NAN A. S. HAYWORTH: “I wish that I did not have to rise this morning on this topic, and yesterday I am shocked by the emperor's new clothes…”

“I wish that I did not have to rise this morning on this topic, and yesterday I am shocked by the emperor's new clothes mentality that engulfs our Nation's Capitol on issues as vital as our national security. For, indeed, Madam Speaker, from the same crowd who would have us believe that there is another definition for the word ``alone,'' from the same bunch who would say, well, that depends on what the meaning of ``is'' is, today, Madam Speaker, we have a new definition of ``swiftly''. For according to the weekend talk shows, to hear Secretary of Energy Richardson and National Security Advisor Berger talk, they claim that this administration acted swiftly to try and counteract the intelligence breaches and espionage at our national laboratory at Los Alamos. Yet, this is the same crowd that, in the previous year, in an afternoon was able to clear out the White House Travel Office on a spurious charge of messing with the petty cash drawer, and yet it took this administration 3 long years to react to the first reports of an intelligence breach, Mr. Berger, notified in 1996 of the problem, apparently failing to take action.”