[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 16 (Tuesday, February 10, 2004)]
[House]
[Page H398]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         WE DID THE RIGHT THING

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the order of the House of 
January 20, 2004, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) is recognized 
during morning hour debates for such time as he may consume.
  Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, there is one point to make in the debate 
about the war on Iraq and it is this: we did the right thing.
  After September 11, President Bush declared war on the terrorists and 
all the regimes who support them. Saddam Hussein's dictatorship was the 
very definition of a terrorist regime. He started two wars, invaded two 
neighbors, and tried to assassinate an American President. He was 
obsessed with obtaining nuclear weapons and was bent on using them to 
blackmail the civilized world. He was a merciless tyrant with no 
respect for human life who butchered his own people and threatened the 
stability of a fragile region in the Middle East. He worked with 
terrorists and financed their operations. He was going to kill more 
Americans and help others to do so. In short, Mr. Speaker, Saddam 
Hussein was Iraq's weapons of mass destruction; and he had to be 
removed.
  Yet, now in this political season, partisan opportunists suggest that 
the war was somehow illegitimate because we have not found massive 
World War II-style warehouses full of missiles. But 9-11 taught us that 
our enemies need not have conventional weapons to threaten us. If 
Saddam Hussein had just a briefcase full of one chemical or so much as 
a vile of another given his past, his hatred of the United States and 
his ties to international terrorism, he posed a grave and gathering 
threat to our national security, period.
  Critics who now undermine the legitimacy of Operation Iraqi Freedom 
with their slanderous attacks against the President and the 
international intelligence community undermined our security at the 
same time. Revisionists these days seem to believe it was someone other 
than Saddam Hussein who deceived the international community during the 
buildup of this war. But by doing so, Mr. Speaker, they embolden our 
enemies. Every world leader, especially those of us with the honor to 
serve in this body, should stand up and speak with one voice on the war 
on terror and how it will be fought and how we should win it in Iraq 
and elsewhere. Undermining our mission in Iraq to score political 
points dishonors the victory we won there and the legacy of the men and 
women who gave their lives in its winning.
  We did the right thing, Mr. Speaker; and we would do it again.

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