John Conyers: “this debate is not what I would like, I say to the floor managers and chairman and ranking member of the Permanent…”

“this debate is not what I would like, I say to the floor managers and chairman and ranking member of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, because in this 5 minutes back and forth, usually we do not get answered. Let us understand that the Central Intelligence Agency's relationship with drug pushers has not even been mentioned here. It is as if we are in a universe where nobody knows about this except we read it in the paper or we get a GAO study every now and then, or somebody writes about Los Angeles and the introduction of cocaine, which creates a momentary flak. And then we come here to the annual ritual and what do we have? We have people saying the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence is one of the most respected bodies in the world system, not the Congress. It is studied all over the world because these are sensitive people, understand. They are very sensitive about this subject. It is all secret. We do not know what is going on. We do know that there was $26.7 billion appropriated. And then somebody snuck into the emergency supplemental appropriation, fiscal year 1998, an unknown amount of money. Rumored, $260 million. Suspected a lot more. But nobody knows. And then this discussion my colleagues have passed off as an open, fair debate on this subject. Now, if I hear that the CIA is not perfect one more time, I am going to excuse myself from these proceedings.”