9/11 Commision Report Findings

9/11 COMMISSION REPORT FINDINGS -- (House of Representatives - July 22, 2004)

The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Hensarling). Under a previous order of the House, the gentleman from California (Mr. Rohrabacher) is recognized for 5 minutes.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, let me just note that I do not believe that anyone has had a chance, including my colleague that was just down on the floor, to read the entire testimony or the entire 9/11 Commission's report. I have just read the executive summary and not the entire book, as I find it almost impossible that anyone has, considering the fact that it was just distributed today at 11:30 in the morning.

But let me note that there is every reason in the world to be concerned about Sandy Berger, and for my colleague to cast any type of aspersions on anyone in this body for serious concerns that Mr. Berger, who was the National Security Adviser to President Clinton, has in some ways been guilty of a crime that goes right to the heart of the investigation of 9/11.

Mr. Berger is accused, now he may be innocent, and I am not saying that he is guilty, but he is being accused of taking documents out of the archives of the United States that go directly to the issues that my colleague was just addressing on the floor.

The fact that our colleague would be downplaying the importance of the accusation against Mr. Berger is mind boggling, and I hope that the public looks very carefully at who is really serious about the security of the United States of America. Anyone who downplays the potential damage that Mr. Berger was doing by taking documents out of the Archives, which we do not know which documents, and perhaps inadvertently losing some of them supposedly, this is a very serious charge.

Let me note, my colleague over and over again was talking about the lack of cooperation among the intelligence agencies both domestic and foreign. It was during the Clinton administration under Mr. Berger that the directives were written and the orders were given that the intelligence agencies that investigate overseas, the CIA, et cetera, would not talk to those agencies. Those law enforcement agencies in the United States, FBI, it was there where that policy was made, and Mr. Berger was well aware of that policy. It came into being under his watch during the Clinton administration, and perhaps those documents that are now missing because what Mr. Berger has done could shed some light on this whole issue.

No, this is very serious. It goes to the heart of the matter. Those people are downplaying the potential of what this, the potential atrocity that has been committed against the public's right to know by Mr. Berger's alleged actions. This is really not something that should be just discarded and not looked at as a very serious issue.

Let me note that what I have seen in the 9/11 Commission report, there are some good suggestions in here; but by and large this has been an attempt to whitewash those specific individuals and the specific policies that caused 9/11. What we have got here are people on both sides of the aisle, and that is correct, working together to make sure we do not hold people specifically accountable. That is one of the problems in this town, why problems never get solved. That is why we never seem to make things better because we do not hold people accountable and we do not go back and say the policies, like I just mentioned, the policy during the Clinton administration, which was by the way written and put into practice by Ms. Gorelick, who is on the 9/11 Commission.

Republicans suggest that Ms. Gorelick, who was the one who wrote down this directive, that there should not be cooperation that my colleague was just talking about, Republicans suggested maybe she is a little biased and should not be on the 9/11 Commission. No, we were called partisan by suggesting that she was biased and this should be a very responsible account rather than an account that is being drafted by someone who is guilty of the very charges that my colleague has just made.

So I would think there is a lot more discussion we need on the issue of 9/11, why it happened. I would suggest that we need to go back at least to the Clinton administration, although I will have to admit that some of the things done during the Reagan years during the war against the Soviet's occupation of Afghanistan made some contribution, but it was the Clinton's administration support for the Taliban and their agreement with the Saudis and the Pakistanis and all along their unwillingness to call the Taliban to task and to join with those against the Taliban that that led to 9/11 and this horrible attack and this war that we are in today.