[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 6]
[House]
[Page 7421]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                            THE WAR IN IRAQ

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, tonight I rise because something has 
been weighing on my mind since last week, and as I have watched the 
pressure in the streets of America and around the world, I thought I 
would observe the protests that were taking place a week ago last 
Saturday that gathered around the Washington Monument.
  I walked around for an hour and a half amongst the people, and the 
mood was something like I imagine Woodstock was. But as I looked at the 
signs and I read the profanity, I began to try to sort the people out 
and what they believed in, and I saw the desecrated American flags in 
their ranks. There were quite a number of people there.

                              {time}  1930

  Then I went up to the White House for a little while and ended up 
down by Pershing Park on what I call the grassy knoll. I watched 
probably 50,000 people come streaming by that corner in what I would 
call a river of discontent. As I looked at the flags and the signs and 
I watched the people, I saw some things that, of course, I hope was not 
on television, if your children are watching, but I also saw Communist 
flags, socialist flags.
  I had made the statement a couple of weeks ago that these people were 
anti-American and that you would not find a single undesecrated 
American flag in the bunch, but I looked closely through and found 
about a dozen. For every undesecrated American flag, and some of them 
were on their way to desecration, there were at least 10 others that 
were already desecrated marched through. There were probably 10 
Palestinian flags for each American flag undesecrated.
  The people sorted out into some categories as you watched them go by. 
Out-and-out Communists, proud and avowed socialists, radical 
fundamental Islamists, the angriest of the group by my opinion, and 
regular liberals and pacifists. I deal pretty well with the pacifists. 
They have a political opinion and a right to speak, as does anyone in 
this country constitutionally; but when it undermines our war effort, 
it concerns me greatly.
  And so I left that sea of discontent thinking, well, I'll come back 
to Congress where it will be logical and it will be reasonable and I 
can deal with people who have the best interests of America in mind. We 
entered into a debate last Thursday night, a simple resolution to 
support our troops. This is the Congressional Record of that debate 
that ran on until about 3 o'clock on last Friday morning and some of 
the things that I heard here are the kind of things that I would have 
expected to hear from the people that were in the middle of the street.
  For example, the gentlewoman from California: ``I believed and still 
believe that diplomatic alternatives existed. The inspection process 
was working.''
  That debate was over.
  The gentleman from Washington said:

       The leadership should be ashamed of bringing this 
     resolution to the floor. I for one will not be forced to 
     praise the President's reckless decisions. I cannot endorse 
     the administration's policy of unilateral military action 
     without international sanctions. This is a war of choice.

  Unilateral military action with 47 nations signed on. I could go on 
and on. I have marked these in the book over and over again.
  If you are on the front lines in Iraq, if you have volunteered to 
risk your life to protect the liberties of this great Nation and you 
see the discontent in the streets of America and around the world of 
people that cannot answer the simple question, has there ever been a 
just war, and they will not answer that question because they know that 
if they do, they will have to say the Revolutionary War was not a just 
one by their logic and they would be kneeling to a King George.
  So we have George W. Bush President and a great one, one who has laid 
out a vision for this country. It is a vision that is in this document, 
this document that hardly anyone reads, the National Security Strategy 
of the United States of America. I have gone through that and taken out 
some excerpts that I think are important that the public understand and 
know. This is policy that is being applied I believe today in Iraq:

       We do not use our strength to press for unilateral 
     advantage. We seek instead to create a balance of power that 
     favors human freedom. The United States must defend liberty 
     and justice because these principles are right and true for 
     all people everywhere. No nation owns these aspirations and 
     no nation is exempt from them.
       People everywhere want to be able to speak freely, choose 
     who will govern them, worship as they please, educate their 
     children, male and female, own property and enjoy the 
     benefits of their labor. These values of freedom are right 
     and true for every person in every society, and the duty of 
     protecting these values against their enemies is the common 
     calling of freedom-loving people across the globe and across 
     the ages.

  That is our calling. It is a calling to end this war on tyranny at 
some point. It is a call to provide for the safety of the American 
people.
  In conclusion, I would use these words from the President's State of 
the Union address January 28:

       Americans are a free people who know that freedom is the 
     right of every person and the future of every nation. The 
     liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world; it is 
     God's gift to humanity.

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