Dana Rohrabacher

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I rise to oppose the amendment, and let me just say that I have a great deal of fear that the money that is going into science is quite often politicized, and there is evidence of that around. I think the amendment that the gentlewoman is suggesting would lead in that direction and we should be very wary of these types of earmarks. What I think the gentlewoman would actually do is create a situation where money was earmarked for this particular biotechnology type of research and the word would go out that if anyone wants to create scares about biotechnology they should come and get their grant because this is what this money is for. We have seen the same sort of thing happen before. We saw it happen with global warming. My fellow colleague and friend, the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee), suggested there has been a ``change'' in administration policy on global warming. Well, I am not sure what that change in policy is, but it is very clear that that issue has been so politicized by the introduction of tax dollars through the various National Science Foundation, NASA, et cetera, that the public has not been getting pure science, but it has been getting politicized science. In the early 1980s, there was a consensus, and in fact there were hearings in this Congress, in our committee, reaffirming the great threat that the global climate change posed to humankind. In fact, we had hearings in which the Democratic leaders of the committees at that time, because the Democrats controlled the House, they controlled the committees, made statements about the horrible threat of this global climate change. The only trouble was the climate change they were talking about and the scientists they brought in to verify it were warning us of global cooling. Some of those scientists, I might add, are now on the payroll advocating that we have to fear global warming. Now, all of that in a 20-year time period. They reversed themselves on this important issue in a 20-year period. Now, supposedly the global warming trend and the global cooling trend, whatever it is, has been going on for thousands and thousands of years, yet they reversed themselves in a 20-year period as to what the government had to emphasize in order to save humankind. If we had taken their prescriptions, obviously we would have been going in exactly the wrong direction. And I would predict in about 5 years from now there will be some other major revelation to the scientific community, as government grants are given in this way or that way; and we might find that it is neither global warming nor global cooling, but something to do with the Earth on its axis or something going towards the Moon or the sun, or something else we deserve to spend billions of dollars and direct it towards the scientists who will be able to warn us about it. Let me just note that we have seen the glaciers in our country and other countries receding for about 100,000 years now. There has been climate change in the world, and it has been getting warmer for hundreds of thousands of years. Yet in order to prove that humankind in the last 5,000, or actually the last 500 years is causing this global climate change, we are spending billions and billions of science dollars. We have got to quit politicizing science. This amendment, I believe, goes in exactly the wrong direction. But let me note this. Politicized science is probably the worst threat that we have right now to understanding the actual perils that might face us in the future. I still remember the ``Global 2000 Report,'' and I would recommend that my colleagues read the ``Global 2000 Report'' that was put out in 1980, financed of course by tax dollars. The ``Global 2000 Report,'' I believe, warned us against global cooling, but my colleagues can check into that. I do not remember that precisely, but I do remember they said we would be totally out of oil by the year 2000 and that gasoline would cost about $150 a gallon, or something like that, and all of our natural resources would be depleted. In other words, there was this great threat, this great scare that was put out in the ``Global 2000 Report,'' and every one of their conclusions were wrong, now that we have passed the year 2000. Do my colleagues know why it was wrong? It is because it was politicized science. I think that we have to, and we are dealing with this committee and we are dealing with our expenditures, we have to go out of our way, bend over backwards to ensure that we are not politicizing science; that we are not taking up a trendy issue and asking the scientific community to verify it in order to get government grants. That is why I would oppose the Woolsey amendment.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Madam Chairman, I would like to thank the chairman for all the hard work that he has put in on this over not just this time since September 11 but the time before as well, as well as Ranking Member Lantos. This has been an issue of importance to us all even before 9/11. And the gentleman from New York (Mr. Gilman) Chairman Gilman has been heart and soul behind the efforts to free the Afghan people even before it became clear that it was a threat to the United States. There has been a great deal of discussion as of late as to how much President Bush knew about the terrorist threat that took the lives of 3,000 Americans on September 11. What is most pertinent, however, is how the terrorist monsters in Afghanistan came to power and how they held power, and, more urgently, how can we prevent this from happening again. The legislation we vote on today is vital not only to the Afghans but to the peace and stability of the world. We are committing ourselves to this generous aid package in cooperation with other donor countries and, in doing so, sending a message to the Afghan people, and that is, put down your guns and pick up your tools and this time America and the decent people of the world will be with you and will help you rebuild your country and rebuild the lives of your people. This message and the assistance that we are giving is long overdue. It repays a debt to the Afghan people which I am sorry that my friend from Texas does not recognize. The people of Afghanistan bled and died by the hundreds of thousands in the war against the Soviet Union, and in doing so helped us win the Cold War, bring peace to the world, and afterwards we walked away from them, owing them this vast debt. This new package should provide the resources necessary to repay that debt, or at least begin repaying that debt, and the resources necessary to begin the process of uplifting the Afghan people and bringing them into the family of nations. Their well-being and a humane quality of life is the surest way to prevent a repeat of the tragedy of 9/11, a tragedy that not only affected them, of course, but has affected the entire world. This aid package comes at a pivotal moment, because Afghanistan's course is now being determined. The aid program from the western countries must be implemented in a way to ensure that the brutal sectarian forces that are still present and still threaten the peace and stability of that area understand our strength of purpose. Our message again should be we will help you rebuild your country but only if the new Afghanistan is a responsible member of the family of nations, and we expect the rights of the Afghan people, men and women, to be respected by their leaders. This bill addresses specific humanitarian needs, such as my amendment to the original bill encouraged by the gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos) and his efforts to direct extra resources towards land mine clearance. The gentleman from California and I have been deeply concerned for a number of years about the enormous number of land mines in Afghanistan. We, at the end of that war, after they had fought for us, not only left them to sleep in the rubble, these poor Afghan people who had lost so many members of their family, but we left them in a country that was inundated with land mines. We did not even help them clear the land mines that we had given them to help defeat the Soviets. That was immoral and it is a totally moral basis for our insistence now that we help the Afghan people and help them rebuild their country. We also in this bill have directed money to women and to other local programs and we have expressed our desire to make sure that the resources are necessary to make sure that the national security and humanitarian relief efforts that are going on in Afghanistan are well funded, not only by us, but by our allies who are also contributing a great sum. Let me just say there has been some discussion as to whether or not we should be helping those people who were caught in the crossfire, and we will have a colloquy on this later, supposedly that we are making compensation to those people whom we accidentally hurt in trying to free Afghanistan. This is not a controversial position. This goes to the heart and soul of America. If we did not intend to hurt people and they were caught in the crossfire, of course, we are going to help these poor innocent people, and in doing so we are going to send a message to the people of the world: Yes, we are for freedom and we are going to stand by you, and if war is necessary, or conflict is necessary, we are not coming in like the 800-pound gorilla in caring less about the rights of others. We care about people. That is why we are engaged in this. That is what this aid package is all about, repaying a debt and telling the people of the world we care about their freedom and we care about their human condition. In doing so, we will have peace and our country will be secure.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Madam Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me. I agree with both of my colleagues, or all three of my colleagues, of the tragedy of unintended victims of the war and when we have a situation we are fighting against terrorism.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Madam Chairman, the tragedy of unintended victims in this war against terrorism should be investigated in order to determine the best manner of assisting them, and their claims should be dealt with if they are shown to be valid claims. Afghan's civilians who have lost family members or homes due to being caught in a crossfire during the hostilities between the coalition forces and the Taliban or al Qaeda fighters need our help. This legislation is a big step in the right direction. It is my strong desire to see that these people, the unintended victims of this war, are granted a priority consideration for reconstruction assistance under this legislation. This is the moral and the right thing to do, and I thank the gentleman for his efforts to make sure that we do the right thing.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Madam Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Madam Chairman, I rise in strong support of the Lantos amendment. Just to mention a few of the points that have been made here that might need a little bit of clarification, when we talk about the money that is being spent here, yes, it does cost us money to do something. I think the American people need to consider exactly how much money we are talking about. They also need to consider how much money we have already spent because we were not responsible in the years past. I think the $2 billion that this project will cost us, $2 or $3 billion, I am not sure at the end exactly how much it is going to cost, but I am sure that it is far less expensive than what it has cost us in rebuilding lower Manhattan and the Trade Center, and I am sure it cost us a lot more for not being responsible in the years past. If we would have spent this money 10 years ago or 5 years ago, perhaps we would have saved hundreds of billions of dollars, which is what this will cost us in the end. When we left, yes, it is very difficult for one to imagine that we would owe a people who fought for our freedom a debt. Yes, it is very difficult for us to imagine that a group of people like the people of Afghanistan, who lost a huge percentage of their population in fighting the Soviet Army, in alliance with the United States, that we owe them a debt, because after what they did with their courage, their blood, the sacrifices of their families and homes, it made the world safer because it broke the will of the Soviet leadership, and shortly thereafter the Soviet Union disintegrated. It probably would not have done so if it was not for the courage and the tenacity and the sacrifice of the people of Afghanistan, who we encouraged to go and do our fighting for us. Yes, we owe the people of Afghanistan a debt, and when we did not repay that debt, and when we walked away and told them to sleep in the rubble and let their children continue to be blown apart by land mines that we had given them to plant during the war against the Soviets, but we did not bother to stick around to help them clear them after the war was over, yes, there was a void. That void was filled by the Taliban and that void was filled by bin Laden and that void was filled by evil. When good people are not responsible and walk away, that void is usually filled by the evil people of this world. If there is any lesson of history, that is the lesson of history. It is not the ``loyal jerga,'' however you pronounced it, I say to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Paul). It is called a Loya Jirga. It is not a gathering of people who are being gathered for us to tell them what to do; this is a noble effort on our part to have all of the tribal leaders and local leaders of Afghanistan to gather together so they can determine what they want for their country, and it is something we should be proud of. Yes, there is a $300 million cost, military cost, to that. That $300 million is a drawdown so that the government of Afghanistan can create a military force that will permit Afghanistan to again be a unified country, rather than torn apart by warlords who are more powerful than the government, which is committed to the rights and liberties of their people at the center. We need to work with those people who want to rebuild a free and democratic Afghanistan. For 10 years, I tried to struggle to get the King of Afghanistan back, who was dedicated to serving the role that other monarchs have served in situations like that, in Spain and in Greece and elsewhere, as a transition figure to democracy. I was opposed by our State Department, who undermined that effort. I am sure there are a lot of regrets now in our government that what we did not do in the past ended up creating this horrible situation on September 11, where thousands of Americans died. But I can assure my colleagues that we will not have to have that same regret if we do what is right today, because, yes, there will be problems in the future, but those problems will be much greater if we do not act. If we do not back those people who are positive and want to have more democracy and want to respect the rights of their people, other people will fill the void, and then our challenges and problems and costs will be much greater. What we are proposing today is a good deal. Yes, it costs money. It is a good deal. Also, let us not forget that other people around the world are joining us, and if we refrain from picking up our share of the load to help rebuild Afghanistan, our neighbors throughout the world will note that and they will not do their share. So this is a good deal in order to achieve a safer planet for our people, a safer country here, and also to pay that debt that we owe to the people of Afghanistan.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to H.R. 3717. The last speaker, my colleague, the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Kelly), mentioned that this proposal would be the first major increase in the Federal deposit insurance in 20 years. Well, let us take a look at what happened 20 years ago when we had a major increase in federal deposit insurance. What happened? Let us think about it. What happened 20 years ago when there was a major increase? There was a complete meltdown of the savings and loan industry and it ended up costing us, the taxpayers, tens of billions, if not hundreds of billions, of dollars. I am not sure exactly what it was, but it was one of the worst economic catastrophes this country has had to deal with. So here we are again. We want to have a major increase in Federal deposit insurance. Now, let us make this clear, what Federal deposit insurance is supposed to be all about. Federal deposit insurance came about in the 1930s as a way of trying to protect the little guy and give the little guy some confidence to put his or her money into a small bank so that that person would have some confidence and their savings would be protected. I think it started out at $3,500. For a long time it stayed at $10,000. It stayed there for a long time at $10,000 because that is how much regular Americans could expect to try to save. Well, guess what? Back in 1980 they took it up to $100,000 for a deposit insurance; and then on top of that, it is not just one account of $100,000 we are talking about. Now, we are talking about not just protecting the little guy who wants to save 5 or $10,000 in an account, we are talking about rich people taking advantage of a program that was established to help little guys, so you have multiple accounts. As the gentleman from California (Mr. Ose) pointed out, rich people can take $100,000 and just pour it into account after account after being in various different banks. And, in fact, your own bank, one bank can sort of manipulate the system so that an individual, a wealthy individual, can have seven individual accounts in one bank. Now, this was not set up to try to protect people who are multi, multi-millionaires, but that is what it has turned into. And, by the way, this increase, this increase in the level will only make that matter worse. What we could do is we should be going in the opposite direction. What this has evolved into and what this continues to evolve into is the little guys now are being taxed in order to take away the risk for the big guys. So what we now have is a Federal deposit insurance program that taxes the little guy in order to protect the fat cats from any risk. That is not the way it was supposed to be. And by increasing that deposit insurance, we are making that even worse. And by the way, the gentleman from California (Mr. Ose) quoted expert after expert after expert saying that this would have the same destabilizing effect that it had in 1980, to increase this deposit insurance. It takes away from people's consideration of where they are placing their money. It takes risk off their shoulders so it makes them more irresponsible even to a certain degree. We do not want to put more irresponsibilities into our system. Let us do the opposite. Let us decrease Federal deposit insurance so it only protects the little guy instead of opening up our system to be exploited by a bunch of fat cats at the expense of the little guy. I would ask all of my colleagues to oppose this dramatic increase in Federal deposit insurance even though there are some reforms that were part of this legislation that are certainly good reforms.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this resolution which is one-sided and will not further the cause of peace. This resolution undermines President Bush's efforts to bring both sides together as an honest broker. Instead of compromising, this one-sided resolution will encourage excesses on both sides. It is anti-peace. Clearly all of us are overwhelmed with a sense of outrage over the terrorist bombings that have left so many Israeli women and children, elderly people and other noncombatants dead or wounded. Strapping a bomb onto a young person and sending them out to blow up a Pizza Hut or a bus and to kill other noncombatants in order to terrorize a population is despicable beyond words. But if we are going to bring peace to that troubled region, we must be scrupulously honest. There are piles of bodies in the Middle East. Many of the victims are noncombatants, and both sides of the conflict have engaged in the slaughter of innocents. I know the retort that many will use that the elderly and the children that have been killed by the Israeli Army was unintentional. Collateral damage. I have searched my heart to accept this argument. I cannot accept it. I am asking my colleagues to search their hearts. Should we not be doing what we can to end the cycle of violence as our President and Secretary of State have been trying to do? We must seek out the good- hearted people on both sides rather than encourage the radicals and hate mongers on both sides, which this resolution will do. I am sorry, but I do not put Mr. Sharon and Mr. Arafat in the camp of the good-hearted. The last thing we should do is give Mr. Sharon a green light to unleash his total war on the Palestinian people. The fact of life is that the Palestinians are not going to disappear, that Israel is not going to be driven into the sea. We need to bring both sides together in a spirit of peace and compromise. This resolution goes in the opposite direction. No one has been more committed towards ending the Taliban and al Qaeda terrorist regime, or getting rid of Saddam Hussein than I have been. But this is a different situation, and we will fail unless we go at it as peacemakers. This is a pro-war resolution for a conflict that cannot be won. Let us be peacemakers and do the right thing.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Yes, I do, Mr. Chairman, have a different view. I rise in strong opposition to reauthorizing the Export-Import Bank. We in Congress have had little hesitation to get ordinary American citizens off of welfare after 5 years, but we cannot seem to get our biggest corporations off of welfare after 5 years. We authorize the Export-Import Bank. We just heard an example a moment ago of how our tax dollars were going to destroy American jobs. The last time we reauthorized the Export-Import Bank, we were told that was impossible, that is not what is going on; we are actually subsidizing exports of American goods, and we were not putting people out of work. Surprise, surprise. After all these years, we find out right here in the debate an example of how Export-Import money has eliminated U.S. jobs. Let me contend that that will still go on and go on. We keep hearing that the money is going to be going to small businesses, and that never changes. Apparently only 18 percent of the Export-Import Bank loans go to small businesses, or their funds go to small businesses. Time Magazine suggests that the top five recipients of the Export- Import Bank subsidies receive 60 percent of all funds. Just to let Members know, of those five major recipients, they, in total, have reduced their workforce by 38 percent over the last decade. Now, why is that? That is because much of the money that we are being told is creating jobs here, that is not creating jobs here. What we are doing is subsidizing and guaranteeing loans for American businesses to set up factories in other countries. That is what is going on. Many of these loans about so-called selling our own products end up with little clauses in them. They say, yes, we will buy your product, and the Export-Import Bank will actually subsidize it or guarantee the loan, but you are going to have to, in order to sell us the product, build a factory in our country. This is common practice. So what do we have here? We have a situation where, in the name of selling vacuum cleaners or whatever it is to a country like China, we end up subsidizing the creation of a vacuum factory in China. And then what do they do? They do not sell those vacuums, by the way, just in China. They end up exporting them to the United States and putting our people out of work. And we just heard an example of how that was happening just a few moments ago by a proponent of this legislation. But that has all been cleared up now. That has not been cleared up. You can mark my words that has not been cleared up. Five years from now we will find lots of other examples of just that very same thing, maybe not the steel industry but other industries. Come on. It is time to realize that when the government starts giving away money in terms of subsidies and loan guarantees, you are going to have very wealthy and powerful interests manipulating that for their own benefit. And that is what is happening with the Export-Import Bank. Yes, there are a few little guys who get help but the vast majority of funds, not the vast majority of loans, goes to the very wealthiest corporations to create jobs overseas. I am against the Export-Import Bank. Let us not reauthorize it.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, today I am introducing the Charles Pete Conrad Astronomy Award Act. This act is intended to encourage amateur astronomers to discover new and attract previously identified astroids and other heavenly bodies, particularly those that threaten a close approach to the Earth. This act is named after the legendary pilot, astronomer and space entrepreneur, Pete Conrad, who I was honored to know. He was a constituent of mine as well. Unfortunately, he passed away after a tragic motorcycle accident just last year. Charles Pete Conrad made history and today in his honor and in his memory I am introducing a bill that could help protect the United States of America and, yes, the entire world. Pete Conrad more than anything else was a patriot who loved his country and felt that space would provide peace and prosperity for all of human kind. This act contains three categories of awards. The first category is an award for the amateur astronomer who discovers the largest astroid crossing in near-Earth orbit. The second category, an award to an amateur astronomer for discovering asteroids using information derived from professional sources and locating newly discovered asteroids. The third category, an award for those who provide the greatest service to update Minor Planet Center's catalog of known astroids. Let me just state that for those people who believe that there is no threat and that we live in a world today where those movies that talked about astroids colliding with the world and the threat that it posed, that that is all science fiction, I have got bad news for them. It is not science fiction. There are numerous examples of astroids and comets in the last few years that have come very near to the world and not been undetected until the last minute or even after they pass by the world. One of them was coming in from the Sun and was not seen until after it passed the Earth's orbit. If any of these astroids or comets would have hit the Earth, it would have been a catastrophic occasion, perhaps killing hundreds of millions of people. Perhaps in one case in the past, millions of years ago, that is perhaps what eliminated the dinosaur life on our planet. The following is a list of examples of recently observed asteroids: An asteroid about 300 meters in size crossed a near-Earth orbit about 500,000 miles from our planet in October of last year. An asteroid about the size of three football fields made its closest approach to the Earth (roughly the same distance: twice the Moon's distance from the Earth) on January 7, 2002. An asteroid reportedly the size of an 18-story building on a close approach to Earth (just a bit farther out than the Moon) was observed on March 8. The disturbing point about this asteroid is that it was seen from Earth again only after it had moved out of the glare of the Sun and into the night sky on March 12. For each nearby asteroid that is spotted there are several that pass entirely unnoticed. Some researchers estimated that there are roughly 25 asteroids, roughly the size of the one observed on March 12, cross a near-Earth orbit that is closer than the Moon. Astronomers believe that the number of undiscovered asteroids far exceeds the known list currently available to the scientific community. We need to know if there is a threat coming at the world. And having our young people, giving them awards, having amateur astronomers look into the sky to help us find those objects is something that we are mobilizing the people to help us discover that possible threat. If we see something coming at us that is years away, then we can handle that. We can do something about it. If we do not find out until a mere month or two beforehand, the Earth could be in real danger. I was the chairman of a hearing in which we had the experts testify on this issue; and one expert said, Congressman, you do not have to worry about that. There is about as much chance of a comet hitting the Earth as it is of you going to Las Vegas and getting a royal straight flush. And I said, Oh, my gosh. I did get a royal straight flush once. I remember that happening. So this is a real threat, but it is not something we have to fear. It is something we have to look at and try to find a way to identify threats. It is called Home Planet Defense. We need to pay some attention to it; and then if an asteroid does threaten us, we will be able to identify it far in advance and deter it from its path so it would not hurt the people of the world. This is the purpose of this Pete Conrad bill. We want to get our young people more interested in space and science and mathematics. This bill is a way to do it. The awards will be administered by the Smithsonian Institution, and I am asking all of my colleagues to join me in co-sponsoring the Pete Conrad Award bill because this bill will do a great deal in bringing to our young people the realities of science and America's space program. Let us get them off of these electronic games and get them into the real world and the real world may well be dealing with threats coming to us from outer space from great distances away, asteroids and comets that we should know about. Again, I ask my colleagues to join me in co-sponsoring the Charles Pete Conrad Astronomy Award Act, and I look forward to working with my colleagues and seeing that we get young Americans looking up just like Pete Conrad, always looking up and getting involved.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Madam Speaker, I rise today to commend the 97 percent of all local United Way chapters which continue to support the Boy Scouts of America despite the national campaign to demonize this wonderful organization. The pressure to abandon the Boy Scouts has been just as intense as the pressure on the scouts themselves to abandon their moral standards and to take God out of the scout oath. Powerful business interests and Hollywood moguls like Steven Spielberg have severed their links with the scouts, and the taxpayer-funded public broadcasting system have attacked them as well. However, an overwhelming majority of the United Way chapters and the American people themselves have not cowered and have stood tall against this disgraceful campaign of intimidation. In my own constituency, for instance, the Orange County United Way Chapter has given local scout troops and organizations $1.3 million over the last 3 years and has no sign of letting up. Just recently, the City of Huntington Beach, for example, has named itself the Tree City USA for its greenery. Many of those trees in Huntington Beach were planted by local boy scout troops doing their good deeds and community service. The United Way chapters that did cave into the pressure were mostly from liberal university towns where ordinary decency is often treated with scorn and derision, but in the American heartland, in communities where families jealously guard virtues like loyalty and bravery and reverence, the support for the Boy Scouts has remained steadfast, and I would encourage every American to inquire as to what their local United Way is doing in this controversy. One of the supreme ironies with this campaign against the scouts is that local Americans, ordinary Americans have stepped up and stepped into the breach to support the scouts when the United Way has pulled its support. This overwhelming backing for the scouts has exposed the opposition for what it is, marginal and well financed and vocal but a vitriolic minority nonetheless. Mainstream America obviously believes that the Boy Scouts have the right to set their own moral standards and to include God in the scout oath. By the way, the Girl Scouts of America, which have many wonderful programs and are celebrating an anniversary this year, gave in to political correctness when it came to God and their scout oath. It is no longer required for Girl Scouts to acknowledge God in the scout oath. This is especially sad when young girls need a spiritual foundation to cope with the challenges and the temptations faced by today's young people. The argument of those attacking the scouts has been that the scouts are being discriminatory. Well, yes, but they have a right to base their organization on certain beliefs like in God or in certain standards of behavior, sexual or otherwise. It is called freedom of association, and to those who call this discrimination, I ask, is this not what gay groups and even AIDS organizations do, discriminate? Some ask what do I mean? Well, does anyone doubt that Christian fundamentalists are being excluded from these organizations, from homosexual and AIDS organizations because these religious fundamentalists might want to preach at these people? Is this not a discrimination against those people's religion? Well, of course, it is a discrimination against their religion, but those groups, just like the scouts, have a right to have associations based on shared values. When gays were targeted by police for personal abuse and victimized by hatemongers, their rights were obviously being violated, and good people stood up. They united to end this injustice. Today, it is the right of people with more traditional values, like the scouts, who are being under attack simply for trying to live their own lives with their own moral standards. The scouts in Orange County, for example, have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees in order to protect their right to have God in the scout oath. This is intolerable and the scouts are not the only ones facing this stupid political correctness. Recently the Red Cross in Orange County canceled an appearance of a local school chorus before one of their meetings because the songs that were planned to be sung at that meeting mentioned God, like America the Beautiful. Well, later on the Red Cross apologized but only after a hailstorm of criticism. What is going on here? Americans have a right not to be forced to participate in what they do not believe, but do not people with religious persuasions have a right to have their own standards? Wake up, America. It can get worse and it will get worse unless we stand tall and we stand together against this kind of nonsense.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, as Co-Chairman of the Congressional Scouting Caucus I wish to congratulate the Girl Scouts of the USA on the occasion of their 90th anniversary. When I was a boy, I thought girls were icky. And as a boy I thought all Girl Scouts did was camp, sell cookies and do crafts. Well, I have dramatically changed my opinion about girls, and the Girl Scouts have changed as well. Today, the Girl Scouts is three million girls strong, with 900,000 adults volunteers. Girl Scouts now can earn merit badges that develop skills in chemistry, math, marketing, sports, computer science, aerospace and the environment. The Girl Scouts have developed programs that deal with the real problems young women face today. The Girl Scouts are actively working to discourage teen pregnancy, cultivate girls whose parents are incarcerated, mentor disadvantaged young women and encourage the academic achievement that will be so critical in their future. These programs expose girls from all walks of life to all the wonderful possibilities open to them in work, play, and service to others. The Girl Scouts develop healthy interests, skills and habits that serve young women for a lifetime. It is a long, long way from when Juliette Lowe founded the Girl Scouts on March 12 of 1912. But 90 years later the Girl Scouts are still teaching the basic values contained in the Girl Scout law: ``to be honest and fair, friendly and helpful, considerate and caring, courageous and strong, and responsible for what I say and do.'' These basic, timeless values prepare our girls to take on the mantle of leadership as they enter adulthood. And for that, I congratulate the Girl Scouts of America for their invaluable contribution to the success of our girls and the good of America.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this legislation which would permit those people who are in this country illegally to thwart our laws and to become legal residents of our country, thus insulting all of the immigrants who have obeyed our laws and are standing in line throughout the world. The parliamentary shenanigans we are witnessing today to try to get this legislation through to extend amnesty to these illegal aliens is unworthy of this body, this representative body, and is bound to confuse our constituents. What this is about is an amnesty for illegal immigrants. It is not about strengthening the border. It is about making the efforts that we have already taken to strengthen the border meaningless by granting amnesty to people who are in this country illegally. The administration and Members of this body talk a good game about increasing our national security while here right now undermining this country's ability to find and deport terrorists who are among us. If this vote today passes, we make the INS reforms already passed by this House meaningless. Why demand that aliens receive biometric ID cards, as we just heard about, or strengthen the border guards when illegal aliens will be able to pay $1,000 and forge some paperwork and become a citizen? What good does it do to perform a home country background check on an alien when we cannot perform a home country background check on an illegal alien? I might remind this body that 245(i) only rewards illegal immigrants. It can talk about families being separated. I believe that if families are separated and someone is here illegally they should go home to their home country to be with their home family; but if they are here illegally, that is different than if they are here legally. We actually have in place now programs in the United States Government to help people who are here legally to be reunited with their family. No, the only thing we are doing today is rewarding those people who have broken our laws and come here and overstayed their visas and are here illegally. We are rewarding them above the people who have been standing in line throughout the world, hoping to come to the United States by obeying our laws. If aliens are here illegally, they should return home to their own countries and go through the same process that we demand of people who are trying to immigrate legally here. They should have the background checks so that we can cut off the terrorists before they come here. By allowing this to happen today, by saying if someone is here illegally that they can stay in our country and not have that home country check on them before they arrive here, we are bound to let terrorists through the network. We are weakening our protection of our country. I stood on this floor in 1996 and again in 1997 and begged this body to consider our national security when rewarding illegal immigration. I can understand why people might have thought that I was reacting then; but in light of what has happened since September 11, we should never permit a weakening of the investigation and background checks of illegal immigrants into this country. One last point is, by granting amnesty to these people who are in our country illegally, we are asking for another massive flow of illegal immigration into this country. It is wrong, it is wrong, it is wrong. We should vote against it.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I first met Ronald Reagan when I was still in my teens. I had been active in his first campaign for Governor. During the primary season we had been very active, and we found out that the heads of the campaign were going to eliminate Youth for Reagan during the general election and have us all work with the adult organization. I felt very disturbed about that. We had worked so hard; I had hundreds of kids out passing out leaflets for him. So I decided to go see him myself. I hiked up to his home at Pacific Palisades at 3 o'clock in the morning and camped out on his lawn in a sleeping bag. About 7 o'clock in the morning, Nancy stuck her head out the door and says, ``Who are you?'' I had a little sign that said ``Ronald Reagan, please speak to me.'' Nancy says, ``You know, my husband, if he comes out to talk to you, I know that he is going to spend 5 or 10 minutes with you. He will be late for the rest of the day; he won't be able to have his breakfast. If you will go to the campaign headquarters, I will get you a meeting with the top person in the campaign. I have to protect my husband, you see.'' I said, well, how can you argue with that? So I started walking down that long driveway in Pacific Palisades dragging that sleeping bag. Behind me I heard these footsteps, and there was Ronald Reagan. His shirt was half off, he had the shaving cream on his face. He was going, ``Wait a minute, wait a minute. If you can spend the night on my back lawn, I can certainly spend a few minutes with you. Now, what is the problem?'' Ronald Reagan listened to me, and I do not know if that is what saved the day, but the Youth for Reagan never was eliminated. We worked in the campaign as our Youth for Reagan unit. That is the kind of person Ronald Reagan was. He won my heart then. He was a person who was very kind to other people, but he was very tough when it came to policy. He was a principled man. He was a principled man who cared about others. What were his principles that he based his decisions on that made him a successful person? He believed in personal responsibility, and he believed that people should keep more of what they earn and be able to decide on things that were important for their lives, and that they should control their own destinies. He felt that government, if we had to turn to government for help, it should be the government that was closest to the people so that it would not become isolated from the people and bureaucratic and autocratic. So that is why he believed things like education should be run at the local level, controlled by parents and teachers, rather than increasing Federal involvement, which would lead to bureaucratic control from Washington. He believed America should be a powerful force for freedom in the world, and he knew that for America to be a force in the world and for there to be peace and freedom anywhere in the world, America had to be strong. He did feel that defense, the military strength of the United States, and the defense of freedom and our country and the peace of our people was the number one responsibility of the Federal Government. He, during his time period, was castigated. Just because we are celebrating his 91st birthday and most people are saying good things about him, the fact is that he is 91 years old today and he does deserve that praise, but when he was President of the United States, he was vilified regularly by people who just did not believe in the things that he believed in, but they tried to make him into a warmonger and a person with a bad heart. Now, we should be able to disagree, and I never heard Ronald Reagan call anybody a name. The fact is we should be able to disagree on policy and believe in the goodness of each other. Ronald Reagan did have a good heart, but his policies were right. The fact is his low tax policy is what started the economic recovery of this country, which was in a shambles before Ronald Reagan became President. It ignited this rocket and in about January of 1993, which is exactly when the final phase of his tax cuts came in, and the recovery has not stopped since then. It faltered a little bit in 1992. So Ronald Reagan's policy started, ignited this, the greatest and the longest period, and we are enjoying it. This is, right now, the final phase of that Ronald Reagan prosperity. The only other time the economy went down even a little was in 1992, and then it shot right back. It was just a momentary faltering. What about peace in the world? Ronald Reagan was vilified as a warmonger. People on the other side of the aisle in this body would try to undermine his efforts to prevent Communist expansion in Latin America, undermine his efforts to try to be firm with Gorbachev and the Soviet leaders in bringing down the level of missiles rather than just freezing the high level of nuclear weapons we had, and, in the end, Ronald Reagan was able to end the Cold War, which permitted us to decrease military spending in these last 15 years. It was that investment he made, the good policies he had, but it was his principle and his strength of character that carried the day for this country. So God bless you, Ronald Reagan. We know that you have Alzheimer's disease and you probably cannot understand what we are saying, and you may not remember me, but we will never forget you.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Madam Speaker, Hamid Karzai, the chairman of the interim government of Afghanistan, is in Washington, DC; and his visit reminds us of the debt that we owe to the Afghan people. It was the Afghan freedom fighters who fought the Soviet Union and defeated the Soviet Union; and it was the Afghan freedom fighters that fought with us to defeat bin Laden and the Taliban. After the Afghan people fought and defeated the Red Army, which was in occupation of their country, something that left their beautiful country in ruins and in a shamble, we simply walked away from them in 1990. Then during the Clinton years we covertly supported the Taliban. Many of us noted that and opposed it at the time, but what appeared to be covert, or at least acquiescence, covert support or acquiescence to the Taliban continued through the Clinton administration. Many United States officials in the executive branch during the 1990s, who had no complaint about Taliban rule of Afghanistan back then, since September 11, of course, have postured themselves in a totally different way. Well, today, we have another chance. At this time we must do what is right by the Afghan people. Any vacuum created by our unwillingness as we did in the 1990s to meet the urgent humanitarian needs of the people of Afghanistan will be filled by powers that are hostile to the United States. For example, Iran currently is pledging 50 percent more reconstruction aid than the United States. And this year only $27 million has been scheduled to be spent on mine-clearing operations in Afghanistan. And let me add there are 8 million mines in Afghanistan. Many of them were given to the people of Afghanistan during the war against the Russians, and we did not even help them dig up the landmines that we gave them. And now we are having a paltry $27 million being spent on clearing those landmines as hundreds of Afghan people still blow their legs off, little children, every year. And we have yet to outline a major program that will give the poverty-stricken people of Afghanistan, the farmers there, an incentive not to grow opium, which ends up as heroin on the streets of the United States. But most important, we must assist the Afghan people in creating a stable democratic government. Let us not forget that Mr. Karzai is heading a temporary administration which ends in June. At that time, tribal leaders will determine what kind of government they will have in what they call loya jirga. There is only one Afghan today who I feel, and it looks like my understanding of this having followed it for 10 to 15 years now, there is only one Afghan who has the personal prestige and credibility and, yes, the affection of his people to bring all the ethnic groups of Afghanistan together. That man is King Zahir Shah, who has offered to return in March to Afghanistan; and he has recently made it clear to me that his object in coming back to Afghanistan is to develop and to build a democratic and free government for his people. We must not permit ourselves in haste, in our haste to extract ourselves from that region to commit the same mistakes that lead to the fanaticism and tyranny in Afghanistan in the 1990s and the loss of so many American lives in New York on September 11. We have a chance now to do what is right by the Afghan people who fought and bled in a way that certainly helped the United States in defeating the Soviet Union and bringing about a more peaceful world and prosperous United States, and in the past few months have fought side by side. They are the ones who fought with our Special Forces to defeat the Taliban and to end the reign of bin Laden and his terrorists in Afghanistan. We owe it to do what is right by them now. I call on my colleagues to join me in seeing that we are providing the assistance needed to rebuild the country of Afghanistan so the people there can live in peace and prosper.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, after my good friend, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Paul) had his presentation today on his perspectives on the United States foreign policy, I thought that it would be fitting that I present a similar point of view but not exactly in agreement with the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Paul). Although we are both people who love liberty and justice and value our freedom that we have here in the United States and in various countries throughout the world, we have a different view on exactly what policies the United States should follow to ensure that there is the maximum of peace and liberty and justice in this world. Today I would like to talk a little bit about where we are at in the world and why we are there and some thoughts, some basic thoughts about American foreign policy. First and foremost on this subject, we must recognize that our military forces are at this moment in action in various parts of the world, especially in Afghanistan, and they are there and they are fighting and sometimes they are taking casualties in order to avenge the slaughter of nearly 3,000 of our fellow Americans on September 11 past. This forceful and deadly response in the form of American military forces being unleashed against persons in different parts of the world is totally justified. It will and, in fact, already has deterred other terrorist attacks upon us. It is, yes, part of an act of vengeance, and I see nothing wrong with the United States Government avenging the death of 3,000 Americans who were killed, 3,000 innocent Americans, people who were not combatants who were slaughtered by evil forces overseas. And in this vengeance we will, as I say, deter other evil forces in this world from targeting Americans and from committing other heinous acts that have caused us so much grief here with the loss of friends and family. All Americans should be grateful for the magnificent job that has been done by our military personnel, and let us remember as we are watching this great victory that we have just had in Afghanistan that there were naysayers who were warning us not to do anything militarily in Afghanistan, that it would become a quagmire and that any time we commit military forces anywhere that it is so risky that we should just forget it. There is a saying of a captain of a ship, if a captain of a ship believes that his number one job is preserving the ship, well, then he will never leave port. Well, the ship of the United States has one important purpose, they have many purposes, our ship of state, but the most important purpose of our Federal Government is to protect the people of the United States and to protect our freedom. It is not simply to watch events go by. It is not simply to have a military for which we pay for our military, only to see it there and to caress it and to salute it and to say good things about it. No, our military is there and the people who are in our military understand they have a job to do. At times that means that they must leave port and they must go to foreign destinations in order to protect the national security interests of our country and in order to prevent our people from suffering the kind of attacks that we suffered on September 11. When we do not do that and when dictators and tyrants and evil-doers around the world see the United States has no more stomach for that type of conflict in distant places, then we will indeed become the target because there are evil people around the world who hate everything that the United States stands for and envy the prosperity and freedom of our people. The naysayers, if we remember, said the same thing about Saddam Hussein's attack and invasion and subjugation of Kuwait. The naysayers said we better not get into that war because Saddam Hussein kept playing on their psyche, the Vietnam psyche. This is going to be the mother of all wars. Well, what happened in Kuwait and in Iraq 10 years ago and what just happened in Afghanistan in these recent months should indicate to us when America is on the right side and we are doing what is right and opposing aggression and supporting those people who believe in freedom and democracy, that we will, we will win, and that we will be on the side of those people in those areas on which we are fighting, and that it will not become a quagmire because we are doing what is right and just. For the record, not aggressively responding to the invasion, Iraq's invasion of Kuwait or not aggressively responding to the atrocities committed against us on September 11 would have been a much riskier strategy than unleashing a military counterattack, which is what we did. But Americans need to understand that these two conflicts, while our military have went in in these conflicts and altered the course of history and defeated the tyrants, defeated the terrorists, the American people need to know that that military action might not have been necessary had we in place policies which would have prevented the attacks in the first place. It was bad policy on the part of the United States that led Saddam Hussein to attack Kuwait. It was bad policy on the part of the United States that led bin Laden and the Taliban to conclude that they could conduct murderous attacks on the people of the United States and that they would not suffer the consequences. The fact is in terms of Iraq, during the fast moving and somewhat confusing days at the close of the Cold War, a high ranking foreign policy official from George Bush's administration, meaning George Bush, Senior, the first President Bush, an Ambassador April Gillespie, misinformed Saddam Hussein as to our country's position on Iraq's claim to Kuwait. She stated that we considered Iraq's claim on Kuwait and the threats of Saddam Hussein to invade Kuwait to be an internal matter of Iraq. She stated it very clearly and it has been printed since, an internal matter. That is what Saddam Hussein contemplated when he tried to decide whether to unleash his military forces against Kuwait. It was a miscalculation on his part, but due to a bad policy statement by our own government, a mistake by our own government, a mistake by the previous Bush administration. Well, that classic misstatement on Ambassador April Gillespie's part led to the invasion of Kuwait and the Gulf War that followed. That was a policy error, and I might add, when some people suggest when I criticized the last administration for its mistakes and misdeeds that they are claiming that I am being partisan, let me just note that I am fully recognizing that mistakes often have happened in Republican administrations, and I just gave an example of that. What we must do in order to fully understand what happened on September 11 is to take a look at the government policies and the events that led up to September 11. I worked in the White House during the Ronald Reagan years, during those years when Reagan put an end to the Cold War, and ended those Reagan years with the dismantling of the Communist dictatorship that controlled Russia and the puppet states. Part of that effort on the part of Ronald Reagan, of course, to bring the Soviet Union down or at least end the Cold War was President Reagan's strategy that the United States should support people throughout the world who are struggling to free themselves from Communist tyranny, especially those people who are struggling to free themselves from Soviet occupation. The bravest and most fierce of these anti-Soviet insurgents were in Afghanistan, and the American people can be proud that we provided the Afghan people with the weapons they needed to win their own freedom and independence. That Cold War battle was a major factor in breaking the will of the Communist bosses in Moscow and thus ending the Cold War. By ending the Cold War, we made everyone on this planet, especially those people who live in the Western democracies, we made them safer, we made them more prosperous. In our own country, it resulted in 10 years where spending on the military was able to decrease in the range of hundreds of billions of dollars, which then went into our economy in different ways, and all of this can be traced back to Ronald Reagan's strategies and traced back to the people of Afghanistan who fought for their freedom and independence and under the Soviet bosses and the crack in the Soviet leadership led to its downfall. However, we must take a look here at this strategy and at this moment in history at the end of the Cold War to fully understand the crime of September 11. One of the common errors found in trying to understand September 11 is the suggestion that those holding power in Afghanistan today are the same people that we supported who were fighting against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s. This by and large is wrong. It is inaccurate. Yes, some of those who are currently or were in power during the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, some of those in the Taliban regime did fight the Russians, there is no doubt about it, but by and large those people who were in the leadership of the Taliban were not in the leadership of those people who fought with the Mujahedin that fought against the Russians, the Soviet Union. In fact, I do not know of one of the major factional leaders of the Mujahedin who fought the Russians when the Soviets occupied Afghanistan; not one of those became a major leader in the Taliban. So those who fought Soviet occupation, the Mujahedin, were different from those people who later took over as the Taliban. During my time at the White House from 1981 to 1988, I had a chance to meet the leaders of the Mujahedin, and I found them to be a very interesting and many of them honorable men. Some of them were wild and woolly and others were quite a sight because I would take them sometimes to the dining room at the White House and would see these guys with their turbans and outfits there at the executive dining room at the White House. I got to know them personally, and I got to admire them as individuals. Many of them were so courageous and they worked with me, and quite often I would be called when they needed help in procuring certain weapons systems, or time periods when even medical supplies were unable to get through they would call me to try to use my contacts at the National Security Council and the White House to break down the barriers, and I was able to do that successfully on some occasions. I always told them that if I was going to help them I was going to personally be involved with their struggle against the Soviet army, that if, when I left the White House, if the war was still going on that I would join them at least for one battle, sort of put my body where my mouth is or my money where my mouth is, whatever we want to say it is, but I was willing to stand up with them rather than just give them moral support. So after I left the White House and I was elected to Congress, I had 2 months between my election in November of 1988 and January of 1989 when I would be sworn in that were my last 2 months of freedom before I actually became a Member of Congress. During that time I disappeared and hiked into Afghanistan as part of a small Mujahedin unit and engaged with that unit in the battle against Soviet troops around the City of Jalalabad, and I marched in for several days through the Khyber Pass and around a side trail. These people that I marched with, some of them were young, some of them were old. They were armed just with RPGs, rocket propelled grenades, and Kalashnikov rifles. These were very brave people, but let me suggest that they were not senseless killers and they were not people who would not have rather been with their families, but during the war in Afghanistan the Soviet Union had destroyed their ability to live at peace with their families. They destroyed their villages, their water systems, et cetera, and more than that, they tried to destroy their ability to worship God as they saw fit. As we were marching through the devastation of Afghanistan, as I have a sip of water right here, at times there was not even water for hours at a time and perhaps one full day of hiking, and these people did not have enough money to have canteens. They did not have enough money to have sunglasses. So they would put pencil lead into their eyelids and swirl it around so that a coating of pencil lead would serve as a shield against the sun as we marched across the desert. These people, as I say, had almost no food, very little water. We gave them the arms they needed to fight for their independence, but every day they would pray five times, thanking God for what they did have. I got back right before Thanksgiving, and I had Thanksgiving dinner with my family that year, and we had so much, so much in abundance in the United States. Sometimes we forget how wonderful it is a place that we have. Sometimes we forget that we have so much to be grateful for, and in America, believe me, every day should be Thanksgiving Day. Every day should be a day when we thank God. These brave people did it five times a day when they had nothing, and it was their strength and courage, as I say, that helped bring the Soviet military to its knees and eventually forced them to retreat from Afghanistan. After the Russians retreated from Afghanistan, the United States simply left. We had been providing them with a billion dollars a year to finance that war and then we simply walked away. We left the Afghans to their own fate after all of this destruction and death, after so many of them had become maimed, their children were maimed. They had no way to take care of their own families. We left them to sleep in the rubble. We did not even help them clear the land mines that we had given them during the fight against the Soviet army. This was a sin that we committed against the people of Afghanistan, and it came back to haunt us. We left them, as I say, to sleep in the rubble, and we left them with no leadership. The leadership we supposedly left them with was that of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, and these two countries, I might add, played a shameful role in Afghanistan in the years since the end of the Afghan war with the Soviet Union, and these two countries, supposedly our friends, the Pakistanis and the Saudis, they bear a great deal of the responsibilities, a great burden of the responsibilities for the fact that we suffered the attack on September 11. So perhaps when we left Afghanistan, and then again this was not this administration or even President Clinton's administration, again it was at the Cold War, the end of the Cold War during President Bush, Senior's administration, perhaps that is one of the policies that we put in place that led to September 11. After the collapse of the Communist regime in Afghanistan, the Mujahedin factions who had fought the Russians with no direction or no leadership from the United States began to bicker and to fight among themselves. This was one of my first years in Congress when this was going on, and I remember that even then I could see that it was important for us to try to support a positive alternative for Afghanistan. Why is it that the United States Government could not step forward with saying look, here is a positive alternative, let us push a plan of our own that, if it works, people will be able to live in peace, and if it works, the country can rebuild, but we had no plan of our own and in fact we left it to the Pakistanis and the Saudis. I myself took it upon myself because I was involved in Afghanistan to go into the region and to go into Afghanistan and to argue aggressively that there was a strategy that would bring peace to Afghanistan and that was bringing back the old king of Afghanistan who had been overthrown in 1973, King Zahir Shah. Zahir Shah had been a coup. He had been removed from power in 1973, and that is what began the cycle which caused the horrible bloodshed. All of the Afghan people had a warm place in their hearts for King Zahir Shah. King Zahir Shah was a man who, because he had such a good heart, some evil people felt that he was vulnerable and removed him in a military coup when he was visiting another country at one point, but Zahir Shah was so beloved by his people. I went to see Zahir Shah when he was in exile in Rome and he committed to me that if he would return to Afghanistan that he would lead a temporary government only that would stay in power long enough to institute democratic elections and permit the country's governmental infrastructure to be put in place, that would give the people of Afghanistan a chance, a chance to have a decent government and to have free elections and to bring in outside people to help them set up the democratic process and to observe the elections and permit the people throughout the country to form political parties. Zahir Shah had agreed to that because he wanted to go back to Afghanistan to prove to his people that during that time of their travail, when he had been forcibly removed from office, that he was with them and that he cared about them and that he wanted to make this last contribution because he was becoming an older man. That was 10 years ago when I went to almost every area around Afghanistan, to almost every country around Afghanistan, as well as going into Afghanistan itself, to advocate that Zahir Shah be returned to Afghanistan, and guess what? Everywhere I went I was followed by a representative of the United States State Department, and right after I would speak to the various leaders, the State Department official would announce that Dana Rohrabacher is speaking for himself. It is not the position of the United States Government. In other words, they were saying do not listen to Dana Rohrabacher because he is just a bunch of hot air, he represents nobody. What was the State Department's alternative? They had no alternative. I do not mind people disagreeing with me. I do not mind people undercutting me. But the State Department was tearing my efforts down to bring back Zahir Shah to try to establish democratic government and they had no alternative. Their alternative was to let the turmoil continue in Afghanistan. Their alternative was to ignore what was going on in Afghanistan. That was our State Department's position. And that position continued into the Clinton administration, time and again undercutting Zahir Shah. And what was their position on Zahir Shah? He is too old. Zahir Shah was too old. At that time, of course, he was younger than Ronald Reagan was when he ended the Cold War. Now, 10 years later, he is still alive and he is not too old now. No, there was something else at play. Whatever was at play, whatever convinced our State Department to undercut the efforts to have a democratic alternative during the early days after the Soviet troops left, they will have to explain someday. But as it was, this Member of Congress took enormous efforts, I took enormous efforts to try to have an alternative and offer that alternative to the people of Afghanistan. Because I knew that if our country did not do what was right, it would come back and hurt us someday. And so I went forward over the years, and the confusion and the chaos continued in Afghanistan. And then, like a flash upon the sea, just a surprise move that was happening, being played by somebody, but all of a sudden there was another force at play in Afghanistan. And that was a force that was called the Taliban. In the mid-1990s, a fresh, well- equipped, well-armed, well-rested, well-trained military unit entered Afghanistan from Pakistan. These people by and large had not been fighting the Soviet Union but were, instead, kept out of the war and in schools in Pakistan. And at these schools, by the way, many of them were and continue to be illiterate. The United States provided a great deal of money and resources for the Mujahadin during their war with the Soviet Army. That money went through the Pakistani, the equivalent of the Pakistani CIA. It is called the ISI. And apparently the Pakistani ISI had siphoned enough of our money off to keep that third force and to create that third force which would be used after the war to do their bidding. The Taliban was the creation of Pakistan and the creation of the Saudis, and they were set up to be the attack dogs of these people in power in those countries so that they could dominate Afghanistan. When the war with the Soviet Union was over, and after the bickering among the factions themselves, which of course had been instigated a great deal by Pakistan, who continued to support evil people like Hekmahtri Gulhbahdeen, but when all the democratic forces, or people who wanted a decent government in Afghanistan, were blood white, the Taliban were just thrust upon the scene. And, as I say the, Saudis were also involved. The Saudis bankrolled this effort. During the war with the Soviet Union, the Saudis had provided several hundred million dollars a year. The United States provided at times up to a billion dollars a year for the anti-Soviet insurgence in Afghanistan. I once asked General Turki, who is the head of Saudi intelligence, why they should not bring back the King of Afghanistan, Zahir Shah, in order to end this bloody cycle; and that he could be someone who everyone could rally behind because they all trusted him not to kill them. Zahir Shah, while he was no one's first choice, everyone knew that Zahir Shah was incapable of committing atrocities against them, and they trusted him not to be someone who would hurt them. So at least he offered everyone safe haven. Well, General Turki, the Saudi general who was in charge of their intelligence, told me that the Saudis wanted nothing to do with King Zahir Shah and they had their own plan for this third force with Pakistan: the Taliban. And when the Taliban arrived on the scene, let us admit that there had been so much chaos and confusion in Afghanistan, many people thought that they might become a force for stability; and they were welcomed in many parts of Afghanistan, mainly because the Taliban carried huge pictures of King Zahir Shah, claiming that they were going to bring back Zahir Shah. When I heard about those pictures, I said, well, maybe they will. Maybe they will create stability and bring him back. Maybe my conversations had some effect. Well, it did not take long before the people of Afghanistan realized what the Taliban were all about. Luckily, they were not able to occupy the northern provinces of Afghanistan because the commanders there were very hesitant to let troops into their part of the country who they did not know anything about. So we soon learned that instead of a force for stability, the Taliban, which had been created by our Pakistani and Saudi friends, was a monster, a monster that threatened stability of the world, a monster that was eating up any chance for peace and any chance for a decent government and a decent standard of living in Afghanistan. The Taliban were medieval in their world and religious views, they were violent and intolerant, they were fanatics; and, as such, they were an aberration of Islam. They were totally out of sync with Muslims throughout the world and even totally out of sync with the Muslims in Afghanistan. Let us note the reason the Taliban were defeated so quickly was that the people of Afghanistan did not like the Taliban, which is exactly the opposite of what we were being told by the State Department and others all along. The Taliban are best known, of course, for their horrific treatment of women, but they were also the violators of human rights across the board. They jailed and threatened to execute Christian aid workers, allegedly for doing nothing more than espousing the belief in Jesus Christ. They ended personal freedoms, they ended freed of speech and freedom of the press. These things were not even a consideration. They ruled by fear. This is the Taliban that was put in place by Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, and it was clear that that was what was going on after a very short period of time. The Taliban believed they had a private line to God. The rest of us, who have different religious convictions, according to the Taliban, are not only wrong but we are evil, of course. And perhaps that is why they gave safe haven to the likes of bin Laden, a Saudi terrorist who has been in Afghanistan and was in Afghanistan for years training terrorists and planning his attacks on the United States and other countries. Oh yes, by the way, bin Laden let us not forget this as well, had several thousand gunmen with him. We know that. We do not know where they have all gone, but during the time when the Taliban were in power in Afghanistan, bin Laden's armed militias or legions were marauding around Afghanistan murdering any Afghan that would try to resist Taliban power. So the Taliban and bin Laden were despised in Afghanistan, even though we were told by the State Department and others how horrific it would be for us to try to dislodge the Taliban from power. Remember, during the years of the Taliban, they had the support from Saudi Arabia and Pakistan; and in fact during those years, during the 1990s, the Taliban captured all but a very, very small portion of Afghanistan. They beat back all of those people who were against them in the northern part of the country so only a sliver, only 10 percent, of the country in and around the Panjer Valley remained free of Taliban control. The only reason they did not really take over the entire country is there was one leader in the northern part of Afghanistan who captured the imagination of his people and the people of Afghanistan and other people throughout the world. His name was Commander Masood. Commander Masood led his forces in the Shamali Plains and up in the Panjer Valley, and he was never conquered by Soviet troops nor was he ever conquered by the Taliban. I went to see Commander Masood in the mid 1990s, and through the years before and after that I maintained a relationship with him. I have spoken to his brother on many occasions and kept a line of communication going. Commander Masood was a very decent and honorable man and, as I say, a much beloved person. But the Taliban domination of Afghanistan was not bad enough for the United States to support Commander Masood or anybody else who was fighting against the Taliban. For years during the Clinton administration I begged and I pleaded to provide some kind of help to the Northern Alliance, which were then resisting the Taliban in Afghanistan. In fact, the Taliban did not need to have taken over all of Afghanistan, except for that little 10 percent. The Taliban could have been stopped when it was holding perhaps 70 percent of the country or 60 percent of the country. But at no time was President Clinton and his administration willing to have anything to do with trying to resist the Taliban forces. And every time I suggest that the Clinton administration policies of the last 5 years led to this atrocity committed against us on September 11, people go bananas. They automatically say that I am being partisan. Let me note that in this speech already I have highlighted several of the major mistakes made during Republican administrations. But let us not be so hesitant to place responsibility where it belongs when it comes to September 11. Today, I have no doubt that if the policies during the Clinton administration would have been different, the murderous attack on our people on September 11 would not have happened and we may well have spared the people of the world this horrendous, horrendous war that we are going through right now. Of course, this war could be a lot worse than it is. The fact is our military is doing a terrific job. But this is not partisan. I am a senior member of the Committee on International Relations. And over the years, as I watched what was going on in Afghanistan, I realized that during the Clinton administration there was a pattern, a consistent pattern going on that appeared that the United States policy was not actually opposing the Taliban but, instead, we actually had a covert policy of supporting the Taliban. Let me repeat that, in case anyone misses the significance of it. During the 1990s, when we had a chance to support those people who were opposing the Taliban, when we had a chance to undermine the Taliban's strength so that they could be replaced by others who were more closely aligned to democratic principles or even to bring Zahir Shah back and establish a democratic government, our government had exactly the opposite policies. Every time the opportunity arose to overthrow the Taliban or to undermine the Taliban, the Clinton administration actually did things that helped bolster the strength of the Taliban. When I noticed this trend as a member of the Committee on International Relations, I called on the Clinton administration and the State Department to provide me the documents so that I could peruse the official State Department documents, the cables coming in from overseas, the briefing papers, to determine what our policy was. Now, I am a member, as I say, a senior member of the Committee on International Relations; I am on the upper rung there. When you see hearings, I am on the very top level of those hearings now because I have been a Member of Congress now for 14 years. My job in that committee is to oversee American foreign policy. Making a request to see documents of the State Department to determine what American foreign policy is is not only justified, it is something that should be expected of Members of Congress. Of course we should see the documents and find out what the policy is and talk with the administration and make sure that we are doing our oversight responsibility. For 2\1/2\ years, the Clinton State Department refused to provide me the documents. It is called stonewalling. The Assistant Secretary of State, Rick Inderfurth, repeatedly gave me documents that were irrelevant to the request that I made so he could claim that he gave me documents. Some documents included newspaper clippings, which is an insult, a Member of Congress asking for internal documents and getting newspaper clippings. Why was the State Department stonewalling my request? Is it illogical for someone reading the Record or for me or my colleagues to believe that if I was stonewalled in a request for documents from the State Department and that I have a legitimate right to oversee that activity, that the State Department was trying to hide something from me and thus hide something from the American people? Is that irrational? No, I think that flows directly from that action. During the latter part of the Clinton years, even though Secretary Albright agreed to provide me the documents necessary to determine America's foreign policy towards the Taliban, I was repeatedly thwarted from getting those documents, and I have to believe that Secretary Albright herself knew that I was being thwarted because she had been asked that in congressional hearings on the record in front of the whole world under oath. Thus, the Clinton administration when it came to the Taliban made a joke out of Congress's right to oversee American foreign policy. Well, guess who the joke is on? The joke is on the American people, but nobody is laughing after September 11. The Clinton administration, I repeat, was involved in policies that actually supported the Taliban. This at a time when we knew their nature. This at a time when we knew that they had terrorists there, bin Laden, who had already killed Americans; this when we knew they were some of the most horrendous human rights violators on the planet. An example of ways the Clinton administration helped support the Taliban, in 1996, for example, the Taliban had overstretched their forces. This is at the beginning of their rule. Thousands of their best fighters were captured in northern Afghanistan. I was watching this very closely. The Taliban regime was vulnerable as never before and never since. It was a tremendous opportunity, and by then we knew that the Taliban were going to be the monstrous regime they proved to be. The Northern Alliance, which existed then, had defeated the Taliban in a way that made the Taliban incredibly vulnerable. A knockout blow could have been unleashed easily by the Northern Alliance and the Taliban could have been kicked out. At the time I was in personal contact with the leaders of the Northern Alliance, and I recommended to them a quick attack and bringing back the old King Zahir Shah until the democratic process could be established; and, thus, we could turn around the whole situation in a very quick movement. Who saved the day? Why did the Northern Alliance not take advantage of this opportunity? I can tell Members who saved the day. President Clinton saved the day. Probably personally he made the decision. Again, I beg Members of Congress, please do not dismiss what I say. Any time someone says anything bad about Bill Clinton, it is suggested to us that we are being partisan. Please, that is not the case. We are talking about policies that were in place. We are not talking about individuals. His actions and policies saved the day, and those decisions were made and responsibility should be placed. What happened was at this moment when the Taliban could have been eliminated, President Clinton dispatched Assistant Secretary Rick Inderfurth and Bill Richardson, who was then our United Nations ambassador, to go personally to northern Afghanistan and convince the anti-Taliban forces not to go on the offensive, but instead to accept an immediate cease-fire and an arms embargo. Mr. Speaker, these people in northern Afghanistan were pretty impressed by the United Nations ambassador and the President's personal representative flying into northern Afghanistan. They wowed the Northern Alliance, and the advice of the gentleman from California (Mr. Rohrabacher), the State Department did everything they could to convince them to ignore what the gentleman from California was saying. This was like having a time when Adolf Hitler could have been eliminated, but we were convincing the forces in Germany to sit down and talk with old Adolf. Instead, they decided to accept a cease-fire and an arms embargo. The minute there was a cease-fire, the Saudis and the Pakistanis began a massive arms resupply of the Taliban. So the Clinton administration instituted an arms embargo against the Taliban's opponents, at the same time that we knew, our CIA clearly knew what was going on, that there was a massive arms resupply of the Taliban. Within a very short period of time after the Northern Alliance was crippled by an arms embargo and the Taliban was smothered in new weapons and supplies, the Northern Alliance was driven almost completely out of the country. Only 10 percent was left after the Taliban offensive. For years I begged the Clinton administration to support those who were resisting the Taliban regime. Not only did they not support those who resisted the Taliban, but they actually undermined their efforts. I said, what about King Zahir Shah? And again, Zahir Shah was not acceptable. Too old. There was every reason in the world why we could not do anything to oppose the Taliban in terms of actual actions instead of just words, confetti words that America's President was just throwing out. Bin Laden was even able to kill Americans and kill military personnel while in Afghanistan, and we still did not take the actions necessary to try to overthrow the Taliban. We shot off a couple of cruise missiles. We destroyed a few mud huts. All of the while bin Laden, who has killed American military personnel already, was given a safe haven to set up a terrorist network throughout the world. During that time period, some of bin Laden's network tried to assassinate the Pope in the Philippines. Throughout Southeast Asia, terrorist groups were forming, all with the support of bin Laden having been given safe haven in Afghanistan. I believe that the United States did this and that the Clinton administration was involved in this because they had made some kind of deal or had some kind of understanding with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. And Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, they have their own reasons and their own motives and their own value system; but let us take a look. Pakistan is not a democratic country today. Musharraf, the guy who is in charge there, is a general who overthrew a democratically elected government. If he wants to bring peace to that country, I hope that he provides the reform and heads back toward a democratic regime. I suggested when he took power that he have a plebiscite to give himself the legal authority to conduct that reform. He decided not to do that. The Saudis, of course, are a medieval dictatorship, a family that controls their country, these people who basically have some of the same anti-Western feelings that bin Laden has. No, the Saudis do not have our same values. They have been allies to the United States, and I give them credit. We should not forget that during the Cold War, the Saudis were allies, as were the Pakistanis; and for that we should be grateful. But we cannot let our gratitude for Saudi support during the Cold War, and Pakistani support during the Cold War, to bind us into policies that will undermine our well-being in a totally different world that is emerging since the post-Cold War. Bin Laden, of course, was a Saudi, and I say ``was'' because we still do not know where he is. Let us hope that bin Laden has moved on to his just rewards, and that would be burning in hell right about now. He was preaching that the killing of innocent people, of thousands of unarmed people was in some way consistent with his faith. There are Muslims all over the world that would call him to task for such an obscene statement. And I am sure that he is finding now that he is not surrounded by all these dark-eyed virgins that he was promising these people who committed these atrocities against us. He is finding that he and the rest of his gang are heading in a different direction than that. I warned again and again, yet the Clinton administration did nothing; and it did come back to hurt us. I am on the record on at least 14 different occasions suggesting that unless we changed our policy against Afghanistan, it would have serious repercussions for the United States of America. Bad policy is at fault. Something else is at fault for what we suffered, and we need to face that as well. The bad policy I hope has changed. Although since our offensive in Afghanistan, let me note that some of the same people in the State Department and elsewhere, even after the attack on September 11, were hesitant to suggest that the Taliban be eliminated from power. In fact, some were suggesting that our game plan should be a coalition government between the Taliban and the Northern Alliance, and all the Taliban had to do was give up bin Laden. That is like asking Rudolph Hess and some of the rest of the Nazi crowd to give up Hitler, and they can stay in power. Well, thank goodness we have a President of the United States that was smart enough and courageous enough to ignore that kind of advice and told the Taliban that they are part and parcel of this, and made a goal of eliminating the Taliban regime from power. Our forces did this job in such a professional way. We worked with those people in the Northern Alliance. Remember when we were told that the Northern Alliance would take months and months and it would be such a quagmire. The Northern Alliance have proven to be fighters able to defeat the Taliban. The Northern Alliance has won, and we have to make sure now that we do not walk away again. We have to make sure that we do not leave the Afghan people to sleep in the rubble; that we stick with those people who are anti-Taliban who worked with us to eliminate bin Laden and the Taliban. Let us help them rebuild a democratic, strong, prosperous Afghanistan. Already there is thought that the King of Afghanistan should be coming back to Afghanistan. This after 12 years. Let me say, 12 years ago I was told he is too old. The State Department would tell me he has no support. He is too old. The King of Afghanistan is the only one who has the loyalty of the hearts of the people of Afghanistan. They love that man because he is a father figure who was King at a time period when there was no killing. There was no chaos. People lived at peace with their families. They remember that. The sooner the King gets back to Afghanistan, the better. I was able to go to the conference in Bonn after we had basically won on the ground in Afghanistan in which the Afghan leaders got together and chose an interim leader, Prime Minister Karzai, who is there now. I was there to talk to them about the King and about Mr. Karzai and talked to the various factions in Bonn, and it was my honor to have been there, and I hope I made a small contribution to laying down a plan that would permit Afghanistan to have some stability and prosperity and peace in the future. We do that by what was the original plan, and this is ironic. The King has agreed to come back and open a Loya Jirga, which is a meeting of the elders of his country. That meeting will help establish the rules for a constitution which, over a transition period, will become a democratic government for the people of Afghanistan. Finally. But we cannot walk away. They had a meeting in Tokyo a few days ago for donor countries. The United States has committed, I think, about $350 million or so. I will have to say I do not think that is legitimate. I will have to say that I think the United States Government over a period of time should be kicking in much more than $300 million to help the people of Afghanistan. To put that in perspective, we have been able to spend hundreds of billions of dollars less every year on our military for all these years since the end of the Cold War because the Afghans helped us end the Cold War. For pete's sake, let us help the Afghans build their country. They have only provided $27 million for demining in that country, $27 million. They think there are 8 million land mines. Three hundred children every month end up becoming maimed by land mines in Afghanistan that have been planted there. Think of the drain that would be on our society, much less their society. Let us make sure we ensure the peace and do the right thing, and the right thing is making sure we do not walk away; that we bring the King back; and we make sure there is an inclusive government, not like the Taliban. They had their exclusive clique who had their own vision of God, which they superimposed on everybody else. Let us instead, let us instead, support an inclusive government, and that is what Zahir Shah would do. Unfortunately, now there are several people in Afghanistan, Mr. Khalili and some others, Ismail Khan and some others, who worked against the Taliban, who feel they may be being left out. We should not let any government leave anyone out, and our own United States Government should express its appreciation to those on the other side, whom Mr. Khalili and Ismail Khan and others are associated with, and others like that who fought against the Taliban, and everybody should be included. By the way, the Iranians, the Iranians are promising $560 million worth of support, 50 percent more support for Afghanistan than the United States of America. That is not right. We have benefited by the end of the Cold War. We should make sure we repay the Afghans amply, and that is what is right, and that will be good for us as well. Let us remember as we move forward, now that the resistance of the Taliban is gone down to just a few areas, there are a few hot spots left there, but there is still a threat to democratic government in Afghanistan. We must play a positive role, both in the economy and in establishing democratic government. Mullah Omar, the head of the Taliban, is still there somewhere with a thousand or so fighters in Afghanistan. We have to make sure Mr. Karzai's interim regime is successful in establishing the foundation that will sweep away the Mullah Omars and bin Ladens forever, because the people of Afghanistan are not fanatics. They are not fanatics. The people who flew the airplanes into our buildings on September 11 were not Afghans. They were, by and large, Saudis. The people of Afghanistan are devout in their faith, but they are not fanatic about their faith, and Muslims throughout the world resent bin Laden and his murderers for trying to talk for their religion. President Bush has been magnificent in his outreach to the Muslim countries of the world, letting them know that we will not succumb to the temptation that bin Laden would like us to succumb to, which is making an enemy out of all Muslims in the world. In fact, we are not only not making enemies out of the Muslims from Afghanistan, we in fact are reaching out to them, and need to do so with a heavier financial commitment to help them rebuild their country. Now, as we proceed, as I say, let us note that in the war against terrorism there will be steps one, two and three. Number one was in Afghanistan, and it is coming to a close, although it is not at a close right now. Step two may be in Southeast Asia. I just returned from Malaysia where they have found bin Laden's network. In Singapore, they just arrested 13 people who were part of bin Laden's network who were planning to blow up a bus that carried American people from our embassy every day. So there would have been 60 or 100 Americans who would have been murdered there by bin Laden's terrorist network in Singapore. In the Philippines we have already some Special Forces on the ground, after 10 years of ignoring, by the way, during the Clinton Administration. Again, I would say we have got to help the Philippines. I realized that. I went to the Philippines time and again to try to get them together. They were a target of the Communist Chinese and they were a target of bin Laden's network. Today we have a chance to save the Philippines, but it will be close. We need to work with the Philippines. We have some Special Forces teams on the ground, and we need to make that commitment. I think President Bush has made that commitment. Whether or not that is going to be the next front in the war against terrorism or whether it will be to finish the job that we did not do against Saddam Hussein, this will be a war on terrorism, and it will be a war that is conducted sequentially, and it will be a war that we will be proud of because we will be standing for freedom and democracy and peace. I salute the members of our Armed Forces who have conducted such a gallant fight, who are leading us on to victory and to create a better world, and to have a better world we must have the courage to do what is right and stand for the principles our country believes in.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) for the leadership that he provides on this and issues that are tied to the Republic of China, also to the gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos) and, of course, to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Gilman). We do have a bipartisan committee. Although we do have some heated debates at times, it is measures like this that demonstrate that the basic values that bind us together are much stronger than the disagreements that we might have. The Republic of China on Taiwan is a shining example to the world not only of democracy but of healthy and decent living, as well as, I might add, an example of charity. Over these last 50 years, the people who have lived on the island of Taiwan have seen their standard of living rise dramatically. This, of course, while in other parts of the world in other developing nations, some of those nations have not developed like that. And then some nations that have developed economically have not seen the benefits of that development translated into healthier living for their populations. But in Taiwan, one is amazed to find that not only have we seen a dramatic rise in their standard of living, but we see the health of the general population has increased dramatically as well. Diseases which used to ravage the populations of the island nations in the Pacific and in Asia, those diseases on Taiwan have not only been brought under control but have been somewhat eradicated. This by a commitment to the inoculation of young children and, yes, the inoculation of the entire population against such diseases as well as this leveling of health standards which has made Taiwan a very nice place to visit and a very nice place to live and a very clean place to live as compared to other developing countries. But not only in this standard of health and decency. They have a health care system there which is exemplary to other countries in Asia, but what we also see there is a spirit of charity that sometimes we do not see in developing nations. The Su Chi Foundation in Taiwan, for example, gives out hundreds of millions of dollars over the years to countries and to peoples who are in need in areas that are in distress. In Afghanistan yes, but in many other countries that people are in turmoil and other international institutions have not been able to provide help, the Su Chi Foundation have stepped in and given people in desperate circumstances aid in terms of health care, aid in terms of blankets and other humanitarian services. This spirit of charity is very exemplary of Taiwan. They have been very involved as a government as well, but the Su Chi Foundation, let me add, is all contributions made voluntarily by the people of Taiwan themselves. The Republic of China on Taiwan has earned our respect and has accomplished great things. They should be included, at least if nothing else, as an observer for the World Health Organization. Why should the Republic of China have that right? Because they have earned it. They have earned our respect, they have treated their people decently, they have shown charity, they have had a commitment to health. What more do we need? They are also a democratic government.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, let me put it this way. The answer is yes, but I would not right away. Like the President says, we must do things sequentially, and we must be absolutely committed to the job. If we do things sequentially, the next order of business is taking care of the threat in Iraq. And if China is, yes, helping terrorists murder thousands of Americans, yes, we should help the Chinese people overthrow their dictatorship as well.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support, strong support of this resolution. Ten years ago, the United States of America and our allies blew it. We had the opportunity to eliminate a major threat to world peace and world stability and a major dictator and tyrant to the people of Iraq, and we did not do the job. We did not finish the job. Now is the time for us to finish that job. By not finishing the job before, we permitted, for example, the Kuwaitis to suffer with hundreds of their people still being held prisoners of war, MIAs, prisoners of war, the equivalent of 50,000 Americans would be held today without us knowing what Saddam Hussein has done to the Kuwaitis and still does to them. Saddam Hussein still has a vicious dictatorship; and Saddam Hussein is at war with the United States, most importantly. I am very happy that the gentleman from Texas does not want us to be at war with Iraq. But the fact is, Saddam Hussein is at war with us, no matter where we would like to be. And if we permit Saddam Hussein to have nuclear and chemical and biological weapons, weapons of mass destruction, he will kill millions of Americans. Make no mistake about it. He has a blood feud with us. We are not talking about a war with Iraq; we are talking about a war with Saddam Hussein. We should liberate Iraq in the same way that we have liberated Afghanistan, now that we have the chance and the opportunity to do so. How did we liberate Afghanistan? We simply supported the people; we helped the people liberate themselves from the Taliban tyranny. The people in Iraq hate Saddam Hussein much more than the people of Afghanistan hated the Taliban. By helping them liberate themselves, we are protecting our own population from a holocaust, we are protecting the world for peace, and we are doing what is right.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I agree with the President of the United States that this is a sequential battle against terrorism. If those countries are engaged in supporting terrorists who kill thousands of Americans or continue a belligerency that threatens millions of our lives, yes, one at a time, we have to take care of them. If we do not, millions of our people will pay the price. Who could have ever guessed that by not taking care of Afghanistan, thousands of our people would be dead?

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman's quote was a little bit mistaken. I said that we are not at war with Iraq, but Saddam Hussein is at war with us.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. That was only based on if the assessment of the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Paul) was correct and they are supporting terrorists and planning to kill thousands of Americans. Then, yes, they are at war with us.

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith), a man who has spent more time championing the cause of human rights than anyone else I have worked with here in the Congress. He is just a man of good heart who I deeply respect, and I am proud to have him as a cosponsor of this bill.