National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2005 -- (House of Representatives - May 19, 2004)
NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2005 -- (House of Representatives - May 19, 2004)
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 648 and rule XVIII, the Chair declares the House in the Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union for the consideration of the bill, H.R. 4200.
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Mr. SAXTON. Mr. Chairman, let me begin by thanking and congratulating the chairman and the ranking member for the great leadership that they have each shown in bringing us through this process beginning in January, working through February, March and April; and here we are on May 20 taking another step forward in this process of making sure that we provide the resources that are needed by our troops in this, The Year of the Troops, which is what this bill is named after.
I rise in strong support of the bill, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2005. Last week the Committee on Armed Services approved this bill unanimously, continuing the committee's tradition of bipartisanship in addressing the defense needs for our Nation. The bill contains several initiatives that will aid the armed services and the Federal Government as a whole in the ongoing war against terrorism and contains several promising provisions that will help to transform the military services.
At the request of the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter), we adopted the theme The Year of the Soldier and emphasized initiatives that would directly assist our deployed forces. We are aware of the challenges they face in Iraq and Afghanistan and want to do everything we can to make conditions safer for them and to make it possible for them to be ever so effective. An important element in the committee's Year of the Soldier theme is force protection, and that is a concern that influenced all we did this year.
We have taken a number of actions in this bill to provide the resources and direction to better equip our men and women who are serving selflessly in dangerous conditions overseas. In this bill, we provide for our valiant warriors in the Special Operations Command. We have authorized funds, for example, for several items in the SOCOM commander's unfunded requirements priority list and have authorized additional funding that would provide some necessary operational flexibility for special operations forces on the ground.
We continue to believe that the best way to fight terrorism is to keep terrorists far from our shores. I continue to believe that the Special Operations Command is one of our most effective weapons in this mission. This bill bolsters the command's capabilities in several ways.
Next, the bill provides increased funding to accelerate the development and fielding of advanced technologies for emerging critical operations needs, including projection of our forces against improvised explosive devices and rocket and mortar attack and to provide real-time surveillance of suspected enemy activities.
I could add here, Mr. Chairman, there is a very strong provision which we added late in the game because at a hearing on April 21 it became apparent that it took just too long to field new kinds of technologies. We have provided a special program to provide capabilities for the chief of staff of the Army and his staff to provide in a more quick fashion the capabilities that are needed by our soldiers.
In addition, this bill provides increased funding for combating terrorism in terms of technological support to accelerate the development and fielding of advanced technologies for the fight against terrorism.
Finally, we continue to expand our successful initiative of last year to develop chemical and biological defense countermeasures.
Mr. Chairman, I would be remiss if I did not say a word about something that we are doing for those who have fought in previous wars. We have found the resources this year to add $7 billion over a 10-year period to bolster and bring up to date the survivors benefit program that retired individuals and their spouses are able to avail themselves of.
We move the percentage of survivors benefits, that is, generally widows, from a 35 percent level to a 55 percent level.
This SBP program is an extremely important program because what happened was that in the past, when a member who served in the military passed away, his surviving spouse, usually, of course, his widow, would receive 55 percent of his retired pay up until she turned 62 and then that percentage would drop to 35 percent.
We have fixed that in providing $7 billion over 10 years to bring that 35 percent back up over a 4-year period to the 55 percent level. This is important. It is a way of saying thank you to those who have served our country and is a very important part of our bill.
In closing, I just want to express my appreciation to the members of the Terrorism, Unconventional Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee, who contributed so mightily to this bill, and particularly thank the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Meehan), the ranking member, with whom I have worked closely over the years.
This is an excellent bill. I congratulate the chairman for bringing it here. I urge all Members to vote "yes" on this bill.
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Mr. GOODE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Saxton), the chairman of the Committee on Armed Services Subcommittee on Terrorism, Unconventional Threats and Capabilities.
Mr. SAXTON. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time.
Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the amendment being offered by the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Goode).
Mr. Chairman, during the 1980s, and during the 1990s, there were many of us who warned that some day terrorism would be an issue that we would have to deal with in this country. Today, reports indicate that terrorist groups are functioning in parts of South America, as well as Mexico, in an effort to cross through the U.S.-Mexican border. It is clear that all possible steps must be taken in order to prevent this.
I would point out that both in Colombia and in the tri-border area, which is an area where the borders of Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil meet, there are large numbers of people who offer the potential to become a serious problem in our country. If anyone doubts that, there are two books that have recently been published by the Rand Corporation: "Arms Trafficking and Colombia," and "Colombian Labyrinth: The Synergy of Drugs and Insurgency and Its Implications for Regional Stability."
These are serious issues. This amendment will accomplish the desired goal by providing the Department of Defense and our Commander in Chief the option of using military force to secure the border if it becomes necessary.
This amendment does not require the use of troops on the border, and will, most importantly, not affect force-readiness or overburden our military. Instead, it will enable the Secretary of Defense to respond to a request by the Secretary of Homeland Security to allow the use of military personnel to defend against this national security threat.
Just as many people did not want to hear it in the 1980s and people did not want to hear it in the 1990s, and then 2001 occurred, this is a new area of concern which must be dealt with.
The Secretary will also have the ability to authorize assistance for the U.S. Customs Service to prevent entry of weapons of mass destruction, drugs and other terrorist items.
Finally, this amendment is a commonsense approach which will give the highest levels of our government an important tool necessary to combat threats against our national security here at home.
I commend the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Goode) for bringing it forward, and I urge my colleagues to support it.
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Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.
Mr. Chairman, I agree that the appalling abuse and torture of Iraqi detainees by U.S. military personnel at the Abu Ghraib Prison is completely unacceptable. Congress should condemn this illegal and inhumane misconduct in the strongest possible terms. But condemnation alone is not enough. Congress also has the responsibility to fully investigate this terrible episode.
Unfortunately, this amendment ignores the constitutional role of Congress to provide oversight over the activities of the administration and military. Without a thorough congressional investigation, the amendment simply assumes that only a handful of individuals were involved in the abuse. Despite General Taguba's conclusion that civilian contractors were either directly or indirectly responsible for the abuse, this amendment is silent on the role of private contractors in interrogating and abusing Iraqis at Abu Ghraib.
I do not understand how the House of Representatives can express its sense of the facts when it has made no meaningful effort to determine what the facts are. This amendment fails to acknowledge that Congress has a fundamental responsibility to investigate the allegations and to conduct oversight over the military campaign in Iraq. We cannot, as this amendment assumes, ignore our responsibility and rely on the administration to oversee itself. This amendment should call for House investigations into the abuse at Abu Ghraib.
The Committee on Government Reform, for example, should examine the role of private contractors in interrogations and prisoner abuse. Congress should be asking whether it is appropriate for the Defense Department to turn to private contractors to assist in the interrogation of prisoners. We should also determine what sanctions apply when private contractors operating in Iraq engage in outrageous abuse.
Time and time again the majority has demonstrated that it has no interest in performing any serious oversight of this administration. The majority has refused to investigate the alleged White House's outing of a CIA agent, Valerie Plame. The majority has declined to investigate allegations that administration officials threatened to fire the Health and Human Services chief actuary if he disclosed unfavorable cost projections for the Medicare prescription drug benefit in his presentation to Congress.
Now, the House majority wants to do as little oversight as possible when it comes to the abuse of detainees. One Republican leader objected to "jerking these battlefield commanders" out of Iraq for hearings. Another suggested that congressional investigations would inflame hatred of the U.S. "by providing fodder and sound bites for our enemies." The majority seems to think it is unpatriotic to ask tough questions and demand answers.
Mr. Chairman, oversight is not unpatriotic. Oversight is our constitutional duty. Congress must not abdicate its responsibility for holding the administration accountable. We owe it to the Iraqi people, we owe it to the American people and especially to the U.S. troops that have served with honor to learn the whole story and to take steps to ensure that this kind of abuse never again occurs.
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Mr. SAXTON. Mr. Chairman, I take some exception to the polite assertion of the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman) that the Congress of the United States perhaps in his view has not done enough or is not on a track to do enough; but at some point we have to decide to come to a conclusion that a few people committed some very horrendous, bad acts.
The events that have occurred since then, and I would remind Members this occurred in late December or January, or became evident in January, and immediate actions were taken by our trusted military leaders, and I am not talking about our civilian leaders necessarily, I am talking about our military leaders, people who swore to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States while carrying out their military duties. Since then, General Taguba and his staff have carried out a very extensive investigation.
I saw a copy of the report. It was that high with a 50-page executive summary. While it is classified, somehow or another it happened to appear on the Internet so anyone that wants to know what is in it can click on the Internet and look at it, and you will have to fairly conclude that there was nothing in that report that would suggest that we need a broader investigation.
But in spite of that, there are currently seven ongoing investigations being carried out by our military leadership, trying to find out if there is anything else that ought to be looked at, any other criminal investigations that ought to be entered into, any other processes to clean this mess up.
Now, we have 140,000 people doing good work, protecting the national security of our country while trying to put that country back together, positive work supporting the Provisional Coalition Authority, positive work working with Iraqi families, positive work monitoring caucuses where Iraqis are electing their own local leaders, controlling traffic, positive work securing ammo dumps that are sometimes miles square.
Our Special Forces are there operating, 140,000 people doing good works; and we are asked by the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman) to concentrate on the bad acts, throw Congress into an oversight overdrive, concentrating on the bad acts of a handful of people.
I do not buy into the notion that we should do this, and I think the chairman's amendment is exactly what we need to do. I would hope the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman) would rethink his position.
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