[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 5 (Thursday, January 9, 2020)]
[House]
[Pages H143-H146]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           ISSUES OF THE DAY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2019, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) is recognized 
for 34 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, consistent with the statement that was just 
made about Brian Fitzpatrick, I will be missing tomorrow's votes. If I 
were here, I would vote ``no.'' There is too much good that is being 
done with the PFAS, and I would vote ``no.''
  But I will be attending the funeral of a former Member of Congress, a 
great patriot, a friend, just a wonderful person, Michael Fitzpatrick, 
and it was an honor to serve with him in this body.
  Obviously, we have had a lot of discussion about Iran, Soleimani, his 
death, the death of so many that he caused, and his role in being head 
of the IRGC, so I thought it would be helpful if we learned a little 
more for those who haven't.
  It helps, I found, profoundly, if people know what they are talking 
about, and it seems there has been a whole lot of talking and not a lot 
of knowledge about what is going on with Iran.
  Many of us remember, and I sure remember because I was in the Army at 
Fort Benning at the time, when our Embassy in Tehran was attacked 
initially, it was said by the Iranian leaders that the students 
attacked the Embassy; and after days of President Carter doing nothing 
but begging for them to let our people go, they realized that we were 
not going to do anything, and so they began to say: We have the 
hostages.
  I always thought at the time, paying close attention to the news back 
in those days, that by saying the students did this that the Iranian 
leaders were giving themselves a back door if we had had a President 
who had put his foot down and said: Either you get them released, or we 
are going to come get them released ourselves; and if they are harmed, 
Iran will pay heavily.
  I felt that was probably where they would say: Hey, we got them from 
the students. Here they are.
  But that was the first clue after Vietnam that we were still a paper 
tiger. That is the way we were portrayed around the world. That is what 
we in the Army heard back in those days: Gee, all you have to do is 
drag out confrontation like Vietnam and they will turn tail and run.
  That appeared to be consistent with us doing nothing about our 
Embassy, which, under international law, is American soil. It is 
American property. It is American housing. It was attacked, and we 
didn't do anything about it for a lengthy time, which sent the message 
to the new leader in Iran, the Ayatollah Kohmeini, that we really were 
paper tigers. We were toothless. There was no power, no courage, and it 
encouraged them.

                              {time}  2130

  In fact, there was one effort at a rescue but, unfortunately, the 
military's hands were tied by people at the top.
  I was told by a friend in the Army back at the time that the White 
House was the one that had them cut back the number of helicopters that 
would go into the desert across, around 500 miles or so of desert, with 
turbine engines in the helicopters. And they knew, as my friend, 
General Boykin has confirmed, they had to get six to the landing area. 
Otherwise, it was an abort. And when it was clear only 5 were going to 
make it, that the mission was aborted.
  The helicopter pilot may have gotten vertigo. The helicopter tilted. 
The blade went through a C-130 that was there to equip them for the 
trip in to rescue our hostages, and Americans were killed and left 
there in the desert at the staging area.
  If there had been an adequate number of helicopters allowed to go in, 
they would have had sufficient number of six or more to make it. But 
the number going in was cut back, I was told, by the White House. They 
didn't want it to look like an invasion.
  I am proud we have got a President that is not worried about it. I 
mean, I have asked him about this before, and he is more concerned 
about protecting our American treasure, our American military members; 
and he wants to commit whatever our military needs to get the job done. 
That is a far cry from where we were in the late 1970s.
  In fact, I do recall President Carter, he had turned his back on the 
Shah. It didn't sound like the Shah was a great person, a great 
humanitarian at all, but at least Iran and the area were not at war 
with us at that time.
  But when President Carter turned his back on the Shah, it opened the 
door for him to be overthrown. Apparently, people in the Carter White 
House did not give adequate thought to what happens when the Shah is 
gone, because what happened was the Ayatollah Khomeini.
  And President Carter, as I recall, welcomed the Ayatollah Khomeini 
back in charge of Iran--he had not been in charge before--but welcomed 
him back to Iran, and proclaimed he was a man of peace. It could not 
have been a more ignorant welcome to the man that would start Iran on 
the course to be the greatest source of terrorism in the world.
  So thank you very much to the Carter administration. Great job. You 
brought in, allowed in people who have continued to kill Americans at a 
rate greater than anybody else.
  They have helped Afghanistan. That was a shock when we found that 
out. They have helped Sunnis, they have helped Shia. And normally, that 
doesn't happen, but they are so dedicated to destroying the Great 
Satan, America, in their view, and destroying the Little Satan, Israel, 
that we have to take them seriously. Too many Americans have been 
killed as a result of ignorance or optimism unjustified.
  But this is a study done from the Jerusalem Center for Public 
Affairs, a very good study done, and it gives us a lot of information 
about Iran. It points out that Iranian military action, often working 
through proxies, uses terrorist tactics; has led to the death of well 
over 1,000 American soldiers in Iraq and

[[Page H144]]

Afghanistan over the last decade and a half.
  They point out that the explosively formed penetrators--a lot of 
people are familiar with the IEDs, but these are EFPs, explosively 
formed penetrators, a shaped charge designed to penetrate armor--that 
these are often camouflaged as rocks and were identical to those 
employed by Hezbollah against Israeli forces.
  In 2006, the British Telegraph revealed that three Iranian factories 
were mass producing the roadside EFP bombs used to kill soldiers in 
Iraq.
  In 2007, American troops discovered over 100 Austrian-made Steyr HS 
.50, 50-caliber sniper rifles, in Iraq. They can pierce all in-service 
body armor from up to a mile and penetrate U.S. armored Humvee troop 
carriers.
  I fired a 50-caliber sniper rifle at Quantico. It is amazing how 
powerful they are.
  But, unfortunately, they were found in Iraq, and they had apparently 
come from an Austrian manufacturer, but they were bought by Iran, and 
supplied by Iran, apparently, to Iraq to help kill American soldiers.
  Iran also paid Taliban fighters $1,000 for each U.S. soldier they 
killed in Afghanistan. In fact, the Sunni Times reported that a Taliban 
operative received $18,000 from an Iranian firm in Kabul as reward for 
an attack in 2010 that killed several Afghan government troops and 
destroyed an American armored vehicle.
  Iranian President Rouhani's so-called moderation, was displayed when 
he appointed Brigadier General Hossein Dehghan to be minister of 
defense. He had played a key role in the October 1983 suicide bomb 
attacks in Beirut, in which 241 U.S. Marines and 58 French paratroopers 
were killed.
  And of course, Dehghan, apparently was replaced previously, in 1998 
with a guy named Soleimani, who is with us perhaps in spirit only now, 
thanks to our current President and the ability of our United States 
military.
  Anti-Americanism helped fuel the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran, a 
violent anti-American doctrine that challenges any role for America in 
the Middle East, it has been, and remains the central focus of Iranian 
foreign policy.
  Since the revolution, Iran has waged and continues to wage war 
against the United States and its allies. Unfortunately, though, Iran 
has been at war with the United States for 40 years now, since 1979, 
for sure--well, really, since the Ayatollah took over and President 
Carter welcomed him as a man of peace. He has not been a man of peace. 
He has been at war with the United States.
  The report points out the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, IRGC--
people hear that term quite a bit, but that was founded by Ayatollah 
Khomeini shortly after the overthrow of the Shah at the onset of the 
Islamic Revolution in 1978-79.
  Iran's RGC has morphed from its initial, mainly ideological, 
composition into a particularly powerful organ of Iran's political 
system, the upper echelons of which tend to be drawn from the ranks of 
the IRGC. They are developing an increasing lethal system such as 
advanced naval mines, coastal defense, anti-ship cruise and ballistic 
missiles and attack craft.

  The IRGC boasts a paramilitary unit comprised of 10 to 20,000 
individuals known as the Quds Force. That was what Soleimani commanded 
and was using strategically, killing Americans, as many as he could.
  The strategic objective of the IRGC-QF is to subvert Iran's enemies 
and export the Iranian Revolution, a goal it attains largely by 
facilitating the delivery of weapons to pro-Iranian factions in 
Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Persian Gulf States, Gaza, the West Bank, 
Afghanistan, and central Asia.
  In 2007, the Treasury Department designated IRGC-QF as a terrorism-
supporting entity.
  The report is quite extensive. It goes on to point out many of the 
efforts, successful efforts to kill Americans, talking about the Khobar 
Towers in 1996 and many other attacks.
  But it points out that in 1998, Major General Qasem Soleimani has led 
the IRGC-QF, in which time he has created branches focused on 
intelligence, finance, politics, sabotage and special operations. With 
a direct independent channel to Khomeini, Soleimani has successfully 
sought the assassination of political rivals, armed terrorist proxies, 
and directed a network of insurgent groups in Iraq that killed over 
1,000 Americans. And that is just in Iraq. But we know more regarding 
what they have done in Afghanistan, in Lebanon, in Syria.
  Mr. Speaker, I see I am joined by my friend, who has served his 
country honorably and well and made his way up to the rank of general. 
He knows a great deal about war in Iraq and Afghanistan.
  I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Perry).
  Mr. PERRY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas for taking 
the time to discuss this with the American people and allowing me to be 
part of it. I saw the gentleman and I didn't want him to have to carry 
the freight alone.
  There was a lot to be said today, and probably neither he nor I got 
to say everything we wanted to say about the proceedings over the last 
couple of weeks. And it frustrates me that our colleagues, right here 
in the House of the Congress will say, America assassinated General 
Soleimani.
  You can put a general's rank on a puppy dog, or a rabbit, or you name 
it, on a car or a truck. This guy is a terrorist, no matter what he is 
wearing. He is a terrorist from a terrorist state, and that is his 
claim to fame. That is who he is. Responsible for the deaths of 
hundreds, if not thousands of Americans, and certainly responsible for 
the deaths and maiming of thousands of Americans.
  And when they say, well, this President is starting a war. I wonder 
to myself, my goodness, where have you been for the last 40 years? 
Since 1979, right?
  The gentleman knows this. Louie Gohmert knows this, right?
  We were all present and watched when Iran punched America in the face 
40 years ago. It hasn't stopped.
  So finally, after 40 years of appeasement--and the gentleman knows 
this well, because he is a great student of history.
  Appeasement didn't work in World War II, right? And the results, the 
results of appeasement, leading up to World War II, was the untold 
deaths and untimely deaths and miserable suffering deaths of millions 
of people across Europe because of appeasement.
  Yet, we have tried it with Iran for 40 years. Iran is playing long 
ball. People say, well, they were complying with the JCPOA and we let 
them out of it. Well, of course they were complying. There was nothing 
in it that stopped them from doing everything they wanted to do, which 
was get to a nuclear armed program where their ballistic missile 
program caught up to it, right?
  So for 10 years all they had to do is not let us inspect their 
military sites, because we didn't demand or require that in the deal. 
They could keep on doing whatever they are doing there. Perfect their 
ballistic missile capabilities so they can deliver the payload to 
Israel or the United States.
  Oh, and in 10 years we will have nothing to say about it because we 
approved all of this. And then we have a terrorist nation that uses 
terrorism as statecraft with a nuclear missile.
  What is our leverage then? We have none, right? We have got another 
North Korea, is what we have.
  So it befuddles me that--I am sure our well-meaning colleagues on the 
other side think that this is going to work. Einstein, of course, he 
described the definition of insanity; it is doing the same thing over 
and over and over again and expecting a different outcome.
  Appeasement is dangerous. It is provocative. It encourages despots to 
be despots. And so far, for 40 years, that is what we have watched.
  And finally, the President gave them warning after warning. They 
said, well, it wasn't warranted. We didn't have enough intelligence.
  There was open source reporting. They told us what they were going to 
do. Do you remember the 9/11 attacks, where there was open source 
reporting? And then, after the fact, everybody said, where were the 
intelligence and law enforcement agencies? Why weren't they talking?
  Here, our enemy, who says they are going to kill the Great Satan and 
the Little Satan--that's what they say, right?

                              {time}  2145

  They tell us what they are going to do, yet it is not enough for some 
of my

[[Page H145]]

colleagues who would have then said: Mr. President, what did you know 
and when did you know it? And why didn't you do something about it?
  You know this, right?
  Mr. GOHMERT. In fact, it took me too long to get around to reading 
Winston Churchill's books on World War II, but he points out that when 
Hitler first moved into the Sudetenland, they were so disorganized that 
it was a disaster, that if there had been any resistance put up at all 
instead of Chamberlain waving a piece of paper that this means peace in 
our time and we are going to let him go in and move in and take over 
this land, that if there had been any resistance at all because of all 
the material breakdowns, mechanical failures--Hitler was furious.
  He said any resistance would have caused the defeat of the Germans 
moving in, and then the Germans would have been humiliated. They would 
have, in all likelihood, gotten rid of Hitler because he got too 
ambitious and exposed them to defeat. He would have been gone, and the 
world would have been spared the tens of millions of people who died as 
a result of trying to placate the man.
  Just supporting what my friend the Congressman is pointing out, it 
doesn't usually work well, and it hasn't worked well. I know there are 
people who say all we were doing was giving Iran their money back when 
we gave them all that money. Money is fungible. We say maybe that 
specific money enabled them to continue supporting Hezbollah and 
terrorists who would attack and kill Americans.
  Mr. PERRY. You are absolutely right. There is the moral equivalency. 
If we would just give the criminal, the terrorist, the murderer their 
money back, it is legitimate. It is theirs. Just disregard the fact 
that these are killing, murdering terrorists.
  There is no moral equivalence. You don't give murdering terrorists 
money, whether it is theirs or anybody else's. You throw them in jail.
  These people should probably legitimately be in The Hague for crimes 
against humanity, not getting their money back. Among all the things 
that frustrate me, that is one of them. The other one, of course, is 
this whole war powers thing.
  We have had a year in this Congress, a year of escalation of Iran 
attacking American targets. In November and December alone, 24 or 25 
times, over two dozen times, attacking American targets, but it was 
never an issue.
  You know when else it wasn't an issue? The kind gentleman from Texas, 
it wasn't an issue for 8 years when almost 4,000 people under the Obama 
administration, terrorists, rightly were killed by drone strikes. You 
know what came from the other side of the aisle regarding the War 
Powers Act? Nothing.
  We agree with President Obama on that. We didn't agree on many things 
as Republicans with President Obama, but we agreed that eradicating 
terrorists was a good thing. He did it not in the war zone of Iraq, as 
approved by this Congress. He did it in Yemen, Somalia, and Pakistan, 
sovereign nations. The United States was going and killing people, 
including American citizens, outside the combat zone, but not a peep.
  Yet today, with Iran watching, with our enemies watching, today is 
the day that we have to revise the War Powers Act and rein in a wayward 
President because he is trying to defend the country.
  The good Representative from Texas, it has nothing to do with the War 
Powers Act. This resolution that is never going to go to the President 
was all about campaign messaging.
  It is also messaging our enemies that we are divided in this country. 
We are not divided. We might be divided in this House, but we are not 
divided in this country.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I have an article here from January 2017, 
and the title from The Guardian is ``America dropped 26,171 bombs in 
2016. What a bloody end to Obama's reign.''
  I remember specifically because I had been to Libya, but as our 
Defense Secretary Bob Gates said in a live interview, Libya is not in 
our vital interest. We didn't have a real dog in that fight is what I 
am saying.
  In fact, Qadhafi did have blood on his hands. He wasn't a good guy. 
But since the U.S. went into Iraq, he opened his doors and said: You 
tell me what weapons I can keep. I won't pursue nukes anymore.
  He had not been a problem for us from that time forward, yet 
President Obama, without any authority from here, decides basically to 
go to war with Libya and with Qadhafi and dropping bombs on them. Why? 
Because he said NATO needs us to do this.
  Mr. PERRY. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. GOHMERT. I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. PERRY. What I have heard on this House floor today is the 
President is capricious, irresponsible, doesn't have a plan, doesn't 
have a strategy. If the gentleman will please tell the audience, under 
the Obama administration and under Secretary Clinton, what was the 
strategy in Libya?
  Mr. GOHMERT. There was no strategy in Libya other than to take out 
Qadhafi. Just like President Carter turning his back on the Shah and 
welcoming Ayatollah Khomeini in, when President Obama took out Qadhafi 
and, yes, he bombed him into oblivion.
  We have seen reports that Qadhafi was begging, look, we will just go 
into exile, and he sent word to the President, if you will just let me 
leave in peace, I won't ever come back to Libya. Let's leave the 
country not destroyed, stop the bombing, and I will just leave, but 
never heard back from Washington.
  The problem is that President Obama created a failed state in Libya, 
and it has been the source of destabilizing all of North Africa. I 
don't know if there is any Member of Congress who has been allowed to 
have 2\1/2\ hours with the head of intelligence in Egypt as I have, but 
Egypt is paying heavily for President Obama's wrongheadedness in taking 
out Qadhafi and completely destabilizing North Africa.

  Mr. PERRY. I wasn't in Congress. I didn't have the honor to be in 
Congress at that time. Maybe you were, or maybe you were more attuned 
to things, but I am just wondering, at that time, without a strategy, 
without a plan, firing on a sovereign nation, killing their leader.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Actually, President Obama had our forces, NATO forces, 
but they were American. They bombed his convoy as he was leaving Libya. 
That allowed the locals--
  Mr. PERRY. It facilitated, yes.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Then he was assassinated there.
  Mr. PERRY. So to make the correction absolutely clear, the United 
States did not kill the leader of Libya, but we helped facilitate it, 
in some respects.
  Mr. GOHMERT. In criminal terms, he was certainly an accessory. He 
could not have been killed without President Obama's help.
  Mr. PERRY. Because if you were present, did somebody in this House 
say that this President is reckless, that he is destabilizing the 
region, that we are assassinating or aiding and abetting the 
assassination of leaders of foreign countries? Was any of that 
occurring in this House?
  Mr. GOHMERT. Yes, it was, but only on one side of the aisle, and that 
was this side because we were okay with President Obama defending 
Americans and American interests. But as Bob Gates said, that did not 
include Libya. Now, he walked that back some, but it was clear it was 
not in our vital interests.
  What really got me, though, is I am hearing so many people who were 
here back then. They didn't offer one peep about the illegality of what 
President Obama was doing. Many of us did, but they didn't say a word. 
And that was outside our interests.
  Killing Soleimani, that was protecting American lives. Going after 
Qadhafi didn't protect any American lives, and in fact, it has caused 
total disruption.
  Mr. PERRY. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. GOHMERT. I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. PERRY. Did we have an Authorization for Use of Military Force in 
Libya?
  Mr. GOHMERT. No.
  Mr. PERRY. Was Libya an American combat theater?
  Mr. GOHMERT. No.
  Mr. PERRY. So when our good colleagues on the other side of the aisle 
say that this was illegal and unconstitutional, meanwhile knowing that 
the

[[Page H146]]

Authorization of Use of Military Force, whether we agree with it or not 
it is in statute right now, in a combat theater where we are authorized 
to be by that AUMF, by votes of Congress, signed by a President, with 
an armed combatant who, by the way, as you probably know, is listed on 
the terrorist list by the United States and others and is not supposed 
to be out of Iran, his home country.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Right.
  Mr. PERRY. Yet, he was traveling to Syria and then through Iraq as a 
combatant and as a terrorist on the terrorist list. What is the point 
of putting terrorists on the list if you are not going to do anything 
about the terrorist on the list?
  Mr. GOHMERT. Back to Libya momentarily, what President Obama did cost 
American lives, including at Benghazi. If he doesn't decide 
unilaterally whether NATO wanted it or not, he decided for America 
without any consent from Congress to go to war with Libya to take out 
their leader. It destabilized the country. It put American lives at 
risk that were not at that time, and it actually cost American lives.
  I have an article here, and I have seen on Facebook some comments, 
but an ``Iranian American activist outraged by `propaganda machine' 
glorifying Soleimani.''
  There are so many Iranians who are speaking up now going: What is 
wrong with you people? This guy was a terrorist. He was killing 
Iranians. He was killing Americans. He was just merciless.
  Mr. PERRY. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. GOHMERT. I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. PERRY. I just happened to notice on CNN about the time of the 
attack that they had the spokesperson for the Iranian Government during 
the hostage crisis speaking on CNN. NPR did something very similar. It 
is not just Iranian Americans who are unhappy with the situation, the 
propaganda not only by elected officials but by our media that is 
taking up the side of the enemy that wants to destroy America. It is 
disgusting.
  Mr. GOHMERT. It really is, and it is just a shame that at a time when 
we ought to come together because, unlike Libya, we do have an interest 
in protecting American lives. We do have an interest in stopping people 
who want to destroy America. We ought to be united on this.
  This is not a time to come in and try to condemn and belittle the 
President who did a good thing in taking out a terrorist.
  One other thing, I don't remember anybody on the other side of the 
aisle here that made a peep when the President of the United States, 
President Obama, gave the order to kill al-Awlaki and his 16-year-old 
son. So al-Awlaki, he was an American citizen. Why, because his parents 
came over on a visa, a student visa, had him, took him back, and taught 
him to hate America, but he got an American passport. He is an American 
citizen.
  He had worked with some in the Obama administration, apparently 
worked with some in the Bush administration. But he was really an enemy 
of America.
  President Obama gave the order not to take out a terrorist like 
Soleimani, who was in the process of stirring up terrorism and killing 
Americans, but this was an American citizen, and he gave the order to 
take him out with a drone strike, take out his 16-year-old son. 
Regardless of what al-Awlaki had done, his son was not a criminal, but 
President Obama just ordered him taken out and not one word from the 
other side of the aisle.
  I would have thought we could have come together on that: Wait, 
before we take out American citizens, should we give them a trial or 
should we just let a President decide?

  Now, I was okay with somebody that they had the evidence and that was 
in the process of being at war with us, but for heaven's sake, the 
people didn't raise not one peep about that.
  Mr. PERRY. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. GOHMERT. I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. PERRY. Was there a briefing? Was there a consultation from the 
President to the leaders of Congress or to Congress? Was there adequate 
information substantiating the imminence of an attack? Was there any of 
that, or was there any human outcry that there was none of that and 
then a rush to judgment on the President's authority to do that from 
our good friends on the other side of the aisle?
  Mr. GOHMERT. Well, the media helped them out. This is just an 
incredible time, and it is a time when free people ought to be able to 
come together and unite together in the cause of freedom.
  As Natan Sharansky pointed out, people didn't think he and his wife 
would be getting back together after he was released from prison in 
Russia because she was more religious and he wasn't, and he said that 
is ridiculous. I got along with the guy for 12 years in my cell, and 
the only thing we had in common was a desire for freedom. That ought to 
bring us together here.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________