madam chairman , let me first thank our ranking member for yielding me this time , and i also thank him and the gentleman from illinois ( chairman hyde ) for their continuing bipartisan efforts reflected not only in this bill but in many of the bills which we work on in the committee on international relations . 
with regard to this bill , together , and i want to thank them for their efforts on this , we were able to incorporate the provisions which i offered on minority recruiting , hiring , and contracting at the state department and also helping to support the development of predictive models on famine in sub-saharan africa into the text of this bill . 
so i want to thank the gentleman from california ( mr. lantos ) xz4002310 and the gentleman from illinois ( mr. hyde ) xz4001920 for that . 
while this bill represents a very diligent effort , a bipartisan effort , i am deeply concerned that the committee on rules made in order many ideologically driven amendments . 
the republican leadership continues to stifle any debate on the most pressing issues of the day , especially the quagmire in iraq . 
silencing critics of the administration policies in iraq is really an abuse of power and really is very devoid of the democratic values that many are trying to spread throughout the world . 
i offered four critical amendments to this bill , one asking the administration to just present to congress a plan for withdrawal of troops from iraq ; another one stating that the united states should have a policy stating that we should have no permanent military bases in iraq . 
those amendments , of course , were not ruled in order , again stifling debate . 
i offered also an amendment that would allow for 40 percent of the funds used for the colombian andean counterdrug initiative to be used for alternative economic development . 
drugs are ravishing communities here in america , and this would provide a way out of that in terms of ensuring that farmers had other types of crops to grow and had this alternative economic development . 
that amendment was defeated . 
i offered an amendment also requiring that only a democratically elected government of haiti should be eligible for u.s. taxpayer funds . 
that is not controversial or it should not be controversial . 
that should be a bipartisan effort . 
instead , madam chairman , unfortunately , we will consider the dangerous divisive amendments like the ones , with all due respect , offered by the chair of our committee who wants to withhold funds from the united nations and also the one by the gentlewoman from florida i do not think anyone questions the effort in terms of the chairman with regard to un reform . 
we all believe there is need of un reform . 
but i think it is very dangerous , as many have said , to withhold dues toward this end in terms of this provision of this bill . 
