[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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