Federal News Service - Capitol Hill Hearing - Transcript
Federal News Service September 14, 2004 Tuesday - Capitol Hill Hearing
SECTION: CAPITOL HILL HEARING
HEADLINE: JOINT HEARING OF THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON EUROPE AND THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM, NONPROLIFERATION AND HUMAN RIGHTS OF THE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS SUBJECT: U.S.-EUROPEAN COOPERATION ON COUNTERTERRORISM: ACHIEVEMENTS AND CHALLENGES
CHAIRED BY: REPRESENTATIVE JO ANNE DAVIS (R-VA)
WITNESSES PANEL I:
WILLIAM T. POPE, PRINCIPAL DEPUTY COORDINATOR, OFFICE OF THE COORDINATOR FOR COUNTERTERRORISM, DEPARTMENT OF STATE;
GIJS DE VRIES, COUNTERTERRORISM COORDINATOR, EUROPE UNION;
PANEL II: C. STEWART VERDERY, JR., ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR POLICY AND PLANNING, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY; BRUCE SWARTZ, DEPUTY ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL, CRIMINAL DIVISION, DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
LOCATION: 2172 RAYBURN HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING, WASHINGTON, D.C.
TIME: 1:30 P.M.
BODY:
REP. JO ANN DAVIS (R-VA): The joint hearing will come to order. We are going to go ahead and start with the opening statements and hopefully be joined by a few more members before we get into the actual testimony. Before we begin, I want to welcome a delegation of members of Parliament from the United Kingdom. We welcome our colleagues and appreciate their interest in our hearing. Welcome and we're glad you're here with us today.
(BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT)
REP. BRAD SHERMAN (D-CA): Thank you, Madam Chairman. Thank you along with Chairman Gallegly and Mr. Wexler for putting these hearings together. It is rare that we have representatives of foreign governments or institutions to come before our committee and I thank Mr. De Vries for being here.
Let me take this opportunity, Madam Chairman, since you referred to our subcommittee as the Terrorism Subcommittee to point out that it is the Terrorism and Nonproliferation Subcommittee as well as the Human Rights Subcommittee. And let me use this opportunity to once again talk to my great friend from Ventura County and renew my plea that sometime before the end of the 108th Congress, hopefully in the next week or two, we actually have hearings on the Iranian and North Korean nuclear proliferation programs. For us to end the 108th Congress without paying due regard to proliferation is a clear denigration and failure to meet the responsibilities that the name of our subcommittee imply.
REP. GALLEGLY: Will the gentleman yield?
REP. SHERMAN: I yield.
REP. GALLEGLY: I'd like to thank the gentleman for clarifying his position on the issue. Thank you.
(Laughter.)
REP. SHERMAN: Thank you. And I would point out that there may be reluctance since our policy toward North Korea is to beg them not to develop any more nuclear weapons and then to announce as a great success the fact that they've agreed to discuss the matter further around this excited table. Our policy toward Iran is to beg the Europeans to beg the Iranians and, as I'll get to later, that has not been terribly successful either. But for us to ignore the greatest threat that the vice president of the United States identified as the greatest threat to the United States simply because our policies are unsuccessful is to ignore our congressional responsibility.
We are all in this together, the United States and Europe, and yet we have had our differences whether it be on the Iraq war, Kyoto, the Middle East peace process, missile defense or the International Criminal Court. So far, as far as I know, this has not prevented us from cooperating at a law enforcement level and hopefully, we will do everything possible to cut through the bureaucracy and exchange information as necessary and cooperate.
Congress has had to again extend the deadline for the visa waiver states to produce non-counterfeitable documents of travel. But I would point out, our own State Department is unable to meet the very deadline that we have prescribed for others. I commend Mr. De Vries for noting in his testimony the threat of terrorists obtaining weapons of mass destruction. I would point out that weapons of mass destruction range from teargas or mustard gas on one hand and a thermonuclear weapon on the other. And I would hope that we would focus our attention on nuclear weapons since the 9/11 Commission indicated that the greatest problem we face is a failure of imagination and we seem unable or unwilling to imagine what could be done with thermonuclear weapons to the United States.
In these hearings, I hope we'll explore why it is that a significant portion of Muslim youth living on the continent of Europe seems to have adopted radical views of Islam whereas apparently a smaller percentage of Muslim youth in the Muslim world have adopted those views and we, in the United States with a significant Muslim population, seem to have far fewer people involved in terrorist attacks than on a percentage basis than those of Europe.
Returning to the nuclear proliferation program in Iran, first I should need to also add, Iran is the number one state sponsor of terrorism and Europe has not conditioned any of the carrots on Iran ceasing its status identified by our State Department as a sponsor of terrorism. And so we have a circumstance where Europe comes to us and says, Let's work together and I'm supposed to go home and sell that to the people in my district. And then I have to explain to them that half a billion dollars has been sent from the World Bank to the Islamic Republic's government for it to use to meet its domestic needs so it can use its oil revenue to finance terrorism and nuclear proliferation. And that some of that money is ours and it's been literally hijacked by the votes of European governments to send money, 25 percent of it ours, to a regime that is working everyday to kill as many Americans as possible and is looking forward to the day that they can kill us by the hundreds of thousands.
What we see from Europe with regard to Iran is business as usual, candy-coated with a veneer of diplomatic flurry and announcements of great success when we announce there's going to be yet another meeting. The fact is that, when a government is sponsoring terrorism, is responsible for the death of hundreds of Americans and Europe continues to press us on the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act because they want to invest in the oil wells there, when they send our money as well as theirs to the government and when they conduct trade negotiations on an as-usual basis, the people of Iran will believe their leaders when they say, "We can continue this foreign policy and it will not hurt the Iranian economy and its economic relationships with the world."
Only European cooperation and a more aggressive policy from the United States can convince the Iranian people that they pay a price for the decision of their government to develop nuclear weapons.
And with that, I yield back.
(BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT)
REP. SHERMAN: Mr. Rohrabacher, if I may interrupt, I need to go vote. I would hope that this panel would remain here until I can return and ask questions. I know that the chairwoman wanted another approach --
REP. ROHRABACHER: I'm now officially the chair and let me say, Mr. Sherman, my five minutes is about up. And I will-but if you would prefer, we could recess until after the votes. Is that your preference or would you rather ask your question right now?
REP. SHERMAN: Well, I'll try to get it in before --
REP. ROHRABACHER: The chair recognizes Mr. Sherman. He's already had his chance to spread out all of these good tidings for everyone. (Laughs.) And I'm sorry that you didn't have a chance to --
REP. SHERMAN: Mr. De Vries, the last time Europe was confronted with a vicious organization that had a military wing and a political wing, you had Goebbels doing the political propaganda and the political wing, you had Goering and others heading various branches of the military wing. Would you have thought it acceptable for a European citizen to do business with the political wing of the Nazi Party and divide that separate from the military wing? And if not, why is it okay for Europe to provide aid and comfort to those who have so much blood on their hands by saying, oh, these are just the politicians?
REP. ROHRABACHER: Brad, the chair would invite-give him a chance to answer because you made some good points, let him answer because they didn't get a chance to answer --
REP. SHERMAN: I think we need to suspend the hearing and go vote. We have five minutes for the vote.
REP. ROHRABACHER: With that recommendation, the chair holds this hearing in recess. REP. SHERMAN: This will give you plenty of time to think of the answer.