[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 129 (Wednesday, September 9, 2015)]
[House]
[Pages H5853-H5854]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




        APOLOGY TO THE VICTIMS OF THE ``IRANIAN NUCLEAR ATTACK''

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Ohio 
(Mr. Johnson) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. JOHNSON of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, because speeches made here on the

[[Page H5854]]

House floor are preserved for history, I want to speak to the future, 
to present a plausible scenario and an apology, an apology to be heard 
by the survivors, an apology to every victim of what will forever be 
known as the Iranian nuclear attack.
  I expect it will be after the year 2030 before anyone takes any real 
notice of this apology. Someone will find it while surfing what remains 
of the Internet, maybe in Israel, Western Europe, or here in the United 
States, someone surrounded by the smoking ruins of leveled buildings, 
the incinerated corpses of those lucky enough to have been killed in 
the first seconds of the blast, and the wails of anguish of those left 
to die and mourn.
  It is especially ironic and heartbreaking to be speaking about this 
as today, in 2015, we prepare to remember those killed in the 9/11 
terrorist attacks.
  So to the people of 2030, on behalf of America, I am truly sorry. I 
am sorry we failed to stop President Obama from releasing $150 billion 
to fuel the destructive fantasies of terrorist leaders in Iran that lit 
the fuse.
  During my 26-year career in the United States Air Force, America's 
leaders believed in mutually assured destruction, the MAD theory.
  We thought, if one nation such as the Soviet Union launched nuclear 
missiles, the other nation would do so as well and both would be 
destroyed. This potential of mutual destruction kept those missiles in 
their silos.
  But that theory does not apply to dealing with the leaders of Iran, 
who are dangerous fanatics, motivated by evil, not self-preservation.
  So the madness in Iran means the MAD theory doesn't apply in 2015. 
And that is why I am sorry that we who lead America in 2015 failed to 
stop President Obama from helping Iranian terrorists and Iranian 
tyrants build an intercontinental ballistic missile system.
  I am also sad to say that the people hearing my message in 2030 will 
bear witness to the fact that Iranian missiles can, indeed, deliver 
nuclear holocaust to America's soil.
  In the Air Force, I worked alongside other military strategists to 
ensure that missiles would never strike here. But, in 2015, America's 
President and his supporters discarded those concerns.
  So to our countrymen of 2030 and to our friends in Israel whose land 
now lies fallow and wrecked, let me now say we were wrong. We struggle 
to imagine what you must be going through. The death and destruction 
that once haunted your nightmares now plays out before you.
  Families and friends are either dead or lined up at makeshift morgues 
to claim the bodies of loved ones. Food and water are scarce or 
contaminated with radiation. Refugees from the blast area stagger down 
gridlocked highways where traffic stopped when the detonation occurred.
  We thought we had seen the worst of humanity's hate on September 11, 
2001, but that atrocity now pales in comparison. The similarities 
between the tragic missteps of Barack Obama and Neville Chamberlain, 
who foolishly trusted Nazi Germany, are obvious.
  Mr. Obama says his deal with Iran will somehow lead to peace. Mr. 
Chamberlain made the same assertion, claiming that his pact with the 
Nazis would lead to ``peace for our time.''
  In 2015, I spoke in opposition to the deal that led to the 2030 
Iranian nuclear attack because I well remember the words of the 
theologian Bonhoeffer who eventually died in a Nazi torture chamber.
  In confronting the murderous madmen of his time, he declared that 
``Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us 
guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.''
  In 2015, many of us spoke, many of us acted, but the powers of evil 
still won the day. And now the innocent dead of 2030 call out with just 
one question: How could the leaders of 2015 let this happen?
  The answer is simple and sad: Because, despite our best efforts, we 
couldn't stop the deal that funded, armed, and unleashed nuclear hell 
from the madmen of Iran. We allowed the power and persistence of the 
foolish to deliver a corrupt contract with a nation of terror. And, in 
2030, the day of reckoning arrived. And for that I am truly very, very 
sorry.
  May God have mercy on us all.

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