Mr. Burton's Comments on Special Order on Iraq Policy

June 21, 2004

**The Speaker Pro Tempore**: The gentleman\'s time has expired. Under
the speaker\'s announced policy of January 7, 2003, the gentleman from
Indiana, Mr. Burton, is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the
Majority Leader.

**Mr. Burton**: I thank my colleague and I ask Members may have five
legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks related to
this special order. Let me pick up where we left off in this last hour.
I appreciated the discussion with my colleagues, and if we have the
time, I\'ll be happy to yield to them -- seems like we probably will
have the time.

There is no question, none at all, that Al-Qaeda and the Saddam Hussein
regime and people connected with that have met on numerous occasions.
There is no question that in May of 2002, Zarqawi, one of the top
lieutenants, a senior Al-Qaeda associate with bin Laden, was in Baghdad
for medical treatment, and Uday Hussein provided that. There have been
numerous occasions that they\'ve been together.

Now, the question is \-- the question was, you know, Osama bin Laden
went to Saudi Arabia and he said, "We\'ve got to get rid of this guy up
there, Saddam Hussein, because he does not follow the hard-core Muslim
line." The fact is Winston Churchill, and I hate to go back in history,
but he decided to work with Joe Stalin, a communist tyrant who killed 50
million of his own countrymen. And they asked Churchill, "Why in the
world are you working with Stalin?" He said, "I\'d go to bed with the
devil in order to beat Adolf Hitler." Osama bin Laden calls us "The Big
Devil". I believe Osama bin Laden was willing to work with Saddam
Hussein, who was one of the powerhouses in the Middle East, to do
everything he could to destroy western civilization and the United
States. We don't know what happened in all of these meetings but we do
know that Osama bin Laden and his minions did talk to and work with his
people. Now do you err on the side of safety or do you not?

We knew Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. He killed
thousands, tens of thousands, of Kurds with mustard gas. We found
weapons just recently that had sarin gas in them. Just recently our
troops found those. He had a nuclear facility that was bombed by the
Israelis in 1981, so he was trying to develop a nuclear facility. Now,
for anybody to believe that he just threw all that stuff out of the
window when he hates the West so much and was negotiating and talking to
Al-Qaeda \-- to Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda, you know, I think they\'re
just blowing smoke. The President said we have got to go after the
terrorists. He didn\'t go after Saddam Hussein first. He went after the
Taliban that we knew was working with Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan,
and he did a pretty good job of it. Then he said there\'s the threat of
weapons of mass destruction. They\'ve been used in the past, he had
intelligence information that indicated there were weapons of mass
destruction, and he decided to go after Saddam Hussein. All of us in
this chamber when he did it said that\'s the right thing to do. Now of
course everybody is second-guessing him.

I\'ll yield to my colleagues in a few minutes, but I think it\'s
important to go back in history a little bit because history is very
important, very important. In the 1990\'s Osama bin Laden in the Sudan
had 13 terrorist training camps around Khartoum. Our intelligence
agencies talked about that. The president and the NSC knew about that,
and at that time we had an attack on the World Trade Center because
Osama bin Laden\'s minions tried to bring it down. That was in 1993. In
1996, we had the attack that killed a lot of Americans in Khobar Towers.
In 1998 we had the attack on the embassies in Athens, Nairobi, Kenya,
and Dar es Salaam and Tanzania - all of those in 1998 by Al-Qaeda
connections. And then in 2000 we had the attack that killed a lot of our
sailors on the USS Cole. We knew that Saddam Hussein was behind that. We
knew he was in the Sudan. We knew there were 13 terrorist camps and the
previous administration did nothing.

Now we go to September 11, 2001, and the President had an attack on the
World Trade Center - again, a second one. We didn\'t do anything about
the first one. We didn\'t go after Osama bin Laden then, but we waited -
and then they brought down the World Trade Center, both towers. The
President said, "We\'re going after the terrorists worldwide, no matter
where they\'re hiding." We\'re going after them if they\'re in the
Sudan. We\'re going after them if they\'re in Afghanistan. We\'re going
after them under every rock they\'re hiding, and we\'re going to do it
also in Iraq because we believe Saddam Hussein is working with Al-Qaeda.
He\'d had connections with Al-Qaeda. His son worked with Al-Qaeda, and
they had weapons of mass destruction because we knew they\'d used them
before and the President was told by intelligence agencies that they
were there.

And quite frankly, I still believe there were weapons of mass
destruction. It\'s the size of California, and I believe we\'ll find
more and many of them have been sent to Syria. Everybody is concerned
about that because Syria is a very close ally of Saddam Hussein and was.
The fact of the matter is do you err on the side of safety and go after
the terrorists before they attack, or do you wait until they attack and
say, oh, we need probable cause.

When we passed the Patriot Act, this is a side issue, we had a lot of
colleagues on the other side of the aisle say oh, my gosh, what about
civil rights, what about constitutional rights? The problem is when
you\'re in a world war against terrorists, you don\'t wait until they
blow something up and kill 10,000 or 15,000 people or more, you try to
preempt them. The Patriot Act allowed us to hold people while we
investigated whether or not they were going to perpetrate a terrorist
attack. If they did that, we\'d head it off, which is why we created the
Department of Homeland Security. I don\'t know if you worked on that,
but we worked on that with the Senate.

But the fact of the matter is this President did not go off half-cocked,
but he declared war on terrorism. He is continuing that. President Bush
is doing a good job. I love my colleague from Massachusetts. We have a
great deal of fun together. And I love my friend from Hawaii, but the
fact of the matter is we\'re trying to politicize something at this time
that should not be politicized. We\'re fighting a war against terrorism.
The president is doing the right thing, and this nation needs to stand
behind him instead of nitpicking and going back and saying, this should
have been done or that should have been done. You know, if we had had
this kind of nitpicking prior to the invasion of Normandy, I believe
that the media and everybody would have said, oh, my gosh, that\'s a
terrible thing to do. The waves may be too high, and they would have
alerted Hitler, and we would be speaking German today.

The fact of the matter is, President Bush in my opinion, I think it\'s
been prudent. He\'s done the things necessary to protect the American
people, and I for one, because I love you guys, I really do, I do want
some macadamia nuts from you \--

**Mr. Delahunt**: Would my gentlemen yield.

**Mr. Burton**: Let me yield to my colleague from Hawaii.

**Mr. Abercrombie**: All this would be well and good except its not
working. The question \-- I know you\'ve got another \-- you didn\'t
intend to do this hour. I won\'t abuse your time or your colleagues\'
time, but merely to say perhaps we can carry this on at a greater
length, maybe even tomorrow night if it\'s ok with you. I don\'t want to
interfere. Just to say on that point, on the points that you raised. If
this was the right war and the right place, that would be one thing.
It\'s not nit-picking to say that we are doing the wrong thing in the
wrong place at the wrong time and actually undermining our capacity to
be able to take on terrorists, in fact, creating more terrorists as a
result of this with fewer allies. I don\'t bring that up to try to
dispute you tonight, but merely to say I think there is an alternative
point of view that\'s worthy of discussion and perhaps we could do that
at another time when our colleagues don\'t have the time for the topic
they wanted to discuss.

**Mr. Burton**: I\'ll get together with my colleagues. My colleague from
Massachusetts.

**Mr. Delahunt**: I would simply say I think that we are operating on a
totally different understanding of the facts. I feel very comfortable
with what we have reported here tonight and what others have said. I
think over the course of time the kind of conversations that we are
having will elucidate the facts for the American people. But again every
member in this House is concerned about what\'s happening to this
country. We do not want to make the mistakes of the past. And I'm very
concerned that we are. We'll leave that for a later time. And I'm sure
that it will be a feisty and contentious but friendly conversation. And
I wish my friend a most happy birthday.

**Mr. Burton**: thank you, my friend. I have great admiration for the
silver fox from Massachusetts. Mr. Weller.

**Mr. Weller**: Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Indiana
for yielding. I always find it interesting; Monday morning quarterbacks
are always right in their minds because they have the chance to look
back on tough decisions that have to be made. But as we know the war on
terrorism is progressing. It's one of those situations where the lessons
of the past are important because when Americans have been impatient we
have lost. And when we recognize that the war on terror is going to take
time, Al-Qaeda and other terrorist elements are in 65 different
countries that we know. Thousands of terrorists were trained in the
camps in Afghanistan and Sudan and elsewhere, but we are making
progress. And we are holding firm on the war on terror.

Clearly the war on terrorism is progressing. A tough hard fight and our
effort in Iraq is a key front in the war on terror. In just less than
two short weeks history will be made. Today Saddam Hussein is in jail,
and an international coalition, led by the United States, and our
31-member, 31-country allied coalition will hand over authority over
Iraq to the sovereign Iraqi government.

Let's review what\'s going on. Frankly here\'s the bottom line. The goal
of the international coalition of 31 country international coalition,
which the united states is part of, has the bottom line goal of that
Iraq will govern its own internal affairs. The Iraqi interim government
will run the everyday functions; the Iraqi interim government will
increase security and prepare the country for national democratic
elections. The president has a five-point plan that is now being
implemented and has been implemented over the last several months. As we
work not only to win the war on terrorism but to put in place a stable,
democratically elected government in Iraq, the president\'s five-point
plan calls for handing over authority to a sovereign Iraqi government
that should be achieved in just two short weeks. We want to establish
the stability and security in Iraq that democracy requires. We want to
continue rebuilding Iraq's infrastructure. We want to continue to build
international support beyond the 31 nations already involved. And we
want to move towards free national elections that will bring forward new
leaders empowered by the Iraqi people themselves. The past few weeks has
proved that the plan is working.

The international community is coming together to help Iraq secure their
future. On June 8, the United Nations Security Council adopted a
resolution which supports free elections and re-authorizes the
multinational force to provide security in Iraq. The international
community is on the record. The coalition will continue to help in every
way possible on the economic front, the security front, and the
political front. The international coalition will continue in the
process of assisting the Iraqi people and taking responsibility for the
future of their country. I'm pleased that as a result of the recent
summit, the G-8, we continue to build that international support. Many
of us had the opportunity just less than two weeks ago to meet with the
new free Iraqi president when he visited Washington. And it was an
impressive meeting with an impressive leader.

Iraq is improving and has already taken big steps to keep Iraq on the
path to national elections by January 2005, leading the way to
representative government by and of the people of Iraq. That interim
government is making progress. 90,000 militia members are being
transitioned into new occupations. All six generating units recently ran
at maximum capacity for the first time since 1990. Today, over 10,000
democracy development activities, program activities have been held in
communities across Iraq, involving more than 312,000 Iraqi participants.
Today there are now 55,000 internet subscribers in Baghdad compared to
only 3,000 just two years ago. Reconstruction of Baghdad international
airport is expected to be completed by this August. And primary
intermediate and secondary students are completing their final exams for
the school year with minimal disruption. I would note when you visit
Iraqi schools today you see young girls attending those schools. Again,
that\'s progress.

Our international coalition has a clear goal to see the Iraqi people in
charge of Iraq for the first time. America's worked not only to defeat
an enemy but to give strength, freedom, and opportunity to our friends,
the people of Iraq. Freedom can and will advance and enhance the lives
of those living in the greater middle east just as it has been
successful in Latin America, Eastern Europe, Asia, South America, and
Africa. Today we are fighting a war on terror. We are making progress.
It's a tough, hard fight. But al Qaeda and other terrorist groups want
to defeat our effort to bring freedom to the Middle East. And with our
commitment we will win.

The next few weeks we\'ll be tested by al Qaeda and other international
terrorist organizations. We are going to be tested and have violence.
That\'s going to be likely. The terrorist and the loyalists would \--
who would rather see innocent Iraqis die than let them see freedom. They
honestly think Americans will cut and run, because they have seen that
happen in the past. We are going to be tested in this war on terror and
how we conduct our selves today, tomorrow, and the weeks ahead will
determine whether or not we win the war on terror, whether or not we
give the people of the Mideast a taste of real freedom. They will not
succeed and the forces of good, the forces of freedom, and international
coalition, which is growing, will win if we remain firm and hang
together. Because again, ladies and gentlemen, we are being tested. My
hope is we will hang tough and continue to fight the war on terror
because we would all rather fight the terrorists on the streets of
Baghdad than here in Washington and the communities in the south suburbs
of Chicago.

In closing, I'm confident through the will of the Iraqi people and
international community President Bush\'s plan will be implemented
successfully. Iraq will have a free and representative government. The
terrorist regimes of the past will be defeated silenced and we will
prevail. That's because I believe as so many Americans do the Iraqi
people deserve no better. I yield back to my good friend from the state
of Indiana.

**Mr. Burton**: I thank my friend from Illinois, Mr. Weller, I
appreciate that. Mr. Green, how much time do you require? Five minutes.
Can the Speaker tell me how much time we have left?

**The Speaker Pro Tempore**: 42 minutes remaining.

**Mr. Burton**: I yield to my colleague for five minutes.

**Mr. Green**: I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I
watched the debate, discussion that took place last hour as many
Americans did, and I couldn\'t help but note that lots of questions were
raised by our friends on the other side of the aisle. I think the
American public needs to be reminded that the vast majority of members
in this body on both sides of the aisle supported the resolution
authorizing the use of force. The vast majority of members on both sides
of the aisle supported the supplemental appropriation that continued to
support the operations in Iraq. And I think the public needs to ask
itself whether debates like the one they just saw are really a serious
discussion of policies and principles or whether or not they are more
about election year politics. Debate is a good thing. We should debate,
we should debate often. But I think we also have to remember that the
world is watching and our soldiers are watching and there should be no
doubt whatsoever about this nation\'s resolve to continue to fight on
and to prevail in the war against terrorism.

Mr. Speaker, this is an important time. And even though it\'s an
important time, I think it\'s useful for us to slow things down a little
bit, because I think sometimes we can only appreciate the significance
of events perhaps after the fact. Sometimes we are too close to events
to fully understand how they fit into the larger context. I think we
need to step back for a moment and take a look at where we are right now
in Iraq.

I believe that in the months and years ahead as we take a look at these
very important weeks and months that surround the handover of
sovereignty to Iraq, I believe that we\'ll look at these as great months
and years for this nation. With each passing day, leaders for a new free
Iraq are taking steps forward. Just as the terrorists try with their
terrible attacks to force these same Iraqi leaders to take steps
backward. But I believe that the clarity of hindsight will show us all
in the years ahead that the violence and the blood shed and the sense of
destruction that we have seen far too often in that country that our
national media focuses on, to the exclusion of all else it seems, is
happening not because the coalition efforts are failing or falling
short, but instead because they are succeeding. They are the result of a
growing fear in the terrorist world that decency and democracy will
succeed, that they\'ll take hold, that the success will not only inspire
more and more Iraqis to embrace self-rule and to invest of themselves in
the future of Iraq, but that it will serve as an inspiration to many
oppressed peoples in many troubled lands all throughout that region.

Mr. Speaker, it\'s important to take time to talk about what\'s going on
in Iraq, because so much of it is really outside the narrow view of the
camera lens. It\'s important for our soldiers that we tell their story
because so many of our brave young men and women have put themselves on
the line, have shed sweat, shed blood for a mission they believe in, for
a mission they believe in. Young men and women from all over America
have traveled hundreds of thousands of miles for this cause. One of the
units from my own district, the 43rd battalion has as its motto, "order
out of chaos". That\'s just what they and the members of the 395th out
of Appleton and countless other units and soldiers from Wisconsin and
all over America, that\'s what they are accomplishing. Some of it I saw
myself first hand when I was in Iraq late last year.

The most recent good news, the good news you may not have seen, is that
President Bush has outlined a clear five-step plan for Iraqi
sovereignty. And its implementation is already underway. On June 8, the
UN Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution supporting free
elections in Iraq and re-authorizing the multinational security force.
This will provide greater security for Iraqis and for Americans in that
country. Already the G-8 has responded favorably, and its members are
making new commitments for the long-term rebuilding process. In Iraq
itself, there are key signs that the government and the economy is
beginning to mobilize and the economic and civic redevelopment processes
are underway.

For example, as my colleague, the previous speaker, has noted, the
number of telephone subscribers in Iraq is 45% above prewar levels.
There are now 55,000 internet subscribers in Baghdad alone. Less than
two years ago there were 3,000. 85% of Iraqi children have now been
immunized. 240 Iraqi hospitals and 1,200 preventative health care
clinics are now operating. 2,500 schools have been rehabilitated;
another 1,200 will be rehabilitated by year\'s end. Hundreds of free
local government units have been launched and are up and running. I tell
you these numbers not to gloss over the challenges, but instead because
I'm afraid too many of us are guilty of glossing over the successes.
These successes have been paid for with the lives of too many Americans.
They've been paid for with the lives of countless Iraqis. People, who
believe in the future, people who are willing to put themselves on the
line. Now, June 30 isn\'t a switch we can simply turn on and have
security and prosperity and perfect democracy, but it marks one more
step down a clear path from which for Iraqis the future will be much
brighter.

Mr. Speaker, there are challenging times ahead of us. There are
dangerous and dark days that we will see all too often. But clearly,
clearly, there are good things happening in Iraq. Clearly, many people
believe in the future. They've put themselves on the line, and that the
future is happening quickly and more brightly, I think, than many
expected could possibly occur. So, Mr. Speaker, debate is a good thing.
We should talk about what\'s going on in Iraq and we should question our
leaders. That's important. but I think we must not let that crowd out
what is going on that\'s positive, the bright future that lies ahead,
the hope that so many of us have, and more importantly, the clear plan
that we are following, that we are proceeding along each and every day,
a plan that will bring decency and a brighter future to that entire
region, a plan so many Americans have fought for, a plan that all of us
can be very, very proud of. And, Mr. Speaker, with that I yield back my
time to the gentleman from Indiana.

**Mr. Burton**: I thank Mr. Green for his eloquent statement. I now
would like to yield to my good friend from California, one of the senior
members of the foreign affairs committee or International Relations
Committee, Mr. Rohrabacher, for five minutes.

**Mr. Rohrabacher**: I thank my colleague and the leadership that he\'s
providing on this very important \-- I\'d say issue, but it\'s not an
issue, it\'s the question of the day, the question of our time; will the
people of the United States stand tall in this time of crisis? Will we
meet our responsibility? Will we overcome those who hate our way of
life? Will we remain the last best hope for all of humankind for a
better world?

Let's just look back and make sure we understand it. The American people
have a heavy responsibility because we do represent every race and every
religion. We are a mixture of all the people of the world who have come
here to live in freedom and show the world that there\'s a better way.
And that\'s why people like Nazis and the Japanese Imperialists in the
last century knew they had to deal with us. We were attacked at Pearl
Harbor because the Japanese knew we were the only ones that stood in
their way of the domination of Asia. The Nazis knew we were the only
thing that would thwart them from creating an evil empire over Europe
and much of Asia. And, yes, the Americans of that day stood tall and
strong and did what was necessary to make sure that we saved the world
from that evil threat. and then after the war, after that war when our
fathers and mothers \-- my father in particular, and I know many of the
fathers here of the people in congress today, fought so hard and risked
so much and saw their loved ones lose their lives, and they thought they
deserved a break.

But instead what we saw was the rise of another menace, another evil
force that would have conquered the world, would have turned the world
into a Marxist Leninist dictatorship of the world. They would have
imposed on all human kind their dream of a proletariat world and snuffed
out the freedom our people just fought so hard to maintain. And yet
during those days in the Cold War, Americans stood firm. It was
difficult to stand firm during the Cold War. In Vietnam and Korea we
lost well over 100,000 people together in those two conflicts, not to
mention hundreds of thousands who were wounded. But it was also a matter
of hundreds of small conflicts that were going on. But yet our people
stood firm and it was difficult because we had the leadership that we
needed there at the end. And we\'ve just heard last week of how Ronald
Reagan saved the world from communism. But don\'t think that that was
done without a great cost to him personally. There was no bipartisanship
that I saw help end the Cold War. Ronald Reagan was ridiculed, he was
undermined, he was back-bitten and there was partisan politics played
throughout his administration, because no one predicted the Cold War
would be over and that our enemy would collapse. But Ronald Reagan stood
to his guns he was tenacious and was unrelenting and strong and he stood
for principle and he reached out to those other people in the world and
put them on our side of the battle against communism.

Well, today communism, yes, collapsed and we thought we were due for a
break. There will never be a break for those people who are the
champions of liberty and freedom and justice because there will be evil
forces in the future, and we face another one today. It's not terror,
people say the war on terror, they\'re trying to be a little bit
diplomatic. It is a war with radical Islam which has declared war on the
American way of life. Radical Islam believes that we are a sinful group
of people because we permit people the freedom to make decisions in
their own lives. Radical Islam would make chattel out of our women, out
of women everywhere. Radical Islam does not believe in those things that
we hold dear to us in terms of personal freedom. And radical Islam has
declared war on us and let us not makes a mistake about it. 3,000 of our
people are dead today in those towers in New York and here in the
Pentagon because we did not recognize they were at war with us. Well, we
have recognized that and there was no escaping it, and today we have the
same challenge as our forefathers and mothers, as they did in the war
against the Nazis and Japanese Imperialists and as we did in the Cold
War against the communists. We\'ve got to win this fight or it will be a
far worse world. It will be a dark world of chaos and fanaticism if we
do not.

Nowhere is that battle more important today than what\'s going on in
Iraq. And I say thank god that we have a president who is willing to
take this stand. What we\'re seeing in Iraq is a historic strategic move
to out flank the radical Islamists. We're turning a dictatorship in the
Muslim world into a democracy. And we are thus pointing to the people
pointing to this so that the young people of the Muslim world will have
an alternative to Radical Islam. We're doing what Ronald Reagan did. We
are cutting our enemy off from its source of strength. And if we do
what\'s right and we stick through with this, our\
enemy will collapse just as communism collapsed, just as that other evil
force collapsed.

But, again, we\'re having to go through the pangs of partisan politics,
the back-biting, the nitpicking, the let\'s cut and run, the people who
were promised, why should we risk anything and why are we losing these
lives, knowing it is \-- if we would leave Iraq as it is today and the
radical Islamists, especially the Iranians, would then become a dominant
force in Iraq. It would be a disaster for the future not only of that
region but for the people of the United States. We would have a future
filled with fear, a future of knowing that the Radical Islamic creed
would have been gathering strength because we had demonstrated weakness.
No, we have a president who is just as unrelenting as President Reagan
we have a president who is a visionary who is dedicated to developing an
alternative approach and to establish a positive alternative to radical
Islam. We have a president who has courage and is moving forward, but we
also have a generation of young people who understand that strength and
courage and commitment is the way to a better world.

Those people who are giving their lives for us in Iraq know they\'re
doing it to build a better world. We deserve \-- they deserve solid
support from this Congress. They support \-- we support them because
they are risking their lives for us. They are building a better world
just like those people who stormed ashore on D-Day over half a century
ago. And just like those young men and women throughout the Cold War who
gave their lives. These are the heroes of our age. And we have a
president every bit as important to the future of mankind, as was FDR
when he provided the political leadership necessary to win the second
world war, and Ronald Reagan who provided the leadership to help us win
the struggle against communist tyranny and now with President Bush, he
is a man who will not retreat, will not cower, will not turn his back
and run. We have a man who has drawn the line in the sand and said we
are going to win because the whole world depends on us. This is what\'s
happening in Iraq.

There is no option in terms of defeat. Defeat is not an option. If we
walk away, it will only mean further bloodshed and further aggression,
not only terrorism here, but attacks on our friends throughout the world
if we would retreat from Iraq today. We should never dream of
emboldening our worst enemies. We should instead stand tall. And that is
what this is about tonight. That's what many of us are committed to here
in the House. And I would hope the American people listen and take a
look in the long run, take a look at what happened in the past and take
a look what will happen in the long run unless we have that same sense
of purpose and courage of those who came before us had in these same
types of challenges.

We are building the world of tomorrow. And it will be a world where we
will be friends with the people of the Muslim faith because we will have
helped them defeat the radical Muslims who hate our way of life. We will
have a world that does have peace between the religions, but whether
they\'re Christians, Jews, or Muslims, because we will have a world in
which we have not permitted the fanatics of one faith, the Islamic
faith, to superimpose their will on the rest of the world by force. We
will not be cowards. We'll do our duty. And God bless President Bush for
the stand that he\'s made and God Bless the United States of America and
those who defend it.

**Mr. Burton**: I thank my colleague from California, Mr. Rohrabacher. I
now will yield five minutes \-- is five minutes sufficient? If you need
more, we\'ll give you more. Five minutes to Mr. McCotter of Michigan.

**Mr. McCotter**: Thank you. Being from Detroit, I'm often able to watch
CBC, and last night I was privileged to watch Albert Finney's
performance as Winston Churchill in a movie called \"The Gathering
Storm\", and perhaps it was his finest hour for the former prime
minister when Hitler was rearming. He stood before the House of Commons
and warned his own conservative party\'s government, led by Stanley
Baldwin, that Hitler was indeed more than prepared for war, that he was
arming to instigate a new one. Churchill was thought insane at the time
because no one coming off the horror of the millions killed in World War
I could believe that a European leader would seek to rekindle that
tinderbox. Certainly not a corporal of the German army who had been
blinded by mustard gas in combat, yet Churchill was proven right.

And when we apply these lessons to our own time, one of the first things
we can realize is that sometimes the forest is so menacing we choose to
stare at the tree which shields us until it\'s too late. Our nation is
in a war on terror. In this war on terror, Iraq is a theater. It is not
a war unto itself. Any more than FDR\'s much maligned, at the time,
strike in North Africa was a diversion from the war against Hitler. What
we have seen in our time is the preemption doctrine applied. What I have
not heard anyone say is that the pillar upon which this administration
entered into the Iraqi theater in the war on terror did not achieve its
result.

Saddam Hussein desired weapons of mass destruction. Saddam Hussein had
contacts without apparent collaboration but contacts nonetheless with
terrorist groups and was in fact shielding terrorists, like Abu Nidal,
in Baghdad. Since the United States engaged in hostilities against Iraq,
we can be sure of two things. The Saddam Hussein regime will never have
weapons of mass destruction that can be used against the United States
or its troops in the field. And the Saddam Hussein regime will never
again have any contacts with any terrorist groups.

In some polls that were cited we hear about people believing the link
between al Qaeda and September 11, but one of the polls that I saw that
was interesting was that about 70% of the American people realized that
Saddam Hussein was a terrorist. And in the war on terror the states
which sponsor terrorism are as much our enemies by enabling the
terrorists as the terrorists are our enemies themselves. For terrorist
cells did not exist without state sponsorship, without state succor.

Now put yourself in President Bush\'s position at the time
post-September 11. You have seen reports from the past administration up
through his present administration detailing contacts, quote-unquote,
shadowy with terrorists including bin Laden. You know that Saddam
Hussein wants to engage a weapons of mass destruction program through
their acquisition. And you say to yourself, what am I going to do? The
president in applying the preemption doctrine made sure again that two
things would not happen: the Saddam Hussein regime would not have
weapons of mass destruction ever, and that they would no longer be able
to even be considered for succor as a terrorist haven.

Now, there were points brought up in the earlier debate and I would be
more than happy to come back tomorrow or at any time to assist, to talk
about some of those points with our colleagues on the other side of the
aisle. But I find it fascinating some of the points. Now we are
splitting hairs when we say that the contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda
in hindsight may not have appeared to have formed a collaboration, yet
we cannot say whether we would or not. Now, to try to destroy that link
or denigrate that link, we will hear that these contacts were meetings
but Iraq never responded. Many of us, all of us here in the U.S. house
have to get elected. As politicians, put yourself in an interesting
position. Consider this; you are sitting around getting ready to run for
re-election. An opponent you defeated in the past is having coffee on a
regular basis with the opponent running against you now. Do you say to
yourself, well, I'm sure they are just having pleasantries and this has
absolutely nothing to do with me? And that while they may be having
contact there is apparently no collaboration that they are out to get
me. I highly doubt many of the people in this room would subscribe to
the latter theory.

Saddam Hussein would and could if \-- if Saddam Hussein could he would
do anything to hurt the United States. Now, why would bin laden and his
associates that are in captivity deny any link with al Qaeda? Al Qaeda's
promise on a perverted facade of Islam, to work with the secular
Ba\'athist regime under Saddam Hussein would undermine its credibility
as it goes after Saudi Arabia and other regimes in that region. The ones
in captivity that were referenced before, I would just caution everyone
do not take a terrorist at their word unless they say they are going to
kill you. Because whether in captivity or not, there is no incentive to
prove any member of the United States\' present administration is
correct and there is certainly no impetus to believe these people and
belie the myth of al Qaeda trying to liberate its people. So I would
caution against that.

I also would like to just reiterate something that I think is very
troubling to me. We hear many people saying our ability to preemptively
deal with the situation in Iraq has somehow hurt us internationally. I
suppose there will always be those people who believe that when the
United States has to defend itself that we\'ll be hurting ourselves.
This is mistaken. In fact, many of these same people never credit the
good will of the acts of the United States and immunization of Iraqi
children or the education of Iraqi children or the free speech and
association that is occurring in Iraq today. I would argue over the
long-term those benefits to the United States outweigh any short-term
terror the organizations feel because we are striking a blow at them in
the heart of the terrorist network. I also have not heard about how the
regime change and reconstruction nexus that has been applied in Iraq has
also led to the regime conversion and potential rehabilitation of the
Libyan regime. Which also not only in that regard shows what strength
and resolve has done in Iraq, I think one of things that has been missed
with Qaddafi admitted he had a weapons program. He invited weapons
inspectors in who were led to the labs and testing facilities of the
Libyan government. Some of the inspectors pointed out they would never
have found these unless they were shown.

Now, Dr. Kay, who I have much respect for when I met with in Baghdad,
did not say that we had weapons of mass destruction to his credit. But
he did say that Saddam Hussein and his regime were actively engaging in
re-energizing to try to acquire them. Especially chemical and biological
which could have been generated in two weeks to two months. if we had
trouble finding technologies for weapons production in Libya even with
the Libyans assistance, it should come as no surprise in Iraq we are
having extreme difficulty finding not only the weapons of mass
destruction, if they exist themselves, but the labs and scientists
trying to accumulate them. As Dr. Kay pointed out the trouble we have in
Iraq soft money of the scientists we would go to find this information
are being killed or are frightened. I eagerly await to see what the
fruits of security once it is firmly established in Iraq will yield to
us in terms of intelligence regarding the weapons program and its state.
If there were any weapons, where did they go? Once the scientist and
others in the community that participated in these programs feel that
they are free of the threat of assassination or other reprisals to
themselves or their family for sharing this information with the United
States of America.

In conclusion, I would like to adjust one personal point. I will not
condemn the Clinton administration for what it did not do prior to
September 11. But I would hope that others would be slow to condemn the
Bush administration for what it has done since September 11 and
defending the interest of the United States. In many ways I do
understand what occurred under the Clinton administration. While I was
not one who was swayed at the time, when we defeated the European
communism, we saw books from left and right proclaiming to the United
States that at the end of history was here. That we had peace dividends.
That our future was bright. that we could go on to the task of
perfecting the American experiment in democracy by addressing internal
problems such as education, race relations, poverty, hunger, and
justice.

And on September 11 that was taken from us. What was foisted upon us was
an unsought struggle against extremists perverting the tenets of Islam.
Our generation and all the generations have to face the fact that once
again we are called to our historic duty to defend freedom and
civilization from every tyrant bent upon world domination. On September
11 we went from sorrow to anger. But it is fair for us to also feel
frustration. That a country as great as ours, that has offered the world
so much could be so lowly stricken and have to deal with this type of
aggressor yet again. It is unfair but it is here. And as I said at the
beginning, it is a menacing forest, but the trees will not shield us
from the truth any longer and we must accept the fate that we now share
and succeed. And continue with our resolve in the overarching war on
terror to do one thing. It is to kill the terrorists before they kill
us. To kill the terrorists before they kill our children. And it is to
win the war on terror in our lifetimes. I yield back.

**Mr. Burton**: Thank you very much, Mr. McCotter. I appreciate that
very much. I'll yield five minutes to my colleague from Texas, Mr.
Burgess.

**Mr. Burgess**: I thank the gentleman from Indiana. Also extend happy
birthday, Mr. Chairman. And thank you for putting together this hour
this evening. I think this is extremely helpful, I, too, listened to the
first hour debate from the other side. I won\'t repeat everything
that\'s been said here so eloquently tonight by Mr. Rohrabacher, Mr.
Burton, and Mr. McCotter.

But I want to go to one word that was spoken on the other side, that
word was misrepresentation and it was used in the context of the Kay
report. This is an unclassified\
document. In fact, it is Mr. Kay's testimony before the Senate Select
Committee last October. In that report Mr. Kay says that Iraq's weapons
of mass destruction programs spanned more than two decades, involved
thousands of people, billions of dollars, and were elaborately shielded
by security and deception operations that continued even beyond the end
of operation Iraqi freedom. Mr. Kay went on to say we have discovered
dozens of weapons related program activities and significant amounts of
equipment that Iraq has concealed from the United Nations during
inspections.

A list of these included a clandestine network of laboratories and safe
houses within the Iraqi intelligence service. That contained equipment
subject to UN monitoring and suitable for conducting chemical and
biological weapons research, a prison laboratory complex used in human
testing of biological weapons. Biological organisms concealed in a
scientists home one which can be used to produce biological weapons and
new research on biological weapon applicable agents.

Now, this is a viral illness that\'s very similar to the Ebola virus. W
heard a lot of discussion last year about the smallpox virus and truly
small pox is a frightening chemical agent, because it is so infective.
But this organism is not only infective but its early can easily be
confused with other illnesses such as the flu. People put into our midst
who are suffering from smallpox would quickly become apparent because
they look sick and they are covered with soars. Individuals with the
Congo choragic hemorrhagic fever would look like someone suffering from
a summer cold and could work a good deal of mischief in this country by
infecting individuals going about their business.

They found documents and equipment hidden in scientist's homes that
would have been useful in uranium enrichment. And a line of unmanned
aerial vehicles not fully declared. And undeclared production facility.
Most people don\'t consider a missile a weapon of mass destruction, but
when that missile has a range of 1,000 kilometers and Iraq was expressly
prohibited from having missiles beyond 150 kilometers, depending upon
what you put in the warhead of that missile, that, ladies and gentlemen
is a weapon of mass destruction found by the Kay Iraqi survey group.

I'll sum up as Dr. Kay himself did; deception and concealment were the
watch words of the Iraqi government. You don\'t have those as your
national priorities unless you have something to hide. Saddam at least
as judged by those scientists who worked in his programs had not given
up his aspirations and intentions to continue to acquire weapons of mass
destruction.

Another term that we heard over on the other side was whether or not
Saddam was involved in September 11, and I'll tell you I know the answer
to that question. So much was stated as fact from the 9/11 commission,
the commission that is studying the events around 9/11 in today\'s
\"Washington times,\" anyone is free to pick this up, it only cost a
quarter, and read it for themselves. There is at least one officer in
Saddam\'s fedayeen who was a prominent member of al Qaeda and former
navy secretary. although he stressed that the intelligence still has to
be confirmed, Mr. Lemon told NBC\'s \"Meet the Press\" on Sunday that
the information came from captured documents shown to panel after the
September 11 commission staff report had been written. What we heard
quoted tonight was from that staff report. I would just tell the
American people, Mr. Speaker, that the final word has not been written
from the 9/11 commission. And I would caution people about coming to
conclusions based on data that is incomplete.

And, Mr. Speaker, I know the time is somewhat at a premium, so I'll wrap
up. But President Clinton said in 1998 that Saddam Hussein had weapons
of mass destruction and had used them in the past and some day, some
way, if you don\'t take them away from them, I guarantee you he will use
them again. Mr. Speaker, I've been to Iraq a couple of times and this is
not a picture that I took, but this picture was taken by a member of the
corps of engineers in my district, Mr. Doug Cox, who was in the town of
Kirkuk, Iraq right after the Operation Iraqi Freedom started and was
with the forward groups and this picture was on the wall of the training
base. And this picture was in a room where apparently it was some sort
of training facility. There were a lot of pictures on the wall, and you
might relate it to some type of training facility you might have seen in
this country. But these pictures were used for a purpose in training
Iraqi military individuals. If you can\'t see it well on C-SPAN, let me
describe it to you. It shows an individual here who has a tank and an
airplane and a couple of missiles at his disposal and he\'s aiming them
at a country, the United States of America, or USA as it\'s abbreviated
there and you see an individual standing there in a cowboy hat or
pilgrim hat and you see the crosshairs on this individual\'s chest. It
doesn\'t take a great deal of imagination to guess what was being taught
in that training exercise in this military installation in Kirkuk, Iraq.
And finally Mr. Burton you did such an excellent job of talking about
him\
using chemical weapons against his own people. This is the true threat
of Saddam Hussein. Yes, there are other countries who perhaps had helped
terrorists in the past. Saddam Hussein was the only world leader who had
ever used weapons of mass destruction in an offensive fashion, and that
is what made him so dangerous. We have the proof, from as you pointed
out, northern Iraq. we also have the proof from our poor soldiers in the
first gulf war who suffered from gulf war syndrome and gulf war syndrome
was a result of neurologic chemical agents of individuals who were
susceptible who had a specific enzyme defect in their persons who was
exposed to low levels of those neurologic agents and became susceptible
to gulf war syndrome. It is not a point of discussion that Saddam
Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, he clearly did and used them
offensively and he clearly had designs on using them again, and I'll
yield back.

**Mr. Burton**: I thank my colleague from Texas for that comprehensive
talk.\
I will now yield to Mr. Kennedy from Minnesota for five minutes. Is that
all right?

**Mr. Kennedy**: I thank the gentleman from Indiana. There are some,
both at home and abroad, that would have us believe that Abu Ghraib is
the true face of this war, that the acts of a few troubled individuals
represent our cause. I believe there\'s a dramatically different face
and I would like to describe it to you.

In a recent news story, Lieutenant Reilly Sharbono, an army emergency
room charge nurse from St. Cloud, Minnesota, a city I'm proud to
represent, and a fellow alumnus in St. John\'s University, tells of
incidents at the Abu Ghraib prison when it repeatedly came under attack
from mortars fired from insurgents, killing scores of prisoners and
wounding hundreds of detainees. In one four-hour period, insurgents
killed 22 detainees and lieutenant Sharbono\'s group treated over 100
enemy detainee patients. At the time, Sharbono and his fellow soldiers
were fighting to save the lives of those who might have gladly taken
theirs. They were under such heavy fire they had to wear a Kevlar helmet
and bulletproof vest. As Lieutenant Sharbono said, "I'm unaware of any
military in the history of war that has built an entire hospital for the
exclusive treatment for the enemy detainees or POWs. I don\'t understand
the media\'s insistence on ignoring the atrocities committed by
anti-coalition forces or the amazing things that the military has
accomplished over here."

The brave work of the likes of Lieutenant Sharbono is the real face of
this war. This is the courage, compassion, and humanity of the American
soldiers who fight for us all in this war on terror. Too little
attention has been paid to their noble work and sacrifices. Too little
attention has also been paid to the recent successes in moving Iraq
towards a democratic form of government. The Iraqi Governing Council has
shown some real initiative recently. It has a president America,
supposedly, didn't want and a prime minister the UN, supposedly, didn't
want. But by showing independence they now have more credible amongst
Iraqis and the international community. The Security Council approved
the new government by a unanimous 15-0 vote. The new interim government
got to work early, integrated the many independent militias so that they
are now part of the solution, not a potential problem, and reorganized
Iraqi security forces. Moqtada al-Sadr is now trying to be a political
force rather than a leader of a rebellious militia. There is no doubt
that there will be further bumps in the road on the way to an elected
government. But there can also be no doubt that significant progress has
been made.

And then we look at the actions of our enemies. If there is any
remaining doubt that this is truly a war between good and evil, it
should be gone. One can have no doubt at the depths of the enemy\'s will
or hatred when we are forced to confront the atrocities committed
against Nick Berg and Paul Johnson. The insurgents attack all pipelines,
a source of hope for the Iraqi people. What is the point in this?

Since the liberation of Iraq, the wealth of her natural resources is
hers again. An Iraqi-led oil ministry controls the pipeline with
revenues going to the Iraqi treasury. Iraqi officials disburse the
profits for the benefit of Iraqis. With the fall of the dictator\'s
regime, the money no longer goes to encourage hopeless and desperate
Palestinian use to kill themselves while they murder innocents. The
revenues no longer subsidize a megalomaniac's architectural fantasies in
the form of grandiose palaces. It no longer subsidizes the sadistic
whims of his sons. The revenue from Iraqi oil are a chance for the
American people, for the Iraqi people, excuse me, to use their own
natural resources to educate Iraqi children, to build an Iraqi health
care system, an infrastructure, and a strong Iraqi economy.

Mr. Speaker, the important question we should ask ourselves is: why are
the terrorists so desperate? Why are they willing to commit so many
inhumane acts not just against Americans but against the Iraqi people as
well? The terrorist leader czar cause by\'s memo, in that we find the
desperation, while pleading for the Iraqi insurgency, Zarqawi makes
clear that his insurgency has failed to enginder support. Zarqawi
acknowledges they\'ve been unable to scare Americans into leaving and he
had professed that Americans were the biggest cowards that God has
created. We certainly have proved them wrong. we \-- he believes the
insurgents might be able to win if they\'re able to kill enough Shiites
so the Shiites will attack the Sunni minority, that by creating such
turmoil there will be a civil war. They clearly understand what is at
stake, the terrorists do. I hope we do and I yield back my time.

**Mr. Burton**: I thank the gentleman for his statement. Let me just say
Mr. Rohrabacher will be going into detail in a few minutes about the
reasons why 9/11 occurred. And let me just say one more thing, Mr.
Speaker. I know our time is up. And that is that if we had the foresight
that Winston Churchill had prior to World War II, we would have saved 50
million lives. President Bush has that foresight and he\'s doing the
right thing right now. I yield back the balance of my time.