Kendrick Meek: “If I could reclaim my time from the gentleman from New York (Mr. Meeks), I just wanted to make a quick point. I share…”

“If I could reclaim my time from the gentleman from New York (Mr. Meeks), I just wanted to make a quick point. I share with Secretary Noriega and others, you would have individuals in the White House saying that, well, I hope that Members of Congress would watch what they say, because they are putting troops' lives and State Department civilian workers' lives at stake. I must beg to differ, because we did not make the Saturday night visit. We did not bring about the kind of swiftness that our country brought about. We did not allow rebels, I am going to use Mr. Noriega's term, ``thugs and criminals,'' to go through Haiti, taking over cities, burning police departments, pulling pro-Aristide supporters out and executing them in front of their homes. We did not do that as Members of the Congress. And as it relates to the executive branch, the administration, they did not stop it. All they did was put out a little press release and say ``we condemn the actions of this group. Stop doing what you are doing.'' Not only did we go to the negotiating table, and I commend Mr. Noriega for going over there, I commend the President for saying we are sending the diplomatic corps over there. President Aristide sat down and said, ``Fine, I agree with you. Let us share power.'' The opposition party said no. ``Okay. We will give you a deadline of 5 o'clock.'' Still no. The following day, still no. Then we just kind of walked away.…”