Bennett, Robert: hearing on this matter, to let us hear from the SEC, to let us hear from the DTCC, to let us hear from those in the marketplace who have actual experience with this and see if the
Bennett, Robert: present SEC rules are sufficient or if we need to do additional things a along the lines of the two items that I have suggested
Dorgan, Byron: Mr. President?
Presiding Officer: Under the previous order, the senator from North Dakota is recognized for up to 30 minutes.
Dorgan, Byron: Mr. president, on Wednesday morning of this week, following a discussion and debate that we had had, a fairly robust debate about the issue of Iraq and the war in Iraq, on
Dorgan, Byron: Wednesday morning of this week, the President's Homeland Security Adviser, Frances Townsend, was on the ABC "Good Morning" program, and she said some things about al-Qaida, about terrorists, that
Dorgan, Byron: reminded me of a period several years ago ,just prior to the start of the Iraq war. It reminded me of being in a room where top secret, classified briefings are given to Members of Congress
Dorgan, Byron: briefings by now Secretary of State, briefings by the Vice President, briefings by the head of the CIA. Condoleeza Rice and Mr. Tenet, Vice President Cheney, and others participated in these top secret briefings.
Dorgan, Byron: And they told us things in those top secret briefings leading up to the decision about the authorization to use force against Iraq. They told us things that we now know not to have been true.
Dorgan, Byron: Did they know that when they told us? I don't know. We now know, of course, the yellow cake to Niger or from Niger was bogus. The aluminum tubes for the reconstituting a nuclear threat was not
Dorgan, Byron: accurate. The mobile chemical weapons lab.
Dorgan, Byron: By the way, on that one, it only had a single source, a man by later learned who had the code name of ``Curve Ball," a fabricator and an alcoholic. Their claim was based on a single source we now
Dorgan, Byron: discover to have been a fabricator. He was a former taxicab driver, for God's sake, in Baghdad. A single source gave rise to the description to the world and to this Congress in top secret,
Dorgan, Byron: classified briefings that there were mobile chemical weapons laboratories in Iraq.
Dorgan, Byron: And the list goes on. The reconstitution of nuclear weapons, weapons of mass destruction, connections with al-Qaida, we now know, of course, the facts were at odds with what we were being told.
Dorgan, Byron: The reason I mention this is that at Wednesday's appearance by the President's Homeland Security Adviser, Frances Townsend, on the morning show on ABC, reminded me a bit of what we experienced
Dorgan, Byron: several years ago from this administration. A description by Frances Townsend about terrorism and the terrorist threat and al-Qaida is completely, and was completely, at odds with what we know to be the truth.
Dorgan, Byron: Let me go through just a bit of what the President's Homeland Security Adviser said. She was being interviewed about the National Intelligence Report issued this week.
Dorgan, Byron: The report said that al-Qaida is rebuilding, retraining, and getting ready to strike in the United States again. In light of that report, Ms. Townsend was asked if she still believed the U.S. is
Dorgan, Byron: winning the war against al-Qaida and terrorism. ``Absolutely,'' she said. ``Absolutely, we are winning.''
Dorgan, Byron: She was asked about Pakistan, allowing al-Qaida to have a safe haven in the country of Pakistan. She said: Well, it is a sovereign country, and the President of Pakistan has been a good partner in
Dorgan, Byron: our war against terrorism.
Dorgan, Byron: When asked, she said: The U.S. is, quote ``safer'', unquote, today against al-Qaida because, she said, quote: "We have challenged them and we are on the offensive and the game is overseas."'
Dorgan, Byron: It is almost as if the President and his top homeland security adviser failed to read the National Intelligence Estimate. But even if she failed to read the NIE, perhaps she could have been expected
Dorgan, Byron: to have read the newspapers, because we have.
Dorgan, Byron: Let me go through a couple of examples.
Dorgan, Byron: On July 16, if one was reading in recent days, one would read an article by Joshua Partlow in the Washington Post.
Dorgan, Byron: The western Baghdad district of west Rashid confounds the prevailing narrative from the top U.S. military officials that the Sunni insurgent group al-Qaida in Iraq is the city's most formidable and
Dorgan, Byron: disruptive force. Over the past several months, the [Shiite] Mahdi Army has transformed the composition of the district's neighborhoods by ruthlessly killing and driving out Sunnis and denying basic
Dorgan, Byron: services to residents who remain.
Dorgan, Byron: Perhaps one might have read the newspaper reports on June 26, in the McClatchy papers:
Dorgan, Byron: While the U.S. presses its war against insurgents linked to al-Qaida in Iraq, Osama bin Laden's group is recruiting, regrouping, and rebuilding in a new sanctuary along the border between Afghanistan
Dorgan, Byron: and Pakistan, senior military intelligence and law enforcement officials said. The threat from radical Islamic enclaves in Waziristan is more dangerous than that from Iraq, which President Bush and
Dorgan, Byron: his aides called the "central front" of the war on terrorism, said some current and former U.S. officials and experts. Bin Laden himself is believed to be hiding in the region, guiding a new
Dorgan, Byron: generation of lieutenants and inspiring allied extremist groups in Iraq and other parts of the world.
Dorgan, Byron: Or perhaps one could go back to February. ``Senior leaders of al-Qaida operating from Pakistan.'' From the New York Times.
Dorgan, Byron: Over the past year terrorists have set up a band of training camps in the tribal regions near the Afghan border, according to American intelligence and counterterrorism officials. American officials
Dorgan, Byron: said there is mounting evidence that Osama bin Laden and his deputy, al-Zawahiri, have been steadily building an operations hub in the mountainous Pakistani tribal area of north Waziristan.
Dorgan, Byron: Now, to the adviser to the President in the White House on terrorism issues, let me say to her, this: August 2001, the Presidential Daily Briefing Report put in the hands of President George W. Bush
Dorgan, Byron: said this. The title was: ``Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.''
Dorgan, Byron: That was in August of 2001, the PDB, put in this President's hands.
Dorgan, Byron: July 2007. Intelligence assessment from the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center in July 2007 says this: ``al-Qaida better positioned to strike the West.''
Dorgan, Byron: Think of that. Six years have intervened--6 years. And the President's Homeland Security Adviser, one who deals with this issue of terrorism and counterterrorism, says we are ``winning'' the war on
Dorgan, Byron: terrorism; things are going just fine; things are better. And yet, in 6 years, we go from this: a Presidential daily briefing entitled ``Bin Laden Determined to Strike the United States'' in August
Dorgan, Byron: of 2001 to this assessment 6 years later: "Al-Qaida Better Positioned to Strike the West."
Dorgan, Byron: I ask the question: Are we really winning? I think we would expect the Homeland Security Adviser to be dealing with facts.
Dorgan, Byron: Let me describe the facts in the National Intelligence Estimate. The National Intelligence Estimate just released in both a classified and unclassified version. The unclassified version says this:
Dorgan, Byron: Al-Qaida is and will remain the most serious terrorist threat to the homeland. .....
Dorgan, Byron: We assess the group has protected or regenerated key elements of its homeland attack capability, including: a safe haven in the Pakistan Federally Administered Tribal Areas, operational lieutenants,
Dorgan, Byron: and its top leadership.
Dorgan, Byron: So now we have a report that says Osama bin Laden, his top deputies, are in a safe haven. Six years after they murdered thousands of Americans, they are in a safe haven.
Dorgan, Byron: There ought not be one square inch of ground on this planet that ought to be a safe haven for the leaders of al-Qaida. And when Ms. Townsend says, when asked about it, she says "Well, Pakistan is a,
Dorgan, Byron: quote sovereign country. Sovereignty must be all right.''
Dorgan, Byron: There is no sovereignty anywhere in this world for Osama bin Laden, al-Zawahiri, and the al-Qaida leadership. There ought not be safe harbor or safe haven or sovereignty anywhere in this world for them.
Dorgan, Byron: Now what have we done? Instead of deciding to destroy Osama bin Laden, al-Zawahiri, and the al-Qaida leadership, our country decided, based on information provided by the administration on that I
Dorgan, Byron: referred to earlier, to invade Iraq. It was information we now know not to have been true--deliberate or not, I don't know, but information about yellow cake, aluminum tubes, chemical weapons labs,
Dorgan, Byron: and about weapons of mass destruction which was not true, we decided to take action against Iraq.
Dorgan, Byron: The facts are these: Al-Qaida was not in Iraq before we invaded. It is there now. But, it is not the central feature in Iraq. Our intelligence estimates tell us that. The central part of Iraq is
Dorgan, Byron: sectarian violence, It is Shia killing Sunni, Sunni killing Shia, and Shia and Sunni killing American soldiers. It is a civil war, a religious war of sorts, with problems between the Shia and Sunni
Dorgan, Byron: that date back many many many centuries.
Dorgan, Byron: Now people ask this question, and reasonably so: Should we, 6 years after 2001, the devastating attack against our country that killed thousands of innocent Americans, should we expect or have
Dorgan, Byron: expected that we would have brought to justice, dead or alive, the leadership of al-Qaida and destroyed the leadership of Al Qaeda? In my judgment, the answer to that is yes.
Dorgan, Byron: The Homeland Security Adviser at the White House, Fran Townsend, says: Well, we are winning. That assessment, regrettably, I wish that were true, that assessment, regrettably is an assessment comes
Dorgan, Byron: only by ignoring all of the facts. Just read the National Intelligence Estimate.
Dorgan, Byron: This administration made a calculation that turns out to have been wrong on many fronts. Instead of fighting terrorism first, which I think most Americans would have understood and accepted and
Dorgan, Byron: believed--the most critical element in the fight to provide security for our future--instead of fighting terrorism first, this administration decided to take other action in other areas. We now have
Dorgan, Byron: 140,000 to 150,000 American troops in Iraq. Many are going door to door in Baghdad today as I speak. It is the case that there is an al-Qaida presence in Iraq because Iraq has attracted terrorists.
Dorgan, Byron: But that, as I said, the intelligence community itself has said that is not the central feature of what is happening in Iraq. The central feature of what is going on in Iraq is sectarian violence and a civil war.
Dorgan, Byron: That's why the majority of this Congress decided it is time to change course. It has not been the case that the descriptions by those who want to change course in this Chamber have said let's decide
Dorgan, Byron: immediately, precipitously, to withdraw all troops from Iraq. That is not the case. Troops would remain for force protection, to fight the terrorist elements that do exist in Iraq where they can be
Dorgan, Byron: fought successfully, and to train Iraqi troops, because after all, the Iraqi troops will be necessary and the Iraqi soldiers and the police force will be necessary to provide security in that country.
Dorgan, Byron: It is time, long past the time for this country to say to the Iraqis: You now have a new government. Saddam Hussein is dead, executed. He was hung. He's gone.. He is gone. He was a brutal dictator.
Dorgan, Byron: But, Saddam Hussein is dead. You have a new constitution, you have a new government, and now the question remains: Do you have the will to take back your own country and provide for your own
Dorgan, Byron: security? Are there sufficient able-bodied Iraqis to take back the security responsibilities for their country? If not, there is no amount of time in which the American soldiers and this country can
Dorgan, Byron: provide security for a country in the middle of a civil war.
Dorgan, Byron: And so we must change course. And that change in course, in my judgment, is what will allow us to fight terrorism first. If we do not do that, we will, 6 years from now, continue to read about Osama
Dorgan, Byron: bin Laden and the al-Qaida leadership in a safe harbor or safe haven, living free, escaping justice, and planning additional attacks against this country.
Dorgan, Byron: My point is, what has happened, in my judgment, is wrong. The first and central fight is the fight against terrorism. And we are not waging that fight because those who attacked this country
Dorgan, Byron: previously are now in a safe haven planning additional attacks against our country. That doesn't come from me. That comes from the National Intelligence Estimate, That represents the best estimate
Dorgan, Byron: of the intelligence experts in this country.
Dorgan, Byron: Mr. President, one cannot solve a problem if one is going to ignore the facts or distort the facts. I said that Wednesday morning when I listened to Ms. Townsend basically misrepresented what is
Dorgan, Byron: happening. It seems as if she has failed to see, or refuses to see, all of the evidence that exists, the evidence we have received in the National Intelligence Estimate and other evidence as well,
Dorgan, Byron: that al-Qaida and bin Laden are stronger today than they have been for many years.
Dorgan, Byron: It doesn't surprise me that this administration is on a course that is not the course that represents this country's best interests. President Bush has said on previous occasions that we will deal
Dorgan, Byron: not only with the terrorists who dare attack this country, we will deal with those who harbor and feed them and house them. That's the President's statement. The President says as a part of our
Dorgan, Byron: offensive against terror, we will also confront the regimes that harbor and support terrorists.
Dorgan, Byron: Mr. President, when President Bush was asked about Osama bin Laden, "I don't think much about Osama bin Laden. I don't care much about Osama bin Laden."
Dorgan, Byron: Well the fact is that represents the principal threat to this country. That is why Senator Conrad and I offered the amendment we did on the Defense authorization bill last week.
Dorgan, Byron: The Wednesday paper, the day Ms. Townsend appeared on television, here is the New York Times' headline: ``Same People, Same Threat.'' That's right, ``Same People, Same Threat.''
Dorgan, Byron: Nearly six years after the September 11 attacks, and hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of lives expended in the name of the war on terror, we pose a single, insistent question: Are we
Dorgan, Byron: safer? This is what the New York Times reported:
Dorgan, Byron: ..... After years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq and targeted kills in Yemen, Pakistan, and elsewhere, the major threat to the United States has the same name and the same basic look at 2001:
Dorgan, Byron: al-Qaida, led by Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, plotting attacks from mountain hide-outs near the Afghan-Pakistani border.
Dorgan, Byron: The intelligence report, continuing to quote, "the most formal assessment since the September 11 attacks about the terrorist threat facing the United States, concludes that the United States is
Dorgan, Byron: losing ground on a number of fronts in the fight against al-Qaida and describes the terrorist organization as having ``significantly strengthened over the past two years.''
Dorgan, Byron: If ever we need leadership, good leadership, thoughtful leadership, leadership that will confront the facts and understand the facts, and not misrepresent the facts, it is now, at a time when a
Dorgan, Byron: terrorist organization is planning additional attacks against this country. For this administration to say that things are fine, we are winning, don't worry, and there is a sovereign, apparently,
Dorgan, Byron: safe haven for the leadership for those who plan to attack us, that is unbelievable, and it must change. If the administration won't change it itself, then Congress and the American people must change it.
Dorgan, Byron: Mr. President, I want to turn to one additional subject, briefly, and I do that because a number of use have been concerned about the issue of competence for some long while. And I take no pleasure
Dorgan, Byron: in coming to the floor to point out someone's flaws or to point out weaknesses or to point out areas where we are not succeeding, but it seems to me that this country has to be brutally honest with
Dorgan, Byron: itself, and that includes this administration, in terms of what it is doing, how well, what kinds of changes are necessary to fix what is wrong and to safeguard and provide security for this country.
Dorgan, Byron: One of the examples of serious trouble with respect to just solving problems and addressing issues was the response to Hurricane Katrina. This devastating hurricane hit our country, and it laid bare
Dorgan, Byron: a whole area of the gulf coast. It was unbelievable what it did to families, to homes, to structures. The consequences of it and the cost of it and its toll on human lives and treasury and so on is
Dorgan, Byron: not even yet calculated.
Dorgan, Byron: I think everyone in this country saw what happened as a result of the response of FEMA. I come from a State in which flooding 10 years ago caused the evacuation of a city of 50,000 people the
Dorgan, Byron: largest evacuation of an American city since the Civil War. We understand a little about FEMA. FEMA rushed in in the middle of that unbelievable flood in the Red River, where an entire city, nearly
Dorgan, Byron: the entire city of Grand Forks, ND, was evacuated. FEMA rushed in. Under James Lee Witt, it had become a world-class organization. It did an unbelievable job. I can't say enough about that
Dorgan, Byron: organization. FEMA was first rate. And I think everyone in that city who was helped by that organization understood the quality of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Dorgan, Byron: Fast forward and discover that the major appointments to FEMA under this administration were political cronies who had no experience in emergency response or preparedness. So it wasn't surprising
Dorgan, Byron: that FEMA deteriorated dramatically as an agency, and its response to Hurricane Katrina was abysmal.
Dorgan, Byron: I want to describe it with one photograph, if I might because this describes what happened with respect to Katrina. I am describing this because this week something happened that finally ended the
Dorgan, Byron: chapter on this sorry story. This man is Paul Mullinax, he's sitting in front of an 18-wheel truck in Florida. His truck is a refrigerated truck, and it is used to haul ice. Katrina hit, and one of
Dorgan, Byron: the needs in the deep South, when people and property and everything was devastated and they were trying to figure out how to deal with it, one of the needs was for ice. They needed ice in the middle
Dorgan, Byron: of that scorching heat. So FEMA contracted with truckers, the are going to haul ice in 18-wheel trucks, refrigerated trucks, to help the victims of Katrina.
Dorgan, Byron: So here is Paul Mullinax in the photo. Paul was in Florida at the time. He got a call and was invited to contract to haul ice. So he drove his 18-wheeler to New York City and picked up a load of ice.
Dorgan, Byron: Let me tell you where he went. I have a map. Paul went from Florida up to New York City to pick up some ice--in Newburg, NY. Then they told him go to Carthage, MO, with the ice. So he went, 18
Dorgan, Byron: wheeler, to Missouri, to deliver ice. FEMA said, when he got there: No, we want you to go to Montgomery, AL, with your truckload of ice for the victims of Katrina.
Dorgan, Byron: Then he got to Montgomery, AL, and here is what happened to him. He, with over 100 other truckers, refrigerated trucks holding ice for the victims of Katrina, sat for 12 days. This is a picture of
Dorgan, Byron: Paul Mullinax sitting in his lawn chair, with a little grill, even. For 12 days, he sat there. Finally, they said to him: We want you to take your ice to Massachusetts.
Dorgan, Byron: Think of this. Taxpayers paid over $15,000 for this load of ice. He was told the ice was for the victims of Katrina, and hundreds of other truckers had the same circumstance. He was sent from
Dorgan, Byron: Missouri to Alabama, sat for a dozen days on the tarmac of a military installation, and then told okay now you should take that ice up to Massachusetts and put it in storage.
Dorgan, Byron: This week, 2 years later, after spending over $20 million, that ice was taken out of storage in Massachusetts and discarded because they felt it was probably contaminated after 2 years. So finally it
Dorgan, Byron: ends, the saga about hauling ice to the victims of Katrina.
Dorgan, Byron: How do I know Paul Mullinax? I asked Paul Mullinax to come to Washington to testify about what happened. He didn't want to do it. I sat in a parking lot of a grocery store one Sunday on the phone
Dorgan, Byron: with Paul Mullinax and said: Paul, I want you to come to a hearing we are holding to tell this story. People need to understand what is wrong. Only by understanding what is wrong can we get this fixed.
Dorgan, Byron: Paul came up to Washington, DC, and testified before a hearing and told us what had happened. Some people wouldn't believe it. You are going to haul ice from New York to Missouri to Mississippi and
Dorgan, Byron: then told to offload it at a warehouse in Massachusetts, ice for the victims of Katrina? If there is one story that demonstrates the complete absurd incompetence of the response to Hurricane Katrina,
Dorgan, Byron: it is the story of Paul Mullinax, a good American who wanted to do the right thing, and in contracting with the Federal agency that was incompetent came up with this absurd experience.
Dorgan, Byron: And I have tried since to find out who was the decision maker in Government, that decides we are going to haul ice from New York to Massachusetts through Missouri and Mississippi that is supposed to
Dorgan, Byron: go to victims of Hurricane Katrina, and we are going to spend all of that money and do it incompetently, who was responsible, who made those decisions, and you cannot find out who that unnamed person
Dorgan, Byron: is that makes that kind of Byzantine decision that in my judgment fleeces the American taxpayer, that injures those who were victims of Hurricane Katrina by withholding, by not getting the ice to the
Dorgan, Byron: victims who needed it.
Dorgan, Byron: I wanted my colleagues to know, because I have spoken about this before, that this week finally, at last--at long, long last--the ice that was put in storage as a result of this gross incompetence
Dorgan, Byron: has now been discarded because they felt perhaps after 2 years the ice was contaminated.
Dorgan, Byron: It is a sad story, in my judgment, of the fleecing of America. And my hope is we have sufficiently embarrassed and sufficiently made accountable those in FEMA and in this administration so that this
Dorgan, Byron: will never, ever happen again. It is not what the taxpayers deserve, and it certainly isn't what victims of Hurricane Katrina deserve.
Dorgan, Byron: And Mr. President, that same incompetence, regrettably, is steeped in other areas of an administration that, as I indicated as of Wednesday morning's interview with Ms. Townsend, seems content to ignore facts.
Dorgan, Byron: Mr. President, let me just say I have come to the floor on occasion and spoken well of those who I think do a good job in this administration and elsewhere. I wish I could do that this morning. But I
Dorgan, Byron: think it is very important for this Congress and this country, when we see incompetence and when we are developing a strategy that doesn't work and is not going to work, that we must change course
Dorgan, Byron: and we must expect better.
Dorgan, Byron: And my hope is a group of us in Congress, through the hearings I have held on these issues and through the discussions of Senator Reid and others who have worked on it in our caucus in the last
Dorgan, Byron: couple of weeks, my hope is that we will change course with respect to the issue of Iraq, for example, which is the overriding and the important issue.
Dorgan, Byron: I hope that one of the changes in course will be we decide our priorities are to fight terrorism first, and that is not what we are now doing. Let us decide to fight terrorism first. That ought to be
Dorgan, Byron: the goal. If the terrorist camps are reconstituted, if the threat to our country from al-Qaida and from Osama bin Laden, and al-Zawahiri and others represents a greater threat now, then we must, it
Dorgan, Byron: seems to me, change course to address that threat, and that threat requires us to fight terrorism first.
Dorgan, Byron: Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I make a point of order,
The Presiding Officer: The clerk will call the roll.
Assistant Legislative Clerk: Mr. Akaka..