[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 36 (Thursday, March 6, 2003)]
[House]
[Pages H1669-H1674]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1530
                      HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES IN IRAQ

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Bishop of Utah). Under the Speaker's 
announced policy of January 7, 2003, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. 
Pence) is recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in the wake of so many 
thoughtful remarks made in this Chamber as perhaps this Congress is 
about to adjourn a weekend before America may again be called upon to 
lead the civilized world and the arsenal of democracy into battle.
  We have heard from my colleagues this afternoon, many of the 
strategic and military and diplomatic justifications for that. They are 
legion. The violations of U.N. Resolution 1441 are painfully and 
patently obvious. The rejection by the regime of Saddam Hussein over 
the last 2 decades through five Presidential administrations and 17 
U.N. resolutions, of one international convention after another, argue 
for the civilized world, for the forces of order, to rise up against 
the forces of disorder, as the columnist Thomas Friedman, from the New 
York Times, is want to say.
  I rise today after having received a very thoughtful e-mail from a 
constituent named David in Richmond, Indiana. David is opposed to the 
war strongly, and he wrote to me after urging my staff to make sure 
that I saw the letter, not knowing that I see all my mail, but he urged 
me to look at a Web site, and so I did. It was not just a Web site 
opposed to the war, but it was mostly a Web site, takebackthemedia.com, 
or some such thing, that showed very moving photographs of families in 
Baghdad.
  Mr. Speaker, I brought a few of those photographs with me today, like 
this photograph of a beautiful baby boy curled up on a rug with his 
official travel papers of his family before him to prove his location. 
He looks an often lot like one of my three small children. David had me 
look at these pictures of families, like this beautiful young family 
with a boy about the age of my 11-year-old son, families on the streets 
of Baghdad. The argument was if as a Member of Congress, I were to look 
into the faces of those who may by virtue of living in Baghdad fall 
into harm's way, I might change my mind about the use of force.
  Mr. Speaker, I must tell Members, as I told David in a phone call, 
when I look into these bright shining faces of families who live in 
Baghdad, in the region of what used to be Mesopotamia, this picture 
taken January 5, 2003, I am not moved away from taking action to remove 
this regime, I am moved closer toward it. As I said to David in a phone 
call late yesterday, when I look into these faces, I see an argument 
for removing Saddam Hussein because I cannot imagine, particularly for 
the four young women depicted in this photograph, what it is like to 
live in Iraq during these last 20 years.
  Mr. Speaker, that is why I rise today. It is in the hope of talking 
about the human rights record of this regime that I come to the floor 
today. We recall a great deal of focus in the 1990s on the human rights 
record of Slobodan Milosevic, and the world community coming together, 
including France and Germany, calling on the United States of America 
to challenge and to remove Slobodan Milosevic for one reason: Because 
of his record of abuse of human rights, his wanton killing of Muslims 
strictly out of a policy horrifically known as ethnic cleansing. 
President Clinton did nobly lead America into the breach with France 
and Germany under the color and authority of NATO and remove that 
barbarous dictator.
  There were no U.N. resolution. There was no previous example of them 
attacking their neighbors or discussion of weapons of mass destruction, 
there was just a dictator who abused and tortured and killed his own 
countrymen for ethnic reasons.
  So I am a bit confused when the human rights record of Saddam Hussein 
seems to be irrelevant to many who oppose the war. It is a record 
against which the record of Slobodan Milosevic pales in comparison. The 
United Nations Commission on Human Rights has actually said that Saddam 
Hussein's record on human rights is second only to that of Adolph 
Hitler in the 20th century, and I want to speak on some facts, things 
that we know about Saddam Hussein and his regime. It is about these 
beautiful young girls that I hope Members' hearts will attach, to think 
of a regime in which these young girls are forced to live is my purpose 
today.
  First, from the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, a 
1997 report, the Commission on Human Rights, reaffirming that all 
member states have an obligation to promote and protect human rights 
elaborates the following actions by Iraq that it strongly condemns:
  One, the massive and extremely grave violations of human rights and 
international humanitarian law by the Government of Iraq, resulting in 
an all-pervasive, repression and oppression sustained by broad-based 
discrimination, and this is the U.N.'s terms, against his own people, 
widespread terror.
  Two, suppression of freedom of thought, expression, religion, 
information, association, assembly and movement through fear of arrest, 
imprisonment and other sanctions.
  Summary and arbitrary executions were also condemned by the U.N. 
Commission on Human Rights in 1997, including political killings, 
enforced or involuntary disappearances by the thousands. Without regard 
to due process, political opponents of Saddam Hussein, according to the 
U.N. Human

[[Page H1670]]

Rights Commission, have disappeared into the mist. Arbitrary arrest, 
detention consisting of a routine failure to respect due process of 
law, and again thinking of these families, Mr. Speaker, I quote, 
``widespread systemic torture in its most cruel forms. The enactment 
and implementation of decrees prescribing cruel and inhuman punishment, 
namely mutilation for punishment of offenses and diversion of medical 
care services for such mutilations.''
  Mr. Speaker, this is a barbarous regime, and I begin by quoting from 
the United Nations because we hear so much about how we ought to rely 
on the United Nations and I begin there, but the facts simply continue 
to flow. Think about that for a moment, Mr. Speaker. Widespread terror 
against his own people, the suppression of human rights, suppression of 
freedom of thought, expression, religion, information, association, 
assembly and movement through fear of arrest, imprisonment and other 
sanctions, summary and arbitrary executions and political killings, 
widespread and systematic torture in its most cruel forms. That is from 
the Commission on Human Rights United Nations High Commissioner, April 
16, 1997.
  Mr. Speaker, citing from the report published by Great Britain, let 
us talk about what we know from organizations like Amnesty 
International and others, let us talk about the torture that is 
sanctioned by the government of Saddam Hussein and in which he has been 
personally involved on many occasions.
  From the British report, we find that the victims of torture and 
their families have reported the following methods of torture to 
international human rights like Amnesty International and Human Rights 
Watch, eye gouging.
  Amnesty International reported the case of a Kurdish businessman in 
Baghdad who was executed in 1997. When his family retrieved his body, 
the eyes had been gouged out and the empty eye sockets stuffed with 
paper.
  Piercing of hands with an electric drill. A common method of torture 
for political detainees, Amnesty International reported one victim who 
then had acid poured into his open wounds during interrogation in Iraq.
  Suspension from the ceiling. Victims are blindfolded, stripped and 
suspended for hours by their wrists, often with their hands tied behind 
their backs. This causes dislocation of shoulders, tearing of muscles 
and ligaments. Iraq is also known to use electric shock. A common 
torture method, shocks are applied to various parts of the body 
including ears, tongue, fingers and genitalia.
  Sexual abuse. Victims, particularly women, have been raped and 
sexually abused as a means of interrogation on a routine basis by this 
regime.
  Mock executions. Victims are told to be executed by firing squad. A 
mock execution is staged. Victims are hooded, brought before a firing 
squad, and then blanks are fired as a form of torture.
  David Scheffer, U.S. Ambassador at Large for War Crimes, reported 
that photographic evidence showed that Iraq had used acid baths during 
the invasion of Kuwait. Victims were hung by their wrists and gradually 
lowered into acid.
  These are unspeakable acts of barbarism, Mr. Speaker. I am a bit 
loathe in this, what is a public forum by definition, to speak these 
words after school is out, but I think it is important as we think 
through the strategic issues, as we think through the diplomatic 
issues, international convention, disarmament, international terrorism, 
that we also think of this. These are the facts that I must assume that 
the sincere activists, perhaps at this very hour, are engaged in some 
demonstration here in America, or perhaps even on the streets of 
Baghdad, these are the facts that these people must not know. How could 
any decent human being, knowing the official barbarism of the regime of 
Saddam Hussein, ever deign to defend it.
  Let us talk for a moment about the cost to fellow Muslims. There are 
many who want to divide the world along religious lines between the 
West and the Islamic world, suggesting that we in the West are not 
challenging an outlaw regime in Baghdad that has attacked 3 of its 5 
adjacent neighbors during its regime and used chemical weapons on its 
own people, but rather that we are somehow engaged in a war against an 
``ism,'' against a religion.
  Here is the truth, again citing the recent British report published 
this fall. The truth of it is that Muslims have had no greater enemy in 
contemporary history than Saddam Hussein. I believe it is accurate to 
say that Saddam Hussein has killed more Muslims than any government 
leader in the past 50 years, including Slobodan Milosevic who sought, 
through a policy of ethnic cleansing, to destroy the Muslim population 
in the form of Yugoslavia.

                              {time}  1545

  The Iran-Iraq war, which ranged from 1980 to 1988, resulted in 1 
million Muslim casualties dead and wounded. Iranian casualties in that 
war, Mr. Speaker, were estimated at between 450,000 and 730,000. Iraqi 
casualties were between 150,000 and 340,000. Really not since our Civil 
War have we ever as a nation experienced casualties the likes of which 
occurred in a barbaric and ruthless war between these two nations for 8 
years.
  During the 1988 Anfal campaign in Iraqi Kurdistan, Iraqi troops were 
responsible for the death or disappearance of up to 100,000 Muslim 
Kurds. Also according to Great Britain on March 16, 1988, Iraqi troops 
killed up to 5,000 and injured some 10,000 Muslim Kurds in a single day 
in a chemical weapon attack on the town of Halabja in northern Iraq.
  The 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait led to the death of 1,000 Kuwaiti 
Muslim nationals. 605 prisoners of war remain completely unaccounted 
for since 1991, including nationals of Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, India, 
Syria, Lebanon, Iran, Egypt, Bahrain and Oman. Between 3 million and 4 
million Muslim Iraqis have abandoned their homes and sought refuge 
outside of Iraq. Many hundreds of thousands of Iraq's Muslims have been 
displaced internally. Estimates of 900,000 according to the United 
Kingdom's report may be conservative.
  In the north, towns and villages were systematically destroyed by the 
regime during the war with Iran. Further south, non-Arabs in the region 
of Kirkuk have been relocated to other parts of Iraq and Arabs induced 
to occupy their homes and lands. And in the south, between 300,000 and 
500,000 Muslim citizens have been forced from their traditional homes 
in Iraq's marshlands. Thousands of Muslims have been arbitrarily 
arrested, ill treated, tortured, and executed in Iraq in recent years.
  This is according to the International Alliance for Justice News 
Service, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch Country Report, and 
the U.S. Committee for Refugees Report, and I will cite each of the 
following. The regime of Saddam Hussein has reaped an extraordinary and 
barbarous toll on Muslims in the region over its 20-some-odd-year 
history. This is also a regime that has used chemical weapons according 
to the Human Rights Watch's ``Genocide in Iraq'' report.
  Mr. Speaker, I will say for a moment that while I have great respect 
for Amnesty International and great respect for Human Rights Watch and 
as a member of the Committee on International Relations I greatly 
cherish any organization that makes its business to attend to the human 
rights of people around the world, I must concede standing on this 
particular side of the aisle, Mr. Speaker, not to have a great deal 
culturally in common with most of the people that are drawn to the work 
of these organizations. I have a passion for human rights. I am on the 
Subcommittee on the Middle East for precisely that reason. I am 
interested in advancing the human rights of people all across the world 
in whatever brief time that I have in this institution. But I know that 
most people who think about these things and donate to these 
organizations have a little bit of a different political view from mine 
and I suspect, Mr. Speaker, a different political view of the war from 
mine.
  And so I am hoping that somehow through this process, we can reach 
some of those who object to this war, who express fealty and 
appreciation for Human Rights Watch and for Amnesty International and 
for all the plethora of groups out there that largely draw their 
support from the left, who have

[[Page H1671]]

nonetheless chronicled as a great service to mankind the barbarism of 
this regime.
  According to the Human Rights Watch ``Genocide in Iraq'' report, 
which carried extensive research into chemical weapons attacks in 
northern Iraq, based on field interviews, they have determined that at 
least 60 villages as well as the town of Halabja were attacked with 
mustard gas, nerve gas or a combination of the two during the Anfal 
campaign against the Kurds between 1987 and 1988.
  Human Rights Watch says that the Iraqi regime has used chemical 
weapons for at least four complementary purposes: number one, to attack 
base camps and main-force concentrations of Kurdish guerillas; two, to 
harass and kill retreating guerillas; three, to inflict, I make 
emphasis here, Mr. Speaker, that we are not simply talking about Iraq 
deploying chemical weapons in a military environment, which according 
to international convention and expectation is barbarism but also, 
according to Human Rights Watch, they have deployed chemical weapons to 
inflict exemplary collective punishment on civilians for simply 
supporting the Kurdish guerillas. The most dramatic case is the 
chemical bombing of Halabja after the seizure of the town by guerillas 
and Iranian revolutionary guards. And lastly, they have used it simply 
to spread terror among civilian populations as a whole, flushing 
villagers out of their homes to facilitate their capture, relocation, 
and killing.
  The list of chemical attacks by Iraq against its own citizens, and 
not just in a military context, is astonishing and horrifying. And the 
list goes on, Mr. Speaker, of evidence upon evidence of a regime that 
has lost any connection to the civilized world.
  But I want to go back to these pictures, if I can; and I have not yet 
shown all of them. These are some great-looking kids. This photograph 
that I got off the aforementioned Web site was apparently taken on 
December 19, 2002, in Baghdad, and those are some beautiful little 
girls. I have got two little girls of my own. They are 9 and 8 years 
old, Mr. Speaker. I think that I would do anything to deliver my little 
girls from living in the kind of society and under the kind of regime 
that I am here to describe and that organizations like Amnesty 
International and Human Rights Watch have identified and associated 
with the regime under the leadership of Saddam Hussein.
  Let me share with you some testimony which was presented before the 
Congressional Human Rights Caucus on the human rights situation in 
northern Iraq, the Kurdish minority. This is the testimony of Bayanne 
Surdashi, a Kurdish humanitarian aid worker now in asylum in the United 
States of America. After pleasantries, Bayanne told the following 
story. This is a Kurdish Iraqi and her personal story:
  ``I was 12 years old when I experienced firsthand the suffering of my 
people. One evening in the spring of 1987, one of my aunts and her 
whole family showed up on our doorstep in Sulaymaniyah unexpectedly. We 
learned that their village, Askar, was one of several that were 
attacked by Iraqi helicopters using chemical gas and then turned into 
rubble by bulldozers. My aunt's family had managed to avoid the 
military and find their way to our home. They spent 11 months hiding 
with us.
  ``Later the Iraqi regime relocated them to newly built government 
settlements where they could be closely watched by the military. They 
were not allowed to return to their farms and were turned from hard-
working independent people into people dependent on the government for 
their very simplest needs. Over time my family discovered that at least 
40 of our relatives living in the villages had been killed during this 
genocidal campaign known as the government's Anfal policy. Only those 
relatives who managed to escape or hide survived the horror of Anfal 
which killed more than 150,000 Kurds.
  ``Three years later after our failed uprising against Saddam Hussein 
in 1991, the Iraqi army used every possible form of brutality as they 
moved into northern Iraq, destroying everyone and everything before 
them. In the middle of a cold, rainy winter, we were awakened by the 
sound of bombs. It was clear that Saddam's army was very close. My 
parents feared that Saddam would again use chemical gas like he did 
during the genocidal campaign, so, like hundreds of thousands of other 
frightened Kurds, we fled. We said good-bye to our home, and we joined 
a flood of other refugees crowding the streets on our way out of the 
city and out of Iraq in search of sanctuary. We walked on foot for 10 
days through the mountains before we reached Iran and safety, poorly 
clothed from harsh weather and without enough food or water. We were 
surrounded by the sound of misery and distress and witnessed families 
burying their dead along the road and weeping mothers unable to let go 
of their dead infants. Due to shock, one of my brothers suffered 
terrible seizures a few times a day.
  ``When we finally returned home,'' Bayanne would conclude before this 
congressional committee, ``we learned that some of our relatives did 
not survive the exodus. My mother's aunt had been in the hospital when 
we left but died along with hundreds of other patients abandoned by the 
staff who were forced to flee the city as well. My uncle was found 
frozen to death in the mountains. On the radio we heard more than a 
thousand Kurds died every day during the exodus.''
  That was the testimony of a 12-year-old little girl who because of 
the courage of her family made it out. This could be a picture of her, 
Bayanne Surdashi. She is now a Kurdish humanitarian aid worker. She 
escaped. Hundreds of thousands did not. But when I think of my children 
that same age and I think of that horror through which she passed, my 
blood runs cold. And I am amazed that others' does not. I am amazed, 
Mr. Speaker. I really am. And I just must assume that those who oppose 
the use of force in Iraq do not know this. Because I believed when I 
voted to authorize the use of force, Mr. Speaker, I believed it was 
right under international conventions going from the U.N. resolution 
687 that was the cease-fire in 1991 and that it was appropriate for us 
to make clear to Iraq that they must disarm, they must disclose, they 
must destroy their weapons and cease any liaisons with terrorist 
organizations. I supported giving the President that authority. I have 
supported the administration unflaggingly in its attempt to develop 
international support for this war and believe those arguments are 
enough.
  But there is this, which when taken in its totality, 20 years of 
barbarism, we see that the case against Iraq does not end with 
diplomatic resolutions, Mr. Speaker. The case against Iraq does not end 
with liaisons with terrorist organizations. The case against Iraq ends 
here. It ends with what will end when that regime ends.
  I want to speak specifically to the issue of torture, which as I have 
said before is systematic in Iraq. I think again of David who asked me 
to look at a Web site, Mr. Speaker, where there were pictures, and I 
think of innocent Iraqis like this. This photograph was taken January 
5, 2003, on the streets of Baghdad. These are adorable kids who maybe 
look an awful lot like the kids that we now know are tortured to 
extract information from their parents by this regime.
  Mr. Speaker, I am very moved by that thought, and the sheer horror of 
it, but I want to reflect for a moment on what the word ``systematic'' 
means.

                              {time}  1600

  We are not talking, Mr. Speaker, about the torture that happens on 
the margins in the basement of the prison because of the brutality of 
prison guards who are operating outside the rule of law. When the U.N. 
Commission on Human Rights and Amnesty International and Human Rights 
Watch use the phrase that torture is systematic in Iraq, that means it 
is part of the system of Iraq. It is part of the ordinary undue process 
that the people of Iraq must endure.
  And I hope I make this point, Mr. Speaker, that we are not talking 
about a regime that has left the rails. We are not talking about a 
regime that some of its operators have lost their way. We are talking 
about a regime that sanctions the torture and killing of its own 
people. The most senior figures in this regime, according to 
international sources, have been personally involved in torture.
  Saddam Hussein runs Iraq with close members of his own family, the 
``filthy

[[Page H1672]]

40'' that we heard about in the media this week, most of them either 
married into the family or in some way related by blood. Most of these 
come from his hometown of Tikrit. These are the only people he feels he 
can trust. He directly controls the security services and, through them 
and a huge party network, his influence reaches deep into Iraqi 
society. Saddam presides over the all-powerful Revolutionary Command 
Council, which enacts laws and institutions and it has been through 
this council, according to Amnesty International in a report published 
in August of 2001, ``torture is used systematically against political 
detainees. The scale and severity of torture in Iraq can only result 
from the acceptance of its use at the highest level.''
  Over the years, Amnesty International and other human rights 
organizations have received thousands of reports of torture and 
interviewed dozens of torture victims who survived and escaped. Some of 
the propagandists, Tariq Aziz comes to mind, may step before the 
cameras some day in the near future and hold out something from a 
statute book in Iraq that says that torture is illegal in Iraq. But 
according to the report recently published by the British Government, 
our intelligence sources are not aware of a single case of an Iraqi 
official suspected of carrying out torture being brought to justice or 
prosecuted, not one.
  I quote again, Amnesty International in a report from 2001: ``Torture 
is used systematically against political detainees,'' and stay with me 
now. ``The scale and severity of torture in Iraq can only result from 
the acceptance of its use at the highest level,'' according to Amnesty 
International.
  Let me tell the story about a family, and I think we have a picture 
of a wonderful family in Baghdad. This photograph taken on the streets 
of Baghdad on January 7, 2003. A father, maybe a grandfather, with his 
arm around what looks to be about an 11- or 12-year-old boy and a 
daughter in a shawl, and it is a warm family photograph. Let me read 
the story of a family arrested in late 2000, not long ago. They were 
taken to two separate interrogation centers in Iraq within Republican 
Guard facilities located along the road to Abu Ghraib, according to a 
report published by the United Kingdom.
  The husband was held in one center whilst the wife and children were 
held in a women's facility. The husband and wife were interrogated 
under torture about the husband's sale of vehicle that the interrogator 
said had been captured by Iraqi security forces during a raid on Iraqi 
oppositionists. The interrogators said separately to both husband and 
wife that they would cease the torture if they signed confessions 
admitting to be collaborating with oppositionists. They refused. The 
wife was stripped naked and cigarettes stubbed out on all parts of her 
body when she refused to implicate her husband.
  This was August of 2000. I am not talking about ancient history, Mr. 
Speaker. According to testimony, she was beaten and thrown around the 
interrogation room. Her children were forced to watch the torture. She 
was eventually released, having been told her husband would continue 
being tortured until she returned to confess. She was arrested again 2 
weeks late and the same pattern of torture was repeated, leaving her a 
psychological wreck.
  During his testimony, the husband's arms were tied behind his back. 
He was then suspended in the air using a hook hung from the ceiling. 
According to testimony, this caused intense pain as his muscle and 
shoulder ligaments were torn. After a period, the interrogators entered 
the room and the husband was unhooked, placed in a chair. From close 
range, he was then shot at with a pistol whenever he refused to agree 
to sign the confession. Sometimes shots were fired which missed his 
body. At other times, a pistol muzzle was placed against his fingers, 
toes, and arms and fired so as to mutilate those areas. Over the 
following 2 weeks, further interrogations occurred at intervals 
following periods of food and water deprivation. Eventually the husband 
and wife's wider family paid a bribe to an Iraqi intelligence officer 
and they were released, and subsequently survived to escape from Iraq 
and testify.

  Mr. Speaker, I recite these things because I think many people just 
do not know them. I recite these things because there are many who want 
to morally equivocate in this case and even to suggest that there are 
other countries that have weapons of mass destruction, Iraq is no 
different. Iraq is different, Mr. Speaker.
  Let me give you more examples. Among these pictures that I was 
presented when I went to a Web site called to my attention by a 
constituent who opposed the war who asked me to look into the eyes of 
some recent photographs of people who live in Baghdad and think about 
the cost of this war. Among those photographs here is a January 5 
picture of four beautiful girls and one little boy, and it is a good 
starting point for us to talk about women in Iraq, Mr. Speaker. I am 
not going to quote some propagandist organization on the right or some 
pro-war organization. I am going to quote from the Human Rights 
Alliance in France and Amnesty International's report in 2001 about the 
treatment of women by the regime in Baghdad.
  According to Amnesty International, a 25-year-old woman known as Um 
Haydar was beheaded in the street without charge or trial at the end of 
December, 2000, after her husband, suspected by the authorities, of 
involvement in Islamic armed activities, fled the country. Beheaded in 
the street without a trial. And some think this is just another 
country, Mr. Speaker.
  Men belonging to Saddam Fidayeen took Haydar from her house in the 
al-Karrada district in front of her children and mother-in-law. Two men 
held her arms and a third pulled her head from behind and beheaded her 
in front of her family, according to witnesses with firsthand knowledge 
presented to Amnesty International. Human Rights Alliance in France, 
their report in 2002, young woman was arrested because her husband had 
refused to join the war against Iran. Pregnant at the time, she gave 
birth in prison on 3 December, 1999. She said, ``I breast-fed my son, 
but they took him away when he was 17 days old so that he would not 
become like me. I'm still looking for him. I never had further news of 
him.''
  This woman, who was also horribly tortured in prison, still said she 
suffers endless torture, the torture of not knowing where her son is. 
This according to Human Rights Alliance in France.
  Najat Mohammed Haydar, an obstetrician in Baghdad, was beheaded in 
October, 2000, apparently on suspicion of prostitution, according to 
Amnesty International. Even by Iraqi standards, her execution was an 
outrage, Mr. Speaker. There was no evidence to support the charge of 
prostitution. She was reportedly arrested before the introduction of 
the policy to behead prostitutes. The real reason for her death was 
believed to be, according to Amnesty International, her criticism of 
corruption in the Iraqi health service. A female obstetrician in 
Baghdad was beheaded in October of 2000.
  I cannot say enough, and as I prepared for these remarks today, these 
are things that shocked my conscious and mind. I know where I was in 
October of 2000, Mr. Speaker, and to think that there is still a place 
in the world where a professional woman, an OBGYN, a medical doctor 
could criticize her government's health policy and be beheaded publicly 
is a frightening thought. But that is Baghdad and that is Iraq.
  A few more personal stories, Mr. Speaker, and then I will yield this 
Chamber to another colleague. It is the individual stories that touch 
me the deepest. When I got that e-mail from David in my district, I had 
to thank him. He challenged me, Mr. Speaker. He said that if you 
support this war, I challenge you to go to a Web site where there are 
photographs of families that live in Baghdad, recent photographs of the 
people who may fall under the wake of U.S. military involvement. He 
challenged me, and I rose to the challenge, and I went to the Web site, 
but instead of finding myself backing away from engagement, I found 
myself drawn to it. I looked into the face of this little boy and he 
looks like mine. And it is the personal stories that draw me into this 
and reaffirm my belief that the rule of law and the laws that govern 
civilized men and women on planet earth are not the province of the 
west. They are not the province of English-speaking people or 
Europeans, but the freedom from terror, the obligations of due process, 
the freedom of

[[Page H1673]]

speech and association, these are things that attach to the human heart 
that this little boy, sitting on a carpet in Baghdad, smiling for all 
the world to the camera, not knowing what may well be coming to his 
city, touches me deeply.
  A few more personal stories and I will close. These are from an 
Amnesty International report issued in November of 1999. They are 
personal stories regarding Iraq's obvious human rights violation, and I 
say this it as often as I can, Mr. Speaker, that I might per chance by 
some be heard that what I am reading now is not from some pro-war, pro-
Bush Web site or document. This is from Amnesty International. Abd al-
Wahid al-Rifa'i, married with nine children, according to Amnesty 
International, was arrested without a warrant on 8 March, 1999, at 2 
a.m.
  Taken from his house in Baghdad by plainclothes security men, 
initially he was held in the headquarters of the General Security 
Directorate. According to Amnesty International and testimony 
thereafter, he was then taken to a hospital because of ill health, 
returned to the Baghdad security headquarters where he is currently 
held without charge or trial. Since his arrest, his family has not been 
allowed to visit him. He is believed to have been arrested because 
authorities suspected he was in contact with the opposition through his 
brother, an active anti-government opponent who lives in Europe.

                              {time}  1615

  His brother, a businessman, fled with his wife and children to Jordan 
in 1995. The previous month, he had been detained in Iraq accused of 
having contacts with opposition abroad, and was tortured. This included 
beatings, suspension by his feet, electric shock to his lips and 
genitals. He escaped by bribing a prison official in August of 1995, 
and a criminal court sentenced him to death in absentia. His brother 
remains incarcerated without charges in his absence.
  Ibrahim Amin al-'Azzawi, a 70-year-old lawyer, according to Amnesty 
International, was arrested on the morning of 23 March 1999. Four 
plainclothes security men took him away from his house in Baghdad. He 
was reportedly not involved in any opposition activities.
  The previous evening his daughter, Bushra, married with two children, 
came with her children to her parents' house in a state of shock. She 
told her family, who are Sunni Muslims, that her husband had been 
arrested at his house and taken away by security men.
  The whole family could not sleep that night. When the four security 
men came to the house around 6 a.m., they knocked at the door, and it 
was Ibrahim Amin al-'Azzawi who opened the door. They searched the 
house, confiscated documents, and arrested Ibrahim without giving him 
any reason for the arrest.
  The family then feared that the security men would return and arrest 
them. Bushra and her two children and her two unmarried sisters and 
their 61-year-old mother collected some of their valuables and ran from 
the house. A few weeks later, they managed to flee the country. They 
believe that the reason behind their father's arrest was that his son-
in-law, a Shi'a Muslim, was suspected of involvement in some 
antigovernment activities.
  Ibrahim Amin al-'Azzawi was executed. His body was buried by the 
authorities. No information of a charge, trial, or sentencing was 
available. No information was made available to Amnesty International 
as to the fate of his son-in-law. This was a 70-year-old lawyer in 
Baghdad, who upon hearing that his son-in-law had been arrested in the 
dead of night, went to his house to comfort his daughter and was 
himself dragged off and executed. This is Iraq, Mr. Speaker. This is 
Iraq today, 1999, according to Amnesty International.
  Let me tell you a story about a 67-year-old man, married with four 
grown children. Ayatollah al-Shaikh Murtadha al-Burujerdi is his name, 
I say with respect, age 67. He was shot dead by armed men on the night 
of 22 April 1998 as he walked home from the shrine of Imam Ali in al-
Najaf one of the Shiite Muslims' holiest cities, where he had led the 
congregation in dawn prayers. His two companions were also shot and 
sustained injuries.
  He had reportedly been harassed in the past by Iraqi security 
services, and there had been at least one attempt on his life in 1991, 
and following the Shiite uprising in the South, he was arrested with 
scores of other Shiite scholars, was detained, and then released.
  A few weeks before his murder, he had been visited by a delegation 
from the Ministry of Religious Endowments and Religions Affairs, urging 
him to stop leading the prayers. He was reported to have stated to the 
delegation he would only agree if he received in writing an order from 
the Iraqi government. Following the assassination, an official 
statement released by the government blamed the intelligence service of 
a foreign country. Amnesty International.
  These names are hard for me to pronounce, but these facts are not 
hard for me to understand: a 67-year-old grandfather coming back from a 
prayer service, shot and killed. Two men were coming back from one of 
the holiest places for Shiite Muslims were also shot and wounded. His 
offense was praying.
  The list, Mr. Speaker, goes on and on and on. There is persecution of 
the Kurds that has been documented again and again. There has been much 
human rights and religious persecution within Iraq. It is a record of 
mindless barbarism that is contemporary, not ancient history.
  Some may believe that these were things of a frontier period in the 
regime before law and order took hold. These things may happen, they 
say; but I am talking from the benefit of the great work of Human 
Rights Watch and Amnesty International.
  Mr. Speaker, I speak of things that have happened within months of 
this day. A woman who was a medical doctor was beheaded because she 
criticized the government; a grandfather walking back from a prayer 
service, shot and killed simply because he did not adhere to the 
government's demand that he stop leading prayers with the Shiite 
Muslims; and the systematic use of torture as part of government 
policy.
  So I rise today to simply add something to the discussion. I do so 
with great humility, Mr. Speaker, knowing that each one of us among the 
435 who are privileged to serve in this place are simply part of a 
national conversation. We are the way America talks to itself.
  I had a burden on my heart, Mr. Speaker, that America ought to be 
talking about this. We get caught up in resolutions and weapons of mass 
destruction, and were they or were they not involved with al Qaeda, 
were they or were they not involved in September 11. Each one of us, by 
our own lights and by the facts, will decide what we believe, and 
decide what we believe should be the proper course of action.
  However, what I see the debate bereft of is an honest discussion of 
the barbaric and virtually unprecedented record on human rights that is 
contemporary Iraq under Saddam Hussein.
  These families, these kids. December 19, 2002, this paragraph was 
taken of two beautiful little girls, about the age of my girls, in 
Baghdad. When I think of the man who was beheaded in front of his wife 
and children, when I think of the parents who were incarcerated and 
tortured in front of their children, when I think of the woman who 
escaped from Iraq, but they took her boy of 17 days away because they 
did not want him to be polluted by her ideology and thinking, she 
grieves to this day, not for the torture that she suffered and no doubt 
the physical scars she bore, but she feels the emotional scars of not 
knowing where her baby boy is.
  It is about these families, Mr. Speaker, that I believe in the 
justness of our cause. I think of those words from Ecclesiastes, 
Chapter 4: ``Again I looked and saw all the oppression that was taking 
place under the sun. I saw the tears of the oppressed, and they have no 
comforter. Power was on the side of their oppressors, and they have no 
comforter. I declared that the dead who had already died are happier 
than the living who are still alive; but better than both is he who has 
not yet been, who has not seen the evil that is done under the sun.''
  When I look into these eyes, Mr. Speaker, I see the tears of the 
oppressed. When I look into these eyes, I know the evil that is done 
under the sun. Because of the outstanding work of Human Rights Watch 
and Amnesty International, I am able, and millions

[[Page H1674]]

are able, to know of these things, and the reality of them.
  But let it not be said in this place that they have no comforter, 
that they have no defender; because in the days ahead, as we pause and 
reflect this weekend, each of us going to our own place of worship, I 
suspect many millions of Americans in churches and synagogues and 
mosques and in their own private devotions will pray.
  We will, each of us, pray, not just for the safety of our troops, but 
we will pray for these who shed the tears of the oppressed. We will 
pray that God will have his mercy on all the innocent in the way of 
war, confident that our military will use extraordinary efforts to 
avoid casualties by noncombatants.
  It is my hope that somewhere in the heart of hearts of the children 
in these pictures that I have shown today, and in the families they 
represent, there will be the knowledge that there is a defender; there 
is a nation, some 50 nations, that stand ready to end their oppression, 
to dry their tears, and to lead Iraq into a new dawn of civilization, a 
new dawn of freedom from oppression and torture and the abuse of women 
and the stifling of basic civil and human rights.
  That is my prayer, that is my hope, and of that I remain confident, 
that the United States of America will, if need be by force, or by 
showing enough force that it is voluntary, lead Iraq into that bright 
future.

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