[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 63 (Wednesday, April 30, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Page S5516]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                              War In Iraq

  I end with a personal comment about how the Bush administration has 
conducted the war in Iraq and the followon. I think one has to 
compliment this administration and the soldiers in the field for the 
way they have conducted this activity. Agree or disagree with going to 
Iraq, in the first place, we have liberated the people, the face of 
liberty of Baghdad looks the same as the face of liberty in Berlin when 
they see liberty. It has a beautiful face, to see liberty and see them 
kissing and hugging our soldiers developing liberty and finding a 
treasure trove of information of terroristic activities to make the 
world a freer place.
  We have to compliment and say God bless the soldiers who have been 
over there, and we say thank you to them and to this administration for 
taking so bold a step forward for liberty in a tough region of the 
world, in Iraq.
  I hope they continue to press for liberty in places such as North 
Korea against Kim Jong Il and his regime--this is the 50th year of the 
armistice we signed with North Korea--which has oppressed its own 
people. In North Korea you have a regime that exports missiles, 
technology around the world, that has a third of its people living on 
international food donations, many of them starving, walking out of the 
country. We think somewhere between 20,000 and 300,000 have walked from 
North Korea into China. We have a regime that operates a gulag system 
in North Korea, continues to operate a Soviet-style gulag. We have a 
regime there that imports millions of dollars a year in luxury cars and 
alcohol and tobacco. So while their own people by the millions starve, 
the regime that sits on top drives around in a Mercedes Benz, drinks 
fine wines, and smokes fine tobaccos.
  When you turn the rock over in North Korea you will see the same, if 
not worse, type of deplorable living conditions for the people, and 
extraordinary situations of high-life living for the elite. I have no 
doubt from what we know already what has taken place in that regime. We 
will see a level of depravity from liberty and from the basics of human 
life from the North Korean people that would rival any on the planet. I 
hope the administration keeps the pressure on Kim Jong Il and his 
decrepit Stalinist regime so that the 22 million people of North Korea 
can one day be free.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cornyn). The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.