Dana Rohrabacher

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, one of my top priorities as chairman of the Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics has been addressing the threat posed by near- Earth objects, or NEOs. Our subcommittee will, in fact, hold a second hearing on this subject this Thursday. In our first hearing, we heard disturbing testimony about the potential for a close encounter or a collision between Earth and one of these objects that are meandering around space. Mr. Speaker, three times this year alone, two astroids came close enough to the Earth to pass within the distance between the Moon and the Earth, and the other passed at a slightly greater distance. In astronomical terms, they missed our planet by a hair. Given the vast number of astroids and comets that inhabit our Earth neighborhood, a greater effort for tracking and monitoring these objects is critical. This is why I rise in support of H.R. 5303, the Charles ``Pete'' Conrad Astronomy Awards Act. This bill is intended to encourage amateur astronomers to discover new and track previously identified large astroids, particularly those that threaten a close approach to the Earth. The bill establishes an award for outstanding amateur astronomers who make astroid discoveries. The act contains three categories of awards to be presented annually. The first category awards amateur astronomers who discover the largest new astroid having a near-Earth orbit. The second category awards amateur astronomers for discovery of astroids using the information derived from professional sources and locating newly discovered astroids. And the third category awards those who provide the greatest service to update the Minor Planet Center's catalog of known astroids. The funds for the annual awards shall be $2,000 per category. This bill is a tribute to Pete Conrad for his tremendous contributions to aerospace and to his country over the last 4 decades. Pete Conrad was a pilot, explorer, and entrepreneur of the highest caliber. He commanded Apollo 12 and, during that mission, became the third man to walk on the Moon. He saw space as a place to get to, to explore, and to do business. Space exploration and commercialization is what he did. It was his job to explore the Moon. He then worked to develop new spacecraft and space transportation systems. I might add that later in his career he lived in my congressional district and had a business in my congressional district, a space- related business of managing satellites. An interesting aside to this is that, as we are naming this bill after Pete Conrad and we are trying to encourage young astronomers, one aside of this is that a recent analysis of an orbiting object which was identified by an amateur astronomer suggests that this object, which no one could figure out what it was, they thought it might be some near- Earth object or an astroid or a comet, but it turns out that it probably is the remains of a Saturn 5 third-stage rocket, and it is most likely that this near-Earth object that has just been discovered by an amateur astronomer was part of Pete Conrad's Apollo mission. So this is a slight bit of irony as we discuss this issue today. I find no better way to honor Pete Conrad than to establish an annual astronomer's award for the future astroid discoveries in his name. He always wanted people to be looking up with a positive can-do American spirit. This was, perhaps, exemplified by his historic description upon landing on the Moon, and Pete's description, of course, was ``whoopee.'' Pete was a fun-loving man who did serious things. I remember having many discussions with him because he was a constituent and he came to my office discussing new ideas; and every time we would come up with an idea, he would go ``super,'' and that is the kind of man Pete Conrad was. Of course, he was a man filled with energy, but everybody also knew the serious nature of the work that he was in. There is a serious threat of an astroid causing great damage, if it would hit the Earth; and this is, of course, a very serious matter. The idea of a catastrophic astroid or comet impacting on the Earth has, of course, caught the attention of Hollywood and the mass media in the past. Nevertheless, it is vital for all of us to realize that this is not science fiction that we are talking about. The Earth's moon and many other planetary bodies in our solar system are covered with impact craters. Most people have heard, of course, of the ``dinosaur extinction'' theory, or perhaps have seen pictures of the meteor crater in Arizona; and I remember as a young boy being taken to that meteor crater in Arizona. But however remote is the possibility of a near- Earth object striking the Earth and causing a worldwide calamity, it may be remote; but the threat is real, nonetheless. In a hearing that we had, it was described as perhaps you have no greater chance of being killed by a comet or an astroid than getting a straight flush in Las Vegas. I remember after the witness said that, I remembered that I had gotten a straight flush in Las Vegas, a royal straight flush. And oh, my gosh. So we have to take this very seriously. So this is no fantasy. We have to look at this as a potential threat, put it in perspective, and move forward. This bill does precisely that, and it is a first good step in cataloging these potential dangers. Indeed, the near-Earth object issue has given the topic of planetary defense a serious tone within many quarters of the space community. So far, NASA has surveyed 600 astroids, but this is but a fraction of the total number of astroids and objects in space. What needs to be done now is to fully understand the scope and the breadth of the near-Earth objects that may and could possibly hit the Earth and would be coming in our direction. While the astroids that killed the dinosaurs is estimated to have happened perhaps 100 million years ago or more, and it may only happen that often; smaller, yet still incredibly hazardous, astroids impact happen much more frequently. For example, the destructive force of the 1908 astroid that hit in Siberia was roughly equal to a 10-megaton blast of TNT. An astroid hit South America in the 1930s; an astroid struck central Asia in the 1940s and, in 1996, satellites detected high-altitude bursts over Greenland involving an astroid which had the destructive force of 100 tons of TNT. Ironically, if you look at an astroid from the perspective of our national goals in space, they also offer opportunities as well as dangers. In terms of pure science, astroids are geological time capsules from the era of when our solar system was formed. Even better, they are orbiting mines of metals, minerals, and other resources we can use to possibly build structures in space and carry things up or to and from Earth. They are readily accessible compared to, for example, going to the moon or going to Mars, because the orbits of these asteroids may bring them closer to the Earth than the moon, and certainly than Mars. In closing, asteroids deserve a lot more attention from the scientific community. The first step, however, is tracking all of the sizable near-Earth objects. That is what H.R. 5303 is all about. It is a modest step towards this goal. I urge my colleagues to support this bill, and I urge them to remember Pete Conrad. A few years ago, Pete died in a motorcycle accident. That is it. The man who went to the moon, rode there on the top of a large rocket, died when his motorcycle hit a drainage ditch on a mountain road. But Pete would want us to keep moving on. Pete would not want us to look back, and he would not want us to look down. He would always want us to keep looking up. That is what this bill is all about. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Madam Speaker, I would just say that this bill accomplishes a number of things that we have gone over today. I think perhaps the most important element of this legislation is that it is designed to try to enlist young people in America's space program in a very meaningful way. This bill will encourage young people, boys and girls in grade school and in scouting units and perhaps junior high schools and high schools and colleges, to actually go out and to look into the heavens and get to know about the intricacies and the stories and the forces at work in this vast area around this planet and around this universe and around our solar system. It will, I believe, go a long way to encouraging young people who, let us say if we inspire them with this bill, they might make a lifetime of contributions. We may be encouraging a young lady or a young man who later on would become the Pete Conrad of the next generation, because he or she would be so excited in understanding that they had seen something in space that perhaps no one else had seen, and strive towards that type of accomplishment. I think that that is one element of this legislation that we should not overlook. It is very futuristic-oriented, but there are some real positive benefits today, as well. One last note about George Brown, who was the chairman of the Committee on Science while I was a junior member of the Committee on Science. Let me say that for George Brown, this was an area of his interest. I forgot about that until I was just reminded by my friend, the gentleman from Colorado. George Brown took a personal interest in this. I will have the Members know that George Brown was one of the most admired men here in Congress. He was such a fine person, and his memory to this day, I am glad the gentleman brought it up here in remembering Pete, these were the kinds of Americans that really made this country. George Brown was really kind of a real liberal guy compared to my political area in the spectrum, and Pete, I guess, was a little more conservative, on the conservative side of the spectrum, although he was nonpolitical. He was just a real professional in that business. But I would say that what we are talking about when we talk about developing technologies and taking America into the future and creating this type of a vision, it is something that can unite a country and a people and has served to unite us in the past. I believe that America's space program has not gotten the attention it deserves in these last, I would say, 15 years. That was something that George Brown was fighting for when he was alive. That is what he really wanted to do, and I am sorry that he was not able to fully succeed in reenergizing America's space program; and I do not think we have, either. We are all working on it. Perhaps if we can attract the younger generation by offering them a chance like this to actually participate and to find some things in space, we should go out of our way to make sure that we do that. That is what this bill does. I am sorry, maybe I should have named it the Pete Conrad and the George Brown bill, but we remember George tonight as we debate this, because I am sure he would be more than happy to be here tonight helping out, if he was alive and with us. I remember his passing, and I miss him very much. So, Madam Speaker, I ask my fellow colleagues to support this legislation and to remember Pete Conrad and keep looking up, as we do.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 5303) to authorize the Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to establish an awards program in honor of Charles ``Pete'' Conrad, astronaut and space scientist, for recognizing the discoveries made by amateur astronomers of asteroids with near-Earth orbit trajectories, as amended.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I have no other speakers. I would just close by again congratulating my colleague, the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Udall); and I would like to thank him for the many hours of hard work he has put in to getting the bill to the floor like this. In this Congress, during this wartime has not been an easy thing. He has put in a lot of time and effort, and he is to be commended for it.

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

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 2426) to encourage the development and integrated use by the public and private sectors of remote sensing and other geospatial information, and for other purposes, as amended.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and insert extraneous material on H.R. 2426.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. First of all, I congratulate the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Udall) for having this bill come to the floor and the hard work that he has put into this bill. He has been a tremendous inspiration to us in working for high technology and a great environment at the same time. This bill, I think, exemplifies that type of attitude and commitment. So I congratulate him first and foremost for the great work he has done that has manifested itself in this bill. I support H.R. 2426, the Remote Sensing Applications Act of 2002. This bill provides incentives to make federally funded remote sensing data accessible and useful to address current needs in local communities. This has been a great concern of mine for several years. Since getting to Congress, I have always talked about getting down-to- earth benefits for the taxpayer from satellite data. So I am very pleased to support this legislation that will result in benefits for a broad range of users. This bill establishes a pilot program to enable the development of creative ideas for applying remote sensing toward societal needs. These applications will benefit all who depend on or work in the areas of agriculture, urban planning, environmental management, weather forecasting, resource management and disaster relief, just to name a few. I would suggest that perhaps we could add to that list, and I hope with his leadership to work with him on this, see a way that we can use satellite sensing to help discover sources of pollution in the ocean which plague the coastal areas of California where I happen to represent. I have always strongly supported the use of satellite remote sensing data to address current problems in our society, with tangible benefits, of course, to the taxpayers who are paying for these satellites in the first place. This bill is not another big government program with no end, however. Yes, we are providing a service, but instead we are doing so in a very responsible way. Instead, it is a limited 3-year pilot program to jump- start projects that will benefit thousands, maybe millions of citizens. These projects will be competitively selected with preference given to those that partner with non-Federal sources of support. These projects will be evaluated for their effectiveness with the results made available to everyone through the Internet. Successful ideas will spur private industry to develop more and more useful applications for remote sensing with direct benefits, of course, to the citizens of the United States and to the world. I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 2426 as a remarkably forward- thinking piece of legislation. Again, I would like to mention to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Udall), I know that there was an older Udall that was here when I first came here. This is a bill in keeping with that fine tradition that he left in this body. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Smith).

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the bill, H.R. 5498, be rereferred to the Committee on Resources.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the resolution (H. Res. 533) welcoming Madame Chen Wu Sue-jen, the first lady of Taiwan, to Washington, D.C.

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. 533, the resolution under consideration.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself just a few moments to close this debate. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from American Samoa (Mr. Faleomavaega) and I visited many hot spots around the world in our time together, and he has always demonstrated a love of liberty and justice, and I think that today this resolution demonstrates that in a democratic society even where there are some disagreements, and we all understand people have disagreements on various issues, that fundamental values that this body represents cross party lines. The gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos), the gentleman from American Samoa (Mr. Faleomavaega) and others who have been so active on the Committee on International Relations, sometimes we have heated debates, but quite often those debates are not about the fundamentals but are instead about details, and today we are talking about something that is very fundamental, and that is showing respect to a country that has a democratically elected government. We show our respect to that country by tipping our hat and greeting the First Lady of that country who is visiting with us, a lady who has herself endured many, many crises and challenges in her life and demonstrates a courage, and a lady who is married to a man who was elected the first really democratically elected leader of a Chinese people and a man now who represents the republic there in Taiwan and is a good friend to the United States. So I would urge my colleagues to join me in voting for H. Res. 533.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and I would like to thank the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hyde) and the gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos), our good ranking minority member, for expediting consideration of H. Res. 533, a resolution welcoming Madame Chen Wu Sue-jen of Taiwan to Washington. Madame Chen's visit comes at an important moment in our Nation's relationship with Taiwan and the People's Republic of China. Although the United States has repeatedly asked Beijing to resolve its difficulties with Taiwan through peaceful means, the Communist Chinese military has placed hundreds of ballistic missiles on the coast of China aimed at Taiwan. To make matters worse, Communist China is building more and more of those missiles. The Communist authorities portray the peaceful cause of Taiwan independence as a terrorist movement. Nothing could be further from the truth. Taiwan threatens no one. On the contrary, Taiwan has been 100 percent supportive of the war against terrorism; and it has, for example, given generously to the humanitarian effort in Afghanistan and trying to help the Afghan Government in this very pivotal moment. China, on the other hand, has helped the Taliban. While the Taiwanese has been helping those people trying to create a more democratic society in Afghanistan, trying to create a more peaceful environment, the Communist Chinese, on the other hand, have been helping the Taliban. They have helped them build a 14,000 secure-line telephone system; and I might add that on September 11, the Communist Chinese authorities flew in to Kabul and signed a trade agreement with the Taliban. China has also assisted Iraq in building a fiber optic communications network that is used for the Iraqi military. So it is clear who supports terrorism and who does not. First Lady Chen Wu will be bringing with her a strong message from her husband and the people of Taiwan that Taiwan's cooperation with the United States in its anti-terrorism campaign will continue and will strengthen in the future. This is the sort of mature behavior that the world has come to expect from Taiwan. We hope that Beijing will soon follow in Taiwan's footsteps and become a truly constructive member of the world community. The threats that it is making against a peaceful Taiwan, the threats of military action, are irresponsible; and we should take note that the rest of the world should take note of Communist China's behavior. Such a change in behavior on the part of Communist China toward the people of Taiwan should be also noted. We would invite the Communist Chinese to take a second look at their policies. In the meantime, I urge my colleagues to vote for H. Res. 533 and welcome the First Lady of Taiwan, Madame Chen to the United States. Madam Chen and her husband represent democratically elected leaders. Her husband was elected President of Taiwan. No one has elected in a free election those so-called leaders in Beijing who threaten Taiwan with violence and military action. Let us take this moment to tip our hat respectfully to the wife of an elected President of a country, and that is what Americans should be doing instead of kowtowing and being afraid to anger tyrants overseas. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, today is the 14th anniversary of the uprising of the Burmese people against the drug dealing military dictatorship that rules their nation. On this solemn occasion we need to ask ourselves what we can do to help those brave people help themselves. The people of Burma and their elected leaders, Aung San Suu Kyi and members of the National League for Democracy (the NLD), have struggled for over a decade to bring an end to the military dictatorship. In 1991 Daw Aung San Suu Kyi won the Nobel Peace Prize for defying great odds in standing firm against this heinous regime. She has spent years under house arrest and hundreds of members of her political party, the National League for Democracy, have disappeared into Burma's notorious prison system. Fourteen years ago the Army slaughtered thousands in cold blood on the streets of Rangoon and imprisoned and tortured thousands more. The people of Burma believe that the people and the government of our great Nation stand strongly behind them. Today some governments in the world are struggling to decide whether or not to support the war against terrorism while they sponsor acts of domestic terrorism against their own citizens. We need to ensure that we keep the friends that we have by not making any deals with such governments as the Burmese junta or Chinese communists. By supporting the people of Burma over the totalitarian regime that is currently in power, we will not only help the people of Burma to help free themselves but we will be creating the good will in the future that will enable us to fight terrorism in that area of the world. Lately though, I have seen some news about Burma that greatly disturbs me. The military dictators have come knocking on the door of the United States asking for money for what they call humanitarian aid, while simultaneously spending $130 million on MIG fighter planes from the Russians. This is nonsensical. We should not waste American taxpayer money on aid money that encourages the regime to spend more on weapons. We should also not forget who has caused the humanitarian crisis in Burma and why. The regime is entirely responsible for the sufferings of the Burmese people; their lack of good governance--any form of governance--has resulted in a debacle of the public health sector. Even more disturbing than this, however, I have recently seen evidence that the military regime has sent its scientists to Russia to learn to build a nuclear reactor. The United States must do everything in its power to ensure this does not happen. The Burmese regime has proven repeatedly not only its callous brutality, but complete disregard for international opinion. Nuclear power in the hands of the Burmese dictators that terrorize their own people makes Southeast Asia and the world a more dangerous place. The United States and the international community ought to inform the Burmese junta that in no uncertain terms it should immediately begin full-scale political talks with the elected leaders of Burma, the National League for Democracy, and ethnic nationalities aimed at speedy transition to democracy. I have met many of the leaders of Burma's struggle for freedom myself and I can tell you they would be outstanding partners for the United States and the world. In the meantime, to ignore the threat posed by an armed, nuclear Burmese military regime would be a serious error.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, today America is reflecting on the events of 9-11, as we should; and it is a time to remember. It is a time to remember those who lost their lives and to remember those, like the firemen and the police, who gave their lives trying to save others. It is a time for rage, as we have heard, and a time for reflection, a time for pride and a time for anger. What it is not, however, is a time for mourning. That time is over. Today, I join with all of those who solemnly commemorate this anniversary. Heartfelt commemoration, I suggest, is not enough. We must consider not just what happened a year ago, as we have been hearing for the last hour; but instead we must find and discover and talk about and we must make determinations about why 9-11 happened. As a Nation, we are now engaged in a historic global conflict with a vile enemy who slaughters innocent people by the thousands and then makes sanctimonious references to God. Talk about blasphemy. I do not know if bin Laden is dead or alive; but I do know that when he dies he will burn in hell, and it is our job to get him there as quickly as possible. Our President laid down a battle plan that brought the liberation of Afghanistan and will soon rid the world of threats like that of Saddam Hussein. This is a result of 9-11 one year ago, but it did not start one year ago. The first order of business is for us to recognize that the murderous attack on us in New York and at the Pentagon was not an act of God, nor was it a natural phenomenon. It did not just happen; nor, let me add, was it just a case of bad luck. The slaughter of our fellow citizens need not have happened. It was something that would not have happened had certain people done things differently, had certain government policies been different, had certain Federal agencies and Departments been given different marching orders. In short, 9-11 need not have happened, and it is imperative that the American people look closely at the policies, the systems, and yes, the people which led to 9-11 to ensure that something like this never happens again. What policies am I talking about? Let us start with the fundamentals or, if you will, the fundamentalists. Of the 19 hijackers on 9-11, 16 were Saudis or held Saudi passports. America's relationship with Saudi Arabia is complex but not as unfathomable as some would have us believe. In the Cold War, we worked closely with the Saudi royal family; and to be fair, they were our loyal allies. They helped us finance anti- Communist projects that were of immense importance to our national security in the days when the Soviet Union was spending billions of dollars to bury us. Saudi help was vital on a number of fronts so there was reason for us then to be grateful; and, yes, there is reason today for us to be grateful. What they did to help us in the past, however, does not excuse what they are doing today that threatens us. Times have changed, and dramatically so. If our policy towards Saudi Arabia does not change significantly, there will be a heavy price to pay in the future, if we have not already paid enough. Relying on low oil prices and on Saudi largesse for special Cold War projects left us dependent upon them, and who is them, who are we talking about? We are talking about the royal family, the royal family of Saudi Arabia that is autocratic and over the years has become fat and incompetent and in many ways cowardly. However, again, they helped us defeat an enemy intent on destroying us, Communism. So we paid special attention to the Saudis. Instead of pushing for democratic reform and human rights, we let the Saudis, and because of their influence much of the Muslim world in general, we let them off the hook in our push for democracy and human rights. In the short term, it makes sense. In the long term, it has had a dramatically bad impact, negative impact. Young people in that part of the world have suffered under despots and crooks; yet we Americans in that part of the world continually talk about stability, when what we should be pushing for is democratic reform and the opening of closed societies. Entrenched regimes, royal and secular, have been brutal and corrupt. Is it any wonder that young people in a large chunk of the world turn to Islamic fundamentalism as their idealistic alternative? In their corrupt world, radical Muslims have been the only ones offering a morally based alternative, but radical Islam is not a positive force. It is tyrannical, arrogant and malevolent. Right here we should note that most forms of religious extremism are equally reprehensible and that radical Islam should not be singled out. Although limited to a few loud voices, a drumbeat started right at September 11 to paint all Muslims as the enemy of the United States and of the West. That drumbeat started the moment those planes hit the World Trade towers; but thanks to our wise President, we did not succumb to a strategy of hate. bin Laden wanted us to retaliate against Muslims in general, which would have polarized hundreds of millions of people against us, many of whom would have ended up supporting bin Laden and his terrorists as their saviors. As I say, we did not fall into that trap. By the way, just to put things in perspective, in the decade leading up to 9-11, Muslim people saw their fellow Muslims being ethnically cleansed, raped and murdered in Bosnia by thugs calling themselves Christians. They saw their fellow Muslims repressed and murdered by the tens of thousands in Kashmir by people who called themselves Hindus and cut down in the Middle East by the Israeli Army. Hundreds of thousands of non-combatant Muslims have lost their lives due to the actions of governments controlled by people of other faiths. So from their perspective, Islamic people are no more terrorists than others. In the West, all we see is the frightening picture of planes flying into buildings and suicide bombers blowing up Pizza Huts in Israel. So the first policy we need to change is that which has us tolerating dictatorship and corrupt governments in Muslim countries in order to maintain stability. Working with Russia, which is now our friend and trying to build a democratic society, let us break our dependency on oil from unfriendly and democratic and undemocratic anti-Western governments. Let us seek out reformers in the Arab and Muslim world. Let us demand free elections and freedom of speech and press as well as religious tolerance in those Muslim countries. Back to Saudi Arabia. Over the last 2 decades, the Saudi establishment has dealt with the rise of their homegrown religious extremists by ignoring them, giving them a free hand overseas and by sending them to Afghanistan. Their extremists are called Wahabis. Those folks are on the outer limits of Islam. They are the ones who insist that women must cover themselves from head to foot. Now, that is okay if women voluntarily accept this religious mandate. Instead, however, the Wahabis act as if they have the right to control everybody, even those who do not accept their particular view, claiming to have an infallible insight about the wishes of God. They beat women with sticks if so much as their ankles are showing. They feel free to commit violence against people of other faiths and to prevent anyone with a different belief in God, even other Muslims, from worshipping and living their lives as they see fit. This is the most radical of all Muslim sects. Instead of standing up to this religious gangsterism, the Saudi royal family allowed them to establish their base of operations in Saudi Arabia and to export Wahabi radicalism throughout the world, with the help, of course, of billions of petrol dollars. One of the places not just influenced but under the control of the Wahabis was Afghanistan. The Taliban was not an indigenous religious sect of Afghanistan. That is the mistake so many people make. They represented a transplanted Wahabism. Transplanted from? Where else. Saudi Arabia. These crazies did not represent the character and/or the values of the Afghan people. The Afghan people are devout in their faith but they are not fanatic. They pray and are grateful to God, but they do not feel compelled to have everyone else pray, much less feel compelled to compel that everyone else pray just like they pray. I have seen this tolerance firsthand, even in the most desolate regions of that distant land. Years ago, 14 or 15 years ago, actually, I was in Afghanistan with a mujahedin unit, the mujahedin being the fighters against the Soviet occupation. During long treks across the desert, the small group of mujahedin fighters I was with would stop and pray five times a day. They would get on their knees and they would pray, and they would thank God for everything that they had. I might add that they had little. We did not even have a good clean glass of water, much less the provisions of food that could keep people healthy. Yet these people were grateful for everything. It caused me reason to pause to think that here in the United States we have so much and how rarely people think about how grateful they should be for what we have. But here were these people, under attack by the Soviets, on their knees praying. But there were many other people in the surrounding area and with our group. About half of them were not part of the praying during those prayer sessions. They stood there. What impressed me is that those who were praying felt perfectly comfortable. They were fulfilling their obligations to God but did not feel threatened by these others who were not praying and who were not compelled to participate. That was the essence of the Afghans. Grateful to God, devoted to God, but not fanatics who were trying to suppress other people into some sort of religious dictatorship. The Taliban in Afghanistan, of course, was totally different than the type of attitude I am talking about. And it was not a result of the susceptibility of the people to the Taliban's form of Islam as much as it was a result, meaning the Taliban's ascension to power, was not a result of what is naturally in the Afghan people's hearts, but instead, I believe, the result of a deal between Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and, unfortunately, the United States. It, of course, goes back to the Cold War, when the United States was helping the Afghan freedom fighters in their struggle against the Soviet army that occupied their country. The Saudis were helping, too. Now we helped, and we can be proud of that. The Saudis were also helping, but as I discovered, it was not quite that simple. As I was hiking through Afghanistan with that mujahedin unit heading towards the battle of Jalalabad, which was one of the last battles the Soviets participated in in Afghanistan, we came across an encampment of white tents. These were very expensive tents. There were off-road vehicles there. The people were well fed, well clothed. And I was told by my mujahedin fellow freedom fighters to keep my mouth shut and to speak no English because this was an encampment of a crazy psychopathic killer, a Saudi named bin Laden, and bin Laden would kill all of us if he knew there was an American with the group because he hated America as much as he hated the Communists. And much of the support that the Saudis gave to the Afghan freedom fighters was right there. It was actually bin Laden and his group there fighting against the Russians. And that was their contribution to Afghanistan in the fight against the Soviets. Well, after the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan, after the mujahedin victory, instead of helping these people rebuild their country, and we can be proud we helped them fight off the Soviets with giving them the weapon systems they needed, but we did not help them at that point rebuild their country. In fact, America simply walked away and let them sleep in the rubble. We did not even help them dig up the land mines that we had given them to defeat the Soviet army. And so little young kids, little kids from Afghanistan have been blowing off their legs ever since. And they cannot even treat their young people because they do not have the medicines to do so because we have not been there to help. There was an agreement, however, as we left. It was probably not a formal agreement; probably just an understanding to let Saudi Arabia and Pakistan oversee that region. So we walked away from Afghanistan and the entire region. Instead of insisting on a government that reflected the will and values of the Afghan people, we left them in the hands of the Saudis and the Pakistanis. For several years, there was chaos and fighting. Not as bad as before, but there was fighting that continued, and the Saudis then unleashed their ace in the hole. We had left, but the Saudis had been preparing for this eventuality. The term Taliban means student and refers to those who spent most of the war against Soviet occupation not fighting the Russians. That was a whole different group of guys. That was the mujahedin. No, the Taliban were in schools, so-called religious schools, in Pakistan. Later, they emerged from these schools seemingly out of nowhere, but in fact trained, armed and financed by Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Within 6 months, they had conquered over two-thirds of the country, including Kabul, the capital city. But just as it was in Orwell's Animal Farm, vicious dogs were surreptitiously nurtured and then suddenly unleashed to do the bidding of pigs. Just a reminder: Many pundits fail to understand the difference between the mujahedin and the Taliban. The former fought the war against Soviet occupation troops. That was the mujahedin. The latter, the Taliban, arrived on the scene much later. And in the end, the same mujahedin who helped defeat the Soviets were our allies in this last year in driving the Taliban out of power. The mujahedin, the good people of Afghanistan, have stood with us twice. Let us pledge that we will not walk away from them again. Let us help them rebuild their country. Let the record show that I had spent a year trying to prevent the Taliban from coming to power at that time. My goal right after the end of the war with the Soviets was to try to bring the old King Zahir Shah back from his exile in Rome. Zahir Shah was one of the most beloved and pro-western of his people. He was anxious to serve as a transition leader that would lead his country to a new political system that was based on democratic elections; on ballots instead of bullets. As I say, he was an honest, kind man, with a good heart, and respected by all the people of Afghanistan. Instead, the king was pushed aside, or should I say he was kept on the sidelines. And I might add that our own State Department played a major role in ensuring that this positive alternative did not come to power. Instead, the Taliban assumed power with the acquiescence if not the support of the Clinton administration. Knowing there was nothing more I could do, I hoped for the best. I tried my best to try to prevent the Taliban from getting into power. Now they were there, our government seemed to be going along with it, so all I could do is sort of hope for the best. However, within a month or so, the tyrannical ways of these religious kooks made it clear to me and to everyone that they had to go. Yes, it was clear to me, but I take that back, it was not clear to everyone, because the Clinton administration could never seem to come to that conclusion, that the Taliban had to go. In understanding who should be accountable for 9-11, we must understand that the State Department, under President Clinton, was never anti-Taliban. Our State Department, probably under the President's direction, undermined those efforts aimed at undermining the Taliban. So those of us who were anti-Taliban found ourselves the target of the State Department rather than having the State Department target the Taliban for their misdeeds. In several personal instances I was involved with helping obtain medical and humanitarian support for people in the areas of Afghanistan that was not yet under Taliban control. I was thwarted by our own government. I was thwarted by our own State Department. NGOs with aid for Afghans who were in areas that were controlled by the Taliban, on the other hand, had no trouble with our government. They had some other troubles that, of course, the Taliban gave them themselves, but our government was perfectly happy to have NGOs operating in Taliban- controlled areas but stopping people like myself who were trying to help those people in areas that were opposed to the Taliban. In mid 1988, however, even with this tacit support from the Clinton administration, the Taliban were incredibly vulnerable. They had overextended themselves in an invasion of the northern part of Afghanistan, and many of their best, if not most of their best, fighters were captured, along with huge amounts of war supplies. The road to Kabul was open. And who interceded to prevent the collapse of the Taliban at this pivotal moment? Who pulled their chestnuts out of the fire? President Clinton, personally. At this moment of maximum Taliban vulnerability, the White House dispatched Assistant Secretary of State Rick Inderfurth and Bill Richardson, then our United Nations ambassador. They flew to northern Afghanistan and convinced the anti-Taliban forces not to attack and not to retake Kabul, but, instead, to accept a cease-fire and an arms embargo. This is at the moment, and I cannot stress this more forcefully, it was at a pivotal moment. The Taliban could easily have been defeated. The Northern Alliance was willing to accept a return of King Zahir Shah to lead a transition government. Instead, under the direction of the Clinton White House, these two top U.S. Government officials, Assistant Secretary of State Rick Inderfurth and U.N. Ambassador Bill Richardson, arrived on the scene to convince the anti-Taliban forces to stand back. And we thus saved this fanatical, anti-western regime from being destroyed and being defeated. This later led to a dramatic defeat of the anti-Taliban forces. The cease-fire lasted only long enough for the Saudis and the Pakistanis to fully rearm the Taliban. And the arms embargo that Bill Richardson and Rick Inderfurth talked about, was only effective against the anti- Taliban forces, which are the people called the Northern Alliance. Think about that. We talked them into a cease-fire, which lasted only long enough for the Taliban to rearm. We talked them into an arms embargo, which was only an arms embargo against them. Again, this was one of the major turning points that led to 9-11. Later, the Taliban, with their supplies replenished, went on the offensive and turned their country into a staging area for terrorism. So the Taliban ended up, with the Clinton administration's somewhat blessings, of taking over all but a sliver of Afghanistan. That portion, of course, that little sliver, was under the command of Commander Massoud, who stood alone in the Panjir Valley, a hero against the war on the Soviets. Now he was all that was left to resist the tyranny of the Taliban. This is where bin Laden makes his official entrance. Behind the scenes, his foreigners, his radicals, had been there and been the Taliban shock troops for a long time. They murdered anyone and everyone who got in the way and ran roughshod over people all over Afghanistan. bin Laden had already declared war on the United States, and had already killed military personnel and bombed U.S. embassies. The Taliban permitted them to use their country as a base of operations. Yes, the Clinton administration repeatedly demanded that bin Laden be given up or at least kicked out of Afghanistan. Yet there they were using all of these words making demands, yet they never seemed to care enough to help Massoud or help any of the others who wanted to resist the Taliban. So what was the Taliban leadership to think? Well, of course they thought that the United States Government really did not mean what it was saying. They believed it was simply posturing for domestic political consideration. This is like when the Clinton administration went to China and demanded human rights reform and then never put any type of force behind that demand. So our government made it clear to the Taliban by our inaction to support anyone who was opposing the Taliban that our demands on them actually were just made for public consumption here, and that we were actually more concerned with our deal, whatever that deal was, with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia and that we were more concerned with that than anything going on within Afghanistan, including bin Laden. Why would the tough guys in the Taliban think that we cared about human rights abuses, about their treating women like cattle, about their harboring of terrorists like bin Laden, and about their rejection of even a consideration of free elections of any kind when we were not doing anything about it? We did not, as I say, support Massoud; and, in fact, when several of us tried to help those resisting the Taliban, it was our government, the State Department, that got in our way. Let us be fair about it. If that is the impression the Taliban got, we should admit it. Our government at that time was not serious about democracy, human rights and such in Afghanistan. We were not serious about their form of government or even their harboring of bin Laden because our government in that administration did nothing. What all this means is that if we stray too far from our basic principles as a country, it is going to end up hurting us. If we stray too far from the fundamental principles that make us Americans, a love of liberty and justice, a belief in the democratic procedures to guide men, and permit people to guide their own destinies and secure their own destinies through election processes, if we ignore these principles, it will come back to hurt the United States of America. Over the years, I complained over and over again; and I will submit for the record quotes of mine that warned America that we must act against the Taliban. I did this for years. Well, obviously there was another policy. I am just a lone Congressman. I do not make policy. I try to influence policymakers. But my warnings, repeated warnings, were not heeded. Well, who was responsible for the policies that left the Taliban free from domestic rivals, the policy that left them free from outside opposition, that left them free from the pressure to democratize and respect human rights? Who was responsible for these policies? How about Madeleine Albright? How about President Clinton? They could not get themselves to endorse any meaningful action against the Taliban even after we had been attacked in Saudi Arabia, blowing up our military bases there, our military installations, our living quarters there, or the blowing up of U.S. embassies in Africa. Furthermore, there is ample evidence that in the last administration they passed up promising opportunities to take out bin Laden. I, for example, several years ago during the Clinton administration contacted the CIA to let them know that I had an informant who knew exactly where bin Laden was, that he was out of Afghanistan, and that he was willing to pinpoint bin Laden for them. I gave them my contact's phone number. They never called. After a week, I called my friend back and said, Did the CIA get with you? No. I went to the CIA again and explained that this person had impeccable credentials of knowing what was going on in Afghanistan. They would get to him, but they did not. A week later they still had not called. Then I went and complained to the chairman of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Goss), whom I respect; and I told him what happened. The next day he had a meeting in this building with representatives of the NSA, the CIA, and the FBI. It was the bin Laden task force. I told them what had happened and that my friend could pinpoint bin Laden, and that he had been ignored for 2 weeks. They would get to it. Guess what, a week later my friend still had not been contacted. By then the trail was cold. But when I went to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Goss), it got action and my friend was called. He said it was a lackadaisical call. It looked like it was a pro forma call. Does that sound like an administration committed to getting bin Laden? No. Let the record show there were numerous opportunities to get bin Laden and not one was exploited. The government of Sudan tried to give the U.S. a complete file on bin Laden and his whole gang. Madeleine Albright personally turned that down. I know of a situation at the Defense Intelligence Agency where a young analyst felt there was a lack of information about Afghanistan and that lack of information was threatening to our national security. She wanted to get the information. She wanted to go up to Massoud's territory and find out what was going on because we did not know what was happening in Afghanistan. She was denied, and she had the gall on her own time, on her own vacation time, to go there to Massoud's stronghold to try to get that information. I think someone like that should get a medal. Instead, she was fired. I personally asked the general who then headed up the DIA not to fire her. She got the ax anyway. By the way, there is no indication that the DIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, warned anybody about the attack on 9-11, even though the murder of Commander Massoud 2 days prior to the attack in New York should have set off alarm bells. Of course they had fired the one person who was conscientious about Afghanistan. They had fired that person for being too conscientious, over the objection of a Member of Congress who pleaded that that was the type of responsible behavior we needed. I say this because the death of Commander Massoud had a special significance to me. I had known Commander Massoud for many years, even before I went to Afghanistan in 1988. During my time in the White House, he sent his brother to me; and we continued a communication through third parties over the years. He was a man I deeply respected. He was a hero; not to say he did not make mistakes. Certainly he made mistakes, and he did some things wrong. But over years of fighting, everybody makes mistakes. But Massoud was a hero. He was a giant of a man. Mr. Speaker, 2 days before they attacked us, they murdered Massoud. It took the wind right out of my lungs. I had been to his stronghold 5 years before. I visited him in the mountains of Afghanistan. Our friendship was close, and I respected him. We worked out an agreement to have King Zahir Shah return and that Massoud would support that if the King would lead a transition government and have honest elections 2 years later. He was willing to support that, and then the Taliban killed him. After I had gotten myself together after his death, I knew that it must be because they are going to attack the United States. That is why the Taliban killed him, so we could not have anyone to turn to, to rally behind in our counterattack. So the next day I called the White House. I asked to speak to Condoleezza Rice, and I wanted a meeting with her and the National Security Council because there was an attack that would soon befall the United States of America. They got back to me, and said, Congressman, we take your opinions on Afghanistan and elsewhere very seriously, but we are very busy. Can you come tomorrow? The earliest we can fit you in is 2:00 tomorrow. I woke up on 9-11 expecting to have a meeting with Condoleezza Rice and the National Security Council at the White House to warn them that there was an imminent attack planned on the United States and to take seriously any possible threat that they saw. Unfortunately, at 8:45, the planes began crashing into the buildings in New York. So here we are. One year ago our country was blind-sided, attacked without warning, resulting in the slaughter of 3,000 Americans. As I have just discussed, this represents a failure of policy and a failure of the people behind that policy, primarily those in the Clinton administration, not because of politics, but because they happen to be there at the time. Who knows if it would have been a Republican administration. It was George Bush who walked away originally and left the Pakistanis and the Saudis in charge of that region. But it was during the Clinton administration that the Taliban took over, consolidated their power in Afghanistan, and turned that country into a base of operations for anti-American terrorists. The American response is undermining those who oppose the Taliban. This leads me to my conclusion that our policy was part of an agreement with the Saudis and the Pakistanis to keep the Taliban in power. The attack, however, reflects more than a failure of policy. It reflects more than just that policy. The attack which was carried out by a terrorist organization, a terrorist organization that we had been told over and over again was the number one target of U.S. intelligence, that organization, the number one target of U.S. intelligence, was able to launch an attack of this scope and of this magnitude requiring millions of dollars and the coordination of hundreds of people against the United States. The number one target of U.S. intelligence was able to slaughter 3,000 Americans, to blind-side us. This represents a catastrophic failure of America's intelligence system; it is a failure of the DIA, the CIA, the NSA, the FBI, and the rest of the intelligence alphabet soup here in Washington, D.C. We spend tens of billions of dollars every year, and the number one target of American intelligence is able to organize and pull off an operation of this scale. The magnitude of the screw-up boggles my mind. Now we know there were warnings. The BBC is reporting that just 2 months before 9-11, the foreign minister of the Taliban was so upset about the terrorist plot that he had heard of that he sent an emissary to an American consulate in nearby Pakistan to warn the United States of a pending attack. But no one listened to him. Then we know of FBI field agents who were pleading that attention be paid to the terrorist ties of certain students who were being trained to fly airplanes. These FBI agents were chastised for going around channels. They had to go through channels, but they were so concerned that the people in front of them were not acting, they tried to get the attention of Washington but were chastised for not going through channels and they were ignored. The list of failures goes on and on. I will just say that on 9-11, that something like that happened to me indicates the type of mindset we are dealing with, even after the attack. On 9-11, when the planes had already crashed into the buildings, I realized, everyone realized it was an attack from Afghanistan, based on the terrorists based in Afghanistan, and I called the king of Afghanistan. I wanted to know if there was anyone there protecting him. ``Do you have any police there protecting you?'' ``No.'' ``Are there any police outside your door?'' Remember, the king of Afghanistan is in Rome, exiled in Rome. ``Are there any policemen outside your door?'' ``No, there aren't.'' ``Are there any people inside your compound with you protecting you?'' ``No.'' I said, ``Is there anyone there with a gun to protect you?'' He said no. I said, oh, my gosh, our number one asset, the one man who the people of Afghanistan could rally behind now that they have killed Massoud, only the king, Zahir Shah, was someone we could rally the people behind to counterattack against the Taliban, and he was hanging out there in the wind. He was totally exposed. So I talked to someone, a very high official in one of our intelligence agencies. I told him, and he said he realized the importance of Zahir Shah and he was totally exposed, and he was vulnerable. And, guess what? Five hours later I happened to talk to that same high level official again. I can tell you when I asked him about, well, Zahir Shah, is he under guard now, his response to me was, ``You don't expect us to act that fast, do you?'' Give me a break. Of course we expect our people to act that fast. You are within a phone call's distance of the Marine guards who guard our embassy in Rome. Our ambassador, or whoever was there, could have gone over and picked up the king or sent Marines over to protect him, or the agency has people in Rome, et cetera, et cetera. Instead, 5 hours later, after 3,000 of our people, at that time we thought it was 20,000 people had been slaughtered, but you do not expect us to act that fast, do you? The people in our intelligence community are, by and large, fine and dedicated people. I will tell you that right now. I respect them, but those individuals who may have my respect as people of good hearts and are patriots, they are now part of a bureaucratic behemoth. We are relying on what has become organizationally incompetent, a system in which individuals get fired for showing initiative, like that young analyst at the DIA, or they get reprimanded, like those FBI field agents, for begging attention on some pressing threat. We need to reform the system and make it better. To do so we need to hold those accountable who made errors and to change the structure and mindset. Most importantly, we need to change the structure and the mindset of our intelligence organizations. We cannot let the cloak of secrecy be used to shield the consequences of failure and incompetence. For that reason I voted for an investigation of 9-11, not just that it be done by our Congressional oversight committees. And I have great respect for those leading those committees and members of those committees, but I believe that it should be also the responsibility of an independent commission on the level of the Warren Commission and perhaps the commission we established after Pearl Harbor to get all the facts about this historical failure of U.S. intelligence. Let me stress again that I have tremendous respect for and trust for the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Goss) and the others in the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence here in the House, but a redundancy like we are calling for with an independent commission looking into the problem as well cannot in any way hurt. An independent commission could do nothing but contribute to the understanding of the idea pool that is needed to reform and to fix the system. This anniversary is with us today. We must commit ourselves to see that such surprise attacks will never again be successfully launched against the United States. We will accomplish this by making the changes in policy and the changes in personnel that are needed to keep our country secure. We must change the way we deal with Saudi Arabia. We must evaluate how we dealt with Afghanistan and admit that it was horrendously wrong. The people behind those policies, especially those people who are still in influential positions in the State Department and elsewhere, must understand that they bear a significant share of the responsibility for the death and destruction that fell on America one year ago today. The arrogant so-called experts, for example, who shoved aside exiled King Zahir Shah for years, they shoved him aside for two decades, claiming that he was too old to play a positive role in bringing about a better Afghanistan and peace in Afghanistan. They were so absolutely wrong. People in the State Department should find out who it was who pushed this idea that the Zahir Shah could not participate, and those people should be talked to, and those people should look in the mirror and think very seriously about what they did to contribute to this loss of American life. In essence, they kept the Taliban in power, because they prevented us from getting behind a positive alternative, whether it was Massoud or the others fighting the Taliban, or whether it was Zahir Shah. In essence, they kept the Taliban in power until 3,000 Americans were slaughtered by an attack that was launched from Taliban-controlled territory. We were attacked a year ago today, and over these last 12 months our military has been able to launch a counterattack that has dislodged the Taliban and sent them, along with their terrorist allies, the al Qaeda, running for cover and running to hide their heads. Our military has done a tremendous job. They did this in a landlocked country halfway around the world. This has been a magnificent victory for our country and for its military. To the degree that we sort of have questions about the need to restructure our intelligence system, we need to praise our military and make sure that we build upon the success of our military. They need certain amounts of changes, too, but we need to do that with the military. We can see the positive things they have done and build upon that. This has been a magnificent victory. If bin Laden is alive today, he is in hiding and he is spending all of his hours not trying to launch some attack on us, but instead he is spending his time trying not to be captured. He could be spending his time mapping out attacks on the United States. Instead, thanks to the expertise and bravery and courage and great job our military has done, we have bin Laden and his likes in hiding, looking over their shoulders, freezing their assets, not able to launch another attack of the magnitude that we suffered one year ago today. We have accomplished all of this, a tremendous accomplishment in a country on the other side of the world, landlocked. We did this with fewer than 50 American combat deaths. We dislodged the Taliban government from power, we destroyed the regime, we dislodged the terrorists, all with fewer than 50 American combat deaths. Yes, there have been some mistakes, and in every combat situation there are. If accidentally a house or area is bombed, if we bombed some of our friends accidentally, which has happened, we just need to admit that it was a mistake and help those people rebuild. They will understand, because the Afghan people are praising us as their liberators. We have fought beside the mujahedin again, the freedom fighters of Afghanistan again, to free their land from the Taliban tyranny. As I say, there have been mistakes, but compared to what has been accomplished, this mission gets an A. Let me note that I have two complaints. They are small complaints and the Afghan people will put up with them for now, but I think that we need to pay attention. Number one, I do not believe Karzai was the right guy to pick. He does not have a wide base of support in Afghanistan. When the loya jirga was held, we should have permitted the king to emerge, as would have naturally happened. I think there was some wheeling and dealing going on that led to Karzai's ascension, and the king could have been there. He was the natural choice. But I believe the Afghan people have good hearts and understanding. They know we are there to help them. They know there are political considerations. But they are demanding, of course, free elections in 2 years, and that is what we should be doing, making sure that we keep that pledge and that there are free elections. And if they want to elect anybody, whether it is Karzai or a member of the royal family or whoever it is, they should have a right to do so. We should work with them and help to rebuild their country, and that will be one way to really defeat the Taliban and really defeat al Qaeda. The people of Afghanistan have looked at us as liberators. The other concern is about drugs. We have not eliminated the drug production in Afghanistan. The poppy crop was not destroyed. We have got to do so next year. That commitment has to be there. That drug money goes into bad hands. Finally, let us take a look at the challenge we have today and look ahead a year. The President has wisely suggested that now is the time for us to eliminate that threat that hangs over us and has hung over us for 10 years. We did not complete the job in the Gulf War. We left Saddam Hussein in power. That was the gift that George Bush, Sr., gave to us. George Bush, Jr., is going to make up for that. He has committed us to eliminating the dictatorial, fascistic regime of Saddam Hussein. We should not be weary of this. In fact, we should know that Saddam Hussein has less support in Iraq than the Taliban had support in Afghanistan. Our strategy should be to help the people of Iraq liberate themselves from this monstrous regime headed by Saddam Hussein. The people of Iraq will be waving American flags and dancing in the street because we will help them build a democratic society. We can do so with the same strategy as we did in Afghanistan, work with Special Forces teams and air support. We can support those people who want to fight for their own freedom. It worked in Afghanistan, it will work in Iraq. We should not have fear and trepidation about getting rid of this threat of Saddam Hussein. He is, as George Shultz suggested, a rattlesnake in our front yard, and we should not wait until he bites us to cut its head off. Now we can move forward in Iraq and eliminate that threat, as we have eliminated the Taliban threat, and we can do so not by sending huge numbers of American forces, but by helping the people in Iraq, as we did in Afghanistan, to liberate themselves. That is what the challenge the President is giving us is. That is why we as Americans should always stand for those people who want to live in a free society and are willing with their courage and blood to fight for their freedom, but need our help logistically, need our air support, perhaps need our advice from our Special Forces teams. So, as we remember 9-11, let us never repeat that, by being proactive in the future. Where there are dictatorships and fascist regimes, like the Taliban, and if they threaten the West and the United States, we do not have to do with this all regimes that are dictatorial, but if they threaten us, let us work with the people who suffer with a boot on their face and with an iron grip around their necks, let us work with those people to help them free themselves. We have on the floor of the House of Representatives two pictures, one of George Washington, a great painting of George Washington, and a painting of Lafayette. Lafayette came here during the American Revolution to help us win our freedom. Let us not forget the French helped us win our freedom, and that people like Lafayette were heroes to early Americans. While we must serve that same role that Lafayette served to us, we must serve that role to those people overseas who long for liberty and justice. If we do so, we will be the light of the world. We will be the hope of all the young people in the Muslim countries who are looking for some people who believe in something, rather than people who are talking about stability and keeping the status quo. We need to be the ones who offer moral alternatives, and the morality we offer is democratic government and a respect for human rights, treating people decently. Our flag should stand for justice and hope. If we do, rather than the type of things we were doing in the 1990s with Communist China and the Taliban and all of these regimes, where we were not doing anything to make it clear that we honestly and sincerely believed these founding principles of our society, if we do that, we will be free and we will be safe. There is a dynamic in this world between peace and freedom. Freedom tomorrow will bring peace. Just as we lived under the threat of some sort of war with the Soviet Union, the Soviet people, the Russian people were never our enemies. It was that system. As soon as we made it a fight between communism and democracy and stopped just supporting any dictatorship that was against the Communists, the Communist system itself began to crumble in Moscow, and no one was more heroic in that fight against the Soviet dictatorship than the people of Afghanistan. They fought and they bled and they gave us a more peaceful and a freer world. We did not do what was right by them. We did not help them rebuild their country at that time; we did not stick with them. We left it up to the Saudis and the Pakistanis. We have a chance now to make up for that. But we must persevere in helping them rebuild their country; and that will cement peace in that region, because people will believe in us again. We need, again, to make sure that we become the force for liberty and justice and decent treatment for people all over the world, and that is where we will find America's security. Let us have the courage to do so. Our President has charted a wise course, and we should have the tenacity and the courage to follow this through now that we have learned after 9-11 that there are consequences to pay when we do not.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, today is the first anniversary of the murder of Commander Massoud, a leader of the anti-Taliban forces in northern Afghanistan. Two days before the attack on the United States, bin Laden's terrorists, posing as journalists, killed Commander Massoud. They blew him up. The Taliban and the al Qaeda were free from their most effective opponent, and the world lost a champion. Those of us who dedicated ourselves to eliminating communism from this world know what a great debt that we owe to Commander Massoud. It was his courage, his tenacity and skills in battle that played an indispensable role in the outcome of that global fight between good and evil known as the Cold War. I first began communications with Commander Massoud when he sent his brother to see me when I worked at the White House in the 1980s under Ronald Reagan. At that time Commander Massoud was already a legend. His courage and wisdom served his own people well. It also inspired freedom-loving people throughout the world, and let me admit to that I was one of those who was inspired by Commander Massoud. It was my honor to have communicated with him over the years as well as to go and meet him in Afghanistan about 5 years ago, meet him in one of his mountain retreats, one of his mountain holdouts, and strategize with him on how to free Afghanistan from the grip of the Taliban. Commander Massoud, along with the other leaders of the resistance against Soviet occupation, leaders like Abdul Haq, were heroes in the truest sense of the word. Massoud was never defeated by those Soviet troops during the long battle for Afghanistan. It is unfortunate that after the Soviets were defeated that chaos and a lack of support from Afghanistan's Western friends prevented Massoud and others from unifying and democratizing their country. Americans can be proud, however, that we helped Commander Massoud and the Afghan freedom fighters, people like Abdul Haq, as I say, in their fight to thwart Soviet aggression, but we should be ashamed that we walked away after that great victory and left them with no resources to rebuild their country. It is also sad that the United States, under President Clinton's leadership, never provided Massoud or the other freedom fighters what they needed to prevent the tyranny of the Taliban from dominating Afghanistan. But as we know, Commander Massoud was able to stand like a giant. Like the Soviet troops before them, the Taliban were never able to defeat Commander Massoud. Today as we try to rebuild a peaceful Afghanistan where people can raise their families and live without fear, Commander Massoud is sorely missed. Although he made mistakes, and all leaders make mistakes and there were some judgments, of course, things that happened that were not absolutely all totally correct, this is the real world, but by and large Commander Massoud, one can say of his life, he fought for the right. He was a major force for good. But as we remember him today on the first anniversary of his death, let us commit ourselves to his vision of a free, prosperous, and more peaceful Afghanistan. And in achieving this we will assure that Commander Massoud will never be defeated. One year ago, upon hearing of Commander Massoud's death, and as I say, it was an assassination that took place 1 year ago today, 2 days before September 11, I went into a state of shock. It was like taking the breath right out of my lungs. But after regaining my composure, I realized, yes, my friend had been assassinated, but I realized that those who killed Massoud had a purpose. They meant to attack the United States and were eliminating the person that we would turn to to rally the people of Afghanistan and lead a counterattack against the Taliban. That meant that an attack on the United States was imminent. I called the White House and asked for an emergency meeting with Condoleeza Rice and the top members of the President's National Security Council. I got a call back and was told that the earliest that they could meet me, and they were taking my request very seriously, would be at 2 o'clock the next day. Well, at 8:45 a.m. that next day, the hijackers' planes began to slam into the World Trade Center. Yes, that could have been averted had we had Commander Massoud fighting against the Taliban much earlier. Unfortunately, we did not provide him the effort and what he needed to defeat the Taliban then. Commander Massoud would have been making history all this year and would have been doing and helping things for the better, and we will avenge his death and all the victims of 9-11 by rebuilding a peaceful Afghanistan free of tyrants and fanatics.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak today about a resident of my district who is being honored by an organization which has had an immeasurable impact on America. Barbara Lyon of Bank of America is Junior Achievement's National Volunteer Award of Excellence Winner. Her efforts in Southern California have impacted nearly 40,000 students in that area over the years. Her tireless work to promote JA and support the organization in its effort to educate young people about business, economics and the free enterprise system is worthy of this recognition. The history of Junior Achievement is a true testament to the indelible human spirit and American ingenuity. Junior Achievement was founded in 1919 as a collection of small, after school business clubs for students in Springfield, Massachusetts. As the rural-to-city exodus of the populace accelerated in the early 1900s, so too did the demand for workforce preparation and entrepreneurship. Junior Achievement students were taught how to think and plan for a business, acquire supplies and talent, build their own products, advertise, and sell. With the financial support of companies and individuals, Junior Achievement recruited numerous sponsoring agencies such as the New England Rotarians, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Boys & Girls Clubs the YMCA, local churches, playground associations and schools to provide meeting places for its growing ranks of interested students. In a few short years JA students were competing in regional expositions and trade fairs and rubbing elbows with top business leaders. In 1925, President Calvin Coolidge hosted a reception on the White House lawn to kick off a national fundraising drive for Junior Achievement's expansion. By the late 1920s, there were nearly 800 JA Clubs with some 9,000 Achievers in 13 cities in Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. During World War II, enterprising students in JA business clubs used their ingenuity to find new and different products for the war effort. In Chicago, JA students won a contract to manufacture 10,000 pants hangers for the U.S. Army. In Pittsburgh, JA students developed and made a specially lined box to carry off incendiary devices, which was approved by the Civil Defense and sold locally. Elsewhere, JA students made baby incubators and used acetylene torches in abandoned locomotive yards to obtain badly needed scrap iron. In the 1940s, leading executives of the day such as S. Bayard Colgate, James Cash Penney, Joseph Sprang of Gillette and others helped the organization grow rapidly. Stories of Junior Achievement's accomplishments and of its students soon appeared in national magazines of the day such as Time, Young America, Colliers, Life, the Ladies Home Journal and Liberty. In the 1950s, Junior Achievement began working more closely with schools and saw its growth increase five-fold. In 1955, President Eisenhower declared the week of January 30 to February 5 as ``National Junior Achievement Week.'' At this point, Junior Achievement was operating in 139 cities and in most of the 50 states. During its first 45 years of existence, Junior Achievement enjoyed an average annual growth rate of 45 percent. To further connect students to influential figures in business, economics, and history, Junior Achievement started the Junior Achievement National Business Hall of Fame in 1975 to recognize outstanding leaders. Each year, a number of business leaders are recognized for their contribution to the business industry and for their dedication to the Junior Achievement experience. Today, there are 200 laureates from a variety of backgrounds. By 1982, Junior Achievement's formal curricula offering had expanded to Applied Economics, now called JA Economics, Project Business, and Business Basics. In 1988, more than one million students per year were estimated to take part in Junior Achievement programs. In the early 1990s, a sequential curriculum for grades K-6 was launched, catapulting the organization into the classrooms of another one million elementary school students. Today, through the efforts of more than 100,000 volunteers in the classrooms of America, Junior Achievement reaches more than four million students in grades K-12 per year. JA International takes the free enterprise message of hope and opportunity even further to nearly two million students in 113 countries. Junior Achievement has been an influential part of many of today's successful entrepreneurs and business leaders. Junior Achievement's success is truly the story of America--the fact that one idea can influence and benefit many lives. Mr. Speaker, I wish to extend my heartfelt congratulations to Barbara Lyon of Huntington Beach for her outstanding service to Junior Achievement and the students of California. I am proud to have her as a constituent and congratulate her on her accomplishment.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the Roemer amendment. Let us note tonight the gravity of what we are talking about. America has been relying on an arrogant, bloated and incompetent intelligence bureaucracy to protect us against foreign threats. We spend billions of dollars and the likes of bin Laden blindsides us and slaughters our people; 3,000 Americans were slaughtered on 9-11. And it was not a tragedy not beyond our control. It was a failure of the system and a failure of the people in the system. bin Laden was, let us note, the number one target of American intelligence prior to that attack, the number one target of American intelligence for a year or more before that attack. Yet this operation, an operation of this magnitude with millions of dollars being spent, being transferred from one account to another, hundreds of people being involved in many different countries, yet it went undetected. The FBI, the CIA, the National Security Agency, the DIA, our intelligence community let us down. And let us note this, they let us down in such a way that we deserve to know that everything has been done to straighten the situation up so it cannot happen again. We should all know about a major house-cleaning that has been going on in our intelligence community. I know nothing about a major house-cleaning. In fact, it appears to me that the same people are in charge in the intelligence community today as were in charge before. We cannot go on with business as usual; and I am sorry, relying on those in this body, in the legislative branch, whose job it was to oversee American intelligence before 9-11, is not good enough. We need some outside people of prestige who we can trust to focus on this, who are not part of the system and do not feel compelled to watch out for whose turf they are standing on in terms of getting on this committee or that committee. A new homeland defense committee is not business as usual. A new homeland defense department is not business as usual. A blue ribbon commission is not business as usual. Tonight we heard in this discussion we heard that this proposal by the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Roemer) described as not a favor to the intelligence community. Well, I am not interested in doing favors to the intelligence community. The CIA and the State Department played down the threat that the Taliban posed to the United States and to the free world. They have played down the importance of the heroin crop that was being harvested every year in Afghanistan. They have played down the role of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan with bin Laden and his terrorist gang that was becoming a fixture in Afghanistan. And let us note, we all had briefings during that time period. Over the last several years we all had briefings by the CIA and over there in our secret room up here. How many of us felt insulted by those intelligence briefings because there was nothing secret given to us? There was nothing that gave us any more insight than what we could read in the newspaper. It is time for Congress to reassert that we are not going to stand by with ``business as usual'' after a tragedy of this magnitude. This was a catastrophic failure of American intelligence. Those people who have been running American intelligence should have the decency to step down, but at the very least we need to hold them accountable. You hear time and again people saying, oh, this commission will not be assigning blame or pointing fingers? Oh, yeah. Why not? We should be assigning blame and pointing fingers. Three thousand of our citizens have been slaughtered. We have let the intelligence community keep us at arm's length for too long. This is a free society and we will remain free as long as they know that we, as the elected officials of this land that make the policy, and not the intelligence community that will lead us around like they think we were dumb bells. Tonight, by passing the Roemer amendment, whether or not it is the specific wording and the specific outline, we send a message that we will do something about this failure.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time I may consume. After hearing the gentleman from Michigan's (Mr. Levin) description of how human rights has not been improved and how things are still just as repressive, it seems to me that he has just provided enough arguments for us to say why are we doing the same old policy if it is not working and the Vietnamese, that the Vietnamese Communist have just signed another agreement, as my friend, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Crane) has just said, big deal, they have signed agreements for 20 years and broken all of them. This is no reason we should continue down a path that has kept the Vietnamese people in chains and in slavery and in abject poverty. During the last 12 months, despite the Presidential waiver that we are debating today, the Communist regime has actually increased its brutal repression as the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Levin) suggested in his comments. Religious clergy, advocates of democracy, ethnic tribal leaders and members of the tribes in the central highlands, these are the people who were the most loyal to American forces during the war. All have been victimized, and the victimization continues at a higher pace. By voting yes on H.J. Res. 101, thus denying normal trade relations for Vietnam, we send a message to the gang of thugs that rule Vietnam that they must once and for all not just make agreements but start some real political reform. Let us see something happening rather than just talk before we normalize relations with them. Only this will allow the Vietnamese people to enjoy some prosperity, some peace and some liberty, but they have been denied this by the regime that holds them in its grip. The sad truth is that there will be no democracy, no human rights and none of these other things that we hold dear in the United States, no prosperity, no freedom for these people in Vietnam unless their own government starts to reform, and it has not done so under the rules that we have been playing with. We have been treating them as we treat free governments, which is insane. Hanoi has recently, in fact, initiated a new campaign of censorship. They have even outlawed the watching of satellite TV. Give me a break, and we are going to treat them like we do democratic societies? The primary cause for the fact that their country is making any headway economically is their lack of democracy and freedom and the fact that it is a Communist dictatorship that we are talking about. If we wish Vietnam to succeed, we have got to do more than just wink and nod when they make another agreement, yet they will then violate again and again. What we are talking about today, by the way, is not whether or not we should engage with Vietnam. It is not whether we should isolate Vietnam. It is one thing and one thing only, and that is, whether or not those businessmen who are free already to sell their products or to build their factories, whether or not those businessmen for the United States will be subsidized by the American taxpayer in building factories, manufacturing units in Vietnam in order to exploit their slave labor, their labor that is not permitted to join a union, is not permitted to quit their jobs. This is what this debate is all about. The debate is not about whether we can sell our products. American businessmen can sell the products and will continue to or can build factories at their own risk, but is whether, as the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Levin) calls it, financing will be available. What we are talking about is financing that is subsidized by the American taxpayer through international and national financial institutions like the Export-Import Bank. There is no reason whatsoever we should be financing the building of factories, even in democratic societies overseas, but for countries like Communist China, Vietnam, this is a sin not only against their people because we are permitting a few people here to exploit their labor, but it is a sin against our people because we are putting them out of work. So let us not ignore the central issue today. Two central issues, freedom in Vietnam and subsidies for American businessmen to build factories and put our own people out of work, and let us not ignore that. We will see if that even comes up on the other side during the debate. While extending these subsidies has not made Vietnam any freer in these last few years, it has not been going in the right direction. If it had been, we would be able to report all of this stuff. Instead, what we see are American businessmen that are leaving Vietnam. These are the guys who do not have the subsidies because of the level of corruption and repression that goes along with a Communist dictatorship. In that country, trade data, for example, remains a State secret. Journalists and public officials continue to be jailed on charges of treason for merely discussing trade and economic issues. In fact, the Communist regime has imprisoned business executives locally and of several major and private corporations simply for criticizing the government or when their company has been too successful outside of the corrupt system. I urge my colleagues to stand up for American values and international freedom by voting yes on H.J. Res. 101. Why subsidize the building of factories in Communist Vietnam, costing jobs at home and putting our people out of work to help a Communist regime. This globalist dream is not just a nightmare for America. It demoralizes those around the world who believe in liberty and justice and see America as their only hope. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, how much time remains?

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf) who has been involved personally in almost every human rights fight in the Congress since I got here 14 years ago and whom I deeply respect.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, I would ask unanimous consent to give the gentleman an extra 30 seconds.