Date: 2003-07-18
Speaker: VAN HOLLEN (democrat)
Chamber: H

Mr. Speaker. on Wednesday this House of Representatives. passed legislation to authorize funding for the Department of State. for the conduct of U.S. foreign policy. and to provide direction and guidance in the area of foreign policy. We are fortunate indeed to have hundreds of men and women working for the State Department here and around the world who have dedicated their lives to public service and are committed to serving our country at home and abroad. These public servants had been recently subjected to outrageous and unwarranted attacks by the former Speaker of this House. Newt Gingrich. In a scurrilous article in the current issue of Foreign Policy. entitled Rogue State Department. and in an earlier speech he gave before the American Enterprise Institute. Mr. Gingrich accuses the men and women of the State Department of nothing less than undermining the status and respect of the United States around the world. In his article. Mr. Gingrich asserts that the cause of rising antiAmerican sentiment around the world is that the men and women of the State Department have "abdicated values and principles in favor of accommodation and passivity." He accuses them of propping up dictators. coddling the corrupt and ignoring secret police abuse around the world. This from the man who was Speaker of this House. led this body in a three to one vote against President Clintons Bosnia policy. a policy that started the process leading to the overthrow of the war criminal Mr. Milosevic. Mr. Gingrichs article piggybacks on an earlier speech he gave before the American Enterprisp Institute here in Washington in which he claimed the State Department was engaging in a quote "delibeiate and systematic effort to undermine President Bushs foreign policy." These are extremely serious charges. Before making such serious charges. one would think that a person who wanted to be taken seriously would provide some credible evidence. He does not. Let us start with the fact that it is the President of the United States. not the foreign service or any other career civil servants. who selects the top policymakers at the Department of State. beginning with the Secretary of State. Indeed. the top jobs in State Department are awarded to political appointees of the President. starting with Secretary of State Colin Powell. They are the captains of the ship. They set the vision. they establish the policies and they give the orders. If Mr. Gingrich believes what he writes. that the State Department is a culture that props up dictators. coddles the corrupt and ignores secret police. then his complaint is with President Bush who appointed the political team at the Department and who are charged with ensuring that the policies of the President are carried out. The fact of the matter is Mr. Gingrich provides not one single example in his article of where the career foreign service or other civil servants of the Department of State have refused to carry out the policies established by. the Secretary of State and the President. What does he refer to as exhibit A in his capital case against the men and women of our State Department? He points to an internal analysis done by the Bureau of Intelligence and Research. That is the bureau within the Department of State responsible for analyzing intelligence information we collect and analyzing that information. and he suggests that the Bureau of Intelligence and Research and that that information. that some of the information collected. that our postwar challenges in Iraq are more daunting than President Bushs sunny rhetoric suggests. Specifically. in a portion of his article entitled Out of Sync. he contrasts statements made in a speech given by President Bush to statements made in an internal. confidential assessment by the Bureau of Intelligence and Research. In a speech in Dearborn. Michigan. the President stated. "I have confidence in the future of a free Iraq. The Iraqi people are fully capable of selfgovernment." The internal State Department analysis reportedly stated that "Liberal democracy would be difficult to achieve in Iraq." and that "electoral democracy were to emerge. could well be subject to exploitation by antiAmerican elements." One does not have to be a rocket scientist to understand that the statements made in the INR memo are reasonable conclusions. The facts on the ground in Iraq have demonstrated clearly that liberal democracy would be difficult to achieve in Iraq. not impossible. but certainly difficult. It is a challenge ahead. It is also obvious that elections I n Iraq could be exploited by antiAmerican Islamic fundamentalist forces. That does not mean we should not support elections. Of course we should. But we should be cleareyed about the possible consequences. The important point here is not so much that Mr. Gingrich is blind to the obvious accuracy of these assessments that were made in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research. The issue is whether we want our policymakers to receive objective and independent analysis about the situation in Iraq. or anywhere else in the world. or do we want our nonpartisan experts to tailor. to fit their analyses to the political and ideological platform of the President. whether that President be a Republican or whether that President be a Democrat. Mr. Gingrich would like the professional analysts to manipulate the facts to fit the policy. rather than have a policy informed by the facts. He would have the taxpayers support a cadre of professional yes men and women to make sure that their internal and confidential analyses of the facts were in sync with the Presidents policy. Anyone else. any other conclusions. he apparently considers a traitor to the cause. What is amazing. what is amazing is that Mr. Gingrich would choose this moment to make this criticism. We are now learning more each day about how intelligence officials felt pressured to manipulate their assessments about the alleged links between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein and how their refutation of the claim that Iraq was seeking nuclear material from Niger was ignored by the White House. Indeed. the State Departments analysts in the Bitreau of Intelligence and Research. the very officials that Mr. Gingrich condemns in his article. determined last year that th6 report about Iraq importing nuclear material from Niger was not credible. The President admitted recently that claims about Iraq seeking nuclear material from Africa should never have been included in his State of the Union speech this year. However. by Newt Gingrichs logic. the fact that the Bureau of Intelligence and Research reached a contrary finding that conflicted with the Presidents statement in the State of the Union address would be evidence that the State Department seeks to undermine Bush* foreign policy. It Is a sad. sad day for our country when Mr. Gingrich would attack accurate and truthful statements made by career State Department officials as part of a systematic effort to undermine foreign policy. We should be working hard to create a bigger. a better firewall between intelligencF analysts and the policymakers rather than weaken that wall. as proposed.by Mr. Gingrich. Let us consider another example: In a speech in Cincinnati last October. the President stated. and I quote. "Iraq has attempted to purchase highstrength aluminum tubes and other equipment needed for gas centrifuges. which are used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons.". We now know that intelligence analysts in the State Department. as well as experts at the Department of Energy. concluded that the tubes characteristics made it much more likely they were suited for artillery rockets.