King promises action to defend IFI

By Susan Falvella Garraty

Washington, D.C. — In an in depth interview, the new chairman of the Friends of Ireland group in Congress, Congressman Peter King says he will go up against his own party’s leadership to fight for funding for the International Fund for Ireland.

He also says he sees no irony in his criticism of Muslim groups with ties to terrorist cells and his early support for Sinn Féin when it was linked to a still active Provisional IRA.

Additionally, King says it is ridiculous for the Friends of Ireland to consider immigration reform as an “Irish” issue.

This week, Rep. Harold Rogers (R-KY), chair of the House Appropriations Committee, zeroed out funding for the International Fund for Ireland in the Continuing Resolution (CR) bill that keeps the U.S. federal government funded until next month.

The CR will now go on to the Senate. It’s possible for the funding for the IFI to be restored, and King says he will work for “at least some” of the $15-17 million to be directed to the fund, this despite vocal disdain for the program by many on his Republican side of the aisle.

“I don’t always agree with the party leadership,” King said with a knowing grin on his face – this from the man who famously once called then Speaker Newt Gingrich “political road kill.”

King believes he has the backing of the current Speaker of the House, John Boehner, and that some measure of funding will survive.

“This won’t be like with Newt Gingrich where you had to worry about what he was going to say or do. No, John (Boehner) will be very supportive,” the Long Islander said.

King said he is not in favor of delineating some money for the endowment of the George Mitchell Scholarships, as proposed by US-Ireland Alliance President, Trina Vargo.

“If we go with anything, it should be the IFI,” he said.

King also takes issue with groups like the Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform who try to connect the smaller number of Irish illegally living in the U.S. to the millions of illegal Hispanic immigrants. He does not support any type of immigration amnesty for anyone, the Irish included.

“Come on, who even knew there were some (illegal Irish) here?”

Sitting in his office in the Cannon House Office building surrounded by photos and newspaper clippings commemorating everything from a Mets National League Championship appearance to Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams’s first visit to the U.S., Congressman King, now chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, spoke at times sentimentally about his efforts to bring peace to Northern Ireland.

“I always felt that if Adams was given the chance that he was honest and that he could bring his people along, and that he wouldn’t knife anyone in the back,” said King.

He added that George Mitchell, the chief negotiator of the Good Friday accord, told him that Sinn Féin was “the one party he trusted.” He said that Adams was looked upon in the 1980s by some in the Irish republican movement as a “traitor” because the Sinn Féin leader wanted to work with Fianna Fáil, the labor movement, and human rights groups. Ourselves Alone (Sinn Féin) could really be a restrictive term, said King.

With Adams now running for the Dáil and debating with the four other party leaders in Dublin in advance of next week’s general  election, while helping to shape Sinn Féin into a viable political option on both sides of the border, King is looking forward to welcoming Adams at the upcoming St. Patrick’s Day events here, albeit without some of the once intensely personal warmth between the two.

“After September 11th, I have to admit there was some disappointment with the way there was an anti-American tone, either was developed or tolerated. Without even getting to the merits I think it was wrong. I think when getting to the merits of the issue, I think there were a lot of times when the IRA did stuff where we could easily have gotten on our moral platform and said ‘this is wrong’ but we try to look at a bigger picture. And I just didn’t think the republican movement always looked at the bigger picture,” King said.

Next month, In addition to his busy Friends of Ireland schedule, King will host committee hearings on the possibility that domestic Muslim groups are encouraging violence against the U.S. Some Muslim leaders have asked how King can square his historic outspoken support of Sinn Féin and still lead a charge against Muslim groups with supposed ties to terrorist organizations.

“There are two simple things: the IRA never attacked the United States. Secondly, I saw it. I made a gamble and if I had been wrong I would have made a big mistake, but I saw in 1988, no matter what I did, the IRA were going to be there and they were there forever and it was a fact of life. But I saw what Gerry Adams was trying to do and you had Clinton coming in, you had Tony Blair coming in, you had Bertie Ahern coming in, you had Adams leading the movement. The unionist movement had sort of splintered so they couldn’t resist it as much as they could in the past.”

Are there not some Muslim leaders in the U.S., or around the world, that he could nurture into the political sphere using his work with Sinn Féin as a guide? No, King insists, the IRA was fighting the British, so it was okay for him to support Sinn Féin.

“To me, there’s no comparison with Muslims and the IRA. I have nothing against Muslims. I’m saying there are people in the Muslim community who are fighting against the United States. You have leaders in the Muslim community who I think are going along with that. They’re encouraging their people not to report them, and not to work with law enforcement.”

Continuing with his brutally honest assessments, King also took issue with the characterization of the killing of Robert McCartney in Belfast in 2004 as an IRA problem.

“They got a bad rap on that – the republican movement, because I don’t think it was ever shown that the IRA was behind it. Guys happen to be in the IRA. To me that was a bar room fight. It was a neighborhood bar room fight, and the three guys in it were IRA guys; but they could have been army people, or navy people.”

The fall of former Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak was being streamed live to the world, and King found a cautionary note as Arabic authoritarians were swept aside. He said all of what was happening in Egypt was a combination of repression, plus a bad economy.

The end of the interview, interestingly enough, was prompted by the appearance in King’s office of the Tunisian ambassador to the United States, who had dropped by for a quick word with the New York congressman.

“You can still have political breakdown in the North,” King said at the interview’s conclusion.

“I want to make sure that the relationship stays close, and it is really a unique relationship, between us and the Irish people,” he said.