30-Something Working Group

30-SOMETHING WORKING GROUP -- (House of Representatives - September 12, 2006)

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 4, 2005, the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz) is recognized for 60 minutes.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Madam Speaker, it is a privilege and an honor to join my 30-Something colleagues for this next hour to talk about the new direction for America that Democrats want to take this country in, and what we would implement were we to have the opportunity to take the majority after November 7 of this year.

We have been talking about the Republican leadership's security failures and the fact that while they talk real nice about how they are committed to homeland security and improving our security measures nationally, that is all it appears to be amounting to, is talk.

Let us walk through, my colleagues, what the reality is in terms of where Republicans have taken us on security. Let us look at the Iraq war. Right now, under the Bush administration's policy of ``stay the course,'' our Republican colleagues have essentially been continuing to be a rubber stamp for a ``stay the course'' policy, even though that has strained our military, cost nearly 2,700 United States lives, and diverted attention and resources away from the real war on terror.

There has been article after article, Madam Speaker, that has come out that has clearly indicated, and the American people know this, that the war on terror is not going on in Iraq. It is going on in pockets throughout the world where, if we actually devoted our resources and our intelligence capabilities to the true war on terror and shored up our borders and made sure they were not as porous as they are, then we would be able to feel more secure and I wouldn't get questions like I got yesterday all day when I participated in 9/11 commemoration events: Are we really safer?

People are really concerned. They are concerned in their hearts, Mr. Delahunt. They want to feel safer. They want the answer to that question to be yes, but they know that the answer is not yes. Our friends on the other side of the aisle are rolling out the same tired baloney, Mr. Ryan, about how they are going to be the ones that can be counted on for homeland security and protecting Americans in this hour of strife. Well, that is not the reality when we look at the facts.

Look at the Iraq war. We could not be in worse shape. Look at the war on terrorism and there isn't anyone that could examine the war on terrorism and say that we are winning right now; that we have been successful in our fight. We have not captured or killed Osama bin Laden. Terror groups and the number of global terror attacks are on the rise. Five years after 9/11 we have still failed to capture or kill bin Laden. And in a survey of America's top national security experts, 84 percent of them said that America is not winning the war on terror.

What we are calling for, Mr. Delahunt, is to finish the job in Afghanistan, which we should never have abandoned in the first place. The Taliban insurgency is on the rise. It is getting worse and worse there. Mr. Delahunt reviewed that in the last hour. Democrats would double the size of our special forces, increase our human intelligence capabilities, secure all loose nuclear materials by 2010, and implement our real security agenda, which those are all components of.

When it comes to homeland security, we would implement the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, unlike the Bush administration and this Republican Congress who have gotten D and F grades by the 9/11 Commission. We would implement their recommendations and fund them.

This is a really interesting fact, Mr. Meek. If Democratic amendments, like that which we detailed in the last hour had been adopted, there would actually be 6,600 more Border Patrol agents, 14,000 more detention beds, and 2,700 more immigration enforcement agents along our borders than now exists.

We only check 6 percent of the containers that come through our ports. Most air cargo that goes in the belly of our passenger airplanes is still not being screened, and there is still not a unified terror watch list for screening airline passengers. What we are doing is having people remove their shoes before they go through a metal detector and now we make them throw away their Coke.

If we are resting the sum total of our national security on those two things, then no wonder people ask the question like I got all day yesterday: Are we really safer? I wasn't able to answer that question yesterday the way I really wanted to be able to, Mr. Delahunt and Mr. Meek.

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Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Delahunt, I would like to talk about what we haven't done, and a little bit about what we have done. I can tell you last week, this is truly unbelievable.

I mean, I think that there would be unanimous agreement in this room, no matter what party you represent, that we have a couple of issues that are pressing in this country. I can't imagine anybody would disagree with that, whether it is the 46 million people that don't have access to health care, whether it is the fact that gas prices are hovering at or near or over $3 a gallon, whether it is the fact that we haven't raised the minimum wage in 9 years. You know, there is a laundry list of problems.

Yet, last week, we spent our time, we spent 2 days here, Wednesday and Thursday. During that time, if you remember what did we do. We named some post offices, but we always name post offices, that is a ceremonial thing that we do as parts of our regular routines and rituals here at the high school we adopted some resolutions, expressed the House sentiment.

But that is what we usually do Tuesday, the first day we are here and sometimes extending into Wednesday. Wednesday and Thursday is when we get into the meat and substance of why we are here, we are addressing the Nation's problems.

Last week, we addressed the critical problem that I know I am stopped in the supermarket every day, the prevention of horse slaughtering. That is the only bill that we passed of any substance last week. We passed the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act. I can tell you that I voted for it, because I believe that we should prevent the slaughter of horses.

But, when it comes to what should be at the top of the national agenda, I don't know. Somehow that doesn't come up in my town hall meetings. I can tell you that our priorities for last week included implementing the 9/11 Commission recommendations, raising the minimum wage, lowering prescription drug costs for seniors, increasing Pell grants for people who want to pursue higher education for students, rolling back the subsidies for big oil, which have been implemented by the Republican leadership in Congress, and their rubber stamped colleagues; restoring the PAYGO rules so that we aren't continuing with out-of-control spiraling deficits, so that we can make sure that we only spend what we take in, and comprehensive immigration reform.

That was on our agenda last week, and the Republican agenda was making sure that we prevent the slaughter of horses. I don't know, I think after November 7, I think most Americans are hopeful that we will move in a new direction. That when they get out of bed in the morning, they will not have to worry about whether there is a plan to make sure that it doesn't cost them more than $50 to fill up their gas tank, that the agenda that is addressed by the Congress of the United States doesn't include whether or not children will be reciting ``under God'' in the pledge.

I mean, most moms, with a young man or woman fighting in the war in Iraq, they are not worrying about whether their little ones are saying ``under God'' in the pledge. They are worrying about whether their baby is going to come back to them.

The father of four, before he leaves the house in the morning, do you think he is worried about whether or not we burn the flag that day somewhere in America, as objectionable as flag burning is, or do you think he is more likely to worry about whether he is going to be able to afford to fill up his gas tank with than $50 coming out of his wallet. I mean, where are their priorities? How is that? How are those things the top of their agenda?

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Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Speaking of the winds of change, you should have seen, Mr. Ryan and Mr. Meek, the wind behind our flight that our two colleagues that represent the State of New Hampshire had when they immediately left the room during the immigration hearings that we held. The Judiciary Committee had those immigration hearings across the country. I attended one of them in New Hampshire, and it was one of those road shows where, again, the Republicans tried to represent a whole lot of rhetoric about what their record really is on border security and homeland security and there is no reality to back it up. So we brought reality, Mr. Delahunt and Mr. Meehan and I, as members of the Judiciary Committee, went to that hearing, and we brought the record of our two colleagues from the State of New Hampshire and showed how ten different times while they were there in the room professing to their constituents that they were moderates on immigration reform and that they supported balance, we confronted their constituents with the reality of their record in a nice big lifesize form. And it was really interesting that the flight that they took out of the room following our putting that record up on the table and our asking, Mr. Meehan, Mr. Delahunt, and myself asking our good colleagues to say why they were saying one thing in the room at home when the reality of their record in Washington was completely different. And we had the facts, the third-party validator to back it up, which is the Congressional Record. And, of course, they had nothing to say other than, well, we supported the homeland security bill that had border security funding. And that is very nice but clearly that is inadequate. That is not doing the job. Otherwise our good friend Mr. Sensenbrenner wouldn't be pursuing legislation to make 11 million people felons and really not addressing the problem either. But the reality of their record confronts their rhetoric over and over again.

Let us take a walk down memory lane, shall we? We have the rhetoric versus the reality on the war in Iraq and on the reality of their record on the War on Terror, which is different than the war in Iraq. Let us look at what was said way back before we actually went in and invaded Iraq. The rhetoric then was that Iraq had reconstituted its nuclear weapons program and posed an imminent threat to the United States. President Bush said in a speech in Cincinnati on October 8, 2002, that ``America must not ignore the threat gathering against us. Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof, the smoking gun, that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud. Saddam Hussein is moving ever closer to developing a nuclear weapon.''

Well, the reality was that Iraq did not have nuclear weapons. ``Saddam Hussein ended the nuclear weapons program in 1991 following the Gulf War. ISG found no evidence to suggest concerted efforts to restart the program.'' And that was the Iraq Survey Group's final report, key findings, from October 6, 2004.

How about the rhetoric on Iraq's link to al Qaeda? Because the justification for war, Mr. Ryan and Mr. Meek, as you know, has evolved over time. When they could no longer use that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction or was developing a nuclear weapon, when that didn't work anymore because there was no proof and there were reports that said there was no proof that that was the case, they moved on to trying to link Iraq to al Qaeda. And this was what Secretary Rice said on Larry King Live on CNN on February 5, 2003. She said, ``There is no question in my mind about the al Qaeda connection ..... And the most important thing for Americans and for the entire world to remember is that the potential marriage of weapons of mass destruction with terrorism is everyone's worst nightmare and you have, with Saddam Hussein, both a terrorist link and an insistence on having weapons of mass destruction which he could easily transfer at any time to one of his terrorist associations.'' That is what Secretary Rice said on February 5, 2003. Here was the reality: No evidence of operational relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda. ``After a lengthy investigation, the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States ..... reported finding no evidence of a `collaborative operational relationship' between the two or an Iraqi role in attacking the United States.'' And that was the Washington Post report on October 25, 2004.

And last week we had the United States Senate Intelligence Committee release a report that also concluded there was absolutely no connection between Saddam Hussein and Iraq and al Qaeda. In fact, on the contrary. Saddam Hussein had intense animosity for Osama bin Laden and there was absolutely no connection.

Let us look at the prewar intelligence.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. If the gentlewoman would yield, so you are saying and it is fact that there is not anyone who believes that there was any connection between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda except for the two or three main leaders of this administration, period.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. And our rubber stamp Republican colleagues on other side of the aisle.

Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I do not know if they believe it. They are going along with it.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Right. Apparently, the only one who is still insisting that there was a link is the President and the rubber stamp colleagues that he has managed to collect here in this Chamber.

Here is more rhetoric: The Bush administration says that they didn't manipulate prewar intelligence. They argued that they did not try to fit the facts around what they intended to do in terms of their invasion in Iraq. So what they said, and this is Vice President Cheney now that I am quoting, he said, ``What is not legitimate, and what I will say again is dishonest and reprehensible, is the suggestion by some U.S. Senators that the President of the United States or any member of his administration purposely misled the American people on prewar intelligence.'' And Vice President Cheney said that on November 21 of 2005.

Here is the reality: Former State Department official questioned the Bush administration's use of prewar intelligence. Lawrence Wilkerson, who was the former Chief of Staff to President Bush's first Secretary of State, Colin Powell, here is what he said: ``After looking back at it, doing research over the last year or 2, and my time in the State Department, there is no doubt in my mind that certain members of the Bush administration did, in fact, politicize the intelligence.'' And he said that on CNN on March 17 of 2006.

Now, you know, I was raised to tell the truth, Mr. Ryan and Mr. Meek. I was raised that you should back up commentary and back up commitment with action, and that seems to be totally absent. Our colleagues' ability on the other side of the aisle, particularly in the administration, seems completely absent when it comes to backing up words with action, when it comes to protecting our borders and homeland security commitment. And for some reason they insist, and, Mr. Meek, you have said this over and over, on the philosophy of maybe if we repeat it enough times, people will believe it. Maybe if we stamp our foot enough times, it will be true. Well, that does not work when my kids want to get me to do what they want, when they continually repeat what they want me to do over and over again and the answer is still no. And it does not work with the administration. It shouldn't work unless you are a Republican Member of Congress and you do whatever it is that the administration tells you to do.

Well, it is time for a new direction, and that is what we offer to the American people. We will actually back up our words with action.

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Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Meek, as we close out and before we go to Mr. Ryan, I want to conclude by saying what a privilege it is to serve with the both of you and Mr. Delahunt and that the leader has given us this opportunity. I hope that 5 years from now when, after November 7th of this year, we are given an opportunity I am hopeful to run this institution, that on September 11th, 5 years hence, when we get asked the same question that I was asked yesterday, are we safer, that because we have implemented the 9/11 Commission recommendations and the other attempts that we have made to improve our homeland security, that we will be able to confidently answer that question, ``yes.''

And I think the saddest thing and the way I would conclude my remarks tonight, the saddest thing I reflected upon yesterday was that there was so much opportunity that we had after 9/1 1/2 001. The country was so incredibly unified. Automobiles around this country on every highway had two American flags on either side of the windshield; you had universal unity. And this administration squandered that unity, and the road is littered with the missed opportunities. And it is just, really, sad isn't even a strong enough word.

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