Category: Jamie Hammon
Shays Says U.S. Has Much to Learn From U.K. Terrorisom Response
LONDON
The Norwalk Hour
Jamie Hammon
Boston University Washington News Service
9/19/06
WASHINGTON — America has much to learn about the United Kingdom’s recent success in combating terrorism, Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.) said Tuesday, including the need to improve communication between the federal government and local communities.
“The key in the disruption of the [August] London bomb plot [involving plans to smuggle liquid-based explosives onto airplanes] was that it was foiled before the would-be terrorists got to the airport,” Shays said. “We understand local and international elements of the British counterterrorism apparatus helped secure the crucial tip that led to the capture of the suspects.”
Shays spoke at a hearing of the House Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats, and International Relations, which he chairs. British and American terrorism experts participated in the panel’s discussion on lessons learned from foiling the London plot.
Some of the American experts said some of the means of terrorist identification used in the United Kingdom – such as profiling and relaxed privacy standards for citizens – would force Americans to sacrifice some of the civil liberties they expect and demand.
Former British counterterrorism official Tom Parker said that another crucial difference between the two countries is the way they view terrorists. The United States sees terrorists as an entity on which to wage war, while the United Kingdom simply views and treats terrorists as criminals, he said.
Shays disagreed.
“You went after my most heart-felt belief – that terrorists aren’t criminals,” he said. “To me, to equate a terrorist with a criminal and give them 10 years of legal rights, I find absurd.”
Parker, who helped set up the tribunal currently judging Saddam Hussein in Baghdad and is now the executive director of the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, said that though terrorists commit crimes on a massive scale, they are still crimes. Declaring war on terrorists rather than subjecting them to standard criminal proceedings only legitimizes the terrorists’ efforts, he said.
Shays also disagreed with accusations that the war in Iraq, and U.S. foreign policy in general, have increased terrorist activity.
“I have seen basically 20 years of what I call Islamist terrorism, and I see it directed primarily to the West and primarily to the United States,” he said. “And I have seen no reaction to it, and I sometimes bristle over the thought that somehow we are making it worse, when I have just seen it grow and grow and grow.”
Shays also spoke of his frustration with Islamic officials.
“I want [to hear from] the leaders, the clerics, the people who can make a difference – they are totally and completely silent,” he said. “I have as much conviction about that as anything else I have. I want to know about what the people who can change it in their own faith are doing.”
Shays repeatedly expressed his frustration that the American public and its leaders are uninformed and unclear about strategy.
“I don’t hear this on the talk shows, I don’t hear this on the House and Senate floor, I don’t hear the administration talking about what our strategy is,” Shays said. “I conclude that in the United States there is no understanding of what the strategy is, no sense of agreement, and no dialogue.”
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Shays Defends Call for Timeline for Withdrawal of Troops
SPERLING
Norwalk Hour
Jamie Hammon
Boston University Washington News Service
9-14-06
WASHINGTON – Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.) Thursday defended his recent call for a timeline to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq.
“I want my credibility back,” Shays, who recently returned from his 14th trip to Iraq, told reporters. “I do think that I know more about what’s going on in Iraq than any member of Congress – House or Senate.”
Shays’ support of the Iraq war has helped make him vulnerable in the upcoming mid-term election against Democrat Diane Farrell. Critics say this recent policy shift has a political, rather than a policy, motive.
“There’s a certain ironic twist that he should be doing this 50 days from Election Day,” said Farrell, who lost narrowly to Shays in 2004 running on an anti-war platform. “He should have been drilling into these serious issues the moment that Congress passed the war authorization.”
In response, Shays cited recommendations he made in July advising the administration that the United States would have no choice but to withdraw its troops and leave Iraq if the embattled country’s leadership did not step up. He noted that this recommendation was made before Sen. Joe Lieberman’s pro-Iraq war stance cost him the Connecticut Democratic primary.
The Iraq war is likely to play a key role in the mid-term elections, but it remains unclear whether frustrated voters will simply vote Republicans out of Congress or demand a clear exit strategy of their opponents. Shays remains a strong supporter of the war, calling it a noble cause, but now proposes a timeline. Farrell has been anti-war from day one. She has called for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s resignation and has demanded that any successor have an exit strategy.
Under Shays’ withdrawal plan, as Iraqi troops become more qualified, they should gradually replace American troops. In the short term, that could mean an increase in U.S. troops deployed there.
“There is a huge disconnect for me in the fact that we have 294,000 Iraqi security forces, and not one American has stepped down,” Shays said. “As the Iraqis step up, we [should] step down.”
He is calling for the administration to make public the number of Iraqi citizens in problem areas so the appropriate number of security forces required can be calculated.
Shays’ Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats & International Relations is holding hearings on his plan this week.
“I believe that we have to make the Iraqis realize that we are not going to stay a day longer than we need to,” Shays said. “And we can predict it almost to the day. We know how long it takes to train an Iraqi soldier, and my view is that once they have their six months of training and once they have a year on the firing line, they are competent.”
Farrell disagreed.
“That is quite a remarkable statement, and one that I feel he isn’t qualified to make as a non-military expert,” she said. “And where he should be focusing his energies is in holding the generals and Mr. Rumsfeld accountable.”
Shays said the administration has made many mistakes with the war and that since January of this year, there has been no progress at all. Asked how he could continue to support the administration, Shays said, “Because the alternative is worse.
“I believe strongly in the war in Iraq. I believe strongly that it is a noble mission. I believe that the only way we are going to turn around this world is to help introduce democracy.”
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New Mural Honors Connecticut Compromise
Mural
Norwalk Hour
Jamie Hammon
Boston University Washington News Service
9-12-06
WASHINGTON -- A new masterpiece debuted in the Capitol Tuesday, honoring a pair of former senators from Connecticut who played a key role in creating the Congress. The new painting, by Westport native Bradley Stevens, is a mural of former Connecticut Senators Roger Sherman and Oliver Ellsworth, the authors of the 1787 “Connecticut Compromise,” also known as the “Great Compromise,” which helped establish the two houses of Congress.
Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, D-Conn., led the effort to create the mural, authoring a resolution to create and place it in the Capitol’s opulent Senate Reception Room. Only five other senators have their likenesses displayed in the room.
“This has been a missing piece in the story of our nation,” Dodd said.
The Connecticut Compromise of 1787 created the legislative bodies of Congress that we know today. When the Constitutional Convention deadlocked over the issue of the size of each state’s delegation, then-Superior Court judge Roger Sherman proposed that the number of representatives in the lower house be elected in proportion to each state’s population, while the upper house would have two legislators from each state.
Oliver Ellsworth, who was in the Connecticut delegation to the convention, co-authored the compromise, but did not sign the document because he left the convention early to attend to business in Connecticut. Two years later he became one of Connecticut's first U.S. senators.
The compromise ensured the successful signing of the Constitution two months later, Dodd explained.
Some descendents of Oliver Ellsworth attended the unveiling.
“I’m honored to be here,” said Kenneth Ellsworth of New Jersey. “I’m a descendant of Ellsworth and I’m proud of that. What he did was instrumental to our freedom, and, like we remembered [on Monday], our freedom is very important.”
Also in attendance were members of the Connecticut delegation and members of the U.S. Senate Commission on Art, which oversees and expands the Senate’s collection of art.
“This mural brings to light the Connecticut Compromise – one of the most important milestones in the birth of the American government,” said Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., who has written a four-volume history of the Senate. “It is one of the greatest, most crucial, and most overlooked events in American history.”
Historians acknowledge the Connecticut compromise as having saved and revived the Constitutional Convention, eventually leading to the creation and signing of the Constitution.
Stevens, the artist, is an American realist painter who spent five years copying paintings at the National Gallery of Art and has a long resume of portrait painting including judges, senators, and governors. He also has reproduced historical portraits for the White House and National Portrait Gallery, among other government offices.
His new masterpiece hangs in the Senate Reception Room, which is used as a space for senators to meet with guests. The ceiling and walls of the extravagant meeting room are frescos painted by the Italian artist Constantino Brumidi, and the room is illuminated by crystal chandeliers.
The mural of Sherman and Ellsworth joins the portraits of Sens. Henry Clay of Kentucky, Daniel Webster of Massachusetts, John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, Robert A. Taft Sr. of Ohio, and Robert M. La Follette Sr. of Wisconsin.
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