30-Something Working Group
30-SOMETHING WORKING GROUP -- (House of Representatives - November 01, 2005)
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Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, I thank my friend, and again I want to congratulate the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) and the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz) and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek) for really doing a public service. But I think it is important for a moment to reflect not just on this particular case, but what has characterized this administration from the onset, and that is a total lack of transparency, a total lack of genuine consultation. Secrecy, if you will.
What I find most fascinating are those members of the administration, people of good conscience, who have left the administration and are now speaking out. These individuals are good Republicans, good conservative Republicans who embrace genuine American values.
One of them is a former colonel in our military service, Larry Wilkerson. He also happened to be the Chief of Staff for the former Secretary of State, Colin Powell. Here is what he recently wrote in a column that I think provides the context for why this occurred. It gives us an insight into what was happening on the road to war and how little information the American people were given, how little information Members of Congress were given.
Here is what Colonel Larry Wilkerson, former Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, had to say on October 25 of 2005. One can go to the Los Angeles Times, and this same opinion piece was printed elsewhere.
``In President Bush's first term, some of the most important decisions about U.S. national security, including vital decisions about post-war Iraq, were made by a secretive, little known cabal. It was made up of a very small group of people led by Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Its insular and secret workings were efficient and swift, not unlike the decision making one would associate more with a dictatorship than a democracy.''
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Mr. DELAHUNT. If my friend from New Jersey would yield for a moment, I would direct my colleagues' attention to Wednesday, October 22, the Congressional Quarterly Today that you all know we receive once a week here. What is the headline? Just to reinforce and corroborate what FRANK PALLONE just said: ``GOP Says No to Probe of CIA Leak.'' Again and again and again, secrecy. Let us not look at it, because maybe we will find something ugly. Maybe we will find something that will embarrass the administration. Maybe we will find something that will embarrass the majority party and erode their power.
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Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, again, I think that Larry Wilkerson said it very eloquently. It is more characteristic of a dictatorship than a democracy. Tragically, the Republican leadership in this House has succumbed, if you will, to this insistence on secrecy that has really been embraced by the White House. Again, this is from last week's CQ Today: Republicans are resisting requests for congressional inquiries into a possible scandal linked to the Bush administration's rationale for invading Iraq. The debate over congressional involvement mocks a reversal for the GOP majority, which once had an appetite for layering congressional investigations of alleged executive branch wrongdoing atop criminal probes.
What we have here is an abrogation of responsibility by the Republican leadership to conduct oversight; and they have become part and parcel of a cabal, if you will, of secrecy with this White House. And maybe this is what we get when we have a single-party State.
Mr. Speaker, again, CQ Weekly, this is back in July. This is an independent publication, nonpartisan in nature; but it has become a topic of discussion and concern among people who are avid supporters of the concepts of free institutions in a democracy.
It is classified. Subject: Secrecy in Washington. Date: July 18, 2005. Secrecy is becoming the rule, and there is a whole bunch of redactions, rather than the exception in the Bush administration. But it is hard to hold the Government accountable if no one knows what it is doing, and that is what is happening. And the American people ought to be aware that we do not know what is happening. We as Members of Congress do not know what is happening.
And it does not just impact issues like this. Go back to when we had that Medicare vote. You remember that. We were not allowed access to the Medicare actuary's estimate of cost for the so-called prescription drug plan. Can you imagine that?
Then the debate here on the floor, the issue of cost was some $395 billion; and many Members on the Republican side expressed concern. The White House knew all the time that it was far in excess of $500 billion, and they would not even disclose it to Members of their own party. Talk about secrecy. Talk about consultation. It is missing in Washington. We have become and we are making America a secretive society, and it is time together we take America and make it better for all of its citizens.
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