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2A) Charles Krauthammer's American Unilateralism
Mr. KYL. Mr. President, In a December 2002 speech delivered by the commentator, Charles Krauthammer, at the Hillsdale College Churchill dinner entitled ``American Unilateralism,'' Mr. Krauthammer superbly articulates the necessity of American action to confront today's challenges in the international arena, most notably Iraq. He makes a compelling case against the two kinds of multilateralist thinking that are common today: that of the liberal internationalists and that of the pragmatic realists.

   Liberal internationalists, Krauthammer shows, cling to multilateralism as a shield for their real preference--in this case, inaction. He aptly points out that those most strenuously opposed to U.S. military action in Iraq are also the strongest supporters of requiring U.N. backing. The reason, Krauthammer concludes, is that ``they see the U.N. as a way to stop America in its tracks.'' The liberal internationalist fails to take into account that there is no logical, or moral, basis for depending upon the member of the U.N. Security Council to confer legitimacy on U.S. actions.

   Pragmatic realists, Krauthammer explains, understand the absurdity of the liberal internationalist's arguments, but believe that, nonetheless, the U.S. needs from a practical standpoint, international support to act. They believe that shared decisionmaking will result in good will, improved relations, and greater burdensharing. But, as Krauthammer demonstrates, our experiences in the gulf war prove otherwise.

   It is important to note that Krauthammer does not see unilateralism as a first choice. Rather, he advocates taking actions that are in the best interest of the United States, bringing others along if possible. What he wisely cautions against is allowing ourselves ``to be held hostage'' by the objections of countries that don't have America's interests at heart. He describes unilateralism as ``the high road to multilateralism.'' This may sound paradoxical, but it makes sense. It is American leadership, asserting a firm position and committing to take whatever actions are necessary to see if through, that enables a solid coalition to be built.

   Charles Krauthammer's remarks are both timely and insightful as the United States discusses Iraqi noncompliance with members of the U.N. Security Council and contemplates military action in Iraq. I highly recommend them to my colleagues in the Senate.

   I ask unanimous consent that Mr. Krauthammer's December 2002 speech be printed in the Record.

   There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:

   American Unilateralism

   American unilateralism has to do with the motives and the methods of American behavior in the world, but any discussion of it has to begin with a discussion of the structure of the international system. The reason that we talk about unilateralism today is that we live in a totally new world. We live in a unipolar world of a sort that has not existed in at least 1500 years.

   At the end of the Cold War, the conventional wisdom was that with the demise of the Soviet Empire, the bipolarity of the second half of the 20th century would yield to a multi-polar world. You might recall the school of thought led by historian Paul Kennedy, who said that America was already in decline, suffering from imperial overstretch. There was also the Asian enthusiasm, popularized by James Fallows and others, whose thinking was best captured by the late-1980s witticism: ``The United States and Russia decided to hold a Cold War: Who won? Japan.''

   Well they were wrong, and ironically no one has put it better than Paul Kennedy himself, in a classic recantation emphasizing America's power: ``Nothing has ever existed like this disparity of power, nothing. Charlemagne's empire was merely Western

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   We tend not to see or understand the historical uniqueness of this situation. Even at its height, Britain could always be seriously challenged by the next greatest powers. It had a smaller army than the land powers of Europe, and its navy was equaled by the next two navies combined. Today, the American military exceeds in spending the next twenty countries combined. Its Navy, Air Force and space power are unrivaled. Its dominance extends as well to every other aspect of international life--, not only military, but economic, technological, diplomatic, cultural, even linguistic, with a myriad of countries trying to fend off the inexorable march of MTV English.

   Ironically, September 11 accentuated and accelerated this unipolarity. It did so in three ways. The first and most obvious was the demonstration it brought forth of American power. In Kosovo, we had seen the first war ever fought and won exclusively from the air, which gave the world a hint of the recent quantum leap in American military power. But it took September 11 for the U.S. to unleash, with concentrated fury, a fuller display of its power in Afghanistan. Being a relatively pacific commercial republic, the U.S. does not go around looking for demonstration wars. This one being thrust upon it, it demonstrated that at a range of 7,000 miles, with but a handful of losses and a sum total of 426 men on the ground, it could destroy, within weeks, a hardened fanatical regime favored by geography and climate in a land-locked country that was already well known as the graveyard of empires. Without September 11, the giant would surely have slept longer. The world would have been aware of America's size and potential, but not its ferocity and full capacities.

   Secondly, September 11 demonstrated a new kind of American strength. The center of our economy was struck, aviation was shut down, the government was sent underground and the country was rendered paralyzed and fearful. Yet within days, the markets reopened, the economy began its recovery, the president mobilized the nation and a unified Congress immediately underwrote a huge worldwide war on terror. The Pentagon, with its demolished western fac 9ade still smoldering, began planning the war. The illusion of America's invulnerability was shattered, but with the demonstration of its recuperative powers, that sense of invulnerability assumed a new character. It was transmuted from impermeability to resilience--the product of unrivaled human, technological and political reserves.

   The third effect of September 11 was the realignment it caused among the great powers. In 1990, our principal ally was NATO. A decade later, the alliance had expanded to include some of the former Warsaw Pact countries. But several major powers remained uncommitted: Russia and China flirted with the idea of an anti-hegemonic alliance, as they called it. Some Russian leaders made ostentatious visits to little outposts of the ex-Soviet Empire like North Korea and Cuba. India and Pakistan sat on the sidelines.

   Then came September 11, and the bystanders lined up. Pakistan immediately made a strategic decision to join the American camp. India enlisted with equal alacrity. Russia's Putin, seeing a coincidence of interests with the U.S. in the war on terror and an opportunity to develop a close relation with the one remaining superpower, fell into line. Even China, while remaining more distant, saw a coincidence of interest with the U.S. in fighting Islamic radicalism, and so has cooperated in the war on terror and has not pressed competition with the U.S. in the Pacific.

   This realignment accentuated a remarkable historical anomaly. All of our historical experience with hegemony suggests that it creates a countervailing coalition of weaker powers. Think of Napoleonic France, or of Germany in the 20th century. Nature abhors a vacuum and history abhors hegemony. But in the first decade of post-Cold War unipolarity, not a single great power, arose to challenge America. On the contrary, they all aligned with the U.S. after September 11.

   So we bestride the world like a colossus. The question is, how do we act in this new world? What do we do with our position?

   Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld gave the classic formulation of unilateralism when he said, regarding Afghanistan--but it applies equally to the war on terror and to other conflicts--that ``the mission determines the coalition.'' This means that we take our friends where we find them, but only in order to help us accomplish our mission. The mission comes first and we define the mission.

   This is in contrast with what I believe is a classic case study in multilateralism: the American decision eleven years ago to conclude the Gulf War. As the Iraqi Army was fleeing the first Bush administration had to decide whether its goal in the war was the liberation of Kuwait or the liberation of Iraq. National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft, who was instrumental in making the decision to stop with Kuwait, has explained that going further would have fractured the coalition, gone against our promises to our allies, and violated the U.N. resolutions under which we had gone to war. ``Had we added occupation of Iraq and removal of Saddam Hussein to those objectives,'' he wrote, ``our Arab allies, refusing to countenance an invasion of an Arab colleague, would have deserted us.'' Therefore we did not act. The coalition defined the mission.

   LIBERAL INTERNATIONALISM

   There are two schools of committed multi-lateralists, and it is important to distinguish between them. There are the liberal internationalists who act from principle, and there are the realists who act from pragmatism. The first was seen in the run-up to the congressional debate on the war on Iraq. The main argument from opposition Democrats was that we should wait and hear what the U.N. was saying. Senator Kennedy, in a speech before the vote in Congress, said, ``I'm waiting for the final recommendation of the Security Council before I'm going to say how I'm going to vote.'' Senator Levin, who at the time was the Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, actually suggested giving authority to the President to act in Iraq only upon the approval of the U.N. Security Council.

   The liberal internationalist position is a principled position, but it makes no internal sense. It is based on a moral vision of the world, but it is impossible to understand the moral logic by which the approval of the Security Council confers moral legitimacy on this or any other enterprise. How does the blessing of the butchers of Tiananmen Square, who hold the Chinese seat on the Council, lend moral authority to anything, let alone the invasion of another country? On what basis is moral legitimacy lent by the support of the Kremlin, whose central interest in Iraq, as all of us knows, is oil and the $8 billion that Iraq owes Russia in debt? Or of the French, who did everything that they could to weaken the resolution, then came on board at the last minute because they saw that an Anglo-American train was possibly leaving for Baghdad, and they didn't want to be left at the station?

   My point is not to blame the French or the Russians or the Chinese for acting in their own national interest. That's what nations do. My point is to express wonder at Americans who find it unseemly to act in the name of our own national interest, and who cannot see the logical absurdity of granting moral legitimacy to American action only if it earns the prior approval of others which is granted or withheld on the most cynical grounds of self-interest.

   PRACTICAL MULTILATERALISM

   So much for the moral argument that underlies multilateralism. What are the practical arguments? There is a school of realists who agree that liberal internationalism is nonsense, but who argue plausibly that we need international or allied support, regardless. One of their arguments is that if a power consistency shares rule making with others, it is more likely to get aid and assistance from them.

   I have my doubts. The US. made an extraordinary effort during the Gulf War to get U.N. support, share decision-making and assemble a coalition. As I have pointed out, it even denied itself the fruits of victory in order to honor coalition goals. Did this diminish anti-Americanism in the region? Did it garner support for subsequent Iraq policy--policy dictated by the original acquiescence to that coalition? The attacks of September 11 were planned during the Clinton administration, an administration that made a fetish of consultation and did its utmost to subordinate American hegemony. Yet resentments were hardly assuaged, because extremist rage against the U.S. is engendered by the very structure of the international system, not by our management of it.

   Pragmatic realists value multilateralism in the interest of sharing burdens, on the theory that if you share decision-making, you enlist others in your own hegemonic enterprise. As proponents of this school and argued recently in Foreign Affairs, ``Straining relationships now will lead only to a more challenging policy environment later on.'' This is a pure cost-benefit analysis of multilateralism versus unilateralism.

   If the concern about unilateralism is that American assertiveness be judiciously rationed and that one needs to think long-term hardly anybody will disagree. One does not go it alone or dictate terms on every issue. There's no need to. On some issues, such as membership in the World Trade Organization, where the long-term benefit both to the U.S. and to the global interest is demonstrable, one willingly constricts sovereignty. Trade agreements are easy calls, however, free trade being perhaps the only mathematicaly provable political good. Other agreements require great skepticism. The Kyoto Protocol on climate change, for example, would have had a disastrous effect on the American economy, while doing nothing for the global environment. Increased emissions from China, India and other third-world countries which are exempt from its provisions clearly would have overwhelmed and made up for what-ever American cuts would have occurred. Kyoto was therefore rightly rejected by the Bush administration. It failed on its merits, but it was pushed very hard nonetheless, because the rest of the world supported it.

   The same case was made during the Clinton administration for chemical and biological weapons treaties, which they negotiated assiduously under the logic of, ``Sure, they're useless of worse, but why not give in, in order to build good will for future needs?'' The problem is that appeasing multilateralism does not assuage it; appeasement only legitimizes it. Repeated acquiescence on provisions that America deems injurious reinforces the notion that legitimacy

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   The key point I want to make about the new unilateralism is that we have to be guided by our own independent judgment, both about our own interests and about global interests. This is true especially on questions of national security, war making, and freedom of action in the deployment of power. America should neither defer nor contract out such decision-making, particularly when the concessions involve permanent structural constrictions, such as those imposed by the International Criminal Court. Should we exercise prudence? Yes. There is no need to act the superpower in East Timor or Bosnia, as there is in Afghanistan or in Iraq. There is no need to act the superpower on steel tariffs, as there is on missile defense

   The prudent exercise of power calls for occasional concessions on non-vital issues, if only to maintain some psychological goodwill. There's no need for gratuitous high-handedness or arrogance. We shouldn't, however, delude ourselves as to what psychological goodwill can buy. Countries will cooperate with us first our of their own self-interest, and second out of the need and desire to cultivate good relations with the world's unipolar power. Warm feelings are a distant third.

   After the attack on the USS Cole, Yemen did everything it could to stymie the American investigation. It lifted not a finger to suppress terrorism at home, and this was under an American administration that was obsessively multilateralist and accommodating. Yet today, under the most unilateralist American administration in memory, Yemen has decided to assist in the war on terrorism. This was not the result of a sudden attack of Yemeni goodwill, or of a quick re-reading of the Federalist Papers. It was a result of the war in Afghanistan, which concentrated the mind of recalcitrant states on the price of non-cooperation.

   Coalitions are not made by superpowers going begging hat in hand; they are made by asserting a position and inviting others to join. What even pragmatic realists fail to understand is that unilateralism is the high road to multilateralism. It was when the first President Bush said that the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait would not stand, and made it clear that he was prepared to act alone if necessary, that he created the Gulf War coalition.

   AMERICA'S SPECIAL ROLE

   Of course, unilateralism does not mean seeking to act alone. One acts in concert with others when possible. It simply means that one will not allow oneself to be held hostage to others. No one would reject Security Council support for war on Iraq or for any other action. The question is what to do if, at the end of the day, the Security Council or the international community refuses to back us? Do we allow ourselves to be dictated to on issues of vital national interest? The answer has to be ``no,'' not just because we are being willful, but because we have a special role, a special place in the world today, and therefore a special responsibility.

   Let me give you an interesting example of specialness that attaches to another nation. During the 1997 negotiations in Oslo over the land mine treaty, when just about the entire Western world was campaigning for a land mine ban, one of the holdouts was Finland. The Finnish prime minister found himself scolded by his Scandinavian neighbors for stubbornly refusing to sign on the ban. Finally, having had enough, he noted tartly that being foursquare in favor of banning land mines was a ``very convenient'' pose for those neighbors who ``want Finland to be their land mine.''

   In many parts of the world, a thin line of American GIs is the land mine. The main reason that the U.S. opposed the land mine treaty is that we need them in places like the DMZ in Korea. Sweden and Canada and France do not have to worry about an invasion from North Korea killing thousands of their soldiers. We do. Therefore, as the unipolar power and as the guarantor of peace in places where Swedes do not tread, we need weapons that others do not. Being uniquely situated in the world, we cannot afford the empty platitudes of allies not quite candid enough to admit that they live under the protection of American power. In the end, we have no alternative but to be unilateralist. Multilateralism becomes either an exercise in futility or a cover for inaction.

   The futility of it is important to understand. The entire beginning of the unipolar age was a time when this country, led by the Clinton administration, eschewed unilateralism and pursued multilateralism with a vengeance. Indeed, the principal diplomatic activity of the U.S. for eight years was the pursuit of a dizzying array of universal treaties: the comprehensive test ban treaty, the chemical weapons convention, the biological weapons convention, Kyoto and, of course, land mines.

   In 1997, the Senate passed a chemical weapons convention that even its proponents admitted was useless and unenforceable. The argument for it was that everyone else had signed it and that failure to ratify would leave us isolated. To which we ought to say: So what? Isolation in the name of a principle, in the name of our own security, in the name of rationality is an honorable position.

   Multilateralism is at root a cover for inaction. Ask yourself why those who are so strenuously opposed to taking action against Iraq are also so strenuously in favor of requiring U.N. support. The reason is that they see the U.N. as a way to stop America in its tracks. They know that for ten years the Security Council did nothing about Iraq; indeed, it worked assiduously to weaken sanctions and inspections. It was only when President Bush threatened unilateral action that the U.N. took any action and stirred itself to pass a resolution. The virtue of unilateralism is not just that it allows action. It forces action.

   I return to the point I made earlier. The way to build a coalition is to be prepared to act alone. The reason that President Bush has been able and will continue to be able to assemble a coalition on Iraq is that the Turks, the Kuwaitis and others in the region will understand that we are prepared to act alone if necessary. In the end, the real division between unilateralists and multilateralists is not really about partnerships or about means or about methods. It is about ends.

   We have never faced a greater threat than we do today, living in a world of weapons of mass destruction of unimaginable power. The divide before us, between unilateralism and multilateralism, is at the end of the day a divide between action and inaction. Now is the time for action, unilaterally if necessary.

2B) Homeland Security and National Defense
Mr. ALLARD. Mr. President, following the attacks of September 11, many Americans found themselves feeling, perhaps for the first time, a sense of vulnerability. Terrorists had successfully infiltrated our country, hijacked four of our jetliners, and committed mass suicide. Using simple tactics and superb coordination, they singlehandedly changed the American mindset in a matter of minutes.

   President Bush recognized that our way of life changed drastically on September 11. During an address to a joint session of Congress and the American people 9 days after the attacks, President Bush said the following:

   On September 11, enemies of freedom committed an act of war against our country. Americans have known wars--but for the past 136 years, they have been wars on foreign soil, except for one Sunday in 1941. Americans have known the casualties of war--but not at the center of a great city on a peaceful morning. Americans have known surprise attacks--but never before on thousands of civilians. All of this brought upon us in a single day--and night fell on a different world, a world where freedom itself is under attack.

   For nearly 10 years prior to that, our country enjoyed unprecedented peace and prosperity. The economy grew at an unbelievable rate. We were at peace with our neighbors. We focused on health-care, welfare, education, and other domestic priorities. The fall of the Soviet Union eliminated the threat to our Nation. Our defense budget shrank; our intelligence resources dwindled; and our homeland defenses remained virtually nonexistent. The biggest problem our military faced was not how best to invade Iraq, but how to keep enlisted families off food stamps.

   Our mind simply was elsewhere. A number of blue-ribbon commissions tried to get our attention. The Bremer Commission pointed out the deficiencies of our intelligence collection efforts. The Gilmore Commission revealed how disconnected, disparate, and dysfunctional our homeland security efforts were. And, the Hart-Rudman Commission discussed how much our Federal Government needed to be restructured to better combat terrorism. Yet many of the recommendations from these commissions were pushed aside as being impractical, too expensive, or unnecessary. As it turns out, they were right, and on September 11, we paid the price.

   Since that dreadful day, we have made considerable progress. We have rid Afghanistan of its terrorists-run government, disrupted terrorist operations around the world, and taken steps to improve our homeland defenses. I was pleased last November when the Congress, after 3 months of debate, approved legislation to create the Department of Homeland Security. This Department will pull together 22 agencies and nearly 200,000 Federal employees. It will not be an easy task. Tom Ridge, the new Secretary of the Department, will have his hands full for many years to come.

   The Department of Defense has also taken a number of measures to improve our homeland defense. The establishment of Northern Command was a significant organizational step toward fighting terrorism at our borders. The new commander, Air Force Gen. Ed Eberhart, will be responsible for the defense of the United States, including land, aerospace and sea defenses. NORTHCOM will also provide military assistance to civil authorities, including crisis and subsequent consequence management operations should such assistance be necessary.

   This past year the Congress went further when it created a new Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Security within Department of Defense. The assistant secretary will be responsible for providing guidance and planning assistance to the various combatant commands, including NORTHCOM. The Senate Armed Services Committee, of which I am a member, held a hearing today on the President's nominee, Paul McHale, for this position.

   Despite our efforts to build stronger homeland defenses, our country finds itself confronted by numerous threats on several different fronts. As we

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   The war against global terrorism continues to require substantial resources and considerable foreign cooperation. The administration has made enormous progress in this area, but more remains to be done. Many al-Qaida operatives are at large, and several nations continue to support terror groups. We must remain vigilant and proactive if we are to prevent future terror attacks.

   With regard to Iraq, as the President said during his state of the union address, Saddam Hussein continues to hide his weapons programs, despite an aggressive weapons inspection regime. To many, the 12,000 page Iraqi declaration given to the United Nations last December was duplicative of previous declarations and revealed little of value. It only served to highlight Saddam Hussein's determination to retain his weapons of mass destruction.

   The reports earlier this week by the U.N.'s chief weapons inspectors. Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei, further demonstrated that Iraq remains unwilling to give up its weapons programs. In his statement to the United Nation's Security Council, Hans Blix emphasized this point. He said,

   Unlike South Africa, which decided on its own to eliminate its nuclear weapons and welcomed the inspection as a means of creating confidence in its disarmament, Iraq appears not to have come to a genuine acceptance, not even today, of the disarmament which was demanded of it and which it needs to carry out to win the confidence of the world and to live in peace.

   Iraq has hedged, delayed, and avoided complete disarmament for over a decade. There comes a time when diplomacy and sanctions become exercises in futility. There come a time when only military action will succeed where negotiations have repeatedly failed. There comes a time when the President of the United States, as leader of the free world, must say enough is enough.

   Several press reports indicate that some U.S. allies, most notably France and Germany, may oppose military action against Iraq at this time. We should certainly take their thoughts into consideration. Our alliances should be both respected and preserved. At the same time, though, the President has an obligation to our country to do what is best for the United States--his primary responsibility is the safety and security of the American people. It is my hope that our friends and allies will recognize our determination to eliminate the threat posed by Iraq's weapons programs and support our efforts in the Persian Gulf.

   Just as we prepare to confront Iraq's growing arsenal of destruction, we cannot ignore the threat posed by North Korea's nuclear and ballistic missile programs. The Bush administration has sought to form a global consensus to deal with North Korea's WMD ambitions. Press reports indicate that the President wants the United Nations Security Council to deal with this threat to East Asia. I think this is a good first step.

   In many ways, the North Korean issue is different from the situation involving Iraq. There haven't been any U.N. resolutions calling for the disarmament of North Korea, nor have North Korea's allies, China and Russia, shown much interest in resolving this issue. A global consensus is now beginning to form. Our allies in the region, South Korea and Japan, are only starting to realize the danger North Korea's WMD efforts pose to the region.

   Five years ago, North Korea test-launched a three-stage ballistic missile over Japan that could have reached parts of the United States.

   I think that is worth repeating.

   Five years ago, North Korea test-launched a three-stage ballistic missile over Japan that could have reached parts of the United States.

   This test ended a debate as to whether our country was vulnerable to ballistic missile attacks from countries of concern. It became of question of what we were going to do about it. Finally, after much debate, the Congress authorized in 1999 the development and deployment of a national missile defense system ``as soon as it was technologically feasible.''

   Since President Bush's election in 2000, the Department of Defense has made considerable progress on a missile defense system. With additional funding and less restrictions, the Missile Defense Agency has launched a broad effort to evaluate all potential options for missile defense, including ground-based, sea-based, and even space-based defenses. The MDA now has a number of high-profile missile defense systems in development and is making progress in developing sophisticated sensors capable of detecting incoming missiles.

   As the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Programs and Operations, including missile defense, I have assisted the President in developing these systems. Last year, the Congress provided nearly $8 billion for missile defense.

   I am pleased that a number of projects are now nearing completion. The PAC-3, an enhanced version of the Patriot missile used during the gulf war capable of intercepting short and medium-range ballistic missiles, has entered into production. The Army's Theater High-Altitude Air Defense--THAAD--a system to counter medium-range ballistic missiles, is nearing production. And, perhaps most significantly, the ground-based mid-course interceptor system, which provides the United States with a limited defense against ICBMs, is scheduled to be deployed in 2004, as announced by President Bush on December 17 of this past year.

   Missile defense is not the only program that has received increased attention since President Bush's election. The DOD budget as a whole has grown substantially over the past 2 years. Last year, the Congress authorized over $390 billion in funding the department, an increase of nearly $40 billion from the year before. While much of this increase went to support our military operations overseas, some of this money was used to shore up our counter-terrorism efforts, improve our intelligence capabilities, and develop new technologies to counter the growing threats to our Nation. The department is expected to request similar funding for the upcoming fiscal year.

   The President and the Congress have worked hard over the past 2 years to reduce the threats to our Nation and prevent future attacks. It has not been easy. Partisan politics, divergent personalities, and conflicting perspectives frequently interrupt the process.

   I believe the President deserves much of the credit for this progress. He has stepped up and led our country in a very difficult time. His message has clearly resonated with the American people. Increased vigilance and enhanced security are essential in a time of uncertainty and perceived vulnerability.

   I share this message and will continue to work in the Senate to see that measures that are enacted actually increase the security of the American people.

   Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

   The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.

   The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.

   Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

   The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

   Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, how much time have we remaining?

   The PRESIDING OFFICER. Eight and a half minutes.

   Mr. THOMAS. I thank the Chair.

3A) American Foreign Policy and WMD
Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight on the eve of the historic State of the Union the President is going to provide to the American people to discuss the role that Congress has played in a very constructive way, in a very bipartisan way in assisting this President in some of the most difficult foreign policy decisions that have ever confronted this Nation.

   We have heard a lot of rhetoric about the partisan politics of this President not doing what he said he would do and this President wanting to go into war and jump ahead of events and threaten the lives of the American people, and we all know that is just rhetoric. This President, to his core, does not want war. This Congress does not want war. This Congress and this President do not want conflict. So when Members on either side get up and spew out rhetoric that makes it appear that this President is bent on creating conflict with Iraq or North Korea, it is untrue.

   I want to analyze some of the events that occurred over the recent recess, the role of Congress in a constructive way to assist this President on foreign policy. I want to lay the groundwork for what I think will be the President's comments tonight about some of the most difficult crises that we face today.

   Much of the President's speech tonight will focus on domestic issues, and I look forward to that because we have to have a blueprint to restart this economy. He will talk about education, about health care and prescription drugs, and those are issues that we have to continue to address, and this President has a plan for those issues. He has a national energy strategy that we passed in the House that got hung up in the Senate last year. We passed a prescription drug bill which could not get through the Senate. The President tonight will challenge us to complete the work domestically that he has outlined for us in the past, and he will outline a new vision in terms of jump-starting the economy.

   But the real focus has to do with our national security, because as we all know, Article I, section 8 of our Constitution, which defines the role of the Congress, does not mention health care as a key priority. It does not mention the environment as a key priority. In fact, it does not mention education. But Article I, section 8 mentions the responsibility of the Congress. In five specific instances it mentions this: To provide for the common defense of the American people. That is our ultimate responsibility, because without a strong defense, we cannot have an education system, quality health care, or a decent environment. A national security provides that underpinning.

   It is amazing to me when I hear the candidates who have announced they are running for the President 2 years down the road get up and spew out this rhetoric about how this President has caused all of these hostile relations with Saddam Hussein and other leaders around the world.

   I would remind Members, it was over the past 10 years that when we as a Nation did not enforce the arms control agreements already on the books that technologies were transferred out of Russia and China 38 times. In fact, I had the Congressional Research Service document those 38 instances. Thirty-eight times during the 1990s we had solid evidence of technology being leaked, illegally sold and transferred out of Russia and China to five countries. Those five countries were Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya and North Korea. What were those technologies? They were chemical and biological precursors that would allow Saddam Hussein to build

   chemical and biological weapons. They were missile components to allow Iraq and Iran to build their medium-range missile systems that they now have today. They were nuclear components to allow these countries to develop nuclear weapons capabilities.

   Mr. Speaker, all that occurred during the 1990s, and the documentation showed it occurred 38 times. Of those 38 instances, we imposed the required sanctions of the treaties less than 10 times. The other 28 times we pretended we did not see it, partly because our policy towards Russia during the 1990s was to keep Yeltsin in power; and, therefore, we did not want to raise any concerns that might embarrass Yeltsin back to Moscow. So even though we knew this technology was flowing, we pretended we did not see it.

   I remember very vividly a meeting in Moscow in May 1997 in the office of

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   My bipartisan delegation said, ``General, tell us about your military.''

   He said, ``Congressman, our military is in total disarray. Our best warfighters, our best Soviet generals and admirals have left the service of the country because of a lack of pay, because of indecent housing, and because of morale problems beyond their control.''

   He went on to say that they feel betrayed by the motherland, and they are selling off the technology that we built to use against the United States during the Cold War, and they are selling it to your enemies. General Lebed went on to say to our bipartisan delegation, ``Our problem today is your problem tomorrow.'' How right General Lebed was.

   Mr. Speaker, that was in May 1997 at the height of the time when many of us in the Congress in both parties were screaming for enforcement of arms control regimes, because if we had taken steps back then, Saddam Hussein and bin Laden and the rest of these terrorist cells would not have this technology that we are now having to allocate billions of dollars to defend against because Iraq and Iran could not themselves build chemical and biological agents. They got that technology from Russia, a destabilized Russia. North Korea did not have the technology for long-range missiles. They got that technology from China and also from Russia.

   So when I hear our colleagues, primarily on the other side of the aisle, taking shots at the President, saying he created all of this, it makes me sad because the facts do not support that conclusion.

   Mr. Speaker, we are paying the price today for the inaction of all of us during the 1990s. Since I was a Member of this body at that time, I include myself. We could have and we should have done more to reinforce the transparency and the control mechanisms that were in place to prevent these kinds of technologies from being leaked into the hands of unstable players.

   Mr. Speaker, unfortunately we are where we are today, and the fact is that Iraq has chemical and biological and nuclear weapons. As a senior member of the Committee on Armed Services, I have sat through hundreds of briefings. I have gone to classified intelligence sessions. While I cannot talk about what I have seen publicly, there is no doubt in my mind, there is no doubt in the mind of anyone who follows these issues, that Saddam Hussein has the worst weapons imaginable.

   Mr. Speaker, in Ken Pollack's recent book, talking about the ultimate activity that we are now in against Saddam Hussein, he quotes some U.N. special documents that compare the atrocities of Saddam Hussein's regime to those of Adolph Hitler before World War II. What is amazing to me is those candidates running for the Presidency on the Democratic side who have criticized President Bush, I did not hear their rhetoric spewing out when President Clinton went to invade Yugoslavia. And as bad as Slobodan Milosevic was and is, and thank goodness he is being tried for war crimes today, even the actions of Slobodan Milosevic do not compare to what Saddam Hussein has committed on his own people.

[Time: 15:45]

   We know that he has used chemical weapons on his own people. In fact, we had one instance where 15,000 people were killed by the actions of Saddam Hussein.

   We know Saddam has a biological weapons program. In fact, in 1992 when Saddam Hussein was driven out of Kuwait, he signed a document pledging to the world community, not just the U.S., pledging to the world community that he would disarm, he would destroy all of his weapons of mass destruction. So the inspectors from the U.N. went into his country. We knew at the time he had chemical, biological weapons. We knew they were there. We saw them. We knew they could be accounted for, and we knew he was developing a nuclear capability.

   And yet in the mid-1990's, Saddam kicked out those U.N. inspectors, and we did nothing about it. In 1998 everything was gone out of Iraq while Saddam continued to do exactly what the world community told him not to do and which he agreed not to do in 1992. When President Bush came in in 2000, he said in his very simple analysis we cannot allow this to continue. We are allowing a man who will use weapons of mass destruction against us to build additional capability, and that is why the actions that we are leading up to today through the U.N. and with the President are so essential to be supported by all of us.

   In fact, Mr. Speaker, I met with some of my Russian friends recently and they said, You know, the problem, Curt, in your country is you get out front and you have all these people taking shots at your President and Saddam Hussein reads that as weakness, he reads that as an inconsistent policy towards him and if he just holds out long enough, the antagonism in America will go away. So in effect those people in some cases crying most loudly for peace are the very ones that might lead us to war. If we as a Nation would get behind this President and show solid bipartisan support that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction that the world has acknowledged, that need to be destroyed, then Saddam Hussein would get the message that it does not matter how long he can prolong this effort and deny the U.N. inspectors; he must open up and let us see these weapons that we know he has.

   Colin Powell yesterday said it best, Mr. Speaker. He asked some very fundamental questions: Where are the chemical weapons? Where are the mobile vans? Where are the biological agents that we know we had in the past that all of a sudden have disappeared? And my colleagues would do well in challenging this President to repeat the fact that all we want is Saddam to publicly acknowledge and then allow the destruction of those weapons to take place. Who can be against that, Mr. Speaker? No one. And if he does not do that, then we have to face the possibility of using force to accomplish the security that our Nation deserves.

   And some would say the polls do not support the President. Mr. Speaker, no decent President in American history has governed by polls. We do not elect a President to put his finger in the air to read the way the winds are blowing. We elect a President to exert leadership, to be out front where others think perhaps he is going wrong. And this President has showed that leadership time and again. Mr. Speaker, it was this President who moved us out of the ABM treaty.

   I would remind my colleagues on both sides, remember what we heard from the liberal left in this city. The world was going to end, a nuclear race would start, Russia and China would go off the deep end. We pulled out of the ABM treaty because of the President's desire to protect our own people, and there was a giant yawn around the world. Ironically today we are looking to do more missile defense cooperation with Russia than ever before. In fact, in a recent visit with the chairman of one of Russia's largest space institutes, Kurchatov, they showed me a document and asked me to support it; but I could not talk about it until the ABM treaty had expired because it would violate the terms of the treaty, allowing Russia and America to work together for the common defense of our people.

   George Bush showed leadership. In spite of what the polls said, in spite of what our colleagues said in this body and the other body, George Bush stood up for what was right for America, and history has proven that he made the right decision.

   The same thing is applicable now, Mr. Speaker. We have some extremely tough challenges. We have never had a more complicated foreign policy situation than we have today. Thank goodness we have a President who understands people who can lead. Thank goodness we have a President who put Colin Powell in the position of power, who has integrity, who has respect around the world perhaps unlike any other Secretary of State in the history of this Nation. Thank goodness we have a President who put Condoleezza Rice as the head of the National Security Council, his top advisor on security, someone who is not a politician but someone who

   understands geopolitical issues and is there at the side of the President advising him on policy direction and on procedures to deal

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   So, Mr. Speaker, I am proud of this administration; and I am proud of this President, and I am also proud of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle who have worked together for bipartisan support of some very difficult issues.

   Mr. Speaker, in December I led a delegation that started out in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia. We went to Georgia for several reasons. First of all, to meet with President Shevardnadze to assure him that we are a key ally that he could count on to help Georgia in rebuilding their Nation, their economy, and this new democracy. We went up and got the briefings on the Pankisi Gorge when we went to Moscow, we could reassure the Russians that the Georgians were doing everything possible along with American assistance to drive out the terrorist cells that had been in the Pankisi Gorge in the past that posed such a threat to the people of Russia.

   But perhaps the most important reason we went to Georgia, Mr. Speaker, was our concern that last winter the gas supplies for the Georgian people to heat their homes was cut off. In the middle of the winter they had no heat, and so I invited to meet us in Georgia the president of the primary gas supplier for that Nation. President Igor Makarov of the Itera Corporation met us in Georgia at my request, and I asked him to make a public statement, which he did; and that public statement at our suggestion was to guarantee the people of Georgia that no gas supplies would be shut off this winter so they in fact could not be dangled by anyone using energy, using heat as a source of manipulation. The Congress played an extremely constructive role in that visit, and I thank my colleagues for their support in that effort.

   We then moved on to Belarus. Belarus has not been a friend to the United States in recent years. President Lukashenko has drifted aside. He has unfortunately manipulated the Parliament and has caused problems in our relationship. In fact, just before we arrived in Minsk, the capital of that country, he kicked out the OSCE inspectors that were there to monitor human rights, free and fair elections, and the oversight of the OSCE responsibilities that all 55 member nations agree upon.

   When I arrived in Minsk, our ambassador, who is a very capable man, said, ``Congressman, President Lukashenko is not going to meet with you. He meets with no one from the West nor from America.'' I said, ``Ambassador, I would not be here if I had not received a personal invitation from President Lukashenko.'' At five o'clock on the afternoon of the evening we arrived, the foreign ministry from Belarus contacted us at the hotel and said that we were in fact invited to President Lukashenko's home for a private dinner meeting, which I attended along with my colleague from the Senate, Senator Conrad Burns, and our colleague from the House, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Bartlett).

   We spent 5 hours, 5 hours in the home of President Lukashenko, with the President and two other individuals, one of whom was a good friend of mine. We sat around a table and for the first hour we talked about ice hockey because that is a passion of the President, and Belarus was the Cinderella team in the Olympics in America just a few years ago. And then we turned to more serious issues, and I conveyed to President Lukashenko that we wish his people no ill will, that President Bush does not want to have sour relations with Belarus, but there were certain parameters that Belarus had to get back to so that we in the Congress could support an agenda to assist the people of Belarus in dealing with their economic problems, their health care problems. And those issues deal with free and fair elections, a legitimate Parliament. Those issues deal with the concerns that we have over proliferation coming out of Belarus, and those issues deal with restoring the OSCE representatives back into Minsk.

   After 5 hours of discussion, President Lukashenko agreed with our assessment. We shook hands and we thought we had reached an agreement that would last and change a direction of our relationship with this nation that some have called one of the most untrustworthy in all of Europe. Unfortunately, the next day the foreign ministry of Belarus misinterpreted what we had said, and we had to come back publicly and make some very strong statements against the President of Belarus.

   A week later, I was contacted by my friend who is a personal friend of Lukashenko, and he said, ``Congressman

   WELDON, President Lukashenko understands that perhaps things were not conducted the way they should have been, the way it was discussed with you and your colleagues.'' The bottom line is, Mr. Speaker, that 1 month later President Lukashenko in Vienna announced that all six OSCE reps would be restored to their positions in Minsk. Congress again played a constructive role in supporting our President in moving toward a stable relationship with this nation.

   We moved on to Moscow, Mr. Speaker, and there we signed a historic document. Members of the United States House, the United States Senate, the Russian Duma, and the Russian Federation Council met together in one room to agree to a document that we all signed, supported by almost 100 members of our Congress, House and Senate, and the Russian Parliament, Duma and Federation Council. These identical pieces of legislation that we drafted back in the fall call for a new energy strategy that the U.S. should rely on Russian energy sources and move away from the troubled resources of the Middle East. The documents that we signed, which I will present to Speaker Hastert and President Bush this week, signify a new time in our relationship where the four parliaments understand a new strategic opportunity to move together, to help America move away from Middle Eastern crude, to help Russia realize the financial resources they need to help their economy by selling America her energy capabilities. While in Moscow we also met with the senior leaders of the Russian Government and the Duma and the Federation Council. We talked about arms control and proliferation, and we talked about our strategy for a new relationship, a document that one third of this Congress signed on to a year and a half ago before the first summit.

   Mr. Speaker, I am so proud of our colleagues in this body because prior to the first presidential summits, a group of our colleagues who have traveled to Russia, Democrats and Republicans together united, working with those think tanks to focus on Russian-American relations, we produced a 40-some page document with 108 recommendations in 11 key areas to say to our two Presidents that it was time that America and Russia moved together as they had announced publicly in speeches they had given. These 11 areas included agriculture, health care, education, science and technology, energy, the environment, local government, judicial systems, and defense and security. These 108 recommendations, Mr. Speaker, were endorsed by one third of this body and in the other body by our colleagues, Senator JOE BIDEN, Senator CARL LEVIN, and Senator DICK LUGAR, so that when President Bush and President Putin were hand delivered these documents, they both knew that Congress was ready to move our relationship into a new direction.

[Time: 16:00]

   That was a year and a half ago, Mr. Speaker. In May of last year, when I led a delegation of 13 colleagues to Moscow on the last day of the Moscow summit, we had a luncheon in the Presidential Hotel in downtown Moscow with Members of our Senate, our House, the Russian Duma and Federation Council. One of the former candidates for the Presidency of Russia, Gregor Lavinsky, stood up to give a speech. Mr. Speaker, he held up this document and he said this was the basis of the Russian approach to both summits.

   Again, Mr. Speaker, when the Congress unites and takes away the partisan rhetoric, we can accomplish great

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   Mr. Speaker, on our trip to Moscow in early December, I was overwhelmed with what occurred when we went to the Russian Academy of Sciences. In the former Soviet States their Academy of Sciences are the ultimate, the elite, those who really are the most respected people in those Soviet societies.

   In Russia, its Academy of Sciences is the ultimate body. It is even a part of the government. Irregardless of who the President is, the Academy is part of the government as advisors.

   I had been asked to speak to the Academy of Sciences, so we scheduled a visit. I walked in the room, and there before me were 300 academicians from all over the country. At the head table up front was former Presidential candidate and Communist Party leader Zyuganov, the former Foreign Minister and a whole host of former Russian leaders from all factions.

   The Chairman of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Mr. Osipov, was seated at the center of the head table. He brought me to the front and sat me down and said, Congressman, we are asking you to speak about this document for this new relationship which your Congress produced. I said, I will be happy to. He said, following your speech, we will open it up for questions.

   I spoke for 25 minutes with our colleagues in the audience before 300 academicians. When I finished, Chairman Osipov asked them to ask us questions, which they did. Some were tough; most were positive.

   But, Mr. Speaker, something then very strange happened. Chairman Osipov asked me to stand up and brought out a black cap and black gown, and they asked me to put it on. And then probably the most rewarding event that I have had in all of my years in public office, the Russian Academy of Sciences, the social science network, made me the first American member of their Academy. What an honor was bestowed upon me and all of my colleagues, because it was a process that involved members of both parties.

   Following that ceremony, something extremely unusual happened that I wish I could share with every colleague in this body and the other Chamber. The Russian Academy of Sciences voted unanimously to make this document their document; to make our document, A New Time, A New Beginning, the official document of the Russian Academy of Social Sciences and to distribute it to every member of the Russian Duma and Federation Council.

   Mr. Speaker, when members of both parties come together on foreign policy, we can achieve unbelievable results. We can shape the system, we can open new doors, and our colleagues from both parties deserve the praise that should be lavished on everyone for this new relationship that we have achieved with Russia.

   Mr. Speaker, following our trip to Moscow in December, I went back to Moscow a second time in January for another very special purpose. Igor Kurchatov is the founder of the Soviet nuclear bomb. Much like those in America that were nuclear scientists who did not want their careers to focus on killing people, but rather wanted peaceful use of atomic energy, Igor Kurchatov was told by Stalin to build a nuclear bomb to respond to the American program for nuclear weapons following World War II. Igor Kurchatov built the Soviet nuclear weapons program. During the Cold War, it was Kurchatov's work and the work being done at our labs that allowed the two nations to build all of these nuclear weapons.

   January 8, 2003, was the 100th anniversary of Igor Kurchatov's birth, the celebration at the institute named after him that day. It is the largest nuclear institute in Russia, with thousands of scientists.

   Mr. Speaker, I was given the honor of speaking as a keynote speaker, along with the Japanese Prime Minister and the former Foreign Minister of Russia, to talk about this new relationship and about this laboratory that was built and designed for production of nuclear weapons, but now was being transformed for peaceful purposes.

   The director of that lab, Dr. Evgeny Velikhov, is one of my best friends. He is a real scholar and a real leader for all of humanity. He has taken an agency in Russia that was designed to develop nuclear weapons and has transformed it into peaceful projects with our nuclear agencies and labs in America.

   I would include at the end of the speech, Mr. Speaker, my speech at Kurchatov entitled A New Millennium. That speech outlines a new relationship between the U.S. and Russia to take apart our nuclear weapons, to dismantle our chemical and biological weapons, to follow through on the recommendations in our document to allow the U.S. and Russia to work together.

   That speech, Mr. Speaker, was extremely well received on the Russian side, and I challenged them to build a new network of interaction between our labs and the Russian labs.

   Following that speech we cut the ribbon on a brand new training facility that is retraining 600 Russian nuclear physicists who used to work on bombs to do software engineering for Russian IT companies working with American IT companies.

   Mr. Speaker, we have come a long way. The new relationship with Russia just did not happen. It happened because the Congress, Democrats and Republicans, worked together, following the leadership of Presidents Bush and Putin, who set the vision for our nations, who talked about a new time and a new era of cooperation and support. Amazing things can happen, Mr. Speaker, when this Congress comes together and realizes that foreign policy challenges require us to act as a common body.

   Yes, we can disagree in the process, but not to the point where we undermine our strategic leadership needs as best put forth by Colin Powell and President George Bush.

   Mr. Speaker, we want to expand those programs, those nuclear nonproliferation programs, those cooperative threat reduction programs. But let me issue a word of caution to some of my colleagues in both bodies, because some have put out some misinformation that perhaps we in the House do not want these programs to move forward.

   Nothing could be further from the truth. To those who have said publicly that the House is trying to handicap cooperation with Russia and dismantling chemical and biological and nuclear weapons, I say hogwash. What we did do last year, Mr. Speaker, as the stewards of the American taxpayer dollars, is to say that every dollar we spend in Russia, we must hold them accountable for how those dollars are ultimately given out.

   Why is transparency and integrity and fiscal responsibility so critical here, Mr. Speaker? Well, for one reason, last year there was an audit done by the Department of Defense inspector general, who found $95 million misused by some unscrupulous people inside of Russia. Mr. Speaker, that is unacceptable. As much as I want to take apart chemical and biological weapons and reduce Russia's nuclear stockpile, I do not want $95 million siphoned off for some other purpose, and neither does any other taxpayer in this Nation.

   For my colleagues in both bodies to stand up and to say in op-eds and public speeches that somehow this body wants to stop those programs is absolutely false and is an outrageous misstatement. All we want in expanding these programs is transparency. All we want are some basic conditions that show the Russian side and the American contractors doing this work in Russia that we want accountability for every dollar spent. We should seek no less for the taxpayers, because it is their money that we are spending.

   As the chairman of the subcommittee that oversees much of our defense procurement, I can imagine the outrage if one of our defense contractors could not account for $95 million of taxpayer money. It would be a national scandal. But there are those in this body and the other body who want to pretend that is not a problem.

   This year we in the House will continue to support expansion of programs for nuclear nonproliferation, for cooperative threat reduction. In fact, I am preparing a new package of legislation at this very moment. But in the end we will also guarantee that every dime of money that we spend is accounted for and is not being abused by anyone.

   Mr. Speaker, following our trip to Moscow, we went on to Belgrade. We

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   Mr. Speaker, I have to tell you, I was disappointed. We bombed Belgrade, we bombed Yugoslavia, and we promised after the bombing as a Nation and as a group of nations that we would help them rebuild if they followed certain conditions. Mr. Speaker, they have followed those conditions. Our embassy in Belgrade certified to us that they are making progress, yet we, Mr. Speaker, and our allies have not taken the steps to properly support the rebuilding of Yugoslavia, and that is an outrage.

   So I come back tonight and I plead to our colleagues in both bodies to work to live up to the promises that we made to the people of Yugoslavia, that they, in fact, can rebuild their country which we bombed just a few short years ago to rid them of the scourge of Milosevic.

   Our last stop on that trip, Mr. Speaker, was in

   Vienna. The trip to Vienna had two purposes, to receive at the IAEA the most recent briefing on nuclear weapons in both North Korea and Iraq. For 2 hours we sat at their headquarters, and they walked us through this Agency's assessment of the nuclear capability and potential of Iraq and the nuclear capability and potential of North Korea.

   I would tell my colleagues, Mr. Speaker, it was not a pretty briefing. In fact, I invited the IAEA to come to Washington, which they accepted, where they will allow for every Member of Congress to receive the same briefing, the briefing as to the capabilities of both North Korea and Iraq with nuclear weapons and nuclear facilities such as the reactors that are being built in North Korea, the reactor being built in Iraq, and the potential for that material to be used illegally by either or both nations.

   Mr. Speaker, we also in Vienna visited the OSCE, hosted by our very capable Ambassador Steve Minikes. At the OSCE headquarters I had the privilege to speak to 10 of the major nations' ambassadors, including Russia, about America and our policies relative to the OSCE. Ambassador Minikes and the OSCE team is doing a fantastic job. Again, it is because of the bipartisan support of people like the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) and the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith) and those people who involve themselves in the interparliamentary dialogue that is a part of the OSCE process.

   So, Mr. Speaker, I come full circle, and I come full circle because tonight in a few short hours the President will stand behind us and give a speech, and a major part of his speech will focus on foreign policy. I say to my colleagues, Mr. Speaker, we have proven time and again that we can take on any challenge the Nation has and win if we stick together, if we take apart the partisan rhetoric and get down to the substance of what America needs to do.

[Time: 16:15]

   None of us want war. None of us want conflict. None of us want to see Americans go overseas and shed any blood. Now is the time for us to stand together, at the most difficult point in the recent history of this Nation. We face the scourge of terrorism. We face uncertainty in the Middle East. We face China and Taiwan, North and South Korea, India and Pakistan, all of which require us as a Nation to act together; to disagree on the way we approach these solutions, but to do it in a civil way, to show these countries that, in the end, we are united. I would just caution our colleagues in both bodies in both parties to understand the importance of that approach to these very difficult foreign policy challenges.

   Mr. Speaker, one final word. Over the recess, as it was for the past year, we have tried to take a bipartisan delegation into North Korea, to DPRK. In May of last year, 13 of our colleagues were together. We went to Moscow, we went to Beijing and Seoul, being promised all along we would get visas to go into North Korea to open some dialogue with Kim Jong-il and the North Korean Supreme People's Congress. We were denied that ability; even though we had been promised, we were not given the ability to travel in there to open doors.

   In August we received an e-mail from the North Korean Government to try again. I went back up to the U.N. two more times and met with the DPRK ambassador, Ambassador Han, and pleaded with him to allow us to bring a delegation in. In January of this year, with his support, I reissued a letter asking for support for our delegation to visit, equal Members of Democrat and Republican from this body. With the support of President Jiang Zemin in China, which we received in May of last year personally, and with the support of Kofi Annan who called me at home a week ago and said Congressman, we are behind your effort; with the support of his chief interlocutor who has been working the DPRK issue for the U.N., Maurice Strand; with the support, quietly, of our own government, aware of what we were doing and not telling us to oppose it, the North Korean Government again has consistently opposed an effort, an honest effort by Democrats and Republicans, to open a new dialogue.

   So, Mr. Speaker, I thank our colleagues in both parties who have stood together and said, we will go back to Pyongyang, we will take a delegation in, we will have a discussion, we will tell Kim Jong-il and the North Korean people that we wish them no ill will, we do not want a war with them, we want to encourage the south in its effort to establish a peaceful relationship, but there are certain things that the DPRK must do, as outlined by our President and Secretary of State. They must return to their commitment to a safe policy of relationships with our neighbors. They must end their program of developing highly enriched uranium which will lead to nuclear weapons; and if they take those steps, then we can peacefully cooperate with them. We can become a trading partner, and we in this body can open new doors and new opportunities as we have done with Russia, as we have done with other nations around the world.

   So in closing, Mr. Speaker, I encourage our colleagues tonight who have done so much, so much good with so much foreign policy challenge existing around the world, Democrats and Republicans have consistently united; and I encourage my colleagues to look for that opportunity again, so that following the State of the Union tonight we can come out with one voice, with one Nation and say that we all want to avoid war. But we must continue to exert the pressure that was required by the U.N. resolutions in 1992, that was required by the arms control agreements that North Korea has now opted out of, and if they come back to the normalcy that they were once a part of, that, in fact, we can have peaceful coexistence without conflict.

   Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues for their cooperation. I will insert the speech, ``A New Millennium,'' that I presented to the institute as a part of the Congressional Record at this time.

   A New Millenium

   To stand before you today--as an American, as a member of the United States House of Representatives--and deliver the keynote address in celebration of the 100th birthday of Igor Kurchatov, is an astonishing privilege. An invitation to attend this important occasion would have been honor enough. That I stand here as a principal speaker is so much more than I could have ever imagined. It is truly a humbling experience.

   How far we--the United States and Russia--have come! From adversaries to friends, from competitors to partners--we have moved huge distances from the world of our youth. The cold war is over, finished forever. Today, Russians and Americans are called to be the instruments of a new and, hopefully, more peaceful, prosperous, and democratic world in which each and every human being on this globe will live in peace and dignity.

   I have had a lifelong interest in Russia. I have studied Russian language, history and culture. Over time, I have been blessed with many opportunities to travel to this great country. I have learned that the Russians are a proud people, historically aware, and mindful of Russia's unique global role.

   I also have a passion for science and the good things it can accomplish. My home city of Philadelphia was the home of a famous American, Benjamin Franklin. As a child I was told of the wonderful discoveries and practical application of science by Mr. Franklin, who is one of the founders of our nation. I have since been interested in what science can do for mankind. Russia and science make such a wonderful combination, a combination that could springboard to a wonderful and prosperous future.

   One hundred years ago--on January 8, 1903--Igor Kurchatov, son of a nobleman who was himself the grandson of a serf, was born

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   We gather here today more than 40 years after his death to pay tribute not only to him, but the institute that bears is name. Indeed, the occasion of Igor Kurchatov's 100th birthday provides us with an opportunity to salute the entire Russian scientific community, especially the nuclear science community. For it is my firm belief that the emerging future of a prosperous, democratic Russia will rely on the hard work and talent of Russia's scientific and engineering community--a community that Igor Kurchatov was instrumental in establishing.

   As I briefly trace some of Igor Kurchatov's accomplishments, I want to begin at the end of his life--in 1958, more than 40 years ago. In his last public address, Kurchatov said, ``I'm glad that I have dedicated my life to Soviet nuclear science. I believe that our people and government will use science only for the good of mankind.''

   Today, on the 100th anniversary of his birth, I believe Kurchatov's final wish is coming true. From my position in the United States, I have had the opportunity over the past decade of seeing the Russian scientific community emerge from the shadows of the cold war and turn their formidable talents toward peaceful contributions to Russia and to the world. Even as I speak here today, the men and women in the institute that bears his name are hard at work, beating their swords into plowshares. And they are not alone in this great task--as scientists and engineers at other Russian institutes also turn to science to serve--rather than destroy--humanity.

   Igor Kurchatov was both a world-class scientist and a loyal citizen of the Soviet Union. He was the father of the Soviet Union's atomic bomb. His country depended on him to create and provide its nuclear deterrent during the cold war. He succeeded in this demanding task under very difficult circumstances, despite the tyranny of his bosses: Joseph Stalin and Lavrenti Beria. He succeeded very well. The Soviet nuclear arsenal became and remained a serious worry of the United States throughout the cold war.

   In retrospect, I can say that the nuclear deterrence of the United States and the Soviet Union provided the basis for stability during dangerous times of enmity and opposition. These weapons kept us from ever firing a shot in war or anger against one another. However we might think about that 50-year era and whether nuclear weapons and the threat of mutual assured destruction through their use was moral or wise, deterrence worked. Both countries--indeed the entire world--escaped the devastation of nuclear weapons because both countries had them and both recognized the consequences of their use.

   The scientific infrastructure that Igor Kurchatov created to bring this about is, and will remain his enduring legacy, long after the days of the nuclear deterrence created by the capability of mutually assured destruction fades from our collective memory. What Kurchatov created goes well beyond nuclear weapons and encompasses the entire range of peaceful uses of the atom. No one can dispute the world-class capabilities of Russia's present nuclear science network. It is your inheritance from him.

   The later part of Kurchatov's career was spent increasingly on peaceful uses of nuclear strategy. He oversaw the construction of particle accelerators and research in fusion. This new focus occupied him as his health gradually deteriorated. Like his fellow scientist Sakharov, he called for an end to nuclear testing.

   Kurchatov died in February 1960 of a blood clot in the brain. His last public appearance was to attend a performance of Mozart's Requiem. The haunting refrain of dona eis requiem (grant them peace) must have rung in his ears as he returned home from the concert hall moments before he died. I repeat that refrain now: dona eis requiem, grant the world peace, grant him--Igor Kurchatov--the peace that belongs to a man of peace.

   You--the scientists and citizens of Russia--carry his torch into tomorrow. You are carrying it into an uncertain future. The future is always uncertain, no matter how hard we try to prepare for it. Your work will delineate the tomorrows for your children and grandchildren. It will define the future and improve it for Russia and the world. You--the scientists and engineers of Russia--have already begun the next phase of scientific endeavors for your country, and you have done it in the most difficult and troubling of times, and in the face of grave uncertainty.

   I stand here today and tell you that you are not alone in this quest. The United States of America will stand with you as you build a new prosperous and democratic Russia. I am proud that the United States has been a partner with Russia and its scientists in so many ways since the end of the Soviet Union. I, as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, have supported all of the efforts of our U.S.-Russian partnership--whether through the International Science and Technology Center, the Initiatives for Proliferation Prevention, or the Nuclear Cities Initiative. I have supported the joint U.S.-Russian work on nuclear materials--the conversion of Weapons-grade highly-enriched uranium (HEU) into Low-enriched uranium (LEU) for use in peaceful power reactors, the transformation of Weapons Plutonium into MOX fuel, also for peaceful use in reactors, and the safeguarding of nuclear material through the joint Materials Protection Control and Accounting (MPC&A) program.

   The list of our partner projects goes on and on. I expect that we shall walk hand-in-hand in the scientific community's efforts against terrorism. These programs are also a key to Russia's and the United States' joint efforts to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

   I am particularly interested in how you, the scientists and engineers of Russia, can transform your nation through the commercialization of Russian science, often in cooperation with U.S. companies. I see such commercialization as a key to future Russian prosperity.

   Last month, I attended and addressed the annual meeting of the United States Industry Coalition, a group of more than 140 companies working with Russia and other former Soviet republics in cooperative scientific commercial ventures. These private companies have put aside all vestiges of cold war thinking. They are committed to and see the importance of creating jobs and viable business in Russia as their contribution to peace. I believe that such cooperation with the U.S. will help create, if not become, the locomotive of a new and prosperous Russian economy that takes full advantage of your greatest strengths--the thousands of excellent scientists, engineers, and technicians.

   The institute that bears Igor Kurchatov's name plays a major role in all of these efforts. Its leaders, Academicians Evgeny Velikhov and Nicholai Nicholoaivotich Ponomarev-Stepnoi, have shown an aggressiveness and entrepreneurial spirit that should be emulated by all the science institutes of Russia. They see the future of Russia in high tech industries. One of the most foresighted efforts in this area is their participation with the United States Industry Coalition to create a sister organization, the National Industry Coalition here in Moscow, to encourage Russian companies to take advantage of Russia's technical expertise in new business ventures.

   The Kurchatov Institute is not just standing still, waiting for tomorrow, but it creating the future. I urge all the scientific institutions of Russia to emulate the endeavors of those who are creating a new high tech commercial community in Russia. This need not just be an effort on behalf of weapons scientists.

   We have the opportunity to accomplish so many things in our new U.S.-Russian partnership. We are already doing so against the horrors of terrorism and will do much more in that critical area. In fact, there are few areas where the United States and Russia cannot work together.

   Last year I put together a blueprint for a U.S.-Russian partnership. This document was endorsed by one-third of the United States Congress. I called it A New Time, A New Beginning. In this document I present a new vision for U.S.-Russian relations. I wrote in because I believed then, and even more so today, that now is the time, with Vladimir Putin and George Bush as presidents of our two countries, to improve our relationship for the long-term. It is time to stop the roller coaster ride of the past decade and settle down into a steady forward path. Our route must continue to take full account of defense and security issues, even when they collide. However, it is now time to move beyond these issues as we step into the new millennium. It is time to take a holistic approach to cooperation--one that takes into account Russia's myriad concerns and needs as well as those of the United States.

   I would like to describe the series of initiatives that I have proposed. These initiatives take a comprehensive view of what might be accomplished if we--the United States of America and the Russian Federation--set our minds and hearts on them. They deal with initiatives in environment, energy, economic development, and health care--as well as defense and security. Let me describe what I believe can be accomplished if we have the will and perseverance to stay the course.

   It is time for greater cooperation on agricultural development. This means not only improving production, but expanding private-sector investment.

   We must facilitate Russia's accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) and its acceptance of all WTO agreements. In addition, we should increase funding for OPIC and the U.S. Export-Import Bank projects here in Russia. Also essential for economic development is improvement of intellectual property rights so that companies will invest here.

   Energy and natural resources are one of the great strengths of Russia. We should cooperate in oil and gas exploration, for example in Timan Pechora. Success in joint cooperation on energy will hinge on eliminating bureaucratic obstacles on both sides of the oceans. Our collaboration should investigate the energy security implications in this new environment of sub-national terrorism and the efforts of both our nations to snuff out such terrorism.

   Of course, I consider cooperation in science and technology to be a linchpin of our future relationship. Our future economies will rest most assuredly on the ability to capitalize on new science and technology and create new businesses that meets the world's needs.

   This cooperation includes cooperation in the area of nuclear fuel cycles. We must put

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   We should also cooperate in the embryonic nanotechnology industry.

   We have the opportunity to perform joint cutting-edge research in medical technology and treatments. The Department of Energy and Institutes such as MINATOM can collaborate on breakthrough technologies such as radiopharmaceuticals and advanced medical diagnostic and treatment equipment. We can also encourage research on devastating chronic illnesses such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes between the U.S. National Institutes of Health and appropriate Russian Research institutes. Our cooperation would include a more extensive exchange of physicians and scientists.

   Scientists would also cooperate in Space and Aeronautics on projects like space solar power, propulsion technology and weather satellites. They would also expand cooperation on marine science research and on developing Russian technologies for environmental protection and remediation.

   I would like to see creation of a fund from Russian foreign debt transferal that would be the economic engine for many of these initiatives. For example, commercial success in technology could lead to repayment of loans or grants from the fund. Such repayments could then be the basis for new investments in these programs.

   Of course there are many other ways in which we should become partners. I propose to also include cultural and educational development, improvement of the Russian judicial and legal systems in order to firmly establish the ``rule of law,'' as well as assistance to local Russian governments so that they can provide necessary services to the public and also encourage democracy at the grass roots level.

   This is a very ambitious agenda that I propose. I put it forward because I happen to believe that there is no limit to what we can achieve in our partnership. After all, it is a new time. And new times call for new beginnings.

   Much has happened in the one hundred years since the birth of Igor Kurchatov. The vast scientific and technical complex that is his legacy has done much to advance knowledge and technology. It will do much more if we set our minds to it.

   Before leaving Washington to travel to Russia and Kurchatov, I sought the personal feelings and thoughts of another great leader in the world of nuclear physics--a man who met Igor Kurchatov and professionally respected the work of this great man. Born in the same decade as Igor Kurchatov, Edward Teller was a key architect of the early nuclear work of the United States. Now in his 90's, living in California, Edward Teller wanted me to relay his personal feeling on this great occasion.

   He said, ``like Igor Kurchatov, I long for peace far more than I oppose war.'' He went on to say that ``cooperation between scientists is the most important aspect of the United States and Russia working together--it is a splendid foundation for future progress when former adversaries work together.''

   One hundred years after the birth of two men who devoted their lives to nuclear research and whose lives and thoughts were focused on peace while their countries used their work for security--it is appropriate that we look to move to a new level of cooperation in nuclear science that forges a 21st century U.S./Russian alliance that builds on and rededicates our two great nations to the peaceful use of nuclear energy for the improvement of the quality of life for all human beings on the face of the Earth.

   I propose that we create the Kurchatov-Teller Alliance for Peace that brings together in a formal way Kurchatov Institute and the labs of the Ministry of Atomic Energy with Lawrence Livermore Laboratory (Teller's base of operation today) with Oak Ridge, Argonne, Los Alamos and the labs of our Department of Energy for the specific purpose of enhancing the use of nuclear power worldwide while controlling proliferation. Projects like Thorium Power (that offer so much promise in stopping weapons production and eliminating environmental problems) and cutting edge research by scientists in both nations can be brought together within one new bi-lateral entity that truly moves us into a ``New Time and New Beginning.''

   We are still at the beginning of the 21st Century. Much as Kurchatov set out to do in the last century, we have the opportunity to solve the problems and challenges of the next 100 years. The scientists and engineers of our countries--together with the businessmen and entrepreneurs in both countries--could solve nagging problems of safe, environmentally friendly, and plentiful energy sources. They can solve difficult and complicated medical issues and use science to increase agricultural production. We have an almost limitless horizon before us.

   Our task ahead is daunting--some might say impossible. But I am the eternal optimist--perhaps born out of being the youngest of nine children in a poor family. My parents never completed high school, yet they were the smartest people that I have ever met--they had common sense and moral decency.

   My father, who only went to the 8th grade, gave me some advice as a youngster that is just as fitting to our challenge. He said in life you can accomplish almost anything that you can dream. He used to say ``Your only limitations in life will be those that you self-impose.'' And that applies to us today.

   Together, following in the footsteps of the great scientific leaders of our past, like Igor Kurchatov, our two great nations can solve any problem, overcome any challenge and rise to any occasion for the good of mankind--if we work together as one.

   And so, I shall end where I began, by expressing my profound gratitude for the honor you have bestowed on me by inviting me to make this address. I am your friend and I will continue to work for our joint U.S.-Russian interests. Let us work together. Let us clear out the underbrush, let us do away with petty bureaucratic obstacles on both sides of the Atlantic. Both governments have to commit themselves to making cooperation easier, and not filled with time-consuming procedures. You can be assured that this U.S. Congressman will work tirelessly toward this goal.

   Again, I thank you for inviting me. I wish you all well. God bless the United States and Russia.

3B) (Excerpted) State of the Union Address
Since September 11th, our intelligence and law enforcement agencies have worked more closely than ever to track and disrupt the terrorists. The FBI is improving its ability to analyze intelligence, and transforming itself to meet new threats. And tonight, I am instructing the leaders of the FBI, Central Intelligence, Homeland Security, and the Department of Defense to develop a Terrorist Threat Integration Center, to merge and analyze all threat information in a single location. Our government must have the very best information possible, and we will use it to make sure the right people are in the right places to protect our citizens.

   Our war against terror is a contest of will, in which perseverance is power. In the ruins of two towers, at the western wall of the Pentagon, on a field in Pennsylvania, this Nation made a pledge, and we renew that pledge tonight: Whatever the duration of this struggle, and whatever the difficulties, we will not permit the triumph of violence in the affairs of men--free people will set the course of history.

   Today, the gravest danger in the war on terror ..... the gravest danger facing America and the world ..... is outlaw regimes that seek and possess nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. These regimes could use such weapons for blackmail, terror, and mass murder. They could also give or sell those weapons to their terrorist allies, who would use them without the least hesitation.

   This threat is new; America's duty is familiar. Throughout the 20th century, small groups of men seized control of great nations ..... built armies and arsenals ..... and set out to dominate the weak and intimidate the world. In each case, their ambitions of cruelty and murder had no limit. In each case, the ambitions of Hitlerism, militarism, and communism were defeated by the will of free peoples, by the strength of great alliances, and by the might of the United States of America. Now, in this century, the ideology of power and domination has appeared again, and seeks to gain the ultimate weapons of terror. Once again, this Nation and our friends are all that stand between a world at peace, and a world of chaos and constant alarm. Once again, we are called to defend the safety of our people, and the hopes of all mankind. And we accept this responsibility.

   America is making a broad and determined effort to confront these dangers. We have called on the United Nations to fulfill its charter, and stand by its demand that Iraq disarm. We are strongly supporting the International Atomic Energy Agency in its mission to track and control nuclear materials around the world. We are working with other governments to secure nuclear materials in the former Soviet Union, and to strengthen global treaties banning the production and shipment of missile technologies and weapons of mass destruction.

   In all of these efforts, however, America's purpose is more than to follow a process--it is to achieve a result: the end of terrible threats to the civilized world. All free nations have a stake in preventing sudden and catastrophic attack. We are asking them to join us, and many are doing so. Yet the

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   Different threats require different strategies. In Iran, we continue to see a government that represses its people, pursues weapons of mass destruction, and supports terror. We also see Iranian citizens risking intimidation and death as they speak out for liberty, human rights, and democracy. Iranians, like all people, have a right to choose their own government, and determine their own destiny--and the United States supports their aspirations to live in freedom.

   On the Korean peninsula, an oppressive regime rules a people living in fear and starvation. Throughout the 1990s, the United States relied on a negotiated framework to keep North Korea from gaining nuclear weapons. We now know that

   the regime was deceiving the world, and developing those weapons all along. And today the North Korean regime is using its nuclear program to incite fear and seek concessions. America and the world will not be blackmailed. America is working with countries of the region--South Korea, Japan, China, and Russia--to find a peaceful solution, and to show the North Korean government that nuclear weapons will bring only isolation, economic stagnation, and continued hardship. The North Korean regime will find respect in the world, and revival for its people, only when it turns away from its nuclear ambitions.

   Our Nation and the world must learn the lessons of the Korean peninsula, and not allow an even greater threat to rise up in Iraq. A brutal dictator, with a history of reckless aggression ..... with ties to terrorism ..... with great potential wealth ..... will not be permitted to dominate a vital region and threaten the United States.

   Twelve years ago, Saddam Hussein faced the prospect of being the last casualty in a war he had started and lost. To spare himself, he agreed to disarm of all weapons of mass destruction. For the next 12 years, he systematically violated that agreement. He pursued chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons even while inspectors were in his country. Nothing to date has restrained him from his pursuit of these weapons--not economic sanctions, not isolation from the civilized world, not even cruise missile strikes on his military facilities. Almost 3 months ago, the United Nations Security Council gave Saddam Hussein his final chance to disarm. He has shown instead his utter contempt for the United Nations, and for the opinion of the world.

   The 108 U.N. weapons inspectors were not sent to conduct a scavenger hunt for hidden materials across a country the size of California. The job of the inspectors is to verify that Iraq's regime is disarming. It is up to Iraq to show exactly where it is hiding its banned weapons ..... lay those weapons out for the world to see ..... and destroy them as directed. Nothing like this has happened.

   The United Nations concluded in 1999 that Saddam Hussein had biological weapons materials sufficient to produce over 25,000 liters of anthrax--enough doses to kill several million people. He has not accounted for that material. He has given no evidence that he has destroyed it.

   The United Nations concluded that Saddam Hussein had materials sufficient to produce more than 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin--enough to subject millions of people to death by respiratory failure. He has not accounted for that material. He has given no evidence that he has destroyed it.

   Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard, and VX nerve agent. In such quantities, these chemical agents also could kill untold thousands. He has not accounted for these materials. He has given no evidence that he has destroyed them.

   U.S. intelligence indicates that Saddam Hussein had upwards of 30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical agents. Inspectors recently turned up 16 of them, despite Iraq's recent declaration denying their existence. Saddam Hussein has not accounted for the remaining 29,984 of these prohibited munitions. He has given no evidence that he has destroyed them.

   From three Iraqi defectors we know that Iraq, in the late 1990s, had several mobile biological weapons labs. These are designed to produce germ warfare agents, and can be moved from place to place to evade inspectors. Saddam Hussein has not disclosed these facilities. He has given no evidence that he has destroyed them.

   The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed in the 1990s that Saddam Hussein had an advanced nuclear weapons development program, had a design for a nuclear weapon, and was working on five different methods of enriching uranium for a bomb. The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production. Saddam Hussein has not credibly explained these activities. He clearly has much to hide.

   The dictator of Iraq is not disarming. To the contrary, he is deceiving. From intelligence sources, we know, for instance, that thousands of Iraqi security personnel are at work hiding documents and materials from the U.N. inspectors--sanitizing inspection sites, and monitoring the inspectors themselves. Iraqi officials accompany the inspectors in order to intimidate witnesses. Iraq is blocking U-2 surveillance flights requested by the United Nations. Iraqi intelligence officers are posing as the scientists inspectors are supposed to interview. Real scientists have been coached by Iraqi officials on what to say. And intelligence sources indicate that Saddam Hussein has ordered that scientists who cooperate with U.N. inspectors in disarming Iraq will be killed, along with their families.

   Year after year, Saddam Hussein has gone to elaborate lengths, spent enormous sums, taken great risks, to build and keep weapons of mass destruction--but why? The only possible explanation, the only possible use he could have for those weapons, is to dominate, intimidate, or attack. With nuclear arms or a full arsenal of chemical and biological weapons, Saddam Hussein could resume his ambitions of conquest in the Middle East, and create deadly havoc in the region. And this Congress and the American people must recognize another threat. Evidence from intelligence sources, secret communications, and statements by people now in custody, reveal that Saddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists, including members of al-Qaida. Secretly, and without fingerprints, he could provide one of his hidden weapons to terrorists, or help them develop their own.

   Before September 11, 2001, many in the world believed that Saddam Hussein could be contained. But chemical agents and lethal viruses and shadowy terrorist networks are not easily contained. Imagine those 19 hijackers with other weapons, and other plans--this time armed by Saddam Hussein. It would take just one vial, one canister, one crate slipped into this country to bring a day of horror like none we have ever known. We will do everything in our power to make sure that day never comes.

   Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late. Trusting in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein is not a strategy, and it is not an option.

   This dictator, who is assembling the world's most dangerous weapons, has already used them on whole villages--leaving thousands of his own citizens dead, blind, or disfigured. Iraqi refugees tell us how forced confessions are obtained--by torturing children while their parents are made to watch. International human rights groups have catalogued other methods used in the torture chambers of Iraq: electric shock, burning with hot irons, dripping acid on the skin, mutilation with electric drills, cutting out tongues, and rape.

   If this is not evil, then evil has no meaning. And tonight I have a message for the brave and oppressed people of Iraq: Your enemy is not surrounding your country--your enemy is ruling your country. And the day he and his

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   The world has waited 12 years for Iraq to disarm. America will not accept a serious and mounting threat to our country, our friends, and our allies. The United States will ask the U.N. Security Council to convene on February 5th to consider the facts of Iraq's ongoing defiance of the world. Secretary of State Powell will present information and intelligence about Iraq's illegal weapons programs; its attempts to hide those weapons from inspectors; and its links to terrorist groups. We will consult, but let there be no misunderstanding: If Saddam Hussein does not fully disarm, for the safety of our people, and for the peace of the world, we will lead a coalition to disarm him.

   Tonight I also have a message for the men and women who will keep the peace, members of the American Armed Forces: Many of you are assembling in and near the Middle East, and some crucial hours may lie ahead. In those hours, the success of our cause will depend on you. Your training has prepared you. Your honor will guide you. You believe in America, and America believes in you.

   Sending Americans into battle is the most profound decision a president can make. The technologies of war have changed. The risks and suffering of war have not. For the brave Americans who bear the risk, no victory is free from sorrow. This Nation fights reluctantly, because we know the cost, and we dread the days of mourning that always come.

   We seek peace. We strive for peace. And sometimes peace must be defended. A future lived at the mercy of terrible threats is no peace at all. If war is forced upon us, we will fight in a just cause and by just means--sparing, in every way we can, the innocent. And if war is forced upon us, we will fight with the full force and might of the United States military--and we will prevail. And as we and our coalition partners are doing in Afghanistan, we will bring to the Iraqi people food, and medicines, and supplies . . . and freedom.

   Many challenges, abroad and at home, have arrived in a single season. In 2 years, America has gone from a sense of invulnerability to an awareness of peril . . . from bitter division in small matters to calm unity in great causes. And we go forward with confidence, because this call of history has come to the right country.

   Americans are a resolute people, who have risen to every test of our time. Adversity has revealed the character of our country, to the world, and to ourselves.

   America is a strong Nation, and honorable in the use of our strength. We exercise power without conquest, and sacrifice for the liberty of strangers.

   Americans are a free people, who know that freedom is the right of every person and the future of every nation. The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world, it is God's gift to humanity.

   We Americans have faith in ourselves--but not in ourselves alone. We do not claim to know all the ways of Providence, yet we can trust in them, placing our confidence in the loving God behind all of life, and all of history.

   May He guide us now, and may God continue to bless the United States of America.

   Thank you.

   George W. Bush.

   The White House, January 28, 2003.

3C) Renaming of United States-China Security Commission
AMENDMENT NO. 166 AS FURTHER MODIFIED

   On page 713, strike line 23 and all that follows through page 714, line 3, and insert the following:

   SEC. 209. UNITED STATES-CHINA ECONOMIC AND SECURITY REVIEW COMMISSION.

   (a) APPROPRIATIONS.--There are appropriated, out of any funds in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, $1,800,000, to remain available until expended, to the United States-China Economic and Security Review Commission.

   (b) NAME CHANGE.--

   (1) IN GENERAL.--Section 1238 of the Floyd D. Spence National Defense Authorization Act of 2001 (22 U.S.C. 7002) is amended--

   (A) In the section heading by inserting ``

   ECONOMIC AND'' before ``SECURITY'';

   (B) in subsection (a)--

   (i) in paragraph (1), by inserting ``Economic and'' before ``Security''; and

   (ii) in paragraph (2), by inserting ``Economic and'' before ``Security'';

   (C) in subsection (b)--

   (i) in the subsection heading, by inserting ``ECONOMIC AND'' before ``SECURITY'';

   (ii) in paragraph (1), by inserting ``Economic and'' before ``Security'';

   (iii) in paragraph (3)--

   (I) in the matter preceding subparagraph (A), by inserting ``Economic and'' before ``Security''; and

   (II) in subparagraph (II), by inserting ``Economic and'' before ``Security''; and

   (iv) in paragraph (4), by inserting ``Economic and'' before ``Security'' each place it appears; and

   (D) in subsection (e)--

   (i) in paragraph (1), by inserting ``Economic and'' before ``Security'';

   (ii) in paragraph (2), by inserting ``Economic and'' before ``Security'';

   (iii) in paragraph (3)--

   (I) in the first sentence, by inserting ``Economic and'' before ``Security''; and

   (II) in the second sentence, by inserting ``Economic and'' before ``Security'';

   (iv) in paragraph (4), by inserting ``Economic and'' before ``Security'' and

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   (v) in paragraph (6), by inserting ``Economic and'' before ``Security'' each place it appears.

   (2) REFERENCES.--Any reference in any Federal law, Executive order, rule, regulation, or delegation of authority, or any document of or relating to the United States-China Security Review Commission shall be deemed to refer to the United States-China Economic and Security Review Commission.

   (c) MEMBERSHIP RESPONSIBILITIES, AND TERMS.--

   (1) IN GENERAL.--Section 1238(b)(3) of the Floyd D. Spencer National Defense Authorization Act of 2001 (22 U.S.C. 7002) is amended--

   (A) by striking subparagraph (F) and inserting the following:

   ``(F) each appointing authority referred to under subparagraphs (A) through (D) of this paragraph shall--

   ``(i) appoint 3 members to the Commission;

   ``(ii) make the appointments on a staggered term basis, such that--

   ``(I) 1 appointment shall be for a term expiring on December 31, 2003;

   ``(II) 1 appointment shall be for a term expiring on December 31, 2001; and

   ``(III) 1 appointment shall be for a term expiring on December 31, 2005;

   ``(iii) make all subsequent appointments on an approximate 2-year term basis to expire on December 31 of the applicable year; and

   ``(iv) make appointments not later than 30 days after the date on which each new Congress convenes;'',

   (2) RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE COMMISSION.--The U.S.-China Commission shall focus on the following nine areas when conducting its work during fiscal year 2003 and beyond:

   (A) PROLIFERATION PRACTICES.--The Commission shall analyze and assess the Chinese role in the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and other weapons (including dual use technologies) to terrorist-sponsoring states, and suggest possible steps which the U.S. might take, including economic sanctions, to encourage the Chinese to stop such practices.

   (B) ECONOMIC REFORMS AND UNITED STATES ECONOMIC TRANSFERS.--The Commission shall analyze and assess the qualitative and quantitative nature of the shift of United States production activities to China, including the relocation of high-technology, manufacturing, and R&D facilities; the impact of these transfers on United States national security, including political influence by the Chinese Government over American firms, dependence of the United States national security industrial base on Chinese imports, the adequacy of United States export control laws, and the effect of these transfers on U.S. economic security, employment, and the standard of living of the American people; analyze China's national budget and assess China's fiscal strength to address internal instability problems and assess the likelihood of externalization of such problems.

   (C) ENERGY.--The Commission shall evaluate and assess how China's large and growing economy will impact upon world energy supplies and the role the U.S. can play, including joint R&D efforts and technological assistance, in influencing China's energy policy.

   (D) UNITED STATES CAPITAL MARKETS.--The Commission shall evaluate the extent of Chinese access to, and use of, United States capital markets, and whether the existing disclosure and transparency rules are adequate to identify Chinese companies which are active in United States markets and are also engaged in proliferation activities.

   (E) CORPORATE REPORTING.--The Commission shall assess United States trade and investment relationship with China, including the need for corporate reporting on United States investments in China and incentives that China may be offering to United States corporation to relocate production and R&D to China.

   (F) REGIONAL ECONOMIC AND SECURITY IMPACTS.--The Commission shall assess the extent of China's ``hollowing-out'' of Asian manufacturing economies, and the impact on United States economic and security interests in the region; review the triangular economic and security relationship among the United States, Taipei and Beijing, including Beijing's military modernization and force deployments aimed at Taipei, and the adequacy of United States executive branch coordination and consultation with Congress on United States arms sales and defense relationship with Taipei.

   (G) UNITED STATES-CHINA BILATERAL PROGRAMS.--The Commission shall assess science and technology programs to evaluate if the United States is developing an adequate coordinating mechanism with appropriate review by the intelligence community with Congress; assess the degree of non-compliance by China and United States-China agreements on prison labor imports and intellectual property rights; evaluate U.S. enforcement policies; and recommend what new measures the United States Government might take to strengthen our laws and enforcement activities and to encourage compliance by the Chinese.

   (H) WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION COMPLIANCE.--The Commission shall review China's record of compliance to date with its accession agreement to the WTO, and explore what incentives and policy initiatives should be pursued to promote further compliance by China.

   (I) MEDIA CONTROL.--The Commission shall evaluate Chinese government efforts to influence and control perceptions of the United States and its policies through the internet, the Chinese print and electronic media, and Chinese internal propaganda.

   (3) EFFECTIVE DATE.--This subsection shall take effect on the date of enactment of this Act.

4A) Iraq Has Not Disarmed
Mr. HUNTER. Madam Speaker, 6,500 chemical bombs, which is roughly 1,000 tons of deadly chemical; 2,000 chemical rockets, 8,500 liters of biological agent or medium, and that is enough to produce some 5,000 liters of anthrax; these weapons are the weapons which Chief Weapons Inspector of the United Nations Hans Blix says the Iraqi Government has failed to produce for the inspecting teams. In other words, Iraq has not disarmed.

   Now, we have heard in the last several months lots of statements from the administration, and we have heard statements from proponents of the President's policy and from opponents of the President's policy. But these are the statements from the United Nations weapons inspector whose job was to go to Iraq, confront the Iraqi Government with their own statements, their own declarations and documents, some of which we had captured, others which they had produced during the 1990s, list the items line by line saying, here are weapons that you listed; where are they? And, in fact, Iraq has now failed to produce those weapons, meaning Iraq has failed to disarm.

   This is an exercise in disarmament. That is where the country which is being inspected is supposed to make a declaration as to what weapons they have, just like South Africa did with its nuclear program, and then offer up the locations of those stockpiled weapons and that machinery that produces the weapons for destruction by this international body. In fact, Iraq has done what we predicted it would do, and that is that it has hidden these weapons, which it heretofore had proclaimed it had. We know they have them, we know they have them buried somewhere, and they are failing to produce them. That is, they are failing to disarm, and those are the words of the Chief Weapons Inspector.

   Madam Speaker, let me just go to a couple of particulars once more. I am quoting Chief Weapons Inspector Hans Blix. He says, ``The document indicates,'' and he received the document from the Iraqi Air Force as to how many bombs they had had at one time, chemical bombs, because we know they use chemical bombs on their own people and on their neighbors, and he said, ``The document indicated that some 13,000 chemical bombs were dropped by the Iraqi Air Force between 1983 and 1998, while Iraq has declared that 19,500 bombs were consumed during this period. Thus, there is a discrepancy of some 6,500 bombs. The amount of chemical agent in these bombs would be in the order of about 1,000 tons. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, we must assume that these quantities are now unaccounted for.''

   So, Madam Speaker, we know what they had, we know what they have. Incidentally, Chief Inspector Hans Blix goes through each one of these circumstances where they have failed to come forward and produce the weapons or show evidence that they were destroyed. And in these cases that I have cited, there is no evidence that they have destroyed any of this stuff. We know it is still there, and we know it is there in most cases not by evidence that we received through a third party, but by the statements of Iraq itself at a previous time.

   In turning to biological weapons, Mr. Blix said, and I quote, ``I mentioned the issue of anthrax to the Council on previous occasions, and I come back to it as an important one. Iraq has declared that it produced 8,500 liters of this biological warfare agent which it states it unilaterally destroyed in the summer of 1991.'' So Iraq claimed that they had gotten rid of this in secret, and he says, ``I find no convincing evidence for its destruction.''

   He goes on. He says, ``As I reported to the Council on the 19th of December last year, Iraq did not declare a significant quantity, some 650 kilos, of bacterial growth media which was acknowledged as reported in Iraq's submission to the panel in February 1999. As a part of its 7 December, 2002, declaration, Iraq resubmitted the Amorim Panel document, but the table showing this particular import of media,'' and this is the media from which you grow anthrax, extremely deadly anthrax, he said, ``The table showing this report was not included. The absence of this table would appear to be deliberate, as the pages of the resubmitted document were renumbered.'' Meaning that Iraq pulled out this 650 kilos of anthrax media, simply tore that page out of the report, renumbered the report, and handed it to the weapons inspectors. That 650 kilos, incidentally, is enough growth media to produce about 5,000 liters of anthrax.

   So we know now that Saddam Hussein has maintained and kept both biological weapons and chemical weapons, and he has failed to turn them over. He has failed to disarm.

   Does he have a method to deliver these weapons? Yes, he does. They include the AS-2 and the AF-2 missiles, which are illegal missiles, because these missiles have been tested for ranges beyond 150 kilometers that Saddam Hussein is limited to.

[Time: 19:30]

   He has also refurbished his missile infrastructure, that means his capability to develop and build missiles to carry these chemical and biological weapons to their targets. He has also acquired, very recently, some 300 rocket engines.

   So the point is, Mr. Speaker, that when the smoke all clears, at least with respect to the work that has been done so far, I think what has happened is pretty predictable, because we on the Committee on Armed Services in the House had in open session an Iraqi engineer who appeared before us who was part of Saddam Hussein's weapons development program. He said to us that even in the 1990s when we had inspectors on the ground and those inspectors were being shown the insides of big empty buildings, a few miles away Saddam Hussein's program was going at full steam and the inspectors did not know anything about it.

   So take this country, which is twice the size of the State of Idaho, and take this small contingent, roughly the size of a police force in a small American city, and spread them out over a piece of land twice the size of Idaho. And having given the other guys literally years to hide their weapons, it is no surprise that no weapons are found. In fact, if some of our inspectors walked into the middle of one of these big

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