[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 52 (Tuesday, April 1, 2003)]
[House]
[Pages H2520-H2521]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            U.S. WILL NOT EXCUSE WAR CRIMES OF IRAQI REGIME

  (Mr. REHBERG asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)

[[Page H2521]]

  Mr. REHBERG. Madam Speaker, some of Saddam Hussein's paramilitary 
monsters hanged a teenage girl last week for waving at coalition 
troops. In the same week, Iraqi military, pretending to surrender, 
fired upon our people who had offered them safety. This week we learned 
Saddam's desperate soldiers have taken to shielding themselves with 
women and children when confronting our advancing troops. His 
paramilitary forces rule by terror, lodging military stockpiles in 
schools and hospitals, firing at villagers who try to flee, and 
exterminating townspeople who refuse to fight for Saddam's terrorist 
state.
  Perhaps the signature statement of the abhorrent and despicable 
nature of the enemy is its treatment of our young people in uniform 
taken captive. Some have been humiliated and paraded in front of 
television cameras. Others, we now know, were brutally executed or, 
should I say murdered, by Iraqi soldiers.
  Can there be any doubt about the vile and inhumane character of 
Saddam's dying regime?
  As President Bush has correctly noted, ``Given the nature of this 
regime, we expect such war crimes, but we will not excuse them.'' Our 
brave men and women in uniform deserve our support, both for what they 
are doing and for why they are there.

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