Dana Rohrabacher

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the resolution (H. Res. 820) to congratulate Mojave Aerospace Ventures for winning the privately funded $10,000,000 Ansari X Prize and commend the X Prize Foundation for spurring this achievement, as amended.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H. Res. 820.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds. I would like to pay a special tribute at this time to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Roybal-Allard) for the hard work that she put in on this effort. She has been working with local government in that area, as well as the rest of us, to try to make sure that this facility would be put to good use for the benefit of our country and for the benefit of young people. So as we move forward with this legislation, we need to make sure that we thank the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Roybal-Allard) for her hard work on the project. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Bartlett), an esteemed member of our committee, and a Ph.D. whose guidance and thoughtful reflection have helped many of us on the Committee on Science on very complicated issues. (Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes. Mr. Speaker, as we move forward in this discussion, I believe that the words of the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Bartlett) and, of course, the words of the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee) should be taken very seriously when we are talking about young people and the molding or melding here of our space program along with the education of America's youth. This has been a great experience for me in that it may be my last time as chairman of the Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics to address this House on an issue. I have been the chairman for 8 years, and let me just note that I have thoroughly enjoyed being the chairman of this subcommittee because by its nature, America's space program brings our people together, and by its nature then, we have had a tremendous bipartisan, positive relationship in our subcommittee and on our committee staff. One of the projects I have worked on which I have yet to complete in terms of my ultimate goal, but one of the projects I have worked on and on which I have had some tremendous support from both sides of the aisle, is providing young people who want to study math and science and engineering full scholarships that would be set up by the various departments and agencies of our government, NASA in particular, in order to mold the education of young people so that they can fulfill the needs of these various departments for skilled people in the future, while at the same time providing engineering and scientific education for our young people. These scholarships, by the way, would not be free; they would educate young people, and once the young person is done with the education, having received a full scholarship, for every 1 year of scholarship, they would be expected to work for that department or agency of government for 2 years. It would be a payback, one might say, although the student would then be receiving full pay like any other employee of that department. Mr. Speaker, I will be working on that project for the next few years, and I would hope for this same spirit of bipartisanship that we hear today, and as we congratulate the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Roybal-Allard) for her hard work today on behalf of children and the space program, that we would work together to try to implement the scholarship program that I have just outlined. And I will be making it a priority in my next few years in Congress, although I will not be the chairman of the Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics anymore. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 57) expressing the sense of the Congress in recognition of the contributions of the seven Columbia astronauts by supporting establishment of a Columbia Memorial Space Science Learning Center, as amended.

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

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, this is a fitting time for me to sort of step down because we had this tremendous success yesterday on Spaceship One. And one of my major goals as chairman of this committee was to make sure that commercial space remained an option so that in the future that we did not look at space as just an endeavor of the Federal Government, but instead looked at it as possibly offering services through the commercial sector and profit-making ventures as well as space exploration and some of the other types of things in space science that can only be done by the government itself or government working with private industry. So this great achievement of having a commercially sponsored and designed and paid-for spaceship that went into space and was capable of carrying passengers, this was a great success. And I want to commend everyone who was involved in the spaceship program. By the way, that was done in response to a prize, the X Prize, which offered a $10 million prize to anyone who could accomplish that mission. And I will be introducing legislation within the next few days to try to systemize the prize concept encouraging space endeavors in developing new technologies. Finally, Mr. Speaker, let me finish with this one note about space. We were talking a lot today about this particular legislation which is aimed at providing a link between children's learning and our future and the space program and the astronauts and the space shuttle, and these are links that certainly exist. But what we hear most often when we are talking about space is, why is space worth it? Why are we so involved? Why is there a space subcommittee of the Committee on Science? Why are we spending so much time, effort and money? Is it really worth the investment? What I would like to leave in this debate and on the record is why our investment in space has been so valuable to the people of the United States and, yes, the people of the world. I remember when I was a young boy, that I crawled into a pit underneath a little house in North Dakota because it had been reported that tornados were expected that night. And we had to spend the entire night listening to some little radio there in a hole in the ground underneath the floor boards of this small farm. And, in fact, today, we have the small farmers and people throughout the country and people in cities that know when tornados are coming and have adequate warnings. There has been much progress made in this area, especially in the area of tornados and hurricanes. I sat through a hurricane when I was younger. The people of Florida, one can only wonder how many more billions of dollars would have been lost in damage and lives would have been lost if it would not have been for the satellite technology that permitted us to track the hurricanes that slammed into Florida just recently. We had ample warning to people to prepare. We now have a GPS system that will tell us where we are located on the planet which has tremendous commercial applications but also tremendous applications to make sure that, in the future, our landing systems for our airplanes will be specifically guided to protect the passengers who travel throughout the country. I remember, before there was space imaging, and as I say, my family came from a farming background where people farmed totally different. Today's space imaging helps us improve the yield and protects the crops that we plant so it helps keep the cost of food down. In each one of these instances, we are talking about billions upon billions of dollars that are saved by the people of the United States and the world by an investment in space. We are talking about communication satellites. When I was young, I remember calling up my grandparents in North Dakota, and it was a long distance call. We called very rarely, maybe two or three times a year, because the call was so expensive, and we had to go through so many operators, and it was so disruptive. It was $5 at that time which was a lot of money. We rarely called. But, today, young people can call up their grandparents on cell phones from anywhere, aided of course and made possible by the investment that we made in space-based assets. Those telephone calls now cost a matter of cents. We have increased the communications between generations. People call their loved ones. Our investment in space has increased the level of love in our society and saved us billions of dollars. And, of course, we have, the biggest issue when I first came to this Congress was what? The biggest issue was, should we regulate the cable industry, cable TV? And, of course, they said, there will never be any competition with cable TV because they have to put in the cables. Well, I, for one, have Direct TV at my house, and that competition has kept the costs of cable down, and it has just proliferated information and entertainment, made our lives happier throughout the country and saved, again, billions of dollars because of that competition in keeping down the cost of entertainment and information. Of course, our military assets in space have saved the lives of our soldiers and done a tremendous job of keeping the peace for the world, and that is in our hands. This is what we have accomplished with our investment. A meager investment in space has given us tens of billions, if not hundreds of billions, of dollars worth of value back to us. And that value can be used in education. That value has been used to make our society better because of what we have achieved from our space program. We are not at the end of the space program. We have a future to look forward to that is bright. We have a President that has offered us the guidelines for the future and the strategy for the future. We can see a possibility of generating power from space, from solar-based power in the future. We can see another colony, perhaps a colony on the moon, with its natural resources there, or on an asteroid. There are so many things that we can accomplish. The future depends on our children which is what this amendment today is all about, and it depends on the willingness of this generation to make an investment and to keep that investment in technology and in space-related assets. It has been my honor to serve as chairman of the Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics, to work with people from both sides of the aisle who are committed to this type of future for America and the world. May we always lead the world in conquering new frontiers. May we always lead the world into the unknown and make sure that America leads the world into a better tomorrow.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, since the beginning of time, a thirst for knowledge has been the greatest of motivations for discovery and exploration. Our passionate pursuit of the unknown has resulted in opening new frontiers and tremendous technological and other opportunities that benefit humankind. There are no better examples of this spirit than the courageous crew of the Space Shuttle Columbia. They made the ultimate sacrifice, we say paid the ultimate sacrifice, so we could exceed our limitations in exploring the heavens. This resolution is a fitting tribute to the Columbia crew, who dedicated their lives to scientific research and space exploration. The fact that on their fateful mission they conducted experiments designed by school children demonstrates the value that the Columbia crew placed on young people. They believed in the participation of young people and the involvement of young people in America's space experience. H.J. Res. 57 will continue this exalted tradition by inspiring future generations of American children to pursue opportunities in science and engineering and by providing them a facility with a history that is tied directly to the Space Shuttle program. I visited the Downey facility, which will become, when this resolution passes, this space learning center, as a young reporter in the 1970s. At that time, I remember that I was ushered into this aerospace facility. It was a large building, and I was ushered in there to cover my story, and I was ushered right to the first mock-up of the Space Shuttle. It was in this Downey facility where the space shuttles were put together and designed. Certainly seeing that first mock-up, before there ever was a Space Shuttle, inspired me as a young reporter; and I am certain it will inspire young people as well. As far as my inspiration, I went on later on after my journalism career to be a speech writer for Ronald Reagan. It was my honor to work with President Reagan on several of his remarks dealing with the return of the first shuttles that were put into orbit and into space. So that bit of inspiration that the shuttle mock-up had on me paid off with dividends for the President of the United States and for the people of the United States. I would think that the young people who go through this center will also, with their inspiration, serve our country and the cause of humankind well into the future; and this, of course, is a wonderful gift that we can give them that is tied to this history of the shuttle. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.J. Res. 57.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman very much for the time. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support for my own bill, H. Res. 759 commending the Festival of Children. Millions of good-hearted American volunteers donate their time, their talent and their personal treasure to help lost and needy children, but no matter how noble the cause, these wonderful charities and their volunteers must struggle just to let the community know what is available to those who are in need. Clearly, children's charities struggle to find private sources of money to sustain their benevolent programs. Mr. Speaker, in Orange County, California, we are trying to do our best to do the best. Our needy children are put in this spotlight by a month-long event dedicated to assist organizations that are working with deprived and neglected children. The Festival of Children Foundation hosts the activities of Child Awareness Month at South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa, California, which is part of my district. South Coast Plaza is a premier commercial and shopping location; yet with generosity and kindness, this center also becomes a center of love and caring for children. There, among the upper crust and upper level stores and shops, you will find new ways during this month of helping children and helping those organizations that are designed to help children. Each year, during the month of September, scores of charities, like the Make-a- Wish Foundation and the Blind Children's Learning Center, are given tremendous support to come together under one roof, and not just one roof but under the roof of one of California's most visited shopping centers, to reach out to tens of thousands of families and then make a difference in the lives of multitudes of children. Too often in our communities many families have not even been aware that certain charities exist; and at the same time, there are many who are willing to volunteer their energy and their resources to help these charities, yet they do not know these charities even exist. In the meantime, we see there are charities that spend much of their scarce resources that should be going directly to the children to overcome this gulf that separates them from both the donors and the needy. Well, I take this problem very seriously, and I take caring for the children very seriously. I always have, but that has been brought home to me in a very special way, because yesterday marked the 5-month anniversary of the birth of my three children, my triplets, Amika, Christian, and Trestin. These are lovely little babies, but it certainly has impressed upon me that we need to care for all the babies. We need to make sure that all the children of this world can reach their potential and have a happy life. And so I applaud those individuals who are engaged in this noble, noble effort. I especially applaud the individual initiative of Sandy Segerstrom Daniels, the founder of the Festival of Children. She took the initiative to form a private nonprofit organization bringing all of Orange County's children's charities together. She enlisted nationally known celebrities, like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Olivia Newton-John and Pat Riley, and others to boost the participation in the children's charities at the Festival of Children. The effort has paid off. Hundreds of charities and thousands of families now look forward to the month of September when they can gather at the Festival of Children, there at the South Coast Plaza. I am pleased to see this example of a private initiative for a public charity is catching on and that the Festival of Children is expending into other States. So with this pride in the accomplishment and the benevolence and the good hearts of some of my constituents, I ask my colleagues to join me in congratulating the Festival of Children.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, this morning I have introduced a constitutional amendment that will provide the American people with a wider range of presidential candidates. My amendment will allow all those who have been citizens of the United States for more than 20 years to serve as President. This constitutional amendment is fully consistent with my long-held support for a generous policy of legal immigration but at the same time vigorously opposing all illegal immigration. There are those here today who will interpret this constitutional proposal permitting a naturalized citizen to serve as President as a political ploy designed to permit a prominent California elected official who immigrated to the United States from Central Europe and who still speaks with a thick accent to be eligible to be elected President of the United States. This is no ploy. I honestly believe that Tom Lantos should be allowed to seek the highest office in the land just like any other elected official from California. I ask my colleagues to join me in supporting this constitutional amendment.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I have just introduced the House counterpart to Senator Hatch's constitutional amendment (S.J. Res. 15) allowing those who have been citizens of the United States for at least 20 years to serve as President and Vice President. We all agree that constitutional amendments should not be taken lightly and should only be considered when the betterment of this country is in question. It is my strong belief that ``betterment'' is what would be achieved if such an amendment is adopted. The reasons the founding fathers added this clause to the constitution are archaic at best. The main rationale was to protect the U.S. from undue foreign influence from the election of a foreign leader in the executive office. This mindset prevailed not long after the founders freed the country from the control of a foreign body. Interestingly, however, in what is called ``the Hamilton loophole,'' they exempted their own generation from the burdens of the ``natural born'' requirement. Seven of the 39 signers of the Constitution in Philadelphia in 1787 were foreign born, as well as 8 of America's original 81 Senators and Representatives, 3 of our first 10 Supreme Court justices, 4 of our first 6 secretaries of the treasury, and one of our first 3 secretaries of war. Most, if not all, of these immigrants were eligible to serve as president, since the constitution exempted all those who were citizens at the time the constitution was adopted from the ``natural born'' requirement. Today, the offices of President and Vice President are the only offices where a person who is not U.S. born is disqualified from serving. Is this still appropriate when we have seen great leaders, after a lifetime of service to this country, be unable to represent the citizens of this country? Today we have many significant political leaders who cannot be president simply because they were not born here. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is the most famous example, but what about Michigan's Governor, Jennifer Granholm, who came to the United States from Canada at the age of four? Or Congressman Pete Hoekstra, who came to this country when he was a mere three years old and has been given the responsibility of being Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence? Congressman Hoekstra oversees the intelligence community in a post-9/11 United States and yet regardless of his lifetime of service, he cannot be President. I hope my colleagues will agree with me that it is long past time for the ``natural born'' requirement to change. Respect for the many legal immigrants who have made our country great should lead us to conclude that once they have been U.S. citizens for 20 years they should no longer be constitutionally disqualified from serving in our nation's highest offices. H.J. Res. 104 Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled (two-thirds of each House concurring therein), That the following article is proposed as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of the Constitution when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years after the date of its submission for ratification: ``Article-- ``A person who is a citizen of the United States, who has been a citizen of the United States for at least 20 years, and who is otherwise eligible to hold the Office of the President, is not ineligible to hold that Office by reason of not being a native born citizen of the United States.''.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman very much for the time, and I rise in strong opposition to the Oxley-Frank amendment. This is the quintessential example of an interest group, namely, this time, financial interest groups, the banks, et cetera, putting themselves over the well-being of our country. In this case, we are talking about an interest group putting its self-interests, its profits above the safety of our country. Yes, it would make it easier for these banks to do business with illegal immigrants, and they would make a profit from it; but our country would be far less safe, and our children will be less safe if we do this. Let us note that the matricula consular cards have no other purpose than providing identification for illegal immigrants. Anyone in the country lawfully can present a visa, a passport, or other government- issued identification to do financial transactions. What we have got here is an effort to make it easier for illegal immigrants to stay in this country and to be in this country at the expense of the safety of our very people. During a time when there are terrorist acts being threatened in our country and throughout the world, this is an insane proposition. Hundreds and hundreds of soldiers have sacrificed their lives to win the war against terror. It is not too much to ask our banks to sacrifice a little bit of profit to make sure that our country is safe. This is a disgrace. These financial institutions are putting themselves above the well-being and safety of the United States of America, and that is what this amendment is all about.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, on 9/11, thousands of American citizens were slaughtered before our eyes. It was the worst case of an attack on Americans, people say, since Pearl Harbor. No, this was far worse than Pearl Harbor because all of these Americans who were slaughtered, and it was a slaughter, all of them were noncombatants. This was not only the worst case of an attack on the United States of America, it was the worst terrorist attack, I believe, in history, at least in modern history. It is something we can never forget. If we do, we will do so at our peril. I believe perhaps some of the things that brought on this attack were the fact that we had forgotten some of the lessons of the past. I think it has been admirable since 9/11 that we have had the bipartisan commitment to standing strong in the face of this what I consider to be a barbaric challenge to civilization. We call this the war on terror. I do not call it the war on terror. I call it the war on those people who made war on us that began on 9/11, and that war is a war on those people who believe in radical Islam, not Muslims in general, but those people who believe in radical Islam, and I will define that radical Islam as being a belief that people have a right because of their faith in God to murder innocent people and commit acts of violence on people of other faiths. Today we need to stand united with all those people in the world, including those moderate Muslims throughout the world who disassociate themselves from this type of brutality and this type of philosophy that leads to the 9/11s and the slaughter of innocent people. Today more than ever as this resolution does, it proclaims that we will stand together as Americans, and we will stand together with all people of the world who believe in these decent values that I talk about today.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of this amendment, and we need to take some time to take a look at what this totalization agreement is all about, and we need to make sure that the democratic process is brought to play when this becomes law or does not become law. The fact is the totalization agreement that we are talking about would, most likely, include illegal immigrants in our Social Security system. Let us make sure what that status is. If we have 5 million people from Mexico who come here and have been working illegally in our system, do we want to pay out Social Security to those illegal immigrants? We need to know the answers to that before we move forward. Those who are against this amendment would put us in a situation where we might wake up 6 months down the road and this totalization agreement would be law and we would never have had a chance to vote on it. Social Security is too important for the American people, and the idea of making illegal immigrants eligible for Social Security is too important for us to let it just go by and possibly have this come into law without even a vote on the floor. The American people ought to notice what is going on here today. We have seen health care in California go to hell. We have seen the school and education programs going to hell in California. We have seen our criminal justice going to hell, and now we want to take a risk with Social Security? People in California know that those illegal immigrants who are here, oh, yes, even if they are paying Social Security, they are taking that job away from an American citizen. Our senior citizens do not believe that Social Security should be provided to illegal immigrants. It will cost the Social Security billions and billions of dollars when this folly is done, and it will bankrupt the system. We need time to talk about it. We need time to get the calculations right. We know that in the past we have been given all sorts of statistics that have been wrong. Let us not gamble with Social Security. Let us watch out for our own people instead of illegal immigrants.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, let me just note that I do not believe that anyone has had a chance, including my colleague that was just down on the floor, to read the entire testimony or the entire 9/11 Commission's report. I have just read the executive summary and not the entire book, as I find it almost impossible that anyone has, considering the fact that it was just distributed today at 11:30 in the morning. But let me note that there is every reason in the world to be concerned about Sandy Berger, and for my colleague to cast any type of aspersions on anyone in this body for serious concerns that Mr. Berger, who was the National Security Adviser to President Clinton, has in some ways been guilty of a crime that goes right to the heart of the investigation of 9/11. Mr. Berger is accused, now he may be innocent, and I am not saying that he is guilty, but he is being accused of taking documents out of the archives of the United States that go directly to the issues that my colleague was just addressing on the floor. The fact that our colleague would be downplaying the importance of the accusation against Mr. Berger is mind boggling, and I hope that the public looks very carefully at who is really serious about the security of the United States of America. Anyone who downplays the potential damage that Mr. Berger was doing by taking documents out of the Archives, which we do not know which documents, and perhaps inadvertently losing some of them supposedly, this is a very serious charge. Let me note, my colleague over and over again was talking about the lack of cooperation among the intelligence agencies both domestic and foreign. It was during the Clinton administration under Mr. Berger that the directives were written and the orders were given that the intelligence agencies that investigate overseas, the CIA, et cetera, would not talk to those agencies. Those law enforcement agencies in the United States, FBI, it was there where that policy was made, and Mr. Berger was well aware of that policy. It came into being under his watch during the Clinton administration, and perhaps those documents that are now missing because what Mr. Berger has done could shed some light on this whole issue. No, this is very serious. It goes to the heart of the matter. Those people are downplaying the potential of what this, the potential atrocity that has been committed against the public's right to know by Mr. Berger's alleged actions. This is really not something that should be just discarded and not looked at as a very serious issue. Let me note that what I have seen in the 9/11 Commission report, there are some good suggestions in here; but by and large this has been an attempt to whitewash those specific individuals and the specific policies that caused 9/11. What we have got here are people on both sides of the aisle, and that is correct, working together to make sure we do not hold people specifically accountable. That is one of the problems in this town, why problems never get solved. That is why we never seem to make things better because we do not hold people accountable and we do not go back and say the policies, like I just mentioned, the policy during the Clinton administration, which was by the way written and put into practice by Ms. Gorelick, who is on the 9/ 11 Commission. Republicans suggest that Ms. Gorelick, who was the one who wrote down this directive, that there should not be cooperation that my colleague was just talking about, Republicans suggested maybe she is a little biased and should not be on the 9/11 Commission. No, we were called partisan by suggesting that she was biased and this should be a very responsible account rather than an account that is being drafted by someone who is guilty of the very charges that my colleague has just made. So I would think there is a lot more discussion we need on the issue of 9/11, why it happened. I would suggest that we need to go back at least to the Clinton administration, although I will have to admit that some of the things done during the Reagan years during the war against the Soviet's occupation of Afghanistan made some contribution, but it was the Clinton's administration support for the Taliban and their agreement with the Saudis and the Pakistanis and all along their unwillingness to call the Taliban to task and to join with those against the Taliban that that led to 9/11 and this horrible attack and this war that we are in today.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, on July 20, 1969, all humankind witnessed the greatest technological achievement in history: men setting foot on the Moon and then successfully returning to Earth. The tremendous accomplishment of those three men and, yes, of the United States of America, is remembered to this day. Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Mike Collins stand as shining examples of courage and technological genius, along with those many people in NASA that helped them and were on that trip with them every second of the journey. We honor the people of NASA who were responsible for this great achievement, and we honor these three brave astronauts for their heroism in taking that one giant leap for mankind 35 years ago. On reflection, that day in history represented more than man's mastery of science and engineering. Rather, NASA's success in this endeavor has given us a sense of unlimited potential for our Nation and the world. Buzz Aldrin said it best when he observed, ``The significance of what we did was not embodied in the few rocks that we brought back or what we saw . . . But the significance really was the impact we had on millions of people around the world.'' And, yes, millions of people in the United States. Now we have the opportunity today to repeat history with President Bush's vision for space exploration. I believe there are young people who will be just as inspired by this great quest as those were by the first Moon landing. Thus, the occasion that we celebrate today also forces us to look forward. As President Bush pointed out last year following the tragic loss of the Space Shuttle Columbia, ``This cause of exploration and discovery is not an option we choose. It is a desire written in the human heart. We are that part of creation which seeks to understand all of creation. We find the best among us, send them forth into unmapped darkness, and pray they will return. They go in peace for all mankind, and all mankind is in their debt.'' That was President Bush. Today we look back and honor this great achievement of 35 years ago and commend the astronauts and the others who were responsible for this great achievement. But also today we are looking forward to a path ahead and a recommitment ourselves to America's leadership in the exploration of space and America's leading humankind to conquer this new frontier.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, let me thank the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton) who has always had the respect of his colleagues. I know that the gentleman is very serious and sincere about the national security of the United States. I appreciate him trying to put forth some creative and positive alternatives to the current policies he may or may not agree with in terms of the war on terrorism. There are positive opponents to the President and there are negative opponents to the President. There are people who offer alternatives, and there are people who do nothing but undermine the President's policy; but there are also those who have legitimate complaints and alternatives to offer, and I thank the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton) for always trying to provide the alternative. Let me note, after hearing our last colleague who spoke, Saddam Hussein had a blood grudge against the people of the United States of America. He wanted to hurt us and would have hurt us had he been given a chance. It is a good thing that Saddam Hussein was removed from power. Those who nitpick our President and backbite him as we try to make this situation, turn the situation around in Iraq, would not return Saddam Hussein to power. That is not the question. So with that, Mr. Speaker, let me note that we need to look at the terrorism angle which is what the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton) was suggesting for tonight. I have a speech to talk about what happened on 9/11, the terrorist attack, and I give this speech leading up to some time this week when the terrorism task force will report to the American people on what happened on 9/11. The most important thing that the American people need to know when looking at 9/11, the 9/11 terrorist attack, was that it was not predestined. It was not unavoidable. Unfortunately, the commission investigating 9/11, and we will find this out when they issue their report, they seem to be uncomfortable with fixing responsibility, branding such attempts of fixing responsibility to individuals or to policy as the blame game or pointing fingers. So instead of looking for policies that were dead wrong or people who were incompetent, we have heard about glitches in the system or a lack of communication or a lack of a shared database. Expect the recommendations of the task force to be consistent with this thinking. We will hear about changes in flow charts, organizational restructuring and the creation of a new central authority, an intelligence czar. If there has ever been a cliche, let us create a czar and give him all of the power, and that will solve the problems. No, I am sorry, 9/11 represents a dramatic failure of policy and people. A number of insane policies led to the creation of a hostile, radical Islamic movement, the one that we face today, and we had policies in place that enabled this weird, feudalistic religion, religious zealots of radical Islam to become a major threat to the western world, and especially to the people of the United States. Yes, the origins of this frightening reality go back aways. In the 1980s, high-level officials in the Reagan administration, and this is probably where it started, agreed to the demand of Pakistani President Zia Al-Haq that his government oversee, read that control, America's support for those Afghans who were fighting against the Soviet troops occupying their country. Much of the lethal inventory that we sent to the Afghan freedom fighters ended up in the hands of Pakistan's favorite Muslim fanantics, like Rasul Sayyaf or Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. Hekmatyar was a fiend, for example, who in his college days threw acid in the face of young women who refused to cover themselves with a burqa. That is who ended up with the lion's share of our aid to the Afghan freedom fighters. During the war with the Soviet occupation, I hiked into Afghanistan with a small mujajadin infantry unit. On our way to the seige of Jalalabad, which was the last major battle in that war with Soviet troops, we came across an encampment of Saudi volunteers. In stark contrast to the spartan living conditions of the Afghan fighters who I was with, this camp site was complete with large safari-style tents, cots, and even SUVs. I was told not to speak English because the Saudi crazy man who led this bunch would rather kill Americans than Soviet troops. His name was Osama bin Laden. So by the end of the 1980s, the presence of dangerous wackoes in Afghanistan was well known. I can assure Members that complaints were made at the highest levels about American support ending up in the hands of these fanatics. I personally made such protests while working in the Reagan White House, yet the policy continued, probably because those representing us on the scene, meaning in Pakistan and Afghanistan, did not complain. In fact, everything indicates that the American so-called professionals on the scene supported the let- Pakistan-decide policy. Milton Bearden, senior CIA officer overseeing America's support for the Afghanistan insurgency, has suggested that his job was beating the Soviet Army and he should not have been expected to keep our weapons out of the hands of those who might pose a long-term threat to us, to the United States. Nonsense. Had he raised the issue, coupled with the complaints like the ones I was making to the National Security Council, as well as other people who I know who were making these complaints, this policy would have been reviewed and it would have been reversed. But Milt did not want to rock the boat. He did not want to upset the Pakistanis, so our weapons continued to be delivered into the hands of people who hated us. So put this man, Milton Bearden, CIA station chief, on the list of people who helped bring about 9/11. Also put unnamed high-level Reagan officials, perhaps even CIA Director Bill Casey, who I have a great deal of respect for, this might have been one of the mistakes he made. We all make mistakes. But in the end, we made a deal to give Pakistan the dominant role in this operation. To be fair, there was no indication at that time that these medieval mullahs would ever pose a threat to the United States, but we should have supported people who were more pro-western and more enlightened. They were available, but we would have had to make Pakistan mad at us for us to we have delivered weapons to them directly. Nevertheless, we could have helped these others and it would have been a better world and better path for us to be on in the long and short run had we done that, and had the CIA and Milton Bearden insisted this was the best way to go and the moral way to go. Contrary to leftist cliche, and this is what is important, contrary to leftist cliche, the roots of the current terrorist crisis lie not in our support for the Afghan people in their gallant fight against the Soviet occupation, but instead on America's willingness to let Pakistan distribute war supplies and our unconscionable decision after the retreat of the Soviet Army to walk away ourselves and leave the poor and wounded Afghans to live in the rubble and suffer their misery. To fix responsibility on that decision, look at the list of senior foreign service officers at our embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan, in the 1980s and 1990s. Up to this day, there are high-level State Department officials and career foreign service officers who still toe the Pakistani line, who still seem unable to call Pakistan to task for its transgressions, its sins of omission and commission. These State Department pros, always trying to prevent a crisis on their watch, always trying to avoid a decision that will mandate a confrontation, these people gave us 9/11. Put them on the list. Furthermore, it was a policy decision to walk away and abandon our devoted Afghan allies even after psychopathic killers like Gulbadeen rose up as the Soviets departed. President George Bush, father of our current President, has to accept the lion's share of the blame for this cowardly, arrogant and selfish policy. There would be no Marshall Plan for Afghanistan or anything else like that because like during the war itself, we left postwar construction and assistance basically up to the Saudis and up to the Pakistanis which was another indefensible policy decision. As we went into an era in the 1990s of prosperity, the Afghans were stuck in misery and they could not even take care of their wounded, the people who had lost limbs during the war. They could not even clear away the land mines. So what happened when we left it up to the Saudis and Pakistanis to take care of the situation? Predictably, they had their own agenda, which included the creation of a radical Islamic state in Afghanistan. They were not upset about violent extremists like Hekmatyar and Sayyaf being so well armed. The Saudis and the Pakistanis supported these violent extremists. They were the ones who armed the violent extremists and did so in many cases with our own weapons. Predictably, what followed when the Soviets left and we walked away was a period of havoc and bloodshed. Hekmatyar Gulbadeen peppered Kabul with American rockets that were stockpiled during the Soviet occupation. Thank you, Mr. Bearden. There was a way out of this bloody mess. Afghanistan's benevolent old king, King Zahir Shah, was exiled in Rome and he was ready and willing to return to Afghanistan to offer a moderate leadership to that country. He is now and was at that time the most beloved man in Afghanistan. He is a pro-western force for stability and decency in that country. But instead of supporting King Zahir Shah, our State Department opted for the creation of a third force. This new force was to be made up of religious fanatics educated in the Madrassas, the so-called schools in Pakistan that were financed and built by the Saudis. I pleaded with my own government and I pleaded with the Saudi intelligence chief, Prince Turki, to at least give the old king, Zahir Shah, a chance to lead an interim government and bring some stability there. ``No way'' was the answer. Again our State Department sided with the Saudis and Pakistanis, going with the radical Muslim fanatics rather than going with a pro-western alternative. We ended up, yes, with the Taliban. That is what we are talking about being created. Make no mistake about it, the Taliban's ascent to power as well as their ability to stay in power was a Clinton administration policy decision promoted by the know-it-alls at the State Department. Again, put on the list of those whom to blame for 9/11 those people in the State Department that supported and advocated this policy. The policy of the State Department again and the Clinton administration in collusion with the Saudis and the Pakistanis was to create and support the Taliban control of Afghanistan. They obviously did not learn a thing from the horror that they created by backing Islamic fanatics like Hekmatyar. Two specific diplomats to put on the 9/11 blame or shame list are Ambassador Robert Oakley who was on the scene as U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan when following Pakistani lead became U.S. policy. Another diplomat, John Holtzman, was the deputy chief of mission at our embassy in Pakistan during the 1990s. He discouraged and undercut efforts to those who were offering an alternative to the Taliban in Afghanistan. Of course our government's support for the Taliban was never publicly acknowledged. It is too diplomatic for that. We do not mention that but that was the policy and it was never publicly acknowledged but for those of us who were engaged in that region. Let me say there were darn few of us who were engaged in that region after the Soviets had left. We knew it was clear that the United States was supporting the Taliban, but what is even more poignant, most Afghans believed that the Taliban were created by the United States of America and that they had our support. Why should they not believe that that was our policy? America's aid, for the most part, was channeled, and I say this, channeled disproportionately through the Taliban-controlled areas. I remember trying to clear the way for the shipping of private humanitarian relief to a non-Taliban area in the northern part of Afghanistan only to be blocked by Assistant Secretary of State for Southern Asian Affairs Rick Inderfurth. If there was any doubt about my suspicions about U.S. policy, it was confirmed in 1997 when high-level executives from the Clinton administration saved the Taliban from total defeat and extinction. Here is what happened. In April of 1997, the Taliban launched a major offensive aimed at taking control over the northern third of Afghanistan which up until that point had remained a free zone under the control of regional leaders. Those regional leaders are commonly referred to as warlords. One of those regional leaders, General Malik, tricked the Taliban and managed to capture almost all of their front line troops along with most of their heavy weaponry. It was an utter disaster for the Taliban. The road to the capital, Kabul, was wide open. The Taliban were totally vulnerable and could easily have been wiped out. I sent a message to Commander Masoud and others that Kabul should be liberated and the king of Afghanistan, Zhir Shah, this moderate force I have been talking about, should be brought back to oversee a transition government which hopefully would evolve into a democratically elected government perhaps like we saw in Spain where the monarchy was brought back and they evolved into a democracy. But before the anti-Taliban forces could strike, before the anti-Taliban forces could take advantage of this incredible opportunity to get rid of the Taliban, Assistant Secretary of State Rick Inderfurth and American and United States Ambassador Bill Richardson flew to northern Afghanistan and convinced these anti-Taliban leaders that this was not the time for an offensive. Instead, they insisted, this was the time for a cease-fire and an arms embargo. This was clearly a statement of U.S. policy that two top foreign policy leaders in the Clinton administration for that region flew to northern Afghanistan to convince the anti-Taliban forces not to take advantage of their one opportunity to soundly defeat and thus eliminate this enemy. Let us remember, by this time it was clear that the Taliban were Islamic Nazis. I had fought the Taliban for years trying to present the king as an alternative. When they took over Kabul, I remember even my comment was, ``Well, let's wait and see. Let's give them the benefit of the doubt.'' I was very skeptical, even for just a matter of 2 weeks, but within 2 weeks there was no doubt what these people were about: Making women stay inside their homes. They could not get adequate medical treatment, much less have jobs. Repression of any type. Listening to music much less expressing some type of opposition to their government. No, these were fascist Islamicists. Instead of letting them be defeated, the Clinton administration, Mr. Inderfurth and Mr. Richardson, went there and saved the Taliban and they convinced them not to take advantage of this one opportunity they had. So let me underscore this again. We knew by that time that the Taliban were evil. Yet we helped save them because we had made a deal with Pakistan and with Saudi Arabia to create the Taliban and to keep them in power. Just to note, right after the cease-fire and the release of prisoners that were brokered by these high-level Clinton administration officials, the Pakistanis began a Berlin-like airlift to resupply and re-equip the Taliban which was obviously financed with Saudi money. If I knew of this massive resupply effort, certainly the Clinton administration officials who set up this disastrous scenario also knew. Why were the anti-Taliban leaders not notified of this situation? Why did we continue to enforce an arms embargo which only affected the anti-Taliban forces even as the Taliban were being rearmed and resupplied by Pakistan and Saudi Arabia? The answer is, it was U.S. policy to keep the Taliban in power during the Clinton administration. So add the Clinton appointees, Assistant Secretary of State Rick Inderfurth and U.S. Ambassador Bill Richardson on the 9/11 blame list, but, to be fair, they were obviously carrying out policies that were made elsewhere and higher up. How much higher up? All the way up to the very top of the Clinton administration. Last year, the current Foreign Minister of Pakistan visited California. Furious by my repeated accusations that Pakistan was responsible for the Taliban, he blurted out at a well-attended event that from day one, America was part of the deal that created the Taliban. I had been trying to prove that the Clinton administration was covertly supporting the Taliban and now at last I had a confirmation. As a member of the Committee on International Relations, it had been my responsibility to oversee this policy. During the last 2 years of the Clinton administration, I made numerous requests, with the support of the committee chairman, Ben Gilman, for Taliban-related documents so I could prove what our policy was and what we were doing behind the scenes in terms of the Taliban in Afghanistan. I asked for these documents. I asked for cables, talking points, meeting notes. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright made a commitment to me and to the chairman of the committee in an open congressional hearing to provide my office and Chairman Gilman all related documents. We were stonewalled. That is it. The elected officials got stonewalled by the permanent government, by the pros who made the policy in the first place, the people who they sent over to take over the policy in Islamabad and oversaw this, protecting themselves but also protecting the secret agreement with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. So instead of sending the dossiers, the documents about the Taliban, they sent to us, the people who were elected to oversee that policy, meaningless documents that included innocuous news clippings. This is about as arrogant as it gets, unelected State Department careerists dismissing the requests of elected officials for security-related information. One wonders if the current independent commission examining 9/11 has asked to see these documents. We will have to see if the commission investigating 9/11 goes into why the Taliban was in power in the first place. This is a vital piece of information. If the Taliban would not have been in power, these radical Islamicists would not have provided bin Laden and the terrorists with the base of operations which led to 9/11. In some ways, it is hard to characterize the Clinton administration's support of the Taliban as covert. The stench was hard to miss. Covert or overt, it was disgraceful and led to 9/11 by creating a safe base of operations for bin Laden and a training base and staging area for al Qaeda. Bin Laden is from an enormously wealthy Saudi family. While our petro dollars flowed into Saudi Arabia by the hundreds or tens of millions, the Saudi establishment not only turned a blind eye but also attempted to buy off this violent anti-western Islamic fringe in their own country. Billions of our dollars, our petro dollars, came back to bite us in a big way. It obviously continues to this very day. The first gulf war in 1990 and 1991 did nothing but expand bin Laden's hatred for the United States. In terms of our presence in Saudi Arabia, he has piously proclaimed that it is an insult to his faith. Get that. An insult to his faith. This is a mass slaughterer of unarmed people and, of course, slaughtering these unarmed people and these noncombatants as we saw on 9/11 and others who he has slaughtered is perfectly consistent with his faith, but he is insulted by America being in the Middle East. Perhaps we should quit taking seriously all of this self- righteousness from radical Islamicists because in reality what we are talking about are psychopathic killers. And whatever religion they would be part of, whether it is Christianity or Hindus or Israelis or Americans, whoever we are talking about, there are psychopathic killers in every society, only what we have got here is in the name of the Muslim faith, these people have managed to wrestle leverage which gives them enormous power to attack us and to kill our people. In the mid 1990s, bin Laden and his cohorts began to set up his terrorist underground army for the war that he intended to wage on America. In the mid 1990s, he operated not out of Afghanistan but out of Sudan. America's official position was that bin Laden was a terrorist on our most wanted list. In fact, CIA director George Tenet declared him the CIA's number one target. Inexplicably while designated as such this self-aggrandizing monster organized, financed and implemented attacks that caused tens of millions of dollars of damage and the deaths of thousands of innocent people, not just in the United States on 9/11 but in a worldwide campaign over a 2-year period. Yet the same CIA that declared bin Laden as their number one target, with all the power, the money, the technology, and other assets available to our CIA, they could not thwart 9/11 nor did they even warn us about 9/11. Remember, 9/11 was a major operation planned and carried out by the CIA's number one target and hundreds of others, many of whom were also on that most-wanted list. If this is not incompetence on the part of our intelligence establishment, then what is? Furthermore, there were mind-boggling missed opportunities to get bin Laden before 9/11. Either intentionally or as a matter of policy or through incompetence, bin Laden was never stopped, even though there were numerous opportunities to stop him permanently. The government of Sudan paid close attention to bin Laden when he operated in that country. I am told they catalogued all the people to whom he spoke on the phone and in person. The former Ambassador for Sudan in the United States, Mr. Mahdi Ibrahim Mohamed, told me personally that he offered our government this terrorist catalogue, which was a silver bullet for the total destruction of bin Laden's terrorist network. Vanity Fair reports that the Sudanese government's offer was abruptly turned down by none other than Secretary of State Madeleine Albright herself. Reportedly she instructed that no one look at the material or copy the material offered by Sudan. So in bold print add to the list of those responsible to 9/11 Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. I should note that former President Clinton is denying that he turned down such an offer from the Sudan, and it is not unreasonable to assume that the wording of his denial has been crafted in such a way that we really do not know what is, is. And while we are at it, we can add Richard Clarke to the list. Let us take a look at Richard Clarke, who got much attention a few months back by criticizing President George W. Bush before the investigating 9/11 panel. Clarke was a senior government policy official. And while all of that that I am describing took place, Richard Clarke was there in high- level positions of authority. He either approved of what was going on in all these things, especially that were happening during the Clinton administration; he either approved of the policy of the Taliban, he approved of not following up on these leads to get bin Laden, or he did nothing. Either way, he is certainly high on the 9/11 blame list, and he has no credibility in criticizing our President, who, as we now know, when he was sworn in as President of the United States, the 9/11 plot to attack the United States was well on the way, that it had been planned long before George Bush was even elected. It was planned and started and put into place during the time when Richard Clarke was a senior guy at the White House and could have done something about it and instead did nothing. From the first attack to the World Trade Center in 1993, to the bombing of the U.S. military barracks in Saudi Arabia, to the attack on the USS Cole, and the destruction of our embassies in Africa, the response from the last administration was so tepid and so weak that the perpetrators thought Americans were cowards. That was why they went ahead with 9/11, which was aimed at killing not just 3,000 Americans but tens of thousands of Americans that they thought they were going to kill in those towers. This we have learned from those we have captured since 9/11. It was the weakness of the 1990s that led to the war that we are in today. It was the weakness during the Clinton administration years and the weak response and limp-wrist response that we gave to the terrorists that encouraged them to move forward with a monstrous attack on 9/11. By the way, after one attack it is reported that Richard Clarke was the White House official who insisted that retaliation be taken against guess what target they chose after an attack where our people died? The target was a pharmaceutical factory in the Sudan, which had nothing to do with terrorism. This was while our government was still helping the Taliban stay in power. So we attacked a pharmaceutical company in Sudan. Something stinks about this situation, and some day we are going to get to the bottom of it and we will learn what forces were at play and what the positions of our government and those people really were. Then an even more personal incident happened about bin Laden. In April and May of 1999, America, our country, had an incredible opportunity to be capture bin Laden. And, yes, I was personally involved in this one. It is, unfortunately, another example of incompetence by those we trust to protect us from attacks like the one that occurred on 9/11. In April of 1999, a friend of mine, a long-time friend, who was deeply involved in the Afghan fight against Soviet occupation, contacted me. My friend, an American, had an impeccable record, had credentials, and he was widely known and admired among the Afghan people. My friend called to tip me off that bin Laden was out of Afghanistan and could be easily captured. I told him I would pass on his phone number and his name to the CIA, and I did so the very next day. There I passed on my friend's name and phone number and explained that they had to get to him right away because he could give them bin Laden on a platter and that he had great credentials, so he was believable. A week passed, and my friend was not called by the CIA. So I went back to the CIA, and this time they were adamant that they would contact my friend because they insisted they wanted to get bin Laden. As time passed, guess what. They did not call my friend again. So I went to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Goss), who is the chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, and let me note that I have deep respect for the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Goss) and hope that he becomes the next Director of the CIA because he is a man who knows that agency and a man who is committed to the security of our country and whom I trust explicitly. When the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Goss) heard my story, he immediately went into action and arranged a meeting for the next day. At that time I met with not just the CIA but with representatives from NSA, National Security Agency, and the FBI. They were the ``bin Laden Task Force.'' I told them what had happened. They apologized for those dunderheads at the CIA, they will never get it right, and they promised they would get on it. Another week passed, and my friend still was not contacted. So here we had bin Laden vulnerable for weeks, and our intelligence establishment did nothing. I mentioned it to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Goss). He was appalled. The very next day, and I am sure it had something to do with the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Goss), a representative from an intelligence agency called my friend, but the caller's tone of voice suggested that the call was obligatory and he really was not interested but he made the call, but it would not make any difference anyway because by then the trail was too cold to follow. This was very strange and very disheartening. We had passed up a chance again to get the America's most-wanted terrorist, and there was no explanation. Either incompetence or by design, I do not know. Clearly, however, there was something dreadfully wrong at the CIA or with American policy. Over at the FBI, it was just as bad, if not worse. It is widely known now that 2 months before the September 11 attacks, Phoenix FBI agent Kenneth Williams sent a memo to FBI headquarters in Washington and New York warning that bin Laden's disciples might be training at U.S. flight schools, and he asked for a review of documents and a review of the situation to determine if bin Laden's people were being trained in other parts of the country. The Williams memo was ignored by David Frasca, the Supervisory Special Agent in Washington, D.C. One month before 9/11, Minnesota FBI agent Colleen Rowley asked FBI headquarters to issue a warrant allowing agents to search would-be terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui's computer. They determined that he might have links to the terrorists, and when this FBI agent asked that his computer be searched, the FBI headquarters ignored her warnings and ignored her. So agent Rowley basically notified the CIA about the Moussaoui case, and the FBI, when they learned that she had told the CIA to watch out for this guy, reprimanded her. There is something terribly wrong in a culture at the FBI if when they get admonished for telling the CIA, and they will not investigate themselves, and then admonish the person for contacting the CIA. Clinton appointee Louis Freeh headed the Bureau for almost 8 years. The new director, Robert Mueller, took over just 7 days before 9/11. The Bureau obviously needed a major overhaul, and this became painfully evident shortly after the World Trade Center crashed to the ground and shocked the Nation. The troubles at the FBI were not just organizational, but there was a mindset there, and that was a problem, but there were also mandates and restrictions that were put on the Bureau during this time period. Let me note that we had all sorts of political restrictions put on the FBI, especially during the 1990s. The one case in point, Jamie Gorelick, who now passes judgment on the Bush administration as part of the 9/11 investigation, she is part of that committee. In the 1990s, she was in the Clinton administration. She ran our domestic terrorist law enforcement and intelligence operations, and she wrote a memo while a Clinton lawyer forbidding any cooperation between intelligence organizations and law enforcement agencies. So right here on the 9/11 investigating panel is an example of why we suffered 9/11. The presence of Jamie Gorelick on the investigating panel represents a massive conflict of interest, and this was well- known and has been well-known. She should have been removed a long time ago. The panel thus is demonstrating the same inflexibility and aversion to correct action as it is investigating. The Gorelick directives reflected a mindset in the last administration, a mindset that was reflected even by high-level career intelligence officials. The Defense Intelligence Agency, for example, is supposed to provide the Pentagon with detailed information necessary for it to deal with any potential threat. With all that is spent by the DIA, the Pentagon, like the rest of the government, let us just note, the Pentagon was caught off guard and unprepared for 9/11, just like the rest, even though we spent enormous amounts on the DIA. The Pentagon's lack of information and analysis almost had disastrous results beyond 9/11. A counterattack strategy almost implemented would have sent American military forces into Afghanistan from the south, where the goal was occupying a few major cities like Jalalabad and Kabul, leaving the Taliban in charge of the countryside. We would then negotiate with the Taliban and offer to withdraw our forces if they turned over bin Laden. The Taliban would have been left in power. That is insane, but that was what the policy was. The plan was to come in through the south and to have our troops supplied out of bases in northwestern frontier areas in Pakistan, an area that we now know as being a anti-American stronghold. An alternative plan, based cooperation with the battle-tested troops of the Northern Alliance took time to develop, because the Pentagon didn't know who the players were, much less what the anti-Taliban forces in the north could do. My staff, my personal staff, ended up providing the Pentagon with the names and satellite cell phone numbers of those significant Afghan leaders who opposed the Taliban who could help drive them out of Afghanistan. That the Pentagon was unprepared was no surprise to me. In early 1999, a DIA analyst came to me for help. She was in the process of being fired, and her story tells us volumes about why 9/11 caught America off guard and ill-prepared. Julie Sirrs was one of a small number of Afghan analysts at the DIA. She took her job seriously, as she should have. She, in fact, went to Afghanistan, but was only permitted in those areas controlled by the Taliban. Upon returning, she realized that her one-dimensional view of Afghanistan left gaping holes in the Department of Defense's understanding of the situation. She requested to go to Northern Afghanistan, especially to that area controlled by anti-Taliban Commander Masoud. She was denied permission to go. Realizing the danger posed by her lack of information, Julie Sirrs took the initiative. She paid her own way, organized her own trip to the Panjshir Valley in Northern Afghanistan, which is the bastion of Commander Masoud, and he was the last Afghan holdout against the Taliban. Well, I met with Masoud in one of his mountain strongholds 2 years before and had dinner with him and discussed strategy. That was risky. What Julie Sirrs did was even riskier for her. What she did was heroic. When she got to the Panjshir Valley, she found out her assumptions were right. Something vital to America's security was happening, something she was not allowed to discover when she visited the Taliban- controlled areas. Commander Masoud told her he was facing a new enemy in Afghanistan. Masoud's militia was finding itself in fire fights with some kind of fundamentalist foreign legion. Apparently, bin Laden was making Afghanistan his base of operations and importing Islamic radicals from around the world, training them as terrorist killers and then setting them against Masoud's troops for combat experience. Masoud offered to let Julie and other Americans interrogate these foreign prisoners, many of whom he had captured. This was an intelligence bonanza. Julie Sirrs was uncovering the creation, the organization and the training of bin Laden terrorist army, al Qaeda. She only had a short time. She collected enough information for a preliminary report and then she headed home. The minute she got back, she was ordered not to distribute her report and limit her briefings within her own agency. The commanding officer of DIA labeled her as insubordinate, fired her, and when she fought her dismissal, he set out to destroy her. Amidst the fight to save her job, the DIA Director complained that he was upset with Julie because she had made contact with Masoud, who, according to the DIA, was a bad guy. This general was sending his people to be briefed by the Taliban, but refused them any contact with Masoud or he would dismiss them. Something is terribly wrong with this picture. The vitriol in the attack against Sirrs were shockingly false. Patently false charges were brought against her to overwhelm her defenses and to intimidate her and force her to go quietly. She was charged, for example, with lying, even though the agency lie detector test proved she was telling the truth. She was charged with misusing equipment, having borrowed an office camera to take pictures of Afghanistan. She returned the camera when she got back, and she had taken valuable pictures of Northern Afghanistan. The attacks on this sincere and responsible intelligence analyst were arrogant, nasty, malevolent and loathsome. The brutal treatment of Sirrs sent a negative message to anyone at that time in the DIA who had idea of taking the initiative or thinking creatively. Let me just note that Julie Sirrs was fired. She was fired by a general who was in charge of the DIA, who I had come to my office. That general, General Hughes, is now, unfortunately, a high level official in our Department of Homeland Security in charge of analysis. There are many things that we need to do, where we need to hold people accountable. General Hughes was wrong and put our country in jeopardy. These other individuals that I have mentioned tonight, their decisions were wrong, the policies were wrong. We must hold them accountable. We are looking forward to the report by the 9/11 Commission that will be up this week to see if they name names, hold people accountable, hold policy accountable, and we will be having a further talk on this issue later on. Julie came to me because she had no one else to whom she could turn. I was the one elected official with experience in Afghanistan. I requested a meeting with the General and right off the bat he insisted Sirrs was insubordinate. I told him that from my view she was a hero, risking her job, and her life, spending her own money, all this to get information she believed necessary for our country to be prepared if something happened in Afghanistan. After hearing each other out, I recommended to the General that we compromise. If he just gave her back her job she'd end up neither hero nor scofflaw. I'd back off and he could use political pressure from me as an excuse for reinstating her. After the General left my office he not only reaffirmed the firing of Julie Sirrs, but later stripped her of her security clearance as well, thus eliminating her ability to earn a living as an intelligence analyst. He demonstrated how he could destroy anyone who would deviate from his program or defy his directives. ``Insubordination'' was the ultimate challenge to his authority, and reaffirming his authority, was more important than the security of the United States of America. A few months later the General retired and all this would have been a regrettable but forgotten incident, except for the resultant 9/11 tragedy. Except for how terribly unprepared the Pentagon was for a war in Afghanistan. It is my sad duty to report to my colleagues that the General to whom I'm referring is Lt. General Patrick Hughes, who today is one of the top officials, as Assistant Secretary for Information Analysis at the Department of Homeland Security. I am certain that over his long and distinguished career he made many contributions, but his indefensible conduct in the Sirrs case cast serious doubt over his judgment. I have notified Secretary Ridge of this side of General Hughes' character and recommended that he should not hold the high level position in the Department of Homeland Security that he does. When George W. Bush took office in January of 2001, the 9/11 terrorist operation, unbeknownst to anyone in our government, was already well underway. But the threat posed by the radical anti-western Islamic regime in Afghanistan was known, and policy towards it needed to go. Having worked in the Reagan White House I understood it took time for a new President to appoint staff, set policy and begin to take control of government. Nevertheless, during that brief interlude between Bush's inaugural and 9/11, I met the new National Security Council staff on three occasions, including one meeting with Condoleezza Rice, to discuss Afghanistan. There were, in fact, signs noted in an overview story in the Washington Post that some steps were being made to break away from the previous administration's Afghan policy. One thing was certain to me at that time, George W. Bush, unlike his predecessor, would have an unmistakable response to bin Laden's terrorist attacks. As I stated earlier we know now that those who planned and financed the 9/11 attack did not believe the United States would act as forcefully and as unrelentingly as we have. This calculation was a result of the tepid American response to earlier al Qaeda attacks from Africa to New York City. Here again, was an example of the rotten policy that led to 9/11. And yes, had we retaliated more aggressively when our Embassies were blown up in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 the terrorists we have captured now tell us that it may have been given them second thoughts. I took pride in those days as being one of the few Members of Congress who had maintained an interest in Afghanistan, which I saw as a potential major national security threat to our country. Then, 2 days before 9/11, the news came that Commander Masoud had been murdered in Afghanistan. I felt as if I had lost a friend. As I mourned his loss I struggled to fully understand the significance of his death. Then it dawned on me why Masoud had been assassinated. America was going to be attacked and it would be so monstrous that bin Laden's gang in Afghanistan wanted to cut us off from the means of counterattacking. We would have turned to Masoud if we were attacked; now he was dead. Perhaps his death was a signal to set the planned attack in motion. So on the 10th of September I tried to alert anyone and everyone who would listen to my warning of an imminent terrorist attack. A few people listened as a courtesy but for most their eyes simply glazed over as I tried to warn them. One of my colleagues, Jim Greenwood, stood behind me in an elevator and overheard me lamenting that something horrible was about to happen and that I couldn't get anyone to take my warnings seriously. It's like the Twilight Zone, I said. As I got off the elevator he lightheartedly patted me on the back and with a smile told me not to be so melodramatic and certainly not so apocryphal. Undeterred, I called the White House and asked for an emergency appointment to see Condoleezza Rice in order to warn her of a major impending attack. Her office apologized that she was incredibly busy that day, but she respected my opinion and would see me at 3 p.m. the next day. The next day was 9/11. The plans began flying into the buildings at 8:48 a.m. In the afternoon of that chaotic and fateful day, my colleague, Congressman Greenwood, approached me. I've been telling everyone how you tried to warn people of this. You knew it was about to happen? How did you know? We must ask, how is it that one Member of Congress, with the help of one staff member, was able to analyze the situation and determine that the terrorists based in Afghanistan were about to launch a major attack on us, when the CIA and others failed to do so. The question is not how did I know. It is why didn't the rest of the establishment know. Those whose job it is to protect us should be held accountable for 9/11, for not thwarting the attack or even warning us. On 9/11 there was an incident that underscored that something was dreadfully wrong at the CIA. Shortly after the attack I called King Zahir Shah in Rome. He was now America's greatest asset in any action against the terrorist forces in Afghanistan. Masoud was dead, but the Afghan people would rally behind the King. If I could figure that out so could the Taliban, so I was shocked to find that the King had no protection. He was totally vulnerable. I told the King to stay put and went to work. I called the CIA and managed to speak directly to one of Tenet's top lieutenants. I explained the situation and he acknowledged the importance of the King, assuring me he would take care of it. About 5 hours later, I happened to run into this gentleman. I will never forget his response when I asked if the King was now being protected. ``You don't expect us to act that fast do you?'' Just like at the FBI, there was something wrong with the mindset at the CIA. Yes, George Tenet must be placed on that 9/11 blame list; perhaps his name should be underlined. It is time for those who made possible the rest of the Taliban; the rise of bin Laden and yes, the tragedy of 9/11 to be held personally accountable. The list stretches over both Republican and Democratic administrations. Through the failures of the CIA under Reagan to the blunders of the State Department under Bush to the incompetence and disingenuous posturing of the diplomats under Clinton, accountability requires that their names be given. Retired General Patrick Hughes, who as head of the DIA fired Julie Sirrs and who today holds a high position in the Department of Homeland Security. Former Ambassador and now Governor Bill Richardson, who save the Taliban from military defeat. Former senior CIA Officer Milt Bearden, who armed the most fanatic of the Afghan factions in this struggle against Soviet Occupation. Former Assistant Secretary of State Rick Inderfurth, who weakened the anti-Taliban forces. Former CIA Director George Tenet, whose culpability should have led him to resign long ago. Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who was the point person for the policy of covert support for the Taliban, and who derailed the opportunity to receive a detailed account of the entire al Qaeda terrorist network. And finally, Richard Clarke, former senior Clinton official, who along with a few others was in a position to argue against if not to change the grotesquely mistaken policies of the 80s and 90s, but failed to do so. If another 9/11 is to be avoided, we need accountability, not rearranging of bureaucratic organization charts. There was nothing wrong with our system that brought on 9/11, which will not be corrected by having different policies in place and different people in positions of authority. Let us now, if nothing else, be honest with each other and insist on an honest accounting. Then let's beat our murderous enemy so completely that no one will ever miscalculate about our power and courage ever again.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, just a note that I will be giving a Special Order in about an hour on 9-11, so if people are looking in to see about this, this is not the Special Order that I will be giving.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman very much. First and foremost I would like to honor my colleague from Colorado. All of us in Congress who take this issue seriously know that without the leadership of the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tancredo), this issue would not be getting the attention it is, and it is not getting the attention it deserves as it is. So the fact is that he has taken many hard knocks; he has been attacked personally and politically for the leadership that he has provided on this issue. I salute him. And, let me just say that I am proud that on most of these fights that I have been able to rush down here and be at his side and fight the good fight, because this issue is determining the well-being of the people of the United States of America. That is what we are supposed to be doing here, is it not? We are here elected to watch out for the well-being of the people of the United States; more than anything else that we do, that is supposedly our responsibility. Yet, we have seen almost no action on the part of the political establishment of the United States to deal with the issue of illegal immigration, and our people are paying for it. They are paying for it in a big way. There is no doubt what effect this massive flow of illegal immigration that continues into our country is having. And if I would just have any difference with my colleague, it would only be to stress that it is not just illegal immigration from Mexico. And, by the way, we would not care if it was illegal immigration from Ireland or from Germany or Italy or anywhere else. We have an out-of-control flow of illegal immigration into this country. Today, I believe the biggest source of illegal immigration into our country actually is not Mexico, but is China and countries in Asia. Again, people who come, for them we have, I would say, the most generous legal immigration policy of any country in the world. We admit more legal immigrants into our country than all other countries in the world combined. But to permit millions more on top of that to pour into our country is having a dramatic impact on us, and it is heroes like the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tancredo) who are stepping up to the plate and trying to do something about it. The average person out there knows that his children and the working people themselves are suffering from the fact that their wages are being kept down. Yes, we had a huge growth in our GNP, but the wages of our middle class and our working class people have been kept down by a massive flow of illegals into our country. There is nothing wrong to think that people who work in hotels changing beds and cleaning should earn a good living, but their pay has been kept way down. People who pick fruit and vegetables, yes, okay, so it is going to cost us 10 cents more for a hamburger. The bottom line is, the people of this country who make hamburgers and are involved with that industry should be paid more money, but they will not be paid more money and the people who clean the buildings and take jobs like this, they are being paid less. The working people are being hurt by this. Of course, we are not going to provide them health care, because we have plenty of illegals who work and are not getting health care. The taxpayers pick up their health care. In California we know wages are being kept down for normal people. The health care system in our State is collapsing, and around the country there is strain, especially in the southwest. The education system in California, because of the illegal flow of illegals into our system, our children are not getting the education they deserve. It can be traced right back to a massive, uncontrolled flow of illegals into our country, bringing their children, so that they can get benefits that they could never afford in their own country. We should not blame the illegals. Blame us. Blame the government. Because this government is supposed to watch out for the welfare of our people. We are not doing it. The criminal justice system in California is breaking down. Over 40 percent of the people in our prisons and our jails are illegal immigrants. This is a huge burden on the taxpayers but, also, on our own people. Do my colleagues know what happens when those people get out of jail? They do not send them back to the countries they came from; they let them out among our population and they commit more crimes. Not only the terrorists who came into our country legally and just overstayed their visas, not only have they murdered our people, but every day someone is killed in this country by someone who is not supposed to be in this country because they are not here legally. We are talking about our citizens being murdered, their wages being kept down, their children's education system and health care system going to hell. This is a major issue and it is not being addressed. Mr. Speaker, I would say to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tancredo), by continuing to bring it up over and over again, he is doing a tremendous service to our people, and I am proud to stand with him tonight again to try to motivate the people in this city, in Washington, D.C. They say that Washington, D.C. is 64 square miles surrounded by reality. We have to bring some reality here to Washington, D.C. Our people are suffering because of this issue. Let us deal with it. Let us deal with it, yes, in a fair way. And again, this has nothing to do with where illegals are coming from, but it has everything to do with getting control of an out of control situation that is hurting our people. So I thank the gentleman for his leadership, and I am proud to work with him on the issue.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. I thank the gentleman very much. Amendment Offered by Mr. Sanders

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, the distinguished chairman and I have discussed the case of the Berhane family, U.S. citizens who had their private businesses confiscated by the former Ethiopian government. While this occurred in 1977, the current government has not shown good faith in resolving this longstanding injustice. In 1999, the matter was nearly settled when the current Ethiopian government summarily deported Mr. Berhane to Eritrea. Despite lip service since, the Ethiopian government has not settled this matter. It should have been resolved years ago. Additionally, as the distinguished chairman knows, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation has made a finding in support of the Berhane family claim and will not do business in Ethiopia until this issue has been settled. The CEO of the Millennium Challenge Corporation, Paul Applegarth, has indicated that the MCC may follow suit. Mr. Chairman, Ethiopia is eligible for more than $60 million of funding in this bill in its present form. The government of Ethiopia should understand that any government that refuses to deal with the legitimate claims of American citizens is jeopardizing its eligibility for assistance funded by the U.S. taxpayers. Mr. Chairman, I suggest that until these legitimate property claims are dealt with fairly by the Ethiopian government that the economic assistance funds in this bill for Ethiopia in the ESF account should be reprogrammed to the Child Survival and Health Programs Fund, specifically to the account of the ``communities severely affected by HIV/AIDS, including children displaced or orphaned by AIDS.''

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of this amendment. Let me note that many of the companies that leave, and this is where I have a disagreement with the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Sanders), many of the companies that do leave our country leave because of high taxes, which I consider to be levels of taxation that are too high and levels of regulation that are too high in the United States of America. We may have a fundamental disagreement on how high taxes should be and regulations should be on business, but where I do agree with the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Sanders) is that businessmen have to make a decision. They are a part of the American family, and we have got to make a decision if we are going to stay part of the American family based on the rules and regulations that we are judged by and have to live by because we are part of the process. If an American company does decide that taxes and regulation are too high and decide to change their status so they are no longer being treated and taxed or regulated as a domestic company, they should not expect then to receive the benefits of a company that is an American company. This makes all the common sense in the world. I think it is a travesty, as the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Sanders) has pointed out, there are some companies that have decided to leave this country and, thus, officially, in order not to pay the same tax load, then expect to receive and have received the benefit of such subsidies we are talking about tonight. This makes all the common sense in the world. I would hope, however, that we would, number one, pass the Sanders amendment to make sure that companies that leave do not receive this subsidy, but, at the same time, I would hope that we pay close attention to our taxation and regulation policies that make it profitable or make the businessmen who are making these decisions feel it is profitable for them to leave this country. We should want businesses to come here and do business because it is profitable, our taxes and regulations make it profitable for them to be here, create jobs, et cetera. In the meantime, let us not do the travesty of giving people subsidies who are not paying into the system and have gone overseas and changed their status in order to escape their tax obligation.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this agreement. Over the years, Australia has been a terrific friend of the United States of America in every way. Over the years, I have restated my commitment to free trade between free people, and I can think of no better example of two free nations establishing open commerce between themselves than this suggestion that we have free trade with the people of Australia. Moreover, Australia has been a stalwart ally in the war on terror, and they have been with us all the way when much of the rest of the world was against us. Unfortunately, the authors of this bill decided to construct it in a fashion that will restrict the right of the American people to purchase reimported, American-made prescription drugs in this bill and in future trade agreements. Well, I happen to be a strong supporter of America's access to reimported, American-made prescription drugs, but I am also supportive of free trade between free people, and I am also a grateful American for the friendship that has been shown us and demonstrated by the people of Australia. I would like to express my frustration with the administration and with our leadership for making what would have been an effortless vote on my part into a much more difficult decision. They cannot count on me in the future for votes on free trade agreements that include this provision. But, in terms of this vote today, we owe it to our Australian friends. They have been with us through thick and thin, and this vote today and this free trade agreement is our way of saying to our Australian friends, thanks, mates.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 1587; and I would like to personally thank the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith) for the terrific job not only for Vietnam but for people who are suffering under torture and under oppression throughout the world. He is truly the conscience of this body, and he makes sure that we never forget that people all over the world are looking to us. We are their only hope, just like in the past century when those people who suffered under Nazism and Communism knew that the only hope they had was the United States that was committed to its ideals. Today, this bill, H.R. 1587, is consistent with that concept. It is consistent with the ideals of America, and it is telling the world we still believe in human rights and freedom and democracy, just like George Washington and our other Founding Fathers. This bill, however, does not represent necessarily the opinion of every American. Let us note that just 3 years ago we made an agreement with this government of Vietnam, this monstrous abuser of human rights, we made a trade agreement and a business agreement with them. And we are always told, if we just do business with the Vietnamese or if we just do business with the Chinese, their dictatorial government will morph into a democratic society and people's liberties will be protected. What have we seen? The situation in China is worse today than it has ever been. The situation in Vietnam is disintegrating when it comes to democracy and human rights. The latest victims have been the Montagnard people in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. I have a personal attachment to the Montagnards. In 1967, I spent considerable time with them in the Highlands near Pleiku. They protected Americans. They gave their own lives so American soldiers would not die. And I will tell you that they are brave, wonderful people, just like the other people in Vietnam. They just simply want to believe in God and have the right to worship God and to speak and to have the right to gather together. We should support the people of Vietnam, and that is what this does and the people everywhere who long for freedom. It puts us on their side.