House of Representatives - May 06, 2004
Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I agree that the great majority, overwhelming majority of Americans serving in Iraq, military and civilian, are honorable people who have gone to great risk. They are among the victims of these outrages. It is a shameful thing that their bravery, their good work, their integrity has been besmirched. We owe it to them to do a full investigation.
We heard reference to the six. I hope it is only six, but I am skeptical. Months ago I would have said it would not be six. Had these accusations been made months ago, I would have said, no, Americans do not act like that. We now have to acknowledge, tragically, sadly, heartsickeningly, that we do; and we owe it to everyone to have a full investigation. But we owe something more. We owe the people of this country and the people of adherence to the democratic process.
What troubles me about this resolution is the persistence of the Republican majority in a pattern of using the rules of this House and their small majority to frustrate open democratic procedures. We have had a terrible blow to this country. We hope it was perpetrated only by a few, but the incompetence and indifference of superiors clearly contributed to it.
We owe ourselves and the American people a full investigation. We are not even allowed under the majority's rules to put forward a motion calling for such an investigation. The other side of the aisle has already decided it is only the six. We are abusing the democratic process here.
We are trying to teach the people of Iraq about democracy. One of the things we have been worried about is that a particular majority, the Shia, might not understand the importance of minority rule. We are trying to get them to understand how you do that difficult thing of reconciling majority control and majority's right to decide with full minority participation.
The majority, Mr. Speaker, are giving them exactly the wrong example of how to do that. I suppose we ought to say to the people of Iraq who watch this narrow majority, for partisan purposes refuse to allow an open debate on this extraordinary issue. Please do not try this at home. We are giving them exactly the wrong example of how to proceed. This is a chance to show democracy. Yes, some people made a mistake. Let us throw this open and do everything possible to purge ourselves of this error and not appear to be cutting it off.
So we are compounding the terrible misdeeds of that certain number of people, and we do not know how many in the prisons, by a partisan manipulation of the process. The other side of the aisle is doing a terrible thing.
Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter).
Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, let me just answer the gentleman who has just spoken. There are three investigations going on right now. There is a CENTCOM investigation, a criminal investigation going on right now. If there are other people involved beyond these six, those people will be picked up in that investigation. There is also a Department of the Army investigation and a Department of the Navy investigation going on.
Further, let me say to my friends, the ranking member, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton), and I worked on this together. The Committee on Armed Services was the appropriate standing committee to do this. We worked on this until late last night, and the people who vetoed what we thought we had an agreement on were the Democrat leadership.
Let me tell Members the two paragraphs they vetoed. They wanted to kick out the two paragraphs that referred to the good works in terms of providing food, providing education, providing medical capability to the Iraqi people that were given by our people in uniform. I thought it was appropriate since we have 300,000 people who have done right to continue to mention the fact that they have done some good things in Iraq. I think the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton) agreed with that also.
The Democrat leadership did not want to include those good things in this particular resolution, and that is why this had to come forward not under unanimous consent agreed to by the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton) and myself, but it had to come forward through the rules process.
Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. HUNTER. I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.
Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I would say two things. First, the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter) and the cosponsor, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton), are entitled to their decisions; but so is the whole House. It is the House that should decide whether paragraphs go in or out. I do not understand why the majority does not allow the House to vote.
Secondly, I appreciate that some investigation is going on; but I am not a great believer in people investigating themselves and nobody else. I believe an outside investigation is necessary.
Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I would simply say, before we knew about this, the criminal procedures were going forward. It was the United States Army soldier, not a press, not an IG who brought this forward. It was a United States Army soldier who brought this forward. Criminal investigations are going on, undertaken by the Army. The court martial process is in process.
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 15 seconds to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank).
Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter) apparently thinks that the Army has been the exemplar of good self-investigation. Many of us do not.
But aside from that substantive issue, why is this not in a democracy a subject for full debate of the House, not a 1-hour constricted debate with no amendments allowed constructed by the majority?
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Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
This is an important resolution, and I think it is fitting we have this debate on this. But I would remind my friends on the other side of the aisle that we have a system here where we break down this big body into committees. That is the proper way we get to the heart of some of the issues that confront us. And I just talked to the chairman of the Committee on Armed Services, and they are going to have hearings on this. There will be probably several hearings as this process goes through, and I suspect that there will be probably some other committees that will find out if they will have jurisdiction and will look at that.
So I just want to say that this is a start of a process that we need to address. Everybody is outraged by what happened over there with that small group of individuals in Iraq. That is not America, and we all know that. We all know that is not America, and that is why I think this resolution will be pass with strong bipartisan support.
And I would say this, Mr. Speaker: I thought the President, in his two interviews with the Arab TV stations, said it very well. He was very forthright. And in many respects, what we are just saying here today is a message to the Iraqis and to the Middle East that our form of government and the form of government they are struggling to have, does not condone what went on, and I think that is a very strong message.
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I just want to point out a couple of things.
First of all, hearings are not investigations, and a lot of us feel that what we are doing here is just kind of shirking our responsibility. So a vote for the previous question means a vote against bipartisan congressional investigations. No one on the other side has yet explained to us why, in fact, a bipartisan investigation is a bad idea, why we should not be allowed to do our job. That is what we are asking for here.
Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I appreciate what the gentleman is asking for, and as I mentioned in my remarks, we do have a committee system. The chairman of the committee said that there are going to be those investigations, and I suspect there will be others that will look at it.
Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.
Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the fact that we have a committee system, but it is not a substitute for debate and amendment on the floor of the House, even to debate whether or not we do this and the substance. The committee system should not be something behind which you hide to avoid debate that you might find uncomfortable.
Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I would just remind my friend that we do not know what is going to come out of these hearings. There may be some legislation that comes out. It will go through the process, and if there is something, it will get to the floor and we will have that debate.
Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.
Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I would just say to the gentleman the committees are the servants of the House, not the other way around. The committees exist to do the will of the House. The full democratic House does not wait for the committees.