[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 67 (Thursday, May 13, 2004)]
[House]
[Page H2997]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




     DESPITE THE WRONGS OF A FEW, THE MISSION IN IRAQ MUST CONTINUE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Weldon) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I, along with many of my 
colleagues, had the opportunity to view the photographs of the prisoner 
abuses in Iraq this past week, and I have had many of my constituents 
calling me and questioning me about these issues. I certainly agree 
with all of those who express outrage to see this kind of abuse going 
on, perpetrated by Americans. However, I disagree strongly with many of 
those who look at these recent developments and assert we should never 
have gone into Iraq in the first place, considering these great 
problems that are developing over there.
  I continue to feel very strongly the President did the right thing in 
using force against Iraq, and that Iraq was a serious threat from a 
terrorist perspective. And I think Tony Blair expressed this most 
clearly and most succinctly when he addressed the House of 
Representatives and the Senate in joint session right in this very 
Chamber. The reason we went into Iraq was because if you ever had the 
joining of weapons of mass destruction with the terrorist elements of 
al Qaeda, instead of 3,000 dead, as we had on September 11, we could 
have 30,000 or 300,000 killed.
  We went into Iraq for the right reasons. And to those who would say 
that the war in Iraq is unwinnable, I would assert that we have won the 
war in Iraq. The challenge that we face today is winning the peace. And 
clearly winning that peace is critically important.
  By taking the war against terror into the Middle East, there are many 
of our detractors, supporters of totalitarian regimes in that part of 
the world who would like to see us fail in establishing democracy in 
Iraq and would like to see some sort of totalitarian regime reemerge in 
that country.
  I will say this. If we cut and run as some people are proposing, 
there will be tens of thousands of Iraqis who will die unnecessarily. I 
was in Iraq in November of last year, and many Iraqis are cooperating 
with us. They want to see a democratic institution established that can 
govern their country, and many of those people will be imprisoned, 
tortured, and executed if we see a regime resume in Iraq similar to 
Saddam Hussein's regime.
  Now, many are questioning as to how this could have happened and are 
raising questions about Americans' character. How could it be that 
Americans are guilty of these kinds of terrible things? And, indeed, 
many of our detractors in the Middle East are trying to assert that we 
are no different from Saddam and his henchmen in that they torture 
people, and here we were, torturing people.
  I think if we look at the brutal execution that we saw recently where 
an American was executed in front of video cameras, we can clearly see 
there is a difference between us and them.
  The American people are rightly outraged, and they demand these 
abuses stop and that investigations be conducted. Well, in reality, the 
U.S. military responded appropriately months ago when they recognized 
this problem. Investigations have been underway for a while, and the 
abuses stopped long ago. Indeed, all we are seeing right now is a media 
and public reaction because the photographs were made available.
  The American people are good people, the American people are a moral 
people, and we are reacting appropriately. The perpetrators of these 
deeds will be brought to justice. Indeed, as I understand it, court 
marshals are underway almost now as we speak. The real question is why 
could a small few be driven to such terrible deeds? And that is a 
legitimate question for us to ask.
  Clearly, one important thing is a breakdown of command and control of 
authority, and we need to seriously investigate what happened here with 
the brigade commanders and the company commanders. How did we have 
breakdowns in our military intelligence operations where standard 
Geneva Conventions were ignored? But those investigations were 
underway, and we will find out. And that is how America is different. 
That will play out in the eyes of the public.
  To compare the United States to Saddam Hussein and his brutal regime, 
where this was business as usual, indeed it was official policy of the 
regime, is just totally inaccurate and totally distorted.
  What struck me most about viewing these photos was the simple fact 
that many of these photos were pornographic. How could it come to pass 
that American servicemen and women are perpetrating these kinds of acts 
and recording them all on camera? Certainly we need to ask those 
questions in this country today. But I do not think we can escape 
asking the question of whether or not this is an impact of all the 
availability of pornography in our Nation.
  Mr. Speaker, we have too much pornography in this country, and this 
body needs to act more and our court system needs to act more to try to 
stop it. We need to ask the questions of how could a small few carry 
out such morally reprehensible deeds.

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