Congressional Record United States Th of America PROCEEDINGS and DEBATES of the 109 CONGRESS, FIRST SESSION
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E PL UR UM IB N U U S Congressional Record United States th of America PROCEEDINGS AND DEBATES OF THE 109 CONGRESS, FIRST SESSION Vol. 151 WASHINGTON, TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 2005 No. 151 House of Representatives The House met at 10:30 a.m. and was certainly did not manipulate or mis- ligence Committee has been disputed called to order by the Speaker pro tem- represent any intelligence to Congress, by several senior intelligence officials. pore (Mr. GOHMERT). the American people or to the inter- Richard Kerr, the former acting CIA di- f national community. rector, who led an internal investiga- Mr. Speaker, this is just one more tion of the CIA’s failure to correctly DESIGNATION OF SPEAKER PRO false claim in a history of falsehoods analyze Iraq’s weapons of mass de- TEMPORE put forward by this administration in struction capability, stated that the The SPEAKER pro tempore laid be- its effort to cover up its failures in intelligence analysts were pressured fore the House the following commu- Iraq. Today’s New York Times edi- and heavily so. Senators ROCKEFELLER, nication from the Speaker: torial attempts to set the record DURBIN and LEVIN noted in their addi- tional views to the Senate Intelligence WASHINGTON, DC, straight on the Bush coverup of the November 15, 2005. truth. Committee’s report that the CIA’s I hereby appoint the Honorable LOUIE On Veterans Day, President Bush independent review found, and I quote, GOHMERT to act as Speaker pro tempore on claimed that Congress had access to significant pressure on the intelligence this day. the same intelligence as his adminis- community to find evidence that sup- J. DENNIS HASTERT, tration. This is patently false. Accord- ported a connection between Iraq and Speaker of the House of Representatives. ing to the Washington Post and The al Qaeda. f New York Times, President Bush and A second independent investigation by the CIA ombudsman found that the, MORNING HOUR DEBATES his aides had access to much more vo- luminous intelligence information quote, hammering by the Bush Admin- The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursu- than did lawmakers, who are dependent istration on Iraq intelligence was un- usual and that George Tenet confirmed ant to the order of the House of Janu- on his administration to provide Con- that agency officials had raised with ary 4, 2005, the Chair will now recog- gress with materials. him personally the matter of pressure nize Members from lists submitted by More recently, the President has as- on analysts. the majority and minority leaders for serted that Congress had more intel- morning hour debates. The Chair will President Bush tries to assert that ligence information than the White President Clinton believed in the same alternate recognition between the par- House. This is so patently absurd, I ties, with each party limited to not to threat. What he leaves out is that barely know how to respond. The only President Clinton has repeatedly as- exceed 30 minutes, and each Member, intelligence materials the Congress except the majority leader, the minor- serted that he believes it was a mis- has, it receives from the President and take to invade Iraq before the United ity leader, or the minority whip, lim- his administration. Nations weapons inspectors had a ited to not to exceed 5 minutes. The President has gone on to state chance to complete their investigation. The Chair recognizes the gentleman that the bipartisan investigation car- In fact, the U.N. investigation was from Massachusetts (Mr. MCGOVERN) ried out by the Senate Intelligence aborted before it even had a chance to for 5 minutes. Committee found, and I again quote, no really begin by the launch of U.S. mili- f evidence of political pressure to change tary operations. the intelligence community’s judg- Mr. Speaker, President Bush asserts PRESIDENT BUSH CAN’T REWRITE ments related to Iraq’s weapons pro- that other governments’ intelligence HISTORY grams. agencies agreed with ours. That is sim- Mr. MCGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, begin- This claim is wrong on several ply false. Many countries felt that the ning on Veterans Day, President Bush counts. First, the Senate Select Com- U.S. intelligence was faulty or over- has begun a series of attacks against mittee on Intelligence has not yet done blown and did not agree with their own his critics on the war in Iraq. He has its inquiry into whether Bush officials intelligence data, and that is why they been supported by a well-orchestrated mischaracterized or misrepresented in- opposed us in the United Nations Secu- set of groupies of conservative policy- telligence. rity Council or declined to provide makers, Members of Congress and talk- Second, the Senate Intelligence Com- troops for our invasion. Even this year ing heads all spouting the same line, mittee’s first report did find that the we have heard Vice President CHENEY that the Bush Administration was not national intelligence estimate was ma- continue to imply that Iraq was some- alone in believing that Iraq had weap- nipulated. how tied to the September 11 attacks ons of mass destruction. Everyone Finally, the overall soft approach of and was developing weapons of mass thought so. And the administration this first report by the Senate Intel- destruction. b This symbol represents the time of day during the House proceedings, e.g., b 1407 is 2:07 p.m. Matter set in this typeface indicates words inserted or appended, rather than spoken, by a Member of the House on the floor. H10163 . VerDate Aug 31 2005 03:57 Nov 16, 2005 Jkt 049060 PO 00000 Frm 00001 Fmt 7634 Sfmt 0634 E:\CR\FM\A15NO7.000 H15NOPT1 H10164 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — HOUSE November 15, 2005 Well, let us set the record straight. Foreign intelligence services did not have but it is Mr. Bush and his team who are re- There were no weapons of mass de- full access to American intelligence. But writing history. struction, there were no ties to al some had dissenting opinions that were ig- f Qaeda, there was no imminent threat. nored or not shown to top American offi- cials. Congress had nothing close to the NEW DAY FOR HEALTH CARE The arguments in favor of war pre- President’s access to intelligence. The Na- sented to Congress and the American The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursu- tional Intelligence Estimate presented to ant to the order of the House of Janu- people by the President deliberately Congress a few days before the vote on war used the most inflammatory of lan- was sanitized to remove dissent and make ary 4, 2005, the gentleman from Georgia guage. conjecture seem like fact. (Mr. PRICE) is recognized during morn- Mr. Speaker, I would like to say one It’s hard to imagine what Mr. Bush means ing hour debates for 5 minutes. more word on the President’s latest se- when he says everyone reached the same Mr. PRICE of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, ries of attacks. He says that those of us conclusion. There was indeed a widespread contrary to what some of my friends on who criticize the war, who called for belief that Iraq had chemical and biological the other side of the aisle do, I like to weapons. But Mr. Clinton looked at the data withdrawal, or who focused on how the take this time, morning hour, and and concluded that inspections and pressure share a little good news with the Amer- American people were deliberately mis- were working—a view we now know was ac- led into supporting the invasion on curate. France, Russia and Germany said ican people, because this is an exciting Iraq, that somehow we are betraying war was not justified. Even Britain admitted day. It is a new day for health care in our troops and advocating a cut-and- later that there had been no new evidence our Nation. It is a day of great oppor- run strategy. about Iraq, just new politics. tunity for seniors all across our Na- Mr. Speaker, our troops, who have The administration had little company in tion. Today is the first day that seniors carried out this mission with courage, saying that Iraq was actively trying to build all across America are able to sign up dignity and sacrifice, represent our Na- a nuclear weapon. The evidence for this voluntarily and participate in the new claim was a dubious report about an attempt tion with honor, but they have been be- in 1999 to buy uranium from Niger, later Medicare part D prescription drug pro- trayed. They have been betrayed by shown to be false, and the infamous alu- gram. policymakers who rushed into a war on minum tubes story. That was dismissed at As many members of Congress know, false pretenses, they were betrayed by the time by analysts with real expertise. I am a third-generation physician, and policymakers who sent them into The Bush administration was also alone in the things that were available to treat harm’s way and overruled the good ad- making the absurd claim that Iraq was in patients by my father and my grand- vice of our top military leaders as to league with Al Qaeda and somehow con- father have changed so significantly. troop strength and post-invasion plan- nected to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. That was based on two false tales. One was the sup- The kinds of things that I was able to ning, and they have been betrayed by posed trip to Prague by Mohamed Atta, a re- use to take care of patients were re- policymakers who will not admit that port that was disputed before the war and markably different than those that my mistakes were made and significant came from an unreliable drunk.