[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 72 (Thursday, June 8, 2006)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1076]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            ZARQAWI IS DEAD

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. CLIFF STEARNS

                               of florida

                    in the house of representatives

                         Thursday, June 8, 2006

  Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Speaker, last night, at 6:15 p.m local time, our 
special operation forces, using Iraqi tips and intelligence, executed 
the most wanted terrorist in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
  Mary Anne Weaver, a reporter for Atlantic magazine, traveled to 
Zarqawi's hometown and spoke with the people who watched him grow up. 
``Everyone that I spoke with readily acknowledged that as a teenager 
al-Zarqawi had been a bully and a thug, a bootlegger and a heavy 
drinker, and even, allegedly, a pimp in Zarqa's underworld. He was 
disruptive, constantly involved in brawls. When he was fifteen, . . . 
he participated in a robbery of a relative's home, during which the 
relative was killed.''
  Moving from street thug with an arrest record for violence and 
imprisonment for sexual assault into a profession, Zarqawi obtained a 
job as a video-store clerk, from which he was quickly fired. After 
losing this job, he undertook his first of many trips into Afghanistan, 
where he found justification and an outlet for his violent nature 
through Islamic jihad. In 1994, Zarqawi was imprisoned for possession 
of grenades in the basement of his home. It was during his fifteen year 
imprisonment that he built his following, and after his release he 
commenced his litany of terror acts.
  To see the most compelling evidence of this man's evil, look at the 
record of his actions.
  Beginning in 2003:
  October 28th, Lawrence Foley, United States diplomat and 
administrator of aid programs in Jordan, is gunned down outside his 
home; August 19th, top U.N. envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello and 23 others 
are killed in a truck bombing of the U.N. headquarters in Iraq;
  And then in 2004:
  March 2nd, He orders coordinated explosions at Shiite mosques in 
Karbala and Baghdad, killing 181 people; May 11th, Zarqawi beheads 
Nicholas Berg, a Pennsylvania engineer; June 22nd, South Korean hostage 
Kim Sun-il is beheaded; June 29th, Georgi Lazov, 30 years old, and 
Ivaylo Kepov, 32 years old, are kidnapped and beheaded; August 2nd, 
Murat Yuce of Turkey is executed on video; September 13th, Durmus 
Kumdereli is beheaded; September 14th, 47 Iraqis waiting in lines for 
jobs are killed by a Zarqawi car bomb attack; September 16th, Kenneth 
Bigley, Jack Hensley, and Eugene Armstrong are kidnapped and beheaded; 
September 30th, 35 children and seven adults are murdered by Zarqawi's 
bombs as U.S. soldiers hand out candy at the opening of a new sewage 
treatment plant in Baghdad; October 30th, Shosei Koda, 24 years old, is 
beheaded.

  In 2005:
  February 28th, 125 Iraqi National Guard recruits are murdered by a 
Zarqawi follower in a suicide attack; November 9th, Zarqawi coordinates 
three suicide bombings of hotels in Amman, Jordan, killing 60 people, 
including a wedding party.
  Zarqawi received judgment for his actions last night, and his reign 
of terror and violence is over. Yet, while we are pleased that this 
man's murderous influence in Iraq is over, we must not view his death 
as a moment to rest in our efforts, or as a sign that our job in Iraq 
is finished. According to the article in Atlantic magazine this week, 
Mary Weaver's contact, a high level Jordanian intelligence official, 
``If Zarqawi is captured or killed, the Iraq insurgency will go on.'' 
Mary Weaver also interviewed a man who had witnessed the fervor of 
support among a radical fringe in Iraq. ``He [a young boy] was from 
Saudi Arabia and had just turned thirteen. I noticed him in the crowd 
at a recruiting center near the Syrian- Iraqi frontier. People would 
come and register in the morning, then cross the border in the 
afternoon by bus. I first saw him at the registration desk. The 
recruiters refused to take him because he was so young, and he started 
to cry. I went back later in the day, and this same small guy had 
sneaked aboard the bus. When they discovered him, he started to shout 
`Allahu Akhbar!'--`God is most great!' They carried, him off. He had 
$12,000 in his pocket--expense money his family had given him before he 
set off. `Take it all,' he pleaded. `Please, just let me do jihad.' ''
  In this war on terror, unlike a traditional state to state war, we 
must accept that the death of a leader does not end the conflict. On 
the contrary, the death of such a high profile figure could provoke 
isolated terror cells to increase violent attacks. We may well see a 
rise in insurgent attacks in the coming weeks, and we must continue our 
intelligence efforts in the area to locate and put pressure on these 
cells, and support our military as they pursue and eliminate them. 
Persistent hearts will achieve this victory, and I encourage the 
American people to steel themselves for this continued battle with 
evil, and to support our military as they bring about a free and stable 
Iraq.

                          ____________________