National Security

NATIONAL SECURITY -- (House of Representatives - May 04, 2004)

The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Cole). Under a previous order of the House, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Nadler) is recognized for 5 minutes.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, the President, as you can see from the poster, said at his press conference last week that he was not aware of any mistakes that he had made. Let me tell my colleagues and him a few mistakes he has made, three major mistakes:

First, in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, the Bush administration chose deliberately to mislead the people of New York about the safety of the air and the environment in the aftermath of that disaster. We now know from the Inspector General of EPA's report that the White House instructed the EPA to mislead the people of New York. The former administrator of EPA, Mrs. Whitman, said 2 days after the disaster the air is safe to breathe, when they had no test data to show that.

Because of that misleading, Federal, State, and city government followed policies that have resulted in catastrophe. We now know from recent medical reports that an absolute majority, most of the first responders, the heroes, the fire officers, the police officers, the construction workers who descended on Lower Manhattan to help with the rescue operations, most of them now, 2 ½ years later, have serious respiratory disorders which will probably plague them for the rest of their lives. We know that women who live within a mile, 1.6 kilometers, of the World Trade Center, today are giving birth to low birth weight babies at twice the natural rate because the White House chose to mislead the American people.

Second, the White House chose to get us into a useless, stupid war in Iraq to divert our attention from the war against us by the Islamic terrorists. We know that there were no weapons of mass destruction, contrary to what they told us in Iraq, no great stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction. We know the Iraqi people did not, as the White House told us they would, greet our troops as liberators. We know that when the President stood there before the sign and said mission accomplished and said that major combat was over, he was wrong. We know this administration did not plan adequately for an occupation. We know they sent too few troops there to properly secure the country. We know they fired General Shinseki because he had the impudence to say the truth in advance. We know that they disbanded the Iraqi army without having enough troop strength to replace it and they are now trying to reassemble it.
We know, in short, they got us into a quagmire and so thoroughly alienated the rest of the world by the arrogant attitude of this administration that we cannot get any significant help, we cannot internationalize the conflict, we cannot share the burdens or at least we cannot do these things as long as George Bush is President because no one trusts him abroad anymore.

But perhaps the greatest mistake that this administration has made is that this administration has not and does not take seriously enough the terrorist war being waged against us by the Islamic terrorists. From before 9/11, when this administration ignored many warnings, to this very day, they refuse to spend the money necessary to protect the American people. Two months after 9/11, leaders in Congress proposed to spend $10 billion to protect our chemical and nuclear facilities and our transportation terminals against attacks that could kill or wound hundreds of thousands of people. President Bush said he would veto such an appropriation. It was not done. This administration refuses to spend the money to buy the weapons grade plutonium and uranium now in the former Soviet Union that can easily be smuggled to al Qaeda to make atomic bombs because they care more about tax cuts for the wealthy than about protecting the American people. It is a mistake not to prevent al Qaeda from going nuclear by buying that plutonium and uranium quickly.

This administration inspects only 2 percent of the 6 million shipping containers that come into this country every year, any one of which could hide a chemical or biological or nuclear weapon. It is a mistake not to insist that no container is placed on a ship bound for the United States until that container is inspected and certified and sealed by an American inspection team in the foreign port.

This administration will not spend the funds to protect our commercial aviation. It is a mistake not to place a missile deflection system on every commercial airliner as the Israelis are doing by this summer so that we do not have to worry about our airlines being shot out of the sky by shoulder-fired missiles. In short, it is a mistake not to place the priority where it belongs, on protecting the American people from terrorism instead of protecting tax cuts for the wealthy.
Mr. Speaker, if the President wants to know about some mistakes, here are some mistakes. Here are some mistakes that he can correct if he is willing to protect the American people at the cost of the tax cuts for the wealthy. His major mistake is his priority. Tax cuts for the wealthy, yes. Protect the American people from terrorism, no. That is some mistake.