[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 30 (Tuesday, February 25, 2003)]
[House]
[Pages H1324-H1328]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
THE NEED FOR FURTHER UNITED NATIONS ACTION ON IRAQ
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 7, 2003, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon) is
recognized for 60 minutes.
Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I rise this evening to lay
on the record information that needs to be brought to the attention of
this body and every American as we struggle with the current crisis
involving our relationship with Iraq.
We have seen a lot of information, in the media, a lot of public
protests, both against and for action that this country might need to
take, but there has been one major part of the debate that has been
missing.
As we talk about Saddam Hussein and the need for him to abide by the
agreement that he reached with the U.N. And the U.N. Security Council
12 years ago, as we discuss the fact that the U.N. inspectors have not
yet been able to determine that he in fact has taken apart his weapons
of mass destruction, there is in fact one set of facts, Mr. Speaker,
that are obvious, that are documented, and that need action.
It is for this reason that I rise this evening to present to this
body, our colleagues, our country and the world, the facts that will
support a resolution that I will introduce in this body on Thursday of
this week, a bipartisan resolution, with the gentleman from Maryland
(Mr. Cardin) and the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), and a whole
host of other Democrats and Republicans, that calls for the President
to require and request the U.N. to convene a special war crimes
tribunal to hold Saddam Hussein accountable for the egregious acts
against human beings that he has perpetrated over the past 20 years.
Mr. Speaker, it is certainly time that the world holds Saddam Hussein
accountable.
Mr. Speaker, the facts are all over the place. They have been
documented by human rights groups, by Amnesty International, by
agencies of the U.N. and the U.S. Government, and by other nations
around the world. In fact, there have been specific actions taken by
the U.N. The United States budget in fiscal year 2001 and 2002
contributed $4 million to a special U.N. Iraqi War Crimes Commission to
document the evidence, some of which I am going to put out this
evening.
The United Nations Security Council and the Commission on Human
Rights have repeatedly condemned Iraq's human rights record. On April
19, 2002, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights passed a
resolution drawing attention to ``the systematic widespread and
extremely grave violations of human rights and of international
humanitarian law by the Government of Iraq resulting in an all-
pervasive repression and oppression sustained by broad-based
discrimination and widespread terror.''
In fact, the United Nations Security Council Resolution 674 called on
all states to provide information on Iraq's war-related activities and
atrocities to the U.N.
Mr. Speaker, it is amazing to me as we heard Americans, especially
those coming from Hollywood, recently on our national media outlets,
praising and defending Saddam Hussein as a man who can be trusted, as
someone who will do the right thing if just given the right amount of
time.
It is amazing to me that this country went to war just a few short
years ago, pushed very aggressively by France and Germany, to remove
Milosevic from power in Yugoslavia because he was allegedly committing
war crimes.
Now, Mr. Speaker, I am no fan of Milosevic. In fact, I think he is
where he belongs, in the Hague before a war crimes tribunal. But, Mr.
Speaker, tonight I am going to lay out the evidence that will make the
case that Saddam Hussein makes Milosevic look like a common street
criminal. In fact, I am not the only one that feels this way, Mr.
Speaker.
Let me quote from a recent op-ed that ran this past Sunday, written
by Richard Holbrooke. Now, Richard Holbrooke was the U.S. Ambassador to
the United Nations under President Bill Clinton. Let me quote from Mr.
Holbrooke's op-ed that ran nationwide this past weekend.
``When one considers that Saddam Hussein is far worse than Slobodan
Milosevic and that Iraq has left a long trail of violated Security
Council resolutions while there were none in Kosovo.'' So Richard
Holbrooke, the U.N. Ambassador under President Clinton, has publicly
acknowledged as recently as this past week that, in his opinion, Saddam
Hussein is far worse than Slobodan Milosevic.
This country went to war to oust Slobodan Milosevic. This country
murdered innocent Serbs with bombs to oust Slobodan Milosevic. And who
pushed this country? France and Germany, because the French and Germans
were concerned that Milosevic was in their neighborhood.
In fact, Mr. Speaker, in a quote from a book just recently released,
The Threatening Storm, by the expert on Iraq during the Clinton
administration in both the CIA and the Security Council, Ken Pollack,
one section documents the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq, and I want to
quote from this book, which I think every Member of this body should
read. It is page 122, discussing the Iraqi state and security. Again,
this individual, Ken Pollack, is an acknowledged intelligence expert on
Iraq. This is what he said:
``Max Van der Stoel, the former United Nations Special Rapporteur for
Human Rights in Iraq, told the United Nations that the brutality of the
Iraqi regime was of an exceptionally grave character, so grave that it
has few parallels in the years that have passed since the Second World
War.''
In other words, Mr. Speaker, that the Saddam Hussein regime has not
been equaled since Adolf Hitler. Not Slobodan Milosevic, who the
Germans and French supported militarily to remove, but not since Adolph
Hitler.
Let me continue. ``Indeed, it is to comparisons with the obscenity of
the Holocaust and Stalin's mass murders that observers are inevitably
drawn when confronted with the horrors of Saddam's Iraq. Saddam's Iraq
is a state that employs arbitrary execution, imprisonment and torture
on a comprehensive and routine basis.''
A full catalogue is not yet totally available, but tonight we are
going to put on the record, Mr. Speaker, the examples that are
available.
[[Page H1325]]
Let me read again some from Ken Pollack's account, and these are not
the most pleasant facts, but they are facts, Mr. Speaker.
``This is a regime that will gouge out the eyes of children
to force confessions from their parents and grandparents.
This is a regime that will crush all the bones in the feet of
a 2-year-old girl to force her mother to divulge her father's
whereabouts. This is a regime that will hold a nursing baby
at arm's length from its mother and allow the child to starve
to death to force the mother to confess. This is a regime
that will burn a person's limbs off to force him to confess
or comply, a regime that will slowly lower its victims into
huge vats of acid, either to break their will or simply as a
means of execution. This is a regime that applies electric
shocks to the bodies of its victims, particularly their
genitals, with great regularity. This a regime that in 2000
decreed that the crime of criticizing the regime, which can
be as harmless as suggesting that Saddam's clothing did not
match, would be punished by cutting out the offender's
tongue.
{time} 2245
A regime that practices systematic rape against its female
victims. A regime that dragged in a man's wife, daughter, and
female relative and repeatedly raped her in front of him. A
regime that forced a white-hot metal rod into a person's anus
or other orifices. A regime that employs thallium poisoning,
widely considered one of the most excruciating ways to die. A
regime that beheaded a young mother in the street in front of
her house and children because her husband was suspected of
opposing the regime. A regime that used chemical warfare on
its own Kurdish citizens, not just on the 15,000 that were
killed and maimed at Halabja, but on scores of other villages
all across Kurdistan. A regime that tested chemical and
biological warfare agents on Iranian prisoners of war and
used the POWs in controlled experiments to determine the best
ways to disperse these agents to inflict the greatest damage.
All of this, Mr. Speaker, I quote, and is from the documentation by
Ken Pollack, the intelligence expert on Iraq during the Clinton
administration in the book available to everyone in America entitled
``The Threatening Storm.''
But, Mr. Speaker, it is not just Ken Pollack. In fact, the citations
and documentations of the violations of human rights by Saddam Hussein
are overwhelming and comprehensive. As a member of the Human Rights
Caucus in this Congress, I am outraged that there has been no solid
vocal outcry, not just from this body and America, but from those
countries in Europe, especially Germany and France, who claim to be for
the human rights of innocent people.
Let me summarize. The methods of torture, the human rights abuses
documented by our special military commission looking into our own POWs
that Saddam held against the Geneva Convention that controls the
treatment of prisoners. Let me read the documentation in summary.
Americans experienced the following: 21 service members captured
during Desert Storm were all covered by the Geneva protections. They
were beaten to the rhythm of songs. The beatings were done by led
pipes, by clubs, by rifle butts, by rubber hoses, by black jacks and
batons, by kicks and punches to the face, neck, ears, prior injuries,
genitals and kidneys. Malice to their knees, cat-o'-nine tails, burning
of individuals with cigarettes, including the butts being placed into
open wounds. Urination on POWs. Genital investigations and harassment
to determine if POWs were circumcised as Jews. Mock executions,
threatened dismemberment, threatened castration, cattle prod shocking,
talkman shocking, electrocuted wires run around a person's head
attached to the ears, causing massive convulsions in the jaw, knocking
out teeth, sexual abuse, fingernail extraction, person hung by their
feet with barbed wire.
Mr. Speaker, these were American citizens, and this is how they were
treated by Saddam Hussein in direct violation of the international
agreements on caring for prisoners of war. This was not made up, Mr.
Speaker. These are documented cases involving America's sons and
daughters.
Where is the outcry in America? Where is the outcry in Hollywood and
from those experts on TV and the movies who claim to know all about how
Americans were treated by this madman in Baghdad? And what about the
actions that have been documented by Amnesty International, by all of
the major groups that monitor human rights of what Saddam did against
the Kuwaitis and the Kurds?
Let me again run through some of those cases that have been
documented, including knifings, boring holes in bodies with drills,
tongue and ear removal, hammering nails into hands, eye-gouging,
inserting broken bottlenecks into rectums, pumping air and gasoline
through people through their rectums and other orifices and then
igniting the gasoline until the bodies exploded. Pouring acid on skin,
forcing detainees to watch the torture, rape and execution of others
and relatives, random and unjustified killings, electric shocks to the
mouth, forcing women to eat flesh cut from their own body, removal of
eye balls, placement of people into rotating washing machines,
execution by electric drill, cutting with razors, rubbing salt into
wounds, castrations, blow torches, suspension from ceiling fans.
Mr. Speaker, all of these actions are documented and conducted and
ordered by Saddam Hussein and those people currently in control in
Baghdad.
Where is the outrage, Mr. Speaker? France and Germany, pushing
America to go in to remove Milosevic who committed ethnic cleansing;
none of the charges against Milosevic at the Hague at this point in
time come anywhere near the atrocities that Saddam Hussein has been
documented as having committed on a regular and routine basis. There is
no shame in those countries, Mr. Speaker, because it is unbelievably a
double standard and total hypocrisy.
Let us talk about some of the documented human rights violations
within Iraq. Again, these are all documented, Mr. Speaker, documented
through extensive files, portions of which I will lay into the Record
this evening for our colleagues to review. In Iraq, this is what Saddam
has done: killing of prison inmates to account for overcrowding. Loss
of freedoms of speech, press, assembly, association, religion, movement
and due process; arbitrary punishment of death for suspected violations
of laws, political disagreements and social actions; beheading of
prostitutes and displaying of heads. Iraq is the country with the
highest number of disappearances reported to the working group on
enforced and involuntary disappearances established by the Commission
on Human Rights. Beating of Iraqi soccer players because they lost a
game. Refusal to permit visits by human rights monitors. Campaign of
murder, summary execution and protracted arbitrary arrests against
religious followers of the Shia Muslim population, the Kurds.
Harassment and intimidation of relief workers and U.N. personnel,
removal of children of unwanted minority groups to get them from cities
and regions, and only 48 percent of the supplied medicines and
equipment to clinics and hospitals. The rest were in government
warehouses overflowing.
This is a man who challenged our President to a debate. What an
absolute joke, Mr. Speaker. This man deserves to debate no one. This
man deserves to be taken to the Hague and deserves to have a war crimes
tribunal convened to lay out all of the charges that have been brought
forward against him in a formal way by the U.N., and this resolution we
will put into place on Thursday will have this body go on record in
asking that that be done.
Let us talk about the chronology of murder of Saddam Hussein, Mr.
Speaker, again, all documented. Not documented by the U.S. Government;
documented by international groups that monitor human rights,
documented by the U.N. special rapporteur for human rights. Let us go
through them in a chronological order.
In 1979, the purge of the Baath Party leadership, members were forced
to confess to invented crimes and then arbitrarily executed. Family
members were held hostage. In 1980, Saddam led the attacks on the Fayli
Kurds, removal of the Kurds in Baghdad and the southern cities of Kut,
Basra and Hilla. Forced expulsions from homes to Iran. Execution of
most captured young males; there was an unknown amount of these young
males that were executed. Fourteen tons of captured Iraqi secret police
documents, videotapes and pictures provided a character of Iraqi rule
over the Kurds that has been matched by no one since the great
Holocaust of World War II. In fact, there is enough paperwork to
document over 200,000 murders.
Mr. Speaker, where are the French and the Germans who cried to
America
[[Page H1326]]
to get Milosevic out of power for his ethnic cleansing, when we have
documentation through the U.N. and these NGOs that Saddam Hussein has
been responsible for the murder of 200,000 people? In 1980, Mr.
Speaker, the invasion of Iran, a clear violation of article 2, section
4 of the U.N. charter. Launch of indiscriminate attacks on civilian
targets. Use of human shields, physical and mental torture of captives,
all documented, on-file offenses. Eight military offensives in 1988.
Systematic campaign of extermination and genocide waged against the
Kurdish population of northern Iraq. Code name Anfal comes from a
Koranic verse that legitimizes the right to plunder women and the
property of infidels. During this time there were mass executions and
indiscriminate killings of fighters and civilians. There was an order
very similar to the Nazi order of ``sturm and nebel'' to proclaim
thousands of square kilometers of Kurdistan to be a free-fire zone in
which neither human nor animal life was to remain.
Saddam during that time used chemical weapons and poison gas. He
forced resettlement. He destroyed between 1,000 and 2,000 villages. The
estimated killings during that period was between 50,000 and 100,000;
but it may be as high as 182,000 people. There were 16,496 reported
disappearances in 1988.
Mr. Speaker, I cannot hear the French and the Germans. Where is their
outrage, Mr. Speaker? Are the French so blinded by oil that their
principles have gone down the cesspool? Was Slobodan Milosevic so bad
that he is in the Hague being tried, but Saddam Hussein who has
committed these crimes is not worthy of action by the U.N.?
Let us go on, Mr. Speaker. In 1990, the invasion of Kuwait, Saddam
orders to kill any civilian found after curfew or bearing anti-Iraqi
slogans on homes. A violation of the clear contravention of article 2,
section 4 of the U.N. charter. Systematic torture as a method of
extracting information. Holding thousands of foreign hostages to
dissuade their countries from joining the coalition and used as human
shields, including Americans.
In 1991, the invasion in March, attacks on civilians following a
cease-fire in the cities of Basra, Najaf, Karbala; massive executions,
bombarding residential areas, destroying religious shrines. And how
about other actions before 2000, Mr. Speaker? Mass executions in a
grave in Burjesiyya, a district near Zubair south of Basra, torturing
and extended detentions preceding the deaths due to suspicion of
political demonstrations. In April 14, 1999, 56 detainees charged with
treason who were executed at Abu Ghraib on August 10 of 1999; 26
prisoners were executed at Abu Gharaib prison. March of 1999, the
bombarding of residential areas of tribes by an armored division number
6 in Basra, Al-Ghameigh, Bail Wafi and Bait Sayed Noor. January,
February, 1999, destruction of 52 houses of political opponents with
bulldozers in Basra, nine in Jamhuriyah, five in Al-Zubier, seven in
Al-Karmah, 12 in Abo Al-Khaseib, and five in Al-Tanumah. July 20, 1999,
demolished six houses in Thawra after the detention of their entire
families.
{time} 2300
But here is a man, Mr. Speaker, who has a family of human rights
abusers of the worst possible kind. It is not just Saddam.
His son, Udai Hussein, created the Saddam's martyrs, who go around,
30,000, dressed in black, and they are known for executing and doing
gruesome public spectacles of killing the President's critics. In fact,
he is known, when there is a sporting loss, for torturing and in some
cases killing the athletes because they have not been successful. His
group has also been known to abduct women from the streets.
Qusai Hussein, the deputy for his father's military security and
intelligence, heads Amn al-Khass, and they have also conducted outrages
against innocent people.
Finally, Lieutenant General Hussein Kamal Hassan al-Majid, is known
as ``Chemical Ali'' for his brutality against the Kurds, especially for
his use of weapons procurement and weapons of mass destruction, and
being able to sneak in those supplies that the U.N. has prohibited.
This individual defected. He returned to Iraq after having received a
pardon. What happened? Saddam murdered him and he murdered his family,
his own blood relatives.
Mr. Speaker, we have people in this country and we have people in
France, we have Jacques Chirac, saying we should trust Saddam Hussein,
just give him time. Mr. Speaker, it is time to lay the facts on the
table. It is time to hold Saddam Hussein accountable.
Whether one is for military action or against it, this resolution
does not discuss that. Whether one supports Iraq, whether one disagrees
and does not support Iraq, whether one thinks there should be more
time, 2 months, 5 months, 12 years, it does not apply to this
resolution. This resolution simply says that we must hold this regime
responsible for the crimes they have committed against humanity.
Mr. Speaker, I call upon my colleagues to hold this man accountable,
at least equal to the way we are holding Slobodan Milosevic
accountable.
Mr. Speaker, just a few short years ago there were claims from the
administration that there would be mass graves that we would find in
Serbia containing perhaps millions of bodies. Well, several years after
the fact, the truth did not quite bear that out. That is not to lessen
the atrocities of Milosevic; he is a war criminal, make no mistake
about it. But there was a gross exaggeration of what he had done, even
though the crimes he committed were outrageous. He is being held
accountable for those crimes right now at the Hague, in a trial that
has been going on for almost a year.
Mr. Speaker, the French and the Germans, where were they in this
case? They were pushing America: Get your troops over here, America.
Get this man out of power. He is a brutal dictator. He has committed
ethnic cleansing. Help us rid Europe of him because of the crimes he
has committed against humanity. In the words of Richard Holbrooke, who
was our U.N. Ambassador during the nineties under Bill Clinton,
Slobodan Milosevic does not come anywhere near Saddam Hussein in terms
of committing war crimes.
Mr. Speaker, do I detect a double standard here? Do the French think
that Milosevic is worse than Saddam? The U.N. does not think so. Are
the French denying the facts of the U.N. special rapporteur? Are the
French and Germans not realizing the gross atrocities that have
occurred against human beings, or do they not want to admit to what
occurred?
Let me go through some more evidence, Mr. Speaker. I take this
information from the Report on Iraqi War Crimes prepared under the
auspices of the U.S. Army. This was released on March 19, 1993, as a
result of an intense investigation of our own citizens who were
captured by Saddam. These are specific cases. Americans and members of
this body can ask for the documentation of these cases and they can get
them.
POW number 1, file number 176.1. Our own Americans were exhibited as
war prizes. They were urinated on. They were beaten constantly,
including to the rhythm of a song on a radio.
POW number 2, file number 176.2. He was abandoned by his captors in
spite of having a broken leg. In fact, they put an Arab headdress on
him.
POW number 3, file number 176.3. Saddam's troops beat and kicked him
while being transported; punched him in the face; hit him in the head
with a rifle; kicked him in a circle, and injured his leg; beaten
severely with a lead pipe; and from the guards' boots smeared on the
face. He had multiple cigarette burns all over his body from Saddam's
leaders.
POW number 4, file number 176.4, American POW. Dragged by the hair,
kicked by the captors, sexually molested during transport, slapped and
spat upon, threatened with death. That was a female, Mr. Speaker.
Where are those in America expressing outrage at what this man
ordered to be done to our citizens?
POW number 7, file number 176.7. Karate-chopped, forced to make a
videotape.
POW number 9, beaten with fists, batons, rifle butts; kicked in the
head and legs broken; beaten to the rhythm of a song; knocked
unconscious many times; forced to make a videotape; beaten in the
stomach and back with club, resulting in long-term pain to his kidneys;
eye injuries from his beatings.
[[Page H1327]]
Mr. Speaker, these are actions documented by Saddam Hussein against
American citizens. We have Saddam Hussein now on international TV
proclaiming he is for peace, he is against war. Mr. Speaker, cut me a
break. Are we that naive? Are we that short of our memory that we do
not understand what this man has done over the past 20 years?
Let me go through some more examples, Mr. Speaker.
As we know, in capturing a prisoner-of-war, the only thing a prisoner
has to do is to state their surname, first and last name and rank,
their date of birth, and their army or unit that they are involved
with. That is all they have to give under the special protections under
the Geneva Convention. That is it.
In the case of our POWs, Saddam consistently, along with his
military, grossly abused their rights and tortured them. In fact, he
forced them to do things that are absolutely sickening to read.
POW number 12, assaulted twice with a cattle prod; beaten with a hard
rubber stick while being interrogated by the voice; assaulted with a
stun gun; an AK-47 placed against his head and threatened with
execution as a war criminal; threatened with dismemberment; shocked
with a Talkman; multiple beatings.
POW 13, struck with hands, fists, a wooden club, blackjack, and
sticks; punctured his eardrums; loosened his teeth from the beatings;
beaten so severely he could not walk and could not stand.
Mr. Speaker, there is a lawsuit that has been filed in the courts of
the District of Columbia. The lawyer represents these brave American
POWs who are suing Saddam and Iraq because of what he did to them. Is
America going to stand behind these brave young people? Are we going to
stand up and hold Saddam accountable for what he did, or can they only
sue civilly in a court, as documented by this lawsuit?
Mr. Speaker, I am going to ask special permission to have texts of
this lawsuit entered into the Record, even though it will cost extra
money, because I want every one of our colleagues and every American to
understand the facts of what was done to our citizens by Saddam Hussein
and by his evil subordinates in his military.
Let us go on to Article 32, documented by the Army also back in 1993,
the specifics of some of which I mentioned already.
Iraq's violation and Saddam's violations of Article 27 and 32, which
were absolutely outrageous: torturing Kuwaiti nationals. Widespread and
barbaric actions, such as beatings on all parts of the body with
various implements; beating people while they were suspended in air;
hanging with cables; breaking appendages; knifings; extracting their
finger- and toenails; boring holes in their body with drills; cutting
off their tongues and ears; cutting off their body parts with saws;
gouging out their eyes; castrations; hammering nails into their hands;
shootings; rapes; inserting broken bottlenecks into their rectums;
pumping air or gasoline into their orifices; pouring acid on their
skin; Asian and Kuwaiti women routinely raped by Iraqi soldiers; all of
this documented by the official commission of our Army and sent to the
U.N. for further action.
How about some specific cases, Mr. Speaker, that were also filed with
the U.N. that took place in Kuwait City?
{time} 2310
This Kuwaiti citizen file number 66.01015 was arrested by the Iraqis
at his home on the 23rd of December 1990 and held until mid-December.
During his captivity he received repeated beatings and electric shocks
to his mouth, nose and genitalia. He was suspended from the ceiling and
subjected to mock executions. He witnessed the torture of other
Kuwaitis by techniques which included forced ingestion of gas causing
abdominal pains, forcing a woman to eat flesh cut from her own body, an
execution by ax, removal of eyeballs, dismemberment, burning with a hot
iron, execution by electric drill, and placement of a person into a
large rotating washing machine.
Mr. Speaker, we are not dealing with a human being. We are dealing
with an animal. We are not dealing with a person that we can have some
feeling of a moral authority. This man is the lowest of the low, Mr.
Speaker. It has all been documented through thousands of pieces of
information assembled by nonprofit organizations, organizations
concerned with human rights violations by governments around the world
and by the U.N. itself. It has been documented. It is time to hold him
accountable.
Mr. Speaker, here is a man, with all the documentation we have, who
some people say we should trust. If you listen to Jacques Chirac, whose
country has millions of dollars of oil contracts with Saddam Hussein
and who himself is a personal friend of Saddam's, we should trust this
man. Shame on Jacques Chirac. Mr. Speaker, shame on Jacques Chirac. By
defending someone like Saddam Hussein, by not having his government
take action to hold this man accountable, he has no moral authority. In
fact, in my opinion he has no credibility.
Our government, Mr. Speaker, can do the right thing. Members on both
sides of the aisle have introduced resolutions in the past 10 years.
The Senate has voted on a resolution in the past 10 years. One of my
Democrat colleagues offered a resolution, has an amendment in the
Committee on International Relations just recently holding Saddam
accountable.
This body has repeatedly publicly called on the U.N. to hold Saddam
accountable, and I think we should do it again, Mr. Speaker. And so,
therefore, this Thursday I will introduce along with colleagues from
both sides of the aisle, there are already over 25 co-sponsors, and I
urge all of my colleagues to sign on to a resolution to ask our
President to appeal to the U.N. to convene a special war crimes
tribunal against Saddam Hussein.
Mr. Speaker, we did that for Milosevic, and he is today being tried
for those crimes he committed against innocent people in the former
Yugoslavia. Innocent Kosovars, innocent Serbs, innocent Montenegroans,
innocent people that Milosevic thought he could abuse. He deserves the
full weight of the punishment meted out by that special tribunal.
Is Saddam Hussein any less deserving of a tribunal? Are all of these
cases documented by the U.N., by these NGOs, by other governments,
should we just discard them and pretend that they do not exist and let
Saddam go on as if nothing has happened?
Mr. Speaker, we have not done right by the American people. We talk
about the need to deal with Saddam because he has chemical precursors
for his weapons of mass destruction, because he has missiles that will
go longer than what the U.N. said he could. They are all violations,
and they are all material breaches of the agreements that were reached
by Saddam and the U.N. 12 years ago. But why, Mr. Speaker, is there not
more discussion about this man for the evil person that he is?
The U.N. special rapporteur said, No one has come close to this kind
of activity since World War II, since the great Holocaust. No one, Mr.
Speaker, including Milosevic. Is the world going to ignore the
activities of Saddam Hussein? Are we going to ignore the atrocities he
committed against our own people when they were captured? If that is
the case, then international agreements mean nothing. The Geneva
Convention has no basis. The Helsinki Final Act has no meaning. If we
are not going to hold leaders who commit such outrageous acts
accountable, then we might as well not have those acts, those
agreements existing in the first place.
Mr. Speaker, this body, our body can take action soon, to lay out to
the world those who support military action and those who oppose
military action, that regardless of whether or not you think war is
inevitable, there is one thing that we all can agree on: Saddam Hussein
is a war criminal. There is no doubt about that.
Those who understand the facts, those who look at the documents,
those who see the evidence understand that this man comes as close to
Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin as anyone that we have seen in the last
several decades.
And so, Mr. Speaker, I appeal to our colleagues to co-sponsor this
legislation before I drop it. Our colleagues have that opportunity.
Democrats and Republicans are already on. We have over 25 Members and
that was in the
[[Page H1328]]
first day. I would hope that we would end up with over 300 co-sponsors
and send a signal to the world that Saddam Hussein is an unacceptable
leader because of his war crimes.
Again, Mr. Speaker, and I know I have said this before, but it really
irks me because initially I opposed the Kosovo war, not because I
support Milosevic, he is a war criminal, but because I felt that we had
not brought Russia in to use their influence to get Milosevic out of
power. In fact, Mr. Speaker, I led a delegation to Vienna with five of
our Democrat colleagues and five of our Republican colleagues. We took
a State Department official. And with the support of our State
Department, we flew to Vienna; and for 2 days around the clock working
with the leaders of the Russian political factions, we fashioned a
statement that called Milosevic a war criminal for his ethnic
cleansing. We laid the groundwork with the help of the Russians that
became the basis of the G-8 document to end the war 10 days later.
Mr. Speaker, we were prodded into war against Milosevic by the French
and the Germans. They were bold back then. They did not want to put
their own troops in harm's way without America being there. So we went
into Kosovo. America was the number one supplier of the military. There
were more American planes than there were any other nation, even though
Yugoslavia is not far away from France and Germany. The French and
Germans came in after us, but they pushed us the whole way. And why?
Because they said Milosevic was a war criminal who had abused people.
And they were right. But, Mr. Speaker, so is Saddam Hussein, only a far
worse war criminal than Milosevic ever was. Those are not my words.
Those are the words of Richard Holbrook, U.N. Ambassador for the United
States under President Clinton in an op-ed he wrote this past week.
Those are the words of the special rapporteur of the U.N. who said that
Saddam Hussein's regime has no equal since World War II.
{time} 2320
Mr. Speaker, I would hope that every one of our colleagues would
cosponsor the resolution to hold Saddam Hussein accountable for war
crimes. It is a very simple resolution and I at this point in time
enter that resolution into the Record so that all of our citizens, all
of our colleagues can see the text, the documents, the actions, that we
now request of the United Nations against Saddam Hussein.
H. Res. --
Whereas in 2001 and 2002, the Department of State
contributed $4,000,000 to a United Nations Iraq War Crimes
Commission, to be used if a United Nations tribunal for Iraqi
war crimes is created;
Whereas the United Nations Security Council and the United
Nations Commission on Human Rights have repeatedly condemned
Iraq's human rights record;
Whereas Iraq continues to ignore United Nations resolutions
and its international human rights commitments;
Whereas on April 19, 2002, the United Nations Commission on
Human Rights passed a resolution drawing attention to ``the
systematic, widespread and extremely grave violations of
human rights and of international humanitarian law by the
Government of Iraq, resulting in an all-pervasive repression
and oppression sustained by broad-based discrimination and
widespread terror'';
Whereas United Nations Security Council Resolution 674
calls on all states or organizations to provide information
on Iraq's war-related atrocities to the United Nations;
Whereas Iraq's aggressive pursuit of nuclear, chemical, and
biological weapons, and its past use of weapons of mass
destruction against its own people and Iraq's neighbors
illustrates the danger of allowing Saddam Hussein to go
unchallenged;
Whereas torture is used systematically against political
detainees in Iraqi prisons and detention centers;
Whereas this regime gouges out the eyes of the victims,
crushes all of the bones in their feet, and burns a person's
limbs off to force him to confess or comply; and
Whereas citizens of Iraq live in constant fear of being
tortured, kidnapped, or killed: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That consistent with Section 301 of the Foreign
Relations Authorization Act, Fiscal Years 1992 and 1993
(Public Law 102-138), House Concurrent Resolution 137, 105th
Congress (approved by the House of Representatives on
November 13, 1997), and Senate Concurrent Resolution 78,
105th Congress (approved by the Senate on March 13, 1998),
the Congress urges the President to call upon the United
Nations to establish an international criminal tribunal for
the purpose of indicting, prosecuting, and imprisoning Saddam
Hussein and other Iraqi officials who are responsible for
crimes against humanity, genocide, and other criminal
violations of international law.
Mr. Speaker, in fact, the resolution which does not have yet a
number, lays out the fact that we spent, as I said earlier, $4 million
in each of the past 2 years for a special U.N. Iraqi War Crimes
Commission. It is already in place, continuing from the 1990s. American
tax dollars are being used to support this U.N. effort.
This war crimes commission has, in fact, seen resolutions passed by
the Security Council and the Commission on Human Rights as recently as
April 19 of 2002, U.N. Security Council Resolution 674, all of which
deal with Saddam Hussein's abuses of human rights. This resolution
says, and resolves, that consistent with section 301 of the Foreign
Relations Authorization Act, the House concurrent resolution and the
Senate concurrent resolution, that the Congress urges the President to
call upon the United Nations to establish an International Criminal
Tribunal for the purpose of indicting, prosecuting, and imprisoning
Saddam Hussein and other Iraqi officials who are responsible for crimes
against humanity, genocide, and other criminal violations of
international law.
Mr. Speaker, we can do no less.
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