[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 4]
[House]
[Pages 5073-5079]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENTS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 7, 2003, the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. McInnis) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, my colleague, the gentleman from the State 
of Utah, we bring good news. The good news is Colorado has got snow, 
and we are almost back to average. We are having a great year out there 
in Colorado.
  I saw in one of the Eastern press papers lately that the Rocky 
Mountains, in our ski areas out there, are suffering because of our 
lack of snow and we have had great snow out there. That is the good 
news that I bring to you.
  I want to bring another piece of good news to my colleagues that 
happened to the State of Colorado. In Colorado we have an area called 
the Four Corners. It is the only area of the country where four States 
touch in one spot, down near Cortez or Durango, Colorado, to give you a 
vicinity earmark so you know where I am talking about. The United 
States Navy, I had the privilege of being invited by the United States 
Navy to go to the Pascagoula, Mississippi shipyard. I have never been 
to a shipyard. In Colorado we do not have a lot of Naval presence. But 
the Navy decided to name one of their new ships after the national park 
down in the Four Corners. And the name of that national park is Mesa 
Verde, mesa verde meaning ``green table.''
  It is a beautiful area. It is the only national park in the Nation 
that protects man-made objects, not objects just of nature. So to have 
a ship named in honor of that park, and I got to go down to the keel 
ceremony, Northrup Grumman is the builder of it, and I got to meet a 
lot of their employees down there. Great people. I had a great trip

[[Page 5074]]

and I considered it to be a great privilege to be involved in the keel 
ceremony. So we in Colorado are proud about that, and of course we are 
proud of our members that serve in our military forces.
  There a number of subjects that I want to visit about this evening, 
all dealing, of course, with the international situation that we face 
today.
  First of all, let me talk about the success we had over the weekend. 
I notice we have had a lot of criticism of late of the Federal Bureau 
of Investigation, a lot of criticism of the Central Intelligence 
Agency, a lot of criticism of the President of the United States, 
President Bush, and what I would call the A-Squad Team down there, 
criticism of the A-Squad Team that nothing is happening with terrorism, 
that for some reason terrorism has been forgotten.
  I can tell you we had a great victory over the weekend, in fact, a 
huge victory over the weekend. I think I can quote my colleague, the 
gentleman from the State of Florida (Mr. Goss), who said this was like 
freeing Paris in World War II. That is how significant it was. And that 
is that we were able to arrest, right below bin Laden, our second-
highest target, Mohammed.
  Now this Mohammed guy is a bad guy. And to get our hands on him, and 
we were even more fortunate, we also thought we had arrested one of his 
bodyguards. In fact, it turned out that this so-called bodyguard was 
not a bodyguard in fact, but was in fact a financier for the al Qaeda 
network. So we really hit a bull'seye over the weekend.
  Now I find it very interesting that some commentators come out and 
say, oh, my gosh, we have arrested one of their top guys. This means 
more terrorist attacks. I do not know what we take out of a comment 
like. That because we go and arrest one of the lead terrorists in the 
world, one of the key people involved in September 11, one of the most 
horrific murderers in the world, that because we arrested him that that 
could perhaps mean we will have an uptake in terror activity, and their 
remarks are as if maybe we should not have arrested him, that we have 
might have offended some of his colleagues that intend to do harm to 
the United States or to the allies of the United States.
  And then tonight, of course, comes up the subject of how do you 
question a suspect like that? And I hear some people out there saying, 
oh, my gosh, it is torture to deprive him of sleep. Keep in mind what 
this individual knows, and keep in mind on the one hand what the 
individual knows and on the other hand the public good. What this 
individual knows, I suspect is he knows of different attack schemes, 
different timing of attack schemes, different methods that they are 
going to attack the United States or its allies. And over here on the 
public good we have riding this issue, one, hundreds, thousands, tens 
of thousands, hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of lives are 
dependent on whether or not we can get this information and take a 
preemptive strike, stop this terror strike before it occurs. And today 
I hear commentation on the fact that, my gosh, you better not deprive 
this suspect of his sleep. That is torture.
  And I say to myself, What do you mean? This guy, this suspect who we 
know is one of the lead architects, if not the lead architect, of the 
September 11, you are going to say we are torturing him because we 
deprive him of sleep to get answers out of him, to get information out 
of him in hopes of preventing another September 11 or even a larger 
attack? Of course it brings up the debate of torture. At what point in 
time should torture be allowed or should it be allowed? And I think you 
have got to weigh that out. Think about it, and I know a lot of people, 
right when you use the word torture, it is a word that if you ask 100 
people, do they have a positive or negative feeling about the word 
torture. Out of 100 people you will get 100 people who will say they 
have a negative feeling about the word. So right off the bat you are on 
the defensive side.
  So I am asking some of my colleagues tonight to not draw a rapid 
conclusion, but put in your own mind to what extent should we be 
allowed to use different methods, and what type of methods should we be 
allowed to use on a suspect we know probably has information that if we 
do not get that information in a timely fashion could very easily 
result in the deaths of hundreds of thousands, perhaps even more, a 
more significant amount, even one, of innocent human beings out there 
that could be the victims of this kind of terrorist strike.

                              {time}  2000

  I can tell my colleagues that I would be interested for my colleagues 
to hear what they have to say. I am not going to carry the debate on 
tonight other than to tell my colleagues that I think the United States 
and its allies are perfectly obviously within international law and 
obviously within the national interests of this country to deprive a 
suspect of his sleep, to deprive a suspect of certain other privileges 
that he might enjoy as a prisoner, to see if, in exchange, we can get 
information from him to avoid a future attack on the United States.
  It does amaze me, there is a group of people out there that protested 
globalization, and before that protest, they were out there protesting 
global warming. Now they have joined up in some of the protests. They 
are just professional protestors looking for a place to go and now we 
are going to see it.
  The day after we make the arrest, now we are seeing some of these 
people pop up and saying, oh, my gosh, the United States is treating 
this suspect badly. Of course, they do not know how we are treating 
this suspect, but just to get the word out, they are just arousing 
people about it. On a commentary I heard tonight, well, they are 
depriving him of sleep. Give me a break. Look at the reality of the 
situation we are playing.
  This is not a nice guy's game. This is not Mr. Nice Person. This is 
about human life. This is about mass destruction. This is about 
innocent people. This is about unprovoked attacks upon innocent people. 
This is about a group of individuals who are very sick in their means 
to reach an end. This is about people who become the victims of that 
means to reach an end, and if that does not broaden the parameter of 
what my colleagues think we ought to be entitled to do to solicit 
information from an individual, then I do question whether or not you 
have a place at the table to debate.
  I want to move from that and, of course, talk about the subject at 
hand. I do not usually like to stand in front of my colleagues and 
read, and I especially do not like to read a commentary that is of much 
length, but I would ask my colleagues just to bear with me this 
evening. I want to read about two pages of content of what I think sums 
up very well the situation we face in Iraq, and after I discuss that, I 
then want to go through some of the points.
  I have met with some peace protestors. Let us just say protestors. I 
am not sure peace is the accurate description, but protestors. I have 
met with people on different sides of the issue, and several questions 
have been asked of me by these individuals, and I thought this would 
probably be an appropriate forum to discuss some of those questions, 
which were legitimate questions, and by the way, the right to protest 
is very legitimate in our government. In fact, it is part of the checks 
and balances. So I thought I would go through some of those and give my 
responses to those under the current situation that we have.
  Let me first of all, though, begin by reading this commentary, and I 
hope my colleagues bear with me. I hope they listen to the words 
because we know in the history of the world that history tends to 
repeat itself. Not exactly. History does not repeat itself exactly, but 
history is a good barometer of the weather, and we all know our 
barometer does not give us the exact weather pattern, but most of the 
time what the barometer says is the kind of weather we see. It is the 
same with history. A good study of history gives us a good study of the 
future, not an exact study of the future, but a good study of the 
future.
  I think this article of a little history, much of this history before 
many of us

[[Page 5075]]

were even born is worth considering. Again, bear with me.
  The author of this is Alister Cook of Britain: ``I promised to lay 
off topic A--Iraq--until the Security Council makes a judgment on the 
inspectors' report and I shall keep that promise.
  ``But I must tell you that throughout the past fortnight, I've 
listened to everybody involved in or looking on to a monotonous din of 
words, like a tide crashing and receding on a beach--making a great 
noise and saying the same thing over and over. And this ordeal 
triggered a nightmare, a daymare, if you like.
  ``Through the ceaseless tide I heard a voice, a very English voice of 
an old man--Prime Minister Chamberlain saying: `I believe it is peace 
for our time.''' I believe it is peace for our time--``a sentence that 
prompted a huge cheer, first from a listening street crowd and then 
from the House of Commons and next day from every newspaper in the 
land.
  ``There was a move to urge Mr. Chamberlain should receive the Nobel 
Peace Prize.
  ``In Parliament, there was one unfamiliar old grumbler to growl out: 
`I believe we have suffered a total and unmitigated defeat.''' One 
voice, one lone voice in the House of Commons. I think we have suffered 
a total and unmitigated defeat.
  ``He was, in view of the general sentiment, very properly booed down.
  ``This scene concluded in the autumn of 1938 the British prime 
minister's effectual signing away of most of Czechoslovakia to 
Hitler.''
  So we are leaving the transcript for a moment.
  It was when Hitler demanded that Czechoslovakia be signed over to 
him, and it was Chamberlain who said it is a time for peace and they 
adopted the doctrine of appeasement, give him Czechoslovakia and people 
cheered, cheered, and they booed the one dissenting voice which was the 
gentleman of which I just spoke. Let me go back to the text now.
  ``The rest of it, within months, Hitler walked in and conquered.
  ```Oh dear,' said Mr. Chamberlain, thunderstruck. `He has betrayed my 
trust,''' speaking of Hitler. Chamberlain said, ``He has betrayed my 
trust.''
  ``During the last fortnight a simple but startling thought occurred 
to me-every single official, diplomat, president, prime minister 
involved in the Iraq debate was in 1938 a toddler, most of them unborn. 
So the dreadful scene I've just drawn will not have been remembered by 
most listeners.
  ``Hitler had started betraying our trust not 12 years, but only two 
years before, when he broke the First World War peace treaty by 
occupying the demilitarized zone of the Rhineland.
  ``Only half his troops carried one reload of ammunition because 
Hitler knew that the French morale was too low to confront any war just 
then, and 10 million of 11 million British voters had signed a so-
called peace ballot.'' Ten million of 11 million British voters had 
signed the peace ballot.
  ``It stated no conditions, elaborated no terms, it simply counted the 
number of Britons who were `for peace.'
  ``The slogan of this movement was `Against war and fascism'--chanted 
at the time by every Labour man and Liberal and many moderate 
Conservatives--a slogan that now sounds as imbecilic as `against 
hospitals and disease.'
  ``In blunter words a majority of Britons would do anything, 
absolutely anything, to get rid of Hitler except fight him.''
  Let me repeat that paragraph. ``In blunter words a majority of 
Britons would do anything, absolutely anything, to get rid of Hitler 
except fight him.
  ``At that time the word `pre-emptive' had not been invented, though 
today it's a catchword.
  ``After all, the Rhineland was what it said it was--part of Germany. 
So to march in and throw Hitler out would have been pre-emptive--
wouldn't it?
  ``Nobody did anything and Hitler looked forward with confidence to 
gobbling up the rest of Western Europe country by country--`course by 
course,' as growler Churchill put it.
  ``I bring up Munich and the mid-30s because I was fully grown, on the 
verge of 30, and knew we were indeed living in the age of anxiety.
  ``And so many of the arguments mounted against each other today, in 
the last fortnight, are exactly,'' exactly ``what we heard in the House 
of Commons debate and read in the French press.
  ``The French especially,'' and please note this sentence that I am 
pulling out of here. ``The French especially urged, after every Hitler 
invasion,'' negotiate, negotiate, negotiate.
  ``They negotiated so successfully as to have their whole country 
defeated and occupied.
  ``But, as one famous French leftist said: `We did anyway manage to 
make them declare Paris an open city--no bombs on us!'
  ``In Britain the general response to every Hitler advance was 
disarmament and collective security.''
  Collective security, keep in mind, have my colleagues heard that buzz 
word lately? ``Collective security meant to leave every crisis to the 
League of Nations. It would put down aggressors, even though, like the 
United Nations, it had no army, navy or air force.
  ``The League of Nations had its chance to prove itself when Mussolini 
invaded and conquered Ethiopia.
  ``The League didn't have any shot to fire. But still the cry was 
chanted in the House of Commons--the League and collective security is 
the only true guarantee of peace.
  ``But after the Rhineland, the maverick Churchill decided there was 
no collectivity in collective security and started a highly unpopular 
campaign for rearmament by Britain, warning against the general belief 
that Hitler had already built an enormous mechanized army and superior 
air force.
  ``But he's not used them, he's not used them--people protested.''
  Keep in mind this and let me reemphasize this sentence. ``But he's 
not used them, he's not used them--people protested.
  ``Still for two years before the outbreak of the Second War, you 
could read the debates in the House of Commons and now shiver at the 
famous Labour men--Major Attlee was one of them--who voted against 
rearmament and still went on pointing to the League of Nations as the 
saviour.
  ``Now, this memory of mine may be totally irrelevant to the present 
crisis. It haunts me.
  ``I have to say I have written elsewhere with much conviction that 
most historical analogies are false because, however strikingly similar 
a new situation may be to an old one, there's usually one element that 
is different and it turns out to be the crucial one.
  ``It may well be so here. All I know is that all the voices of the 
'30s are echoing through 2003.''
  There is a history to the League of Nations. Many, many years ago, 
there was a concept that the world could live in peace. They could hold 
hands. The war was not necessary. I saw tonight on TV a lady, she says, 
if we do not get rid of war, in the next few years, war will get rid of 
us. That is a great quote. Tell me how it is done, and back then, I 
mean people throughout the history of mankind have tried to figure out 
how do we avoid conflict. We try and figure out how to avoid conflict 
every day on the streets of our communities with our police officers. 
How do we avoid conflict?
  But we face up to the fact that there be circumstances where conflict 
is inevitable. We face up to the fact that in certain circumstances, 
violence is necessary. I am sure that wakes up a lot of my colleagues. 
Violence is necessary? Of course, if we have a bank robbery in process 
and the bank robber walks out and shoots somebody, how do my colleagues 
think we stop him? A police officer stops him, hopefully peacefully, 
but if the police officer does not, our society gives the right to our 
local police officer. I do not care if it is a town of 200 people or if 
it is a town in New York City. We give a right to our local police 
officers to act with violence, to stop because we look at the larger 
public good. What is the larger public good?
  For the League of Nations, people thought, and I think with good 
merit,

[[Page 5076]]

hey, let us try this concept of the League of Nations. It will be 
collective security. We will act as a body, and what happened after 
World War I, the Germans signed on to an agreement. They would not use 
poison gas anymore, we promise. So the nations said all right, well, we 
need to have inspections; we want to come over and check out your 
country to make sure you are not having these gases anymore, that these 
gases are not being produced. So Germany says, okay, they sign the 
agreement.
  Pretty soon, no inspections. Pretty soon, no cooperation. So what do 
they do? They turn it over to the League of Nations, say, okay, you are 
our collective security. In theory we have collective security. Go in 
and solve it. What does the League of Nations do? They issue 
resolutions. They have great talk. The French, as usual, say negotiate, 
negotiate, negotiate. Guess what happens? League of Nations becomes a 
paper tiger. The League of Nations cannot do it, and in some 
circumstances, we can look at exactly at the United Nations.
  Keep in mind the make-up of the United Nations. The United Nations 
has 189 different countries. How many of those countries supported U.S. 
policy and what percentage of the time have they ever supported U.S. 
policy? I mean, the United Nations is an outfit that just appointed 
Libya, Libya. Remember Libya? All of those people that want peace and 
believe in human rights, which all of us believe in but are real strong 
advocates of human rights, Libya ought to come right up at the top of 
their radar one of the most abusive countries of human rights.

                              {time}  2015

  Guess what the United Nations just did? They named Libya head of the 
Human Rights Commission at the United Nations.
  My point here is this: we see in the 1930s the way that they dealt 
with Hitler. They appeased him. They said he will never use those 
weapons on us. The French said negotiate, negotiate, negotiate. We face 
a similar situation today, a similar situation if we do not do 
something with Iraq. And let me just say that, with credit to a man I 
think is a very brave and a strong leader, President Bush, as well as 
Dick Cheney, Dr. Condoleezza Rice, and Colin Powell, these people are 
very focused on the future of this country. That team down there wants 
this country to be strong, not necessarily military, but they want this 
country to have a beautiful, positive future. They want peace as much 
as anybody wants peace. But they also know that we have to have 
security; that under some circumstances, no matter how deeply we desire 
security and peace, we cannot get it because there are people out there 
who wish us ill will. No matter how good we are to them.
  So let us bring this back to the present situation in Iraq, and that 
is what I want to move on to next, to talk specifically about what our 
situation is in Iraq. And I want to bring up some of the questions that 
were asked of me by some of these people who are protesting the United 
States actively enforcing the U.N. resolutions and saying that Saddam 
Hussein cannot continue down his path of production and storage of 
weapons of mass destruction.
  So let us start. I have often said that Saddam Hussein is like a 
cancer, and I think that is a good comparison. Now, there are a lot of 
different ways people deal with cancer. Some people will say to the 
doctor, when the doctor first gives them the diagnosis of cancer, they 
say let us go in and cut it out now, Doctor. I want to go to the 
hospital today, I want to go in chemotherapy today, I want to go into 
surgery today, I want to do whatever is necessary to aggressively and 
preemptively take out that cancer if we can possibly do it.
  Other people take the attitude that this just cannot be happening to 
me. I am going to go home and go to sleep, and tomorrow I am going to 
wake up and find out it was a bad dream. Other people say, Doc, I do 
not think we need to take that kind of radical approach and attack the 
cancer. I think we have to be a little gentler about our approach. What 
I want to do, Doctor, is to go home and pray about it. Now, do not get 
me wrong. Prayer is, in my own personal belief and opinion, a very 
strong medicine. But a lot of times we need more than prayers. The 
prayer is kind of a supplement that we have.
  Other people ignore it completely. They say, Doctor, I do not believe 
you. I do not believe cancer is that kind of threat. I think you have 
overstated the health problem for me, and I will go down my own path.
  The other day I saw a cartoon that illustrates, I think very well, 
exactly what I am saying about the situation with Iraq, or what this 
Nation is saying about the situation with Iraq, and thank goodness what 
the President and the executive branch believe about Iraq. I refer my 
colleagues here to my left. Here is the doctor. We can see the patient 
is named ``The World,'' and growing out of his back is a growth, and it 
is the face of Saddam Hussein. And the doctor says, ``It's cancer. But 
I am sure it will go away if you leave it alone.''
  That is what I am saying here. We have a cancer. Now, I know nobody 
wants to go to war. The previous speaker up here on the floor, the 
doctor, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Paul), he said we do not want to 
go to war because it impacts our economy. Of course it impacts our 
economy. But even that is insignificant compared to the biggest impact 
that all of us face. In fact, most of us in these Chambers have some 
member of our family right now serving in the Armed Services, whether 
it is in the support service in the United States or whether it is on 
the front line in Kuwait or waiting in the harbor in Turkey to deploy 
into Iraq, if that becomes necessary. We all have a lot invested in 
this situation.
  None of us wants to see a conflict. But the fact is none of us really 
want to go through the pain of chemotherapy. None of us really want to 
go through maybe losing a foot to cancer. The fact is it is not going 
to go away. We have to act aggressively. And the United States has 
always reserved the right to act in its own national interest, and the 
only way the United States can do that is to act boldly and decisively. 
We are dealing with nothing less than a very horrible cancer; and it is 
a cancer that if we do not do something about it today, we know where 
it will be in a few years when we go back to the doctor's office, so to 
speak.
  If we do not act, we will have a North Korea on our hands. People 
say, why do you not deal with North Korea? We are dealing with North 
Korea. That is a big problem. The situation is we should have dealt 
with North Korea about 8 years ago. How did we deal with North Korea? 
Just the same as Europe dealt with Hitler in 1938. We appeased North 
Korea. We offered North Korea a payment. We offered them free oil. All 
they had to do was raise their right hand and say they would not use 
the oil for military purposes. We helped them build nuclear reactors, 
and all they had to do was raise their right hand and say they would 
not use it for military purposes, but for the generation of 
electricity. That is how we dealt with the threat in North Korea. And 
look what has happened; now it is the biggest threat.
  I think all of us in this House representing the people of this fine 
Nation have an inherent obligation to the next generation behind us. It 
is an inherent obligation to the next generation behind us to make sure 
that we deliver to them a country that is strong and secure. President 
Bush knows his numbers have dropped in the polls. Does anyone think 
Churchill did not recognize that he was booed in the House of Commons 
when he suggested they not appease Hitler? Sometimes it is a lonely 
world out there doing the right thing. But that is what is required of 
leadership.
  The fact is we have an obligation to get rid of this cancer. The 
other fact is we are not going to get rid of it by saying let us not go 
to war; let us just look the other way. Let us just go back to the 
United Nations, which has been dealing completely with defeat, 
completely ineffectually for the last 12 years to try to get this 
cancer, to get this guy to disarm.
  Saddam is not going to disarm. The disarmament, by the way, that we 
have

[[Page 5077]]

seen up to this point in time, is ironically, in large part, the very 
weapons that he has denied he has. And the only reason that that has 
occurred to this point is because of the military might that the United 
States has put right on his border, the United States and its allies. 
And I want to speak for a moment about that too, in a second. The 
United States and its allies. Does anyone think Saddam Hussein would be 
doing this if we did not have military forces all around his country? 
Does anyone think he would be cooperating because the United Nations 
called him on the phone and said, ``Saddam, we want you to cooperate. 
We want you to disarm. This is the United Nations calling, and we want 
you to disarm, Saddam.'' Does anyone think he is cooperating because of 
that? Of course not. He is cooperating because he is looking down the 
barrel of a gun, and that gun happens to be our gun. We are bound and 
determined to disarm that regime.
  And, yes, the world will be safer. And, yes, it is in the national 
interest of the United States. And, yes, it is in the interest of the 
United Nations. But who is going to act? It appears more and more every 
day that the United States and its willing coalition are going to be 
the ones that have to step forward and carry the heavy weight on this 
job. Not uncommon for this country. This country carried the heavy 
weight in World War I. We carried the weight in World War II. This 
country carried the heavy weight in Vietnam, in my opinion; and in the 
Persian Gulf this country carried the heavy weight. We do not mind. I 
do not think it is fair. I think we should have burden-sharing. But the 
fact is we are a great country, and as a leader we are expected to 
lead. Sometimes that is required.
  Now, let me just leave here a moment and talk a moment about the 
allies and this willing coalition. I talked to somebody today who says 
the United States is going to go it alone. I said, the United States is 
not going to do this alone. In fact, I believe that the United States 
will have a larger coalition if we have to go to war. The United States 
under the leadership of our President and that leadership team we have 
got down there, will have put together a larger coalition than we had 
in Persian Gulf War Number One. That is right, that is what I said, a 
larger coalition this time than we had last time.
  Now, by reading the international media, by looking at the protester 
signs out there on the street, one would think America and Europe have 
split the sheets forever. There is a big split in Europe. We have a lot 
of countries in Europe that support the United States. We have a lot of 
countries in Europe that believe that of the entire world the United 
States is the bus they want to get on, the United States offers the 
most hope in the future, and the United States is who they are willing 
to stand by in the foxhole.
  Now, sure, we may have a country like Poland or Hungary that does not 
have a lot to offer militarily. But they do not care. They would go out 
there with a rubberband and stand next to us. That is how gutsy some of 
those people are. We have some major European powers that are 
supporting the United States. Take a look at Spain. Take a look at 
Italy. Of course, Great Britain has always been a long-time ally. Well, 
maybe not always, a few hundred years ago. But as of late, the last 
hundred years or so.
  Talk about Tony Blair. There is a guy that has guts. There is a guy 
whose photo ought to be hung in the Profiles in Courage hallway. 
Because he knows, by their own history, by the history that Churchill 
defined, by saying the doctrine of appeasement, give them what they 
want and they will go away, or as the doctor would say, wait long 
enough and it will go way. Tony Blair, President Bush, Dick Cheney, 
Condoleezza Rice, and Colin Powell know that it will not go away. We 
all know this danger is not going to go away.
  We have an opportunity today to do something about Iraq. We have that 
opportunity so that we are not dealing with a second North Korea here 
in just a few short years.
  Let me move on.
  Mr. Speaker, can I get a time check, very briefly?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Bishop of Utah). The gentleman from 
Colorado (Mr. McInnis) has 29 minutes remaining.
  Mr. Speaker, I mentioned earlier in my comments about some of the 
questions that have been asked of me by some of the people that are 
participating in these protests, and I thought it would be appropriate 
to go through some of these that I can recall being asked one by one. 
Because, I think I said earlier, these are legitimate areas of debate. 
They are legitimate questions.
  Now, I am not sure in my discussions with these people whether they 
wanted to hear what I had to say. I think they had predetermined their 
thoughts. But nonetheless, they asked the questions; so let us go 
through the questions.
  First question: Does Iraq pose a threat to our security?
  I would bet that 10 years ago, 15 years ago, before North Korea began 
the construction of their nuclear facilities, I bet there were a lot of 
people that said, why do we have American forces in North Korea? Do 
they pose a threat to our security? Today, especially the younger 
generation of South Korea, people are again asking the question, does 
North Korea pose a threat to our security? Take a look at it.
  Does Iraq pose a threat to our security? Maybe not today, although I 
happen to think that they can. I will tell my colleagues why I think 
today they pose a threat to our security. In my opinion, if Saddam 
Hussein can develop a nuclear or biological or chemical weapon and put 
it on a missile, his number one target would be Jerusalem or Tel Aviv. 
He will hit Israel with that weapon. And that has a significant impact 
on the security of the United States of America because, in my opinion, 
Israel will retaliate, a massive retaliation; and we could easily have 
the next nuclear war in the Middle East, all started because of the 
fact that some in this country, when we had an opportunity to disarm a 
madman, to disarm Saddam Hussein's regime, insisted we look the other 
way; that we thought as the French thought with Hitler, you can 
negotiate, negotiate and negotiate.
  Iraq is a threat today. And for those of who do not think it is a 
threat today, mark my word, just as I mentioned in the poster I had up 
here earlier of the cancer, mark my word, it will come back to haunt 
maybe not our generation, because many of us will be out of office here 
in a few years, but it will be back to haunt our children. And every 
one of us owe it not only to the children but to the children of the 
people we represent to make sure that even if we do not think it is a 
threat today, and we know it will be a threat, we have got the 
opportunity to fix it today. There is a problem, and we can fix it 
today.

                              {time}  2030

  Next question: Are we rushing to war? Boy, do I hear that. Why do we 
rush into war? Bush wants to take us into war.
  Mr. Speaker, we are not rushing to war. Look at what we have dealt 
with, and let me just show Members. Again, referring to the poster, 
these are the United Nations resolutions from 1990 to 2003: 678, 687, 
707, 949, 1060, 1134, 1154, 1205. Members get the message. Every one of 
these resolutions had very intense debate and was directed to Iraq over 
a 12-year period of time to disarm. Every one of these resolutions was 
like a League of Nations' attempt to hold hands, talk peacefully, and 
that this guy would listen to the international community.
  I often hear comments he just cares about the sovereignty of his 
country, or this is all about oil. If Saddam Hussein cared about the 
people, about the people that he rules over, and it is not a democracy. 
In his last race, he had no ``no'' votes against him in the country. If 
he cared about those people, he would disarm and become a member of the 
international community. He would use those oil reserves for the 
benefit of his people. He could make Iraq one of the wealthiest 
countries the world has ever known. He could provide his citizens with 
freedom, with schools,

[[Page 5078]]

with the finest universities, with the finest things that money can 
buy. But that is not his intent. He has no intent of listening to the 
international community.
  Those people who are saying we are rushing into war, where have they 
been the last 12 years. We have tried economic sanctions. We have tried 
resolution after resolution after resolution. We have moved our forces 
to their borders and demanded that he disarm, and now he is throwing 
out a couple of pebbles every once in a while to pretend like he is 
disarming. The fact is, we should have taken care of this in the 
Persian Gulf War, number one. We should have gone into Baghdad and 
switched that regime to a regime that cared about the people of Iraq. 
Why could we not do? Because we listened to the community of the United 
Nations which said, wait a minute, free Kuwait, leave Saddam Hussein 
alone. He will not be a threat anymore. After all, he has promised us 
that he is going to get rid of those weapons of mass destruction.
  Speaking of those weapons of mass destruction, there is a question 
that says: What weapons does he really have? These people say to me, I 
do not want you telling me what weapons he has. We cannot trust you on 
what weapons you think Saddam Hussein has. We want a verifiable source 
that tells us weapons, Saddam Hussein. What is a better source than 
Saddam Hussein himself.
  This is what Saddam Hussein says he has: 2,8500 tons of mustard gas. 
Mustard gas will shrivel a population up into a pile of ashes. Sarin 
nerve gas, 795 tons. A thumbnail full of sarin gas can wipe out a 
subway. VX nerve gas, 3.9 tons, a deadly gas. Tabun nerve agent, 210 
tons; anthrax 25,000 tons. Remember the envelopes we got here in the 
Nation's capital here last year, little drops of powder, not tons, not 
pounds, not ounces, fractions of ounces in a little envelope, and look 
what it did. It killed people in this country. He has got 25,000 tons 
of it. Uranium, 400 tons; plutonium, 6 grams.
  He is the one that told us what weapons of mass destruction he has. 
He is the one that has not brought those weapons forward to show us in 
good faith, in keeping with the resolutions that he himself signed, 
that the United Nations themselves, resolution after resolution after 
resolution, put forward for him to get rid of.
  What is the next question I am often asked? Will attacking Iraq yield 
more terrorism in retaliation? I actually have had people come up to me 
and say we should not go after Saddam Hussein because some of the 
people will get mad at us and they will carry out further terror 
strikes against this country. I am in disbelief. I said to this person 
over the weekend, whose name was John, John, you are telling me that in 
our community, we should say to a police officer before you arrest a 
suspect, we need to determine whether that suspect's family or friends 
will be mad at us and they might commit more crimes if we arrest the 
criminal? You name for me, John, one city in this country, one 
community in this country, one village in this country, that instructs 
its police officers before they make an arrest to determine whether or 
not making that arrest will result in members of the suspect's family 
or friends of the suspect will commit more crimes against the 
community, therefore, you should not arrest him.
  That is not how we do it in our communities, and we cannot do it that 
way on an international basis. They showed that they will do whatever 
they can to destroy America. They showed that when they ran their boat 
into the USS Cole. These people will do anything they can through any 
method to destroy us, and they take special enjoyment in doing this 
when we assist them, when we, through the doctrine of appeasement or 
our own citizens, say they are harmless. Give them what they want.
  It happened in 1938 in Hitler, it has happened throughout history, 
and it is going to happen here.
  Next question. Should the United States seek permission from the 
United Nations? I think the United Nations is an institution that has a 
proper place in society. I think where the United Nations serves most 
effectively is in nation-building. What I mean by that, in Ethiopia, 
for example, where they have massive starvation, I think the United 
Nations is an appropriate agency to go in and teach people how to farm 
and assist these economies. I think the United Nations has a place in 
our worldwide fight against AIDS, which is a horrible disease every 
country faces. The United Nations has a delivery system, not 
necessarily the most effective delivery system, but they have a place 
there.
  But does the United Nations, which really does not have an Army or 
Navy or Air Force, can the United Nations be depended upon to go to 
battle when battle is necessary. It did not happen in the Cold War. 
They did not take sides in the Cold War. In the Korean War, they issued 
a resolution that had the United States do it for them. With Iraq, they 
knew they had to face up to Iraq, and the way they handled it, they, 
time and time again, issued resolution, resolution, resolution. Keep in 
mind what I was talking about in 1938 what they talked about there. 
Every British citizen thought something had to be done about Hitler. 
They were willing to do anything to get rid of Hitler except fight him. 
That is what it said in that article that I read.
  Next question. Should the United States act unilaterally? First of 
all, the United States is not going to have to act unilaterally. The 
coalition that we have built will exceed the coalition that we had in 
the first Persian Gulf War. We will have at our side many countries, 
and many European countries will be standing at our side. So the United 
States will not have to act unilaterally. It will not be necessary, and 
the United States is not acting unilaterally.
  Will it become necessary for the United States to act without the 
United Nations? That may be necessary. We are not about to let the 
United Nations sit by as a paper tiger and look the other direction as 
this cancer spreads. We do not want to see a repeat of history of 1938 
where the League of Nations turned the other way and hoped Hitler would 
be a good boy and go on and modify his behavior to become a part of the 
world community. We may have to act without the United Nations, but it 
is not because we did not give the United Nations every chance. For 12 
years, the United Nations has had an opportunity to resolve this, and 
they have not done it.
  I notice with some humor that they constantly refer to the second 
resolution that they are debating right now and will vote on shortly. 
Where did they come up with the idea second resolution? Try 17th or 
18th resolution. Try 12th year. We have given the United Nations every 
opportunity to disarm. Do you think the United Nations would have put 
forces on these borders if it had not been for the leadership of this 
President and the leadership of the United States Congress? The answer 
is, no.
  Should the United States act preemptively? Of course we need to act 
preemptively. When it meets certain standards, the United Nations needs 
to reach out. We cannot defend this country against terrorism 
completely. We cannot do it. We cannot put a glass bubble over our 
country. It is like trying to protect your camp when somebody is on the 
top of the mountain taking sniper shots. At some point, you have to 
reach out and attack the sniper.
  In the United States, we cannot wait for terrorists to come to the 
United States and commit an act of terrorism before we are authorized 
to go after them. We have to reach out and get them. That is what we 
are doing throughout the world. We have every right to act 
preemptively, just as every community in this Nation allows their 
police officers to act preemptively, allows their police officers to go 
out, and if there is a crime in progress, and there are certain 
standards that police officer can meet, that officer has the right to 
act preemptively. We do not say to our police officers the first shot, 
the criminal gets the first shot, and we should not say to the world 
community that the terrorist or Saddam Hussein or North Korea gets the 
first shot. Our

[[Page 5079]]

country is not going to allow these countries to take the first shot if 
we can avoid it. We always retain the right to preempt.
  Finally, is North Korea a more important issue? They are all 
important issues, but that is the way that the question was asked to 
me. Of course it is an important issue; but, if we do not do something 
about Iraq today, Iraq will be North Korea 10 years from now. What we 
are doing today, if we do not stand up and deal with this today as our 
obligation requires us to do it, we are handing the problem over to the 
next generation. Unfortunately, the problem will not be in the same 
proportion. The problem will have grown greatly unproportionately, and 
the problem that we hand over to the next generation will be much more 
horrific to deal with. Many, many more human lives, many more innocent 
human lives will be lost as a result of deferring the action on this.
  We are going to have to deal even more significantly with North 
Korea, but it does not mean that we turn a blind eye to the next North 
Korea that is coming down the pike. We know who it is and where it is; 
and we know we can do something about it, and I am here to tell Members 
that we are going to do something about it. This United States Congress 
had enough courage several months ago to stand up and give the 
President of the United States, on a bipartisan basis, Democrat and 
Republican, give the President the authority to take this country and 
stop and fix the problem. We can fix it.
  Let me say to Members one other question that is not on my poster, 
and that question is Iraq, who are they hurting? We should just leave 
them alone. The United States is being a bully. Why do we need to go 
after Iraq. Saddam Hussein is a madman, and forget the fact that women 
have no rights. Every woman's organization in the world ought to be 
standing up and ought to be walking in the streets of the world by the 
hundreds of thousands. Every man and woman should be protesting the way 
he treats women. Ask how many women ever get an opportunity of 
individualism or education. There is nothing in that country that is 
fair. But some people stand aside and say what have they ever done.
  Mr. Speaker, this is what Iraq has done with its weapons of mass 
destruction: August 1983, mustard gas, 100 Kurds, they killed them.
  October 1983, mustard gas, 3,000 Iranian Kurds, they killed them.
  February, 1984, mustard gas, another 2,500 people killed.
  March 50-100 Iranians killed.
  1985, 3,000 Iranians killed, mustard gas.
  1986, mustard gas, 8,000-10,000 killed.
  1987, mustard gas, 5,000 people killed.
  Time after time after time this man, this dictator, illustrates to 
the world that he will go and use any weapon that is necessary, not 
only against his enemies or perceived enemies, but his own citizens.

                              {time}  2045

  In this great country of ours, do you remember back in the war 
protests, I think it was Ohio State, where 14 students or maybe four, I 
think four students were killed by the National Guard? This country 
went nuts. Our own National Guard killing our own citizens, four of our 
own citizens? Yet some of these very people that I am sure, my age, 
that will remember that, that protested about that remain unfortunately 
and dishonorably silent about the horrible and egregious murders that 
this guy is carrying forward.
  This is not an innocent country, this man. We can do more for the 
Iraqi people, not under an American colony. We are not trying to make 
Iraq an American colony. We are not going over there and saying they 
should adopt our democracy. But we do say one thing to the people of 
Iraq. We say to the people of Iraq, you will be better off. You are 
entitled to some individual rights. You are entitled to some enjoyment 
of human life. And we say to all the neighboring countries, including 
our friends Israel, Saudi Arabia, other countries, you are entitled to 
live without the threat of these weapons being rained down on your 
communities one day. And we say to the citizens of our own Nation, you 
are entitled to know that the next generation is not going to have to 
cure the problem that this generation ignored.
  Let me say in summation, I know, and I think it is healthy that we 
have protests out there. I think it is. I know that some people have 
come out. I am amazed by some of the local city councils and 
communities that come out with resolutions. I do not remember a Member 
of Congress, I do not remember sending resolutions to some of these 
communities to fix their streets, but some of them have felt it 
sufficient to send us resolutions about not going to war with Iraq. I 
know there is a lot of feeling out there. But, please, take a look at 
what happened in 1938. Take a look at the history, more recent history, 
of what Saddam Hussein has done during his dictatorship of that 
country, the tens and probably hundreds of thousands of people. By the 
way, this has nothing to do with religion. We will do a little quiz 
here. Do you know what man in history has killed more Muslims than any 
other man known in history? You guessed it. Saddam Hussein. Responsible 
for more Muslim deaths than any other man in history.
  This is a country that is a country that has a great deal of 
strength, built of its people, built of debate. These protests make it 
healthy. We have all examined this. None of us want to rush off to war. 
Nobody is rushing off to war. But everybody in the world must know that 
when the United States pulls its sword from its shield, it means 
business. It takes a lot for this country to do it. I think we have 
exercised extreme patience. For 12 years we have begged the United 
Nations to do something about it. For 12 years we have sat on the bench 
waiting for the quarterback to run a play, the United Nations. For 12 
years they have done nothing but fumble and fumble and fumble. Somebody 
has got to step onto the field. The United States and its allies, which 
I want to stress again, we will exceed the number of allies we had in 
the first Persian Gulf War. We will go onto that field and we will do 
what needs to be done. And, mark my word, 15 years from now or 20 years 
from now, the next generation will look back and say, thank goodness 
they took care of that problem because we do not know what would have 
happened if they had ignored it like Europe ignored Hitler in 1938.

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