Byron Dorgan: “12 years ago in August, on an almost perfect, beautiful summer morning, I was in the jungle and mountains between…”

“12 years ago in August, on an almost perfect, beautiful summer morning, I was in the jungle and mountains between Nicaragua and Honduras and with two other Members of Congress visiting, as the first officials to do so, a contra camp. I will never forget the morning that we walked through this jungle. We had traveled 3 rac{1}{2} hours by car, then back up in riverbeds, and finally walked. And I walked into a jungle clearing somewhere between Nicaragua and Honduras. As I began to see a group of people in that clearing, I saw a very young boy wearing a blue uniform. I found out later that it was a military uniform purchased from Sears. Yes, our Sears. All of those soldiers were outfitted in uniforms from Sears. But it was not so much his uniform that captured my attention. It was seeing a young boy who appeared to be 10 or 11 years old carrying a machine gun. It turns out that the machine gun was in that young boy's hands courtesy of the United States as well. Well, that conflict and that set of military arms transfers led to a long debate. We debated for years about whether we should or should not have sent arms to the contras. But it got me interested. I wondered, to whom are we sending arms around the world? What kind of arms are we sending? Who gets America's jet fighter planes? Who acquires American-made tanks? Who acquires American guns and cluster bombs? And I discovered that the United States of America is the largest arms merchant in the world.…”