaugh said the questions were sometimes close calls that required consultation with the Justice Department. But in August 2002, the department provided a sweeping legal justification for even the harshest tactics. That opinion, which would become infamous as ``the torture memo'' after it was leaked, was written largely by John Yoo, a young Berkeley law professor serving in the Office of Legal Counsel. His broad views of presidential power were shared by Mr. Addington, the vice president's adviser. Their close alliance provoked John Ashcroft, then the attorney general, to refer privately to Mr. Yoo as Dr. Yes for his seeming eagerness to give the White House whatever legal justifications it desired, a Justice Department official recalled. Mr. Yoo's memorandum said no interrogation practices were illegal unless they produced pain equivalent to organ failure or ``even death.'' A second memo produced at the same time spelled out the approved practices and how often or how long they could be used. Despite that guidance, in March 2003, when the C.I.A. caught Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the chief planner of the Sept. 11 attacks, interrogators were again haunted by uncertainty. Former intelligence officials, for the first time, disclosed that a variety of tough interrogation tactics were used about 100 times over two weeks on Mr. Mohammed. Agency officials then ordered a halt, fearing the combined assault might have amounted to illegal torture. A C.I.A. spokesman, George Little, declined to discuss the handling of Mr. Mohammed. Mr. Little said the program ``has been conducted lawfully, with great care and close review'' and ``has helped our country disrupt terrorist plots and save innocent lives.'' ``The agency has always sought a clear legal framework, conducting the program in strict accord with U.S. law, and protecting the officers who go face-to-face with ruthless terrorists,'' Mr. Little added. Some intelligence officers say that many of Mr. Mohammed's statements proved exaggerated or false. One problem, a former senior agency official said, was that the C.I.A.'s initial interrogators were not experts on Mr. Mohammed's background or Al Qaeda, and it took about a month to get such an expert to the secret prison. The former official said many C.I.A. professionals now believe patient, repeated questioning by well-informed experts is more effective than harsh physical pressure. Other intelligence officers, including Mr. Kelbaugh, insist that the harsh treatment produced invaluable insights into Al Qaeda's structure and plans. ``We leaned in pretty hard on K.S.M.,'' Mr. Kelbaugh said, referring to Mr. Mohammed. ``We were getting good information, and then they were told: ``Slow it down. It may not be correct. Wait for some legal clarification.'' The doubts at the C.I.A. proved prophetic. In late 2003, after Mr. Yoo left the Justice Department, the new head of the Office of Legal Counsel, Jack Goldsmith, began reviewing his work, which he found deeply flawed. Mr. Goldsmith infuriated White House officials, first by rejecting part of the National Security Agency's surveillance program, prompting the threat of mass resignations by top Justice Department officials, including Mr. Ashcroft and Mr. Comey, and a showdown at the attorney general's hospital bedside. Then, in June 2004, Mr. Goldsmith formally withdrew the August 2002 Yoo memorandum on interrogation, which he found overreaching and poorly reasoned. Mr. Goldsmith left the Justice Department soon afterward. He first spoke at length about his dissenting views to The New York Times last month, and testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday. Six months later, the Justice Department quietly posted on its Web site a new legal opinion that appeared to end any flirtation with torture, starting with its clarionlike opening: ``Torture is abhorrent both to American law and values and to international norms.'' A single footnote--added to reassure the C.I.A.--suggested that the Justice Department was not declaring the agency's previous actions illegal. But the opinion was unmistakably a retreat. Some White House officials had opposed publicizing the document, but acquiesced to Justice Department officials who argued that doing so would help clear the way for Mr. Gonzales's confirmation as attorney general. If President Bush wanted to make sure the Justice Department did not rebel again, Mr. Gonzales was the ideal choice. As White House counsel, he had been a fierce protector of the president's prerogatives. Deeply loyal to Mr. Bush for championing his career from their days in Texas, Mr. Gonzales would sometimes tell colleagues that he had just one regret about becoming attorney general: He did not see nearly as much of the president as he had in his previous post. Among his first tasks at the Justice Department was to find a trusted chief for the Office of Legal Counsel. First he informed Daniel Levin, the acting head who had backed Mr. Goldsmith's dissents and signed the new opinion renouncing torture, that he would not get the job. He encouraged Mr. Levin to take a position at the National Security Council, in effect sidelining him. Mr. Bradbury soon emerged as the presumed favorite. But White House officials, still smarting from Mr. Goldsmith's rebuffs, chose to delay his nomination. Harriet E. Miers, the new White House counsel, ``decided to watch Bradbury for a month or two. He was sort of on trial,'' one Justice Department official recalled. Mr. Bradbury's biography had a Horatio Alger element that appealed to a succession of bosses, including Justice Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court and Mr. Gonzales, the son of poor immigrants. Mr. Bradbury's father had died when he was an infant, and his mother took in laundry to support her children. The first in his family to go to college, he attended Stanford and the University of Michigan Law School. He joined the law firm of Kirkland & Ellis, where he came under the tutelage of Kenneth W. Starr, the Whitewater independent prosecutor. Mr. Bradbury belonged to the same circle as his predecessors: young, conservative lawyers with sterling credentials, often with clerkships for prominent conservative judges and ties to the Federalist Society, a powerhouse of the legal right. Mr. Yoo, in fact, had proposed his old friend Mr. Goldsmith for the Office of Legal Counsel job; Mr. Goldsmith had hired Mr. Bradbury as his top deputy. ``We all grew up together,'' said Viet D. Dinh, an assistant attorney general from 2001 to 2003 and very much a member of the club. ``You start with a small universe of Supreme Court clerks, and you narrow it down from there.'' But what might have been subtle differences in quieter times now cleaved them into warring camps. Justice Department colleagues say Mr. Gonzales was soon meeting frequently with Mr. Bradbury on national security issues, a White House priority. Admirers describe Mr. Bradbury as low-key but highly skilled, a conciliator who brought from 10 years of corporate practice a more pragmatic approach to the job than Mr. Yoo and Mr. Goldsmith, both from the academic world. ``As a practicing lawyer, you know how to address real problems,'' said Noel J. Francisco, who worked at the Justice Department from 2003 to 2005. ``At O.L.C., you're not writing law review articles and you're not theorizing. You're giving a client practical advice on a real problem.'' As he had at the White House, Mr. Gonzales usually said little in meetings with other officials, often deferring to the hard-driving Mr. Addington. Mr. Bradbury also often appeared in accord with the vice president's lawyer. Mr. Bradbury appeared to be ``fundamentally sympathetic to what the White House and the C.I.A. wanted to do,'' recalled Philip Zelikow, a former top State Department official. At interagency meetings on detention and interrogation, Mr. Addington was at times ``vituperative,'' said Mr. Zelikow, but Mr. Bradbury, while taking similar positions, was ``professional and collegial.'' While waiting to learn whether he would be nominated to head the Office of Legal Counsel, Mr. Bradbury was in an awkward position, knowing that a decision contrary to White House wishes could kill his chances. Charles J. Cooper, who headed the Office of Legal Counsel under President Reagan, said he was ``very troubled'' at the notion of a probationary period. ``If the purpose of the delay was a tryout, I think they should have avoided it,'' Mr. Cooper said. ``You're implying that the acting official is molding his or her legal analysis to win the job.'' Mr. Bradbury said he made no such concessions. ``No one ever suggested to me that my nomination depended on how I ruled on any opinion,'' he said. ``Every opinion I've signed at the Office of Legal Counsel represents my best judgment of what the law requires.'' Scott Horton, an attorney affiliated with Human Rights First who has closely followed the interrogation debate, said any official offering legal advice on the campaign against terror was on treacherous ground. ``For government lawyers, the national security issues they were deciding were like working with nuclear waste--extremely hazardous to their health,'' Mr. Horton said. ``If you give the administration what it wants, you'll lose credibility in the academic community,'' he said. ``But if you hold back, you'll be vilified by conservatives and the administration.'' In any case, the White House grew comfortable with Mr. Bradbury's approach. He helped block the appointment of a liberal Ivy League law professor to a career post in the Office of Legal Counsel. And he signed the opinion approving combined interrogation techniques. Mr. Comey strongly objected and told associates that he advised Mr. Gonzales not to endorse the opinion. But the attorney general made clear that the White House was adamant about it, and that he would do nothing to resist. Under Mr. Ashcroft, Mr. Comey's opposition might have killed the opinion. An imposing former prosecutor and self- described conservative who stands 6-foot-8, he was the rare administration official who was willing to confront Mr. Addington. At one testy 2004 White House meeting, when Mr. Comey stated that ``no lawyer'' would endorse Mr. Yoo's justification for the N.S.A. program, Mr. Addington demurred, saying he was a lawyer and found it convincing. Mr. Comey shot back: ``No good lawyer,'' according to someone present. But under Mr. Gonzales, and after the departure of Mr. Goldsmith and other allies, the deputy attorney general found himself isolated. His troublemaking on N.S.A. and on interrogation, and in appointing his friend Patrick J. Fitzgerald as special prosecutor in the C.I.A. leak case, which would lead to the perjury conviction of I. Lewis Libby, Mr. Cheney's chief of staff, had irreparably offended the White House. ``On national security matters generally, there was a sense that Comey was a wimp and that Comey was disloyal,'' said one Justice Department official who heard the White House talk, expressed with particular force by Mr. Addington. Mr. Comey provided some hints of his thinking about interrogation and related issues in a speech that spring. Speaking at the N.S.A.'s Fort Meade campus on Law Day--a noteworthy setting for the man who had helped lead the dissent a year earlier that forced some changes in the N.S.A. program--Mr. Comey spoke of the ``agonizing collisions'' of the law and the desire to protect Americans. ``We are likely to hear the words: `If we don't do this, people will die,' '' Mr. Comey said. But he argued that government lawyers must uphold the principles of their great institutions. ``It takes far more than a sharp legal mind to say `no' when it matters most,'' he said. ``It takes moral character. It takes an understanding that in the long run, intelligence under law is the only sustainable intelligence in this country.'' Mr. Gonzales's aides were happy to see Mr. Comey depart in the summer of 2005. That June, President Bush nominated Mr. Bradbury to head the Office of Legal Counsel, which some colleagues viewed as a sign that he had passed a loyalty test. Soon Mr. Bradbury applied his practical approach to a new challenge to the C.I.A.'s methods. The administration had always asserted that the C.I.A.'s pressure tactics did not amount to torture, which is banned by federal law and international treaty. But officials had privately decided the agency did not have to comply with another provision in the Convention Against Torture--the prohibition on ``cruel, inhuman, or degrading'' treatment. Now that loophole was about to be closed. First Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, and then Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican who had been tortured as a prisoner in North Vietnam, proposed legislation to ban such treatment. At the administration's request, Mr. Bradbury assessed whether the proposed legislation would outlaw any C.I.A. methods, a legal question that had never before been answered by the Justice Department. At least a few administration officials argued that no reasonable interpretation of ``cruel, inhuman or degrading'' would permit the most extreme C.I.A. methods, like waterboarding. Mr. Bradbury was placed in a tough spot, said Mr. Zelikow, the State Department counselor, who was working at the time to rein in interrogation policy. ``If Justice says some practices are in violation of the C.I.D. standard,'' Mr. Zelikow said, referring to cruel, inhuman or degrading, ``then they are now saying that officials broke current law.'' In the end, Mr. Bradbury's opinion delivered what the White House wanted: a statement that the standard imposed by Mr. McCain's Detainee Treatment Act would not force any change in the C.I.A.'s practices, according to officials familiar with the memo. Relying on a Supreme Court finding that only conduct that ``shocks the conscience'' was unconstitutional, the opinion found that in some circumstances not even waterboarding was necessarily cruel, inhuman or degrading, if, for example, a suspect was believed to possess crucial intelligence about a planned terrorist attack, the officials familiar with the legal finding said. In a frequent practice, Mr. Bush attached a statement to the new law when he signed it, declaring his authority to set aside the restrictions if they interfered with his constitutional powers. At the same time, though, the administration responded to pressure from Mr. McCain and other lawmakers by reviewing interrogation policy and giving up several C.I.A. techniques. Since late 2005, Mr. Bradbury has become a linchpin of the administration's defense of counterterrorism programs, helping to negotiate the Military Commissions Act last year and frequently testifying about the N.S.A. surveillance program. Once, he answered questions about administration detention policies for an ``Ask the White House'' feature on a Web site. Mr. Kmiec, the former Office of Legal Counsel head now at Pepperdine, called Mr. Bradbury's public activities a departure for an office that traditionally has shunned any advocacy role. A senior administration official called Mr. Bradbury's active role in shaping legislation and speaking to Congress and the press ``entirely appropriate'' and consistent with past practice. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Mr. Bradbury ``has played a critical role in achieving greater transparency'' on the legal basis for detention and surveillance programs. Though President Bush repeatedly nominated Mr. Bradbury as the Office of Legal Counsel's assistant attorney general, Democratic senators have blocked the nomination. Senator Durbin said the Justice Department would not turn over copies of his opinions or other evidence of Mr. Bradbury's role in interrogation policy. ``There are fundamental questions about whether Mr. Bradbury approved interrogation methods that are clearly unacceptable,'' Mr. Durbin said. John D. Hutson, who served as the Navy's top lawyer from 1997 to 2000, said he believed that the existence of legal opinions justifying abusive treatment is pernicious, potentially blurring the rules for Americans handling prisoners. ``I know from the military that if you tell someone they can do a little of this for the country's good, some people will do a lot of it for the country's better,'' Mr. Hutson said. Like other military lawyers, he also fears that official American acceptance of such treatment could endanger Americans in the future. ``The problem is, once you've got a legal opinion that says such a technique is O.K., what happens when one of our people is captured and they do it to him? How do we protest then?'' he asked.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. I yield to the gentleman from Washington.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, that is true. It is a hypothetical. I am giving my understanding as to the content of that amendment. But the point is, I would say this subject matter is not the stuff of a potential manager's amendment, and if there was some kind of concern about what the manager's amendment would contain, the prudent course would have been to have some kind of draft that the gentleman and others could have looked at so that the Rules Committee could have acted on it intelligently. My main point, Mr. Speaker, is to say that our approach to this bill all along has been nonpartisan. We have had good bipartisan cooperation and support every step of the way. We have accommodated in manager's amendments, in the committee and here today, the legitimate concerns that were raised. I simply want to register the hope that that pattern of partisan cooperation can continue as we debate this bill.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, the gentleman will understand that I am not in a position to give the blow- by-blow account in either the Judiciary Committee or the Rules Committee, but I will convey my understanding, because I think it is important to do that. We are talking here about an amendment that Mr. Forbes wrote, which as I understand it would compromise the bill by stripping out the requirement for FBI units to be pre-positioned on the ground to investigate alleged criminal behavior. I am characterizing the amendment because I did not ever have the text of the amendment. I don't think anyone did. It was sprung on the Rules Committee yesterday. It would seem to me, with all due respect, that if there were a concern that the manager's amendment might not be adequate, particularly on a matter of this scope, which is way beyond the usual scope of a manager's amendment, Mr. Forbes might have circulated a draft of a possible amendment, so that it could be discussed rationally in the Rules Committee if the manager's amendment somehow fell short. My understanding is that this was not done.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I came to the floor to be a resource in this rules debate, but not to take on the role of a Rules Committee member. Since the gentleman has raised the issue of the kinds of amendments that were or were not proposed and the kind of accommodations that were or were not made, I think perhaps I can respond in a helpful way. The approach that we have taken to this bill has been to invite and respond to critiques that various stakeholders might have of the way we were approaching this. The gentleman is probably aware we had a manager's amendment in committee that accommodated legitimate concerns. Perhaps that was one factor producing an approval by the committee without dissent. We have a manager's amendment today that is similarly taking into account a number of the concerns that have been raised. We have been open to suggestions. The amendment that the gentleman is referring to, however, the Forbes amendment, was not of the character that one would normally include in a manager's amendment. I think we have been clear all along that the kinds of amendments that would be appropriate for consideration in that technical vein would not include amendments that went to the very heart of the bill, such as an amendment that would compromise the FBI role in the legal regime we are setting up.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. I thank the gentleman for yielding, because I would like to respond to what our friend from Connecticut has just said. I first of all appreciate his high-quality work on contracting for a long time and also his support of this bill. I do want to respond, though, to what he said about contractors. I don't believe the gentleman has ever heard me in a blanket way condemn contractors or contracting. In fact, I honor the service and the sacrifice of contractors and contracting firms that have worked in the war zone. Now, there are some bad actors and there are cases that need investigation and prosecution. But I would remind the gentleman that, in fact, Blackwater and the contractors' association support this bill. It is actually a protection for them, because it means they will get U.S. justice in the U.S., not justice in some other jurisdiction.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Madam Chairman, I thank the gentleman. I am pleased to rise as the initiator of this legislation to speak in favor of a long overdue solution to a problem with serious implications for our military and for our national security. Put simply, this legislation ensures that the U.S. Government has the legal authority to prosecute crimes committed by U.S. contractor personnel working in war zones. I want to first thank Chairman Conyers and Chairman Bobby Scott for their leadership in bringing this legislation to the floor today. There are many other Members on both sides of the aisle who worked on this issue, including the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays) who held an excellent series of hearings last year, and Mr. Waxman, who has focused his committee on the issue this year. My bill would do two simple things: it would expand the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act, MEJA, to cover all contractors operating in war zones, and it would beef up the Department of Justice's enforcement of MEJA. Madam Chairman, the word ``accountability'' is used a lot in this Chamber. Let me tell you what I think accountability should mean in this context. It should mean that we have the tools at our disposal to ensure that the criminal behavior of men and women working in our name and on our dime does not in any way damage our goals and objectives. It should also mean making sure that rogue actors, the bad apples in the bunch, are not able to act in ways that endanger our troops or our mission without fear of prosecution. Our military is the best fighting force in the world today in large part because it is structured in a way that demands accountability, discipline and unity of action. Military commanders will universally tell you that accountability is critical to success because lapses in discipline or judgment can lead to defeat on the battlefield or can undermine popular support for the mission. So the military goes to great lengths to ensure accountability. There is a clear chain of command, extensive training on legal and illegal actions in war, and perhaps most importantly, clear consequences for violations. During the war in Iraq alone, there have been over 60 courts martial and hundreds of nonjudicial punishments of military personnel under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. There is good reason for this accountability. If a military servicemember unlawfully kills an innocent civilian or steals property or defiles a cultural icon, it contributes to popular outrage against American forces. It makes the military's mission more difficult. It undermines our national security. It could motivate insurgents and provide fodder for terrorist organizations. What is more, if we can't ensure the rule of law for our own personnel, how can we credibly ask other nations, like Iraq, to uphold the rule of law when their own citizens commit crimes? Unlike the military, there is no clear chain of command for contractors, little in the way of standards for training and vetting personnel, and often no legal accountability for misconduct. As the recent shooting incident involving Blackwater U.S.A. employees demonstrated, contractors can clearly act in ways that have serious implications for our national security. If we don't hold contract personnel accountable for misconduct as we do for our own military, we are not only failing to uphold moral responsibilities, we are endangering the men and women of our Armed Forces and we are undermining our Nation's credibility as a country that upholds the rule of law. Now, it may be hard for some of us to believe that this gaping hole in the law exists. In fact, as my colleague from Virginia (Mr. Forbes) has stated, certain contractors, those working under the Department of Defense, are already covered by MEJA. But others are not. I would like to know what the gentleman from Virginia would say to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at this very moment as she is contemplating what authority she has or can piece together to deal with the Blackwater incident of 2 weeks ago, if it turns out investigations show that prosecution is warranted? Contractors working under the Department of State or USAID, a category that includes most armed security contractors, are not now covered under this law. Now, the law isn't the only problem. We also have seen a serious deficiency in enforcement. Even though MEJA does cover DOD contractors, I am not aware of a single case of violent contractor misconduct that has, in fact, been prosecuted in court. I have been told that MEJA has been applied in only one case in Iraq and Afghanistan, and that was a defense contractor convicted of child pornography. There is nearly universal support for accountability for contractors and there is broad support for the approach taken by this bill. Leading human rights organizations like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Human Rights First support the bill, as do contractor associations such as the International Peace Operations Association. My bill will improve the law and will improve enforcement. It will give our country the ability to hold contractors accountable, which will enhance our national security and the safety of our troops, and it will ensure that our country remains a model of law and integrity for the rest of the world. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Madam Chairman, I move that the Committee do now rise.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I rise in strong support of the amendment offered by my colleague from Indiana, and I thank him for his leadership on this issue. Mr. Hill's amendment is based on two critical principles, transparency and accountability. Over the last few years, many of us have asked the Department of Justice to give us basic information about the allegations of abuse by contractors, and the Department's efforts to investigate and prosecute these allegations, to carry out its responsibilities under existing law. Answers, I am afraid, have not always been forthcoming. This amendment would ensure that Congress has the basic information we need to determine whether we are aggressively enforcing the rule of law and ensuring accountability of those who work in our name and on our dime. As my friend Mr. Hill well knows, our American troops on the battlefield, who must deal with the consequences of incidents like the recent Blackwater shootings, those troops will be the main beneficiaries of the increased accountability that his amendment would require. I applaud Mr. Hill for his efforts and urge my colleagues to support the amendment.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Madam Chairman, I rise in support of the manager's amendment. I want to again commend and thank Chairman Conyers and Chairman Scott for their work in refining this legislation. There's one aspect of this manager's amendment that is particularly important, I believe, and is the product of excellent work by Representative Chris Carney. This provision would make sure that FBI investigations are not corrupted by any conflicts of interest. That's an important addition, and I thank Representative Carney for his attention to this matter. It is true, as others have said, that there were some late-breaking objections from the Department of Justice, that if they had been accommodated would have gutted the bill. However, various comments from the Department of Justice have dribbled out over some extended period of time, and the chairmen of the full committee and the subcommittee have dealt with those suggestions as they became available. That is reflected in this manager's amendment before us today. I won't go into the content except to say that these are reasonable accommodations, and if there are additional technical changes or perfecting changes that are required, I am and I'm sure the leaders of the committee are, open to discussing further refinements. I urge adoption of the amendment.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. I yield to the gentleman from Connecticut.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I yield 45 seconds to my colleague from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer).

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the Flake amendment.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, the wood utilization consortium is made up of 10 universities in 10 different States around the country with varying missions. I am familiar with the program mainly because of the involvement of North Carolina State University. NC State's contribution to the consortium is focused on wood machining and tooling. The programs help develop innovative production methods and use stronger, longer-lasting tools which are allowing U.S. manufacturers to maintain domestic production and compete in the global economy. Such work is critical to support the U.S. furniture and lumber industries. North Carolina's furniture industry alone is estimated to contribute $10 billion to the economy. North Carolina State University's contribution to increased manufacturing efficiency and global competitiveness within this major industry represents only a small component of the wood utilization program. Continued funding is a wise national investment. I urge defeat of the amendment. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to my colleague from North Carolina, who represents the main campus of North Carolina State University (Mr. Etheridge).

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. I yield 1 minute to our colleague from Maine (Mr. Michaud). (Mr. MICHAUD asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, how much time do we have remaining?

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. I thank the gentleman for this most persuasive argument. Mr. Chairman, I yield 45 seconds to our colleague from Maine (Mr. Allen).

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, we yield back the balance of our time.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, as we consider H.R. 3161, the FY 2008 Agriculture Appropriations bill, I want to voice my serious concerns about the provision in the bill that would prevent the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, FDA, from protecting U.S. consumers from the import of unsafe pharmaceuticals. While we have had a de facto policy of allowing the importation of personal use quantities of prescription drugs from Canada, the bill before us would for the first time allow wholesalers and pharmacists to import bulk quantities of prescription drugs from any country, regardless of origin. The resulting increase in unregulated drug imports into this country would be exponential. Such an increase would almost certainly lead to a rise in the number of counterfeit drugs and drugs shipped without adequate shipping safety precautions, creating serious health risks for patients. I understand the need, sometimes the desperate need, for less expensive medications. To a great extent, this need is a function of the failure of our health care system to uniformly provide adequate health care coverage. For some 44 million Americans, the system fails to provide any coverage at all. And the Medicare Part D doughnut hole continues to make medications unaffordable for many seniors. We clearly must find a way to make health care, including prescription drugs, affordable to more Americans. But reimportation on this scale is simply the wrong prescription for what ails us. Even if we were to focus more narrowly on imports from Canada--and keep in mind that this bill would allow imports from any country--no one should assume that the safety issues would be resolved. Many American consumers who order prescription drugs from Canadian pharmacies assume those medicines are coming from Canada. However, this is often not the case. In December 2005, FDA announced the results of an operation to confiscate parcels containing pharmaceuticals from India, Israel, Costa Rica and Vanuatu, 43 percent of which had been ordered from Canadian Internet pharmacies. Of the drugs being promoted as ``Canadian,'' 85 percent actually came from 27 countries around the globe. In response to the investigation, then Acting FDA Commissioner Andrew C. von Eschenbach said, ``These results make clear there are Internet sites that claim to be Canadian that in fact are peddling drugs of dubious origin, safety and efficacy.'' This investigation raises serious questions about the form such an importation program would take. Who are the ``wholesalers'' and ``pharmacies'' that would be importing in large quantities and how would they be regulated? How would their operations interface with the existing supply chain? How would FDA protect consumers from fraud or drug contamination? Congress has previously given HHS the authority to permit bulk drug reimportation, but both the Clinton and Bush administrations declined to use this authority because of the intractable safety issues involved. I simply cannot support tying the hands of the FDA with regard to the importation of prescription drugs when their safety and effectiveness cannot be guaranteed. I urge a yes vote on the Kingston amendment.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I am joined by 11 colleagues from North Carolina, as well as colleagues from several other States, in requesting fiscal year 2008 funding for the National Textile Center. I want to say to the gentleman introducing this amendment that if there is, in fact, any lack of transparency or any confusion about our intent, I would be happy to clear that up. We do indeed intend for this funding to go to the National Textile Center, which has been established, as the gentleman acknowledged, for a number of years. In fact, it has received funding since fiscal year 1992. It is a center that involves a number of universities and has expanded since that time. And it's a center that has a well-established track record. The National Textile Center is just what the name suggests. It's a national program for a national industry that affects our national competitiveness. There is a consortium of eight leading research universities that participate: Auburn, Clemson, Cornell, Georgia Tech, North Carolina State, Philadelphia University, University of California Davis, and University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. Now, any of us from North Carolina or other traditional textile- producing States are all too accustomed to news of textile operations closing their doors. Some may be shortsighted enough to suggest that the textile industry is unworthy of investment, given the loss of manufacturing jobs over the past decade. I and my colleagues come to exactly the opposite conclusion. The textile industry is a major player still, and will continue to be a major player in the U.S. economy. It employs 600,000 workers nationwide, and it contributes almost $60 billion to the national GDP. It's true that many lower-skilled and lower-paid jobs have left our States, but the domestic textile industry is undergoing a remarkable transformation. The research provided by the National Textile Center is an initial factor in that transformation. It's helping advance the industry in new directions, providing new, higher-paying jobs, increasing U.S. competitiveness in the process. As the chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security, I know firsthand about the new fabrics and fibers that are protecting our first responders in new and threatening situations. That's just one example. The suits worn in this Chamber, the next generation of suspension bridges--there is a long list of products and technologies that this research consortium is going to help shape. The new textile products and the processes created by this research are valued at three times the Federal investment to date, so it's certainly not the time to pull the rug out from under these vital projects. Mr. Chairman, the National Textile Center is needed by a national industry. The National Textile Center is wanted and welcomed by the Department of Commerce. And the National Textile Center was requested by more Members than any other project in this bill. It's a worthy recipient of Federal funding, and I urge defeat of the amendment. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I rise as a sponsor of this important legislation to prohibit the establishment of permanent U.S. bases in Iraq. We have passed similar legislation before by a wide margin. The first time was a few weeks after I questioned General Abizaid in an appropriations hearing. He could not unequivocally disavow permanent bases, and so the House stepped in and asserted its prerogative on foreign policy by prohibiting permanent bases in Iraq. Now, my colleagues might understandably ask, why are we voting on this bill again today? The reason is that the Bush administration continues to stubbornly reject the will of Congress, of the Iraq Study Group, and of the American people. Defense Secretary Gates recently stated his goal of ``a long and enduring presence'' in Iraq. President Bush has stated his vision for a presence ``as we have in South Korea,'' where U.S. troops remain 50 years after an armistice. That kind of rhetoric suggests that they have not yet gotten the message, and it seriously damages our cause. The Iraqi people and the American people need assurance that there is light at the end of the tunnel, that occupation is not a permanent state of affairs. So I urge my colleagues to support this legislation today, and to once again unequivocally state that the U.S. will not establish permanent bases in Iraq, because this administration and the world need to understand that America's misadventure in Iraq must and will come to an end.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 2956, which would compel a responsible exit of U.S. troops from Iraq. I voted against giving the President the authority to go to war in Iraq. Two years ago, Brad Miller and I introduced legislation to terminate the authorization and to require of the President a comprehensive exit strategy. The President has responded to calls for change by stubbornly adhering to a failed strategy that has cost our Nation dearly in blood, treasure and moral authority. He has rejected Congress's constitutional role in determining policy, and he has ignored the will of the American people. This obstinate, irresponsible, destructive course must not continue. Now, the President has put great stock in the recent surge in U.S. forces, but the surge seems mainly to have shifted the locus of the fighting. The intent was to create space for Iraq's political leaders to make the hard choices that will lead their country forward, but those hard choices are not being made. We can no longer leave our foreign policy at the mercy of sectarian and political forces we cannot control. A mission of simply biding time, at great cost in blood and treasure, is not one that we can or should support. We must begin to bring our troops home. Yet, as I and many others have repeatedly argued, it not only matters that we leave Iraq, but it also matters greatly how we leave. We cannot afford the same mistakes that the Bush administration made in entering Iraq, without a plan for protecting troops, for managing consequences or for giving the Iraqi people every possible chance to succeed. Therefore, the bill before us would provide the discipline of a timeline to the Bush administration for beginning and completing the termination of combat operations and the redeployment of our troops. It would also compel the development of a comprehensive strategy for managing the redeployment and addressing the challenges that Iraq will continue to present after our troops are gone. Mr. Speaker, the continued presence of 160,000 American troops in Iraq is not sustainable and does not serve our national interest. It is time not merely to urge but to require a change of course. This legislation does just that, and I urge its passage.