[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 3]
[House]
[Pages 3355-3359]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                  IRAN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Carter). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 7, 2003, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews) 
is recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Speaker, I must begin by thanking the staff of the 
House of Representatives for enduring these long nights so we have a 
chance to speak our minds about the important subjects of the day. We 
certainly appreciate the Speaker and the staff who stay here into the 
wee hours.
  I also extend my appreciation to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. 
Tancredo) for the intense causes in which he believes and for his 
patriotism. I must say, one of the reasons I love my country so much is 
we have the academic freedom that decisions about what we teach and how 
we teach it are made by educators and teachers and not by those of us 
in this Chamber, and I hope that is always the case.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to talk about a challenge to the values that I 
just made reference to, probably the most important challenge to these 
values that we have faced in many generations in this country.

                              {time}  2030

  In the 1970s a young man named Ghollam Nikbin came to the United 
States from Iran. He came here to study at an American university. 
While he was here, the fundamentalist revolution in Iran took place and 
in 1979 his country changed dramatically and he chose not to return to 
Iran. At the time he came to the United States he was a person who 
practiced the Islamic faith. While he was in the United States, he met 
an American citizen who was a member of the Mormon faith and he married 
this American citizen and he converted. Mr. Nikbin converted to the 
Mormon faith himself. That marriage subsequently ended in divorce and 
in 1991, Mr. Nikbin returned to his native Iran to live his life. While 
there, he met another woman and they decided to get married and he had 
a wedding. During his wedding, members of the police force in Iran 
raided the wedding because the men and women at the wedding were 
engaged in dancing. Men were dancing with women. For this hideous 
offense, Mr. Nikbin was publicly lashed 40 times with a whip to punish 
him for his transgression against the prevailing culture.
  Things grew worse for Mr. Nikbin in Iran. He was a suspicious person 
because he had converted to the Mormon faith and then attempted to 
convert back to his native Islamic faith. So in 1995 he tried to leave 
the country. As he was at the airport, he was intercepted by Iranian 
authorities who refused to let him leave the country. He was beaten 
with an electric cable and he was hung upside down by his ankles for 
extended periods of time. Today he is 56 years old. He has returned to 
the United States. His family says he was able to return to the United 
States because they were able to bribe the appropriate officials in 
Iran to get him released from the country. His crime was that he 
converted to a faith other than radical Islam.
  A woman named Zahara Kazemi, a woman of both Iranian and Canadian 
descent, a 54-year-old woman, last June 23 took an assignment. She was 
a photo journalist. She took an assignment to go to Iran to do her work 
as a photo journalist. On the 23rd of June of last year, she was taking 
photographs of a student demonstration outside of the Evin prison in 
Iran. She was apprehended by authorities for the hideous crime of 
taking a photograph of a demonstration. After 77 hours of interrogation 
in an Iranian prison, she took sick. On the 11th of July of last year, 
18 days after she arrived in Iran, she died in an Iranian hospital 
while in the custody of the Iranian authorities. At first, their report 
is that she had suffered a stroke and died of natural causes. Many in 
our sister nation of Canada expressed outrage as to the conditions 
around Ms. Kazemi's death and the Canadian government was persistent 
and, finally, 5 days after she died, authorities of the Iranian 
government indicated that it was not a stroke at all, that she had died 
from beatings that led to a cerebral hemorrhage, a 54-year-old woman 
beaten to death in an Iranian prison because she dared to take 
photographs of a peaceful demonstration.
  What kind of monstrous spirit would give rise to these atrocities? It 
is a spirit we have seen before. It is the spirit, the horrible spirit, 
the horrible poisonous spirit that led 6 million Jews to the gas 
chambers during the Holocaust. It is the horrifying spirit that sees 
people strap C4 to their waists and walk into hotels and onto buses and 
near schools in the Middle East every day. It is the awful animus that 
led to the bombings in Riyadh, in Ankara within the last year. The 
victims are of all faiths, Christian, Jew, Muslim, Buddhist, agnostic. 
They are of all races and all nationalities. What these horrific acts 
have in common is they are rooted in the poisonous well of an 
intolerant hatred of anyone who is not like those who practice that 
intolerant hatred.
  This poisonous attitude is contrary to everything that we are as 
Americans. It is against inclusion of people of other races and 
cultures. It is an attitude that despises the equal treatment of men 
and women under the law. It is an attitude that looks at other faiths 
not as an opportunity to learn how other people might live but as a 
threat to one's own twisted faith. By no means is this poisonous 
attitude representative of the Islamic faith. I believe the Islamic 
faith is a faith of peace, of humanity, of inclusion. By no means is 
this twisted attitude wholly representative of the Arab culture or the 
Arab ethnicity. I believe that the vast majority of men and women of 
Arab descent love peace, respect others and wish that their children 
would grow up in a world where others share those values. But make no 
mistake about it, the poisonous well from which these acts spring is an 
attitude that identifies everything Western, everything modern, 
everything progressive, everything that America loves and everything 
that Americans are. It is an attitude that identifies all those things 
as a threat to be detested, defeated and destroyed. It is an attitude 
that we saw in the rubble of the World Trade Center on September 11 of 
2001. It is an attitude that literally blew a hole in the Pentagon. It 
is an attitude that led dozens of brave Americans to their death in a 
field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
  Many of us believe that September 11, 2001, was not an isolated 
criminal act. It was an act of war that shocked Americans into a 
realization that we are in the midst of a great global struggle between 
those who love and tolerate diversity and those who deplore it and try 
to destroy it. So the reason we should care about the stories I told 
you about Ghollam Nikbin, Zahara Kazemi, the stories that I could have 
told about hundreds of Iranian students who are in Iranian prisons 
tonight, the reason we should care is that the hateful attitude from 
which the attacks on them sprung is an attitude that targets us next, 
an attitude that seeks to destroy us and our way of life.
  By no means is it fair or accurate to say that such an attitude is 
common or characteristic of the Iranian people, by no means is it fair 
or accurate to say that it is characteristic of the history of their 
nation, and by no means is it accurate to say that this hatred will mar 
and define the future of the people of Iran. I aspire to a future where 
the people of the United States and the people of Iran are partners in 
peace and freedom, where we celebrate each other's differences and 
respect each other's values. But that is not the case today.
  Mr. Speaker, I would hope that we in this House and we in this 
country could focus on the very grave and real threat posed to the 
peace that we enjoy tonight by the presence of the terrorist incubator 
in Iran. When we consider what our policy should be toward Iran,

[[Page 3356]]

we should not think about September 11 of 2001 because there frankly is 
no evidence that I have seen that would suggest that the Iranian 
government was in any way a sponsor of the atrocious attacks on our 
country on September 11. In fact, the evidence is rather replete with 
examples that Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda organization have been 
at odds with the radical fundamentalist Iranian leadership.
  But the question is not who allied to attack us on September 11. The 
issue is who wishes to attack us in the future, where the threats exist 
for our future. To understand why we want to prevent the next 9/11, why 
we want to limit the next attack on this country so it does not succeed 
and so we can defeat such an attack, we need to understand where the 
first 9/11 came from. In order for terrorists to succeed, they need 
personnel, they need leadership, they need financial and logistical 
support, and their leaders need sanctuary. Their leaders need a place 
where they can plan, plot and eventually execute attacks against the 
people of the United States of America. September 11 happened because 
Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda organization had all four of those 
elements to attack us. They had the personnel, the 19 twisted 
individuals who hated us more than they loved life to the point that 
they were able to turn civilian airliners into weapons of mass 
destruction. They had the leadership, the odious cadre of dark men who 
surround Osama bin Laden, who conceived of such a horrific plot. They 
had the finances and the logistics, passing through international 
financial organizations, in many cases laundered through Saudi Arabia, 
laundered through other institutions, many of which to this day refuse 
to disclose their banking records to us. The terrorists were able to 
gather the logistics they needed to place the hijackers in America, buy 
their plane tickets, acquire their training, keep their cover and let 
them prepare to do their horrible deeds.
  And, finally, and I think crucially, the September 11 attackers 
flourished in the terrorist sanctuary of Afghanistan. At the time 
Afghanistan was run by the Taliban regime, a group that not only 
tolerated the presence of al Qaeda but actively facilitated the 
presence of al Qaeda. I think the argument is rather clear. Without a 
sanctuary in Afghanistan, there would have been no place for Osama bin 
Laden to plot this attack. Without a place to plot this attack and 
gather his resources, there would not have been an opportunity to carry 
out the attack. Without the opportunity to carry out the attack, there 
certainly would not have been the carnage and pain this country felt 
and still feels emanating from September 11.
  What is the lesson of September 11? There are two lessons. The first 
is if you give terrorists sanctuary, they will exploit that sanctuary 
and, like a snake that is coiled in the corner, they will wait till 
precisely the right moment to strike. And the second lesson of 
September 11 is if you wait for the snake to strike, it always will. If 
our strategy in the face of this global struggle is to wait and see if 
terrorists who enjoy sanctuary will attack us, I do not think, Mr. 
Speaker, that is a question. I think history is conclusive on this 
point. If you wait for terrorists to attack you, they will. This is the 
context in which we must understand what is happening in Iran today and 
why it is important to the United States of America to rethink the way 
we approach this problem.
  Iran is a place where terrorist organizations who disrupt the 
Palestinian-Israeli negotiations find refuge, find weaponry, find cash. 
It is a place where admittedly significant al Qaeda elements are 
present tonight. There is an argument as to exactly what they are 
doing. The Iranian authorities would tell us that they are in the 
custody of the Iranian government. Some would suggest that the Iranian 
government are using these al Qaeda leaders as pawns to try to 
facilitate the release of terrorists held by the Israelis and other 
law-abiding nations of the world. But irrespective of the purpose for 
which the Iranian government holds al Qaeda terrorists tonight, the 
fact is they are present in Iran tonight.

                              {time}  2045

  They found Iran to be a place that was a willing sanctuary for their 
activities. There can be no good inured to America's benefit from that 
sanctuary continuing.
  What do terrorists need? They need leadership. They need people who 
are willing to conceive of these terrible plans that spring from this 
awful wellspring of intolerance and hatred. They need personnel. They 
need to recruit young men and young women and, in some cases, children 
who are willing to put their own lives at stake to manifest that hatred 
by killing thousands of others. They need money and logistics to carry 
out their attack. They need weaponry, and they need sanctuary. I think 
it is indisputable that Iran is such a sanctuary. It is indisputable 
that if tonight the CIA, the National Security Agency, other U.S. 
intelligence operatives had information that there were terrorists at 
loose in Iran and they asked for the cooperation of the Iranian 
government, I think it is indisputable that at best, at best, we would 
get noninterference; at worst we would get active resistance.
  Mr. Speaker, if those same terrorists were loose in Jordan, the 
Jordanian government would help us. If those terrorists were loose in 
Kuwait, the Kuwaiti government would help us. If they were loose in 
Israel, the Israeli government would not need our help. They would just 
find them and take care of the problem. If they were loose in the 
countries of our European allies, I am quite confident that we would 
have the assistance of those allies, in South America, in the 
Philippines. Iran is a place where terrorists will find the medium in 
which their peculiar form of bacteria need to grow.
  What logistics might Iran supply to a terrorist who wants to attack 
the United States of America? Today for every 100 containers that enter 
the ports of the United States in these huge containers we see out by 
the ports, for every 100 of those containers that enter the United 
States, two of them were inspected, 98 were not. It is commonly known 
that one of the ways that we are at risk is that as the huge influx of 
trade comes and goes from our country in container ships, that the 
planting of a small nuclear weapon on a container ship could cause 
catastrophic results in this country that would dwarf the pain of 
September 11.
  Where might terrorists find such a nuclear bomb? Sadly, there are a 
number of places. One of those places is from hungry former Soviet 
scientists who were living relatively well under the old regime in the 
USSR and then found themselves driving cabs and waiting on tables and 
very hungry and very anxious in the years that follow. It is one of the 
great bipartisan failures of this country for which we all should take 
responsibility, myself included, that we have not been sufficiently 
vigilant since the waning days of the Soviet Empire in identifying, 
corralling, and destroying weapons of mass destruction that were held 
by the Soviet Union. There are too many of them in too many places. 
They are too cheap and too portable. We owe thanks to the great work of 
former Senator Nunn and present Senator Lugar for giving us the legal 
authority to solve this problem. We are sadly negligent in not using 
that legal authority to its greatest extent.
  Where else might a terrorist find a small nuclear bomb that could be 
transported in a container ship to the United States? Mr. Speaker, if 
we would have asked the Iranian government that question 2 years ago, 
they would have said not here; we are not in the business of trying to 
make nuclear bombs, not us. For years, for 23 years, since the 
installation of the present regime in Tehran, the official party line 
was that the Iranian government was not interested in the manufacture 
of a nuclear weapon.
  In December of 2002, that all changed. Iranian dissidents who were 
fortunate to escape the country began talking to intelligence leaders 
around the world, and they talked with specificity. They talked about 
centrifuges, fissile materials. They talked about the enrichment of 
uranium. They talked about a

[[Page 3357]]

program of plutonium separation that could lead to the manufacture of a 
nuclear bomb. And enough of them talked to enough people, and enough 
enlightened people paid attention, that in December of 2002, while our 
country was fixated upon the very grave question of what to do about 
Saddam Hussein in Iraq, while we were grappling with many other 
problems in our own country, in December of 2002, the government of 
Iran acknowledged that reports that it was building facilities capable 
of producing the fissile materials that would lead to a nuclear weapon 
were true. The Iranian government admitted this. After 23 years of 
deception, the Iranian government admitted that facilities at Iraq and 
Natanz in Iran were, in fact, facilities which were capable of 
producing the fissile materials necessary to make a nuclear bomb.
  On February 21 of last year, 2003, the leader of the International 
Atomic Energy Agency, Mr. ElBaradei, visited Iran after extreme 
international pressure following the Iranian disclosure. On June 6 of 
2003, Mr. ElBaradei issued a report saying that the facilities that I 
mentioned, in particular the Natanz facility, was an advanced uranium 
enrichment facility capable of performing the steps necessary and 
essential to the creation of a nuclear bomb. On September 12 of 2003, 
the International Atomic Energy Agency issued an ultimatum to the 
Iranians which said by October 31 of last year, Iranians were to prove 
to the world that they were not working on building nuclear bombs. The 
clock ticked. The world was not very specific as to what we would do if 
the Iranians failed to provide that proof, reminiscent of how the world 
was similarly negligent in dealing with Saddam Hussein for 12 long 
years.
  Finally, on October 21 of 2003, the Iranians invited representatives 
of the French, German, and British governments to Tehran. They began to 
negotiate and they worked out a joint communique with the governments 
of France and Germany and the United Kingdom, which said that the 
Iranians would permit full inspections, they would suspend their 
uranium enrichment program, that they would sign international 
agreements that civilized nations follow with respect to the production 
of nuclear weapons, and that essentially they would stop trying to 
build a nuclear weapon. The world reacted with cautious optimism.
  The Iranians handed over files and files of documents that described 
what they had been doing over the course of more than 2 decades in the 
past. Those documents showed that the Iranians had engaged in a 
secretive uranium enrichment program over at least a 19-year period for 
which there could be no plausible explanation other than it was leading 
to the production of a nuclear bomb. The world was divided as to what 
to do about this, and the consensus on the International Atomic Energy 
Agency was that we should criticize the Iranians for what they had done 
and lied about in the past and then warn them not to do it again. 
Warnings like the ones we gave to the Taliban repeatedly throughout the 
1990s not to cooperate with Osama bin Laden, warnings like we gave to 
Saddam Hussein repeatedly throughout the 1990s that he was to disengage 
his weapons programs and to leave his neighbors alone. Warnings.
  The warnings have not had the intended effect. Two weeks ago, the 
latest report from the International Atomic Energy Agency released on 
February 24 of 2004 found some curious evidence, and that is that the 
Iranians had agreed to stop their program of uranium enrichment, which 
is one path to build a nuclear bomb; but another path to build a 
nuclear bomb is called plutonium separation. Obviously, the Iranians 
who signed this agreement got very good legal advice because they 
learned how to define their way out of the problem because the Iranians 
did not breach apparently in the last few months their responsibility 
not to carry out uranium enrichment programs, but they did evidently 
step up a program that is involved in the separation of plutonium, yet 
another path to reach the same horrible result. Mr. ElBaradei said Iran 
is moving in the right direction with respect to this weapons program, 
that there is reason for optimism, that there are moderate influences 
beginning to influence the Iranian government. Well, can we afford to 
take the chance that he is wrong?
  International experts suspected for 2 decades that Iran was pursuing 
the development of a nuclear bomb, but they never knew for sure; and I 
know that the annals of intelligence estimates are filled with 
conclusions that the best judgment was that Iran was not marching 
toward the creation of a nuclear bomb. Those assessments were wrong. If 
this new set of assessments is wrong, we will find out to our peril 
what the consequences of that error are.
  Is the present leadership of Iran capable of placing a small nuclear 
bomb on a cargo ship in a container and floating it into the harbor of 
a major American city? Some would say, no, they are not capable. It 
would not be in their interest to do so. There would be massive 
retaliation against them by the United States. Others would say they 
are imminently capable of such atrocities. The family of Zahara Kazemi 
I would assume would agree with that proposition. Mr. Ghollam Nikbin I 
assume would agree with that proposition. Those who sit tonight in 
Iranian prisons and those who have been executed in Iranian prisons in 
recent days and weeks, if they were alive, would agree with that 
proposition.
  Should we wait and see? Should it be our policy to take an educated 
guess and find out? Many intelligence analysts took an educated guess 
about the Taliban in Afghanistan 10 years ago, 5 years ago, 3 years 
ago, and here is what their assessment was: the Taliban are terrible 
people. Osama bin Laden is an awful force in the world. He was behind 
the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993. He was behind the attack 
of the USS Cole in the year 2000. He was involved in the Khobar Towers 
bombing. Something needs to be done. But the assessment about the 
Taliban's role in this was that it was ludicrous to think that the 
Taliban government was a threat to the United States.

                              {time}  2100

  It is certainly not an imminent threat to the United States. A 
government that could barely manage its own affairs, a government that 
was not a threat to its own neighbors militarily, was certainly not a 
threat to the United States of America.
  There would have been those who would stand on this floor 3 years ago 
and argue passionately that for us to aggressively pursue a policy of 
regime change in Afghanistan would be a gross overreaction. Why should 
we worry about a regime as weak as that one? On September 11, 2001, we 
got our answer. Regimes that harbor terrorists, regimes that have the 
capability of arming terrorists with nuclear, biological or chemical 
weapons, regimes that finance and facilitate terrorism, are a threat to 
the people of the United States of America. These regimes should not be 
negotiated with, they should not be heeded, they should not be abided. 
They should be replaced.
  Which American tonight would not agree that we would have prospered 
from regime change in Afghanistan 3 years ago? There is lots of dispute 
tonight as to whether we are prospering from regime change in Baghdad 
tonight. I certainly think we are. I think it is one of the reasons 
that Mu'ammar Qadhafi voluntarily surrendered his nuclear weapons, so 
he will not wind up living in a spider hole at the end of this year.
  I think it is one of the reasons that President Assad in Syria for 
the first time in his tenure as president is furtively working behind 
the scenes to open negotiations with the Israelis, so that maybe some 
day he will expel Hamas and Hizbollah from his countries. I think it is 
one of the reasons why the Saudi Arabians, after years of culpability 
in terrorism, years of a ``deal with the devil'' in which they looked 
the other way when terrorists operated within their country, are now 
more actively cooperating in the crackdown on those terrorists. And I 
think it is one of the reasons why the Iranians in December of 2002, on 
the verge of the United States action

[[Page 3358]]

against Iraq, decided to come clean about 23 years of lying about the 
development of a nuclear weapon.
  Regime change in Iran should be the policy of the United States of 
America; not negotiation, not cooperation, regime change. Regime change 
does not mean military action. Military action is the final step. 
Military action is the last, and, if necessary, essential step, if 
necessary, to regime change.
  Far more effective to the pursuit of this goal are the diplomatic, 
economic and moral assets of the United States of America. I am not 
calling for the use of military force against Iran; I am calling for 
the concerted, coordinated use of this country's diplomatic, economic 
force to achieve a regime change in Tehran. I believe it is not only in 
the interests of human rights, of persecuted citizens of that country, 
it is in the interests of the national security of the United States of 
America.
  What does regime change mean in Iran? Who is the regime? The answer 
to this question is not self-evident. Iran is a schizophrenic state. On 
the surface, it is conducting what appears to be a parliamentary 
government with what appear to be reasonably free elections with what 
appears to be something resembling democracy.
  These appearances are lethally deceptive. The President of Iran got 
77 percent of the vote in the popular election, but I think 
realistically he has zero percent of the power in that country. 
Instead, a council of elders, 12 men, 12, have effective control over 
the military, over the economic institutions of that country, over the 
meaningful ebb and flow of life in Iran. Even though those 12 have such 
control, they are wary, they are reluctant to even let the appearance 
of that control stray too far.
  In the last month or so in Iran there were elections scheduled for 
the national legislative body of that country, and most outside 
analysts saw those elections as a struggle between the so-called more 
moderate liberalizing forces of the country and the more conservative 
cultural forces of that country. 3,600 candidates of the moderate 
persuasion were removed from the ballot by the council of elders. 
Twelve people, none of whom were elected, each of whom was appointed 
through the religious oligarchy of Iran, 12 people used their power to 
remove 3,600 people from the ballot. 1,000 or so were restored after 
huge public protests.
  But I believe that the only conclusion one can draw from this is that 
the feeble images of democracy in Iran are only a deceptive image, and 
not a meaningful reality for that country.
  These are foreboding and difficult thoughts, but there is great 
reason to be optimistic that the regime change that would benefit 
America is very much on the minds of young men and women, and older men 
and women, who live under the oppressive yoke of the medieval 
government of Iran.
  So many Iranian Americans are engaged in conversations with their 
brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers back home. Iranian 
Americans make a magnificent contribution to this country every day, in 
our hospitals, in our universities, in our corporations, in our 
governments, in our military, and these loyal and patriotic Americans, 
who have had a taste of freedom, a taste of what it means to be 
respected for your religious differences and not reviled, they have 
spread the word of this intoxicating freedom to their loved ones back 
in Iran.
  Even though Iran is a place where you can be whipped for dancing at a 
wedding, even though it is a place where you can be beaten to death in 
prison for taking a photograph of a peaceful demonstration, it is a 
place where the rulers still cannot stop the flow of technology. The 
Internet, the fax machine, the cellular phone, these are the most 
powerful weapons against tyranny in the history of mankind. And even in 
a place like Iran, the leaders cannot make themselves impervious to the 
rush of truth that comes into their country in greater torrents with 
each passing day.
  I think that people in Iran are looking for a signal from the United 
States of America. They are not looking for weakness or ambiguity or 
vacillation.
  We are students of our own history, and we know that at the time the 
colonies rebelled against the British, there were many naysayers in 
America. There were many who said that this was a foolish experiment; 
that it was reckless for people to pledge their lives and their 
fortunes and their sacred honor to try to do something better. It was 
suicidal, it was crazy.
  Some were active opponents of the revolution. Others, and these 
others may have been more dangerous, sat on the fence. They were not 
sure what signal they should send. They were not sure whether they were 
ready to fight for their freedom or not.
  The United States has sent a powerful signal I think to the world by 
saying that we are willing to take on, with our allies, the difficult 
work of introducing that sacred gift of freedom to the people of Iraq. 
We should not be ambiguous in offering that same gift to the people of 
Iran.
  We should not, we should not, be engaged in any overt military acts, 
unless intelligence would warrant action to the contrary, specific 
intelligence. I repeat, I am not calling for a policy of military 
engagement against the Iranian government. But I am absolutely calling 
for an expression as clear as a bell that the freedom that we enjoy 
here, the freedom that we aspire to see the people of Iraq enjoy, is 
the freedom that we wish to see the people of Iran enjoy, and we will 
not be fooled or deceived by the false front of a faux democratic 
government. We will not relent in our opposition to that government's 
effort to build a nuclear bomb. We will not back down in the face of 
any international criticism as to the purity and import of this evil.
  It would be horribly wrong and horribly prejudicial to leave anyone 
with the impression that any significant portion of the 1 billion 
Muslims in this world are dedicated to the eradication of us and our 
way of life. They are not. It would be horribly wrong and horribly 
false to leave anyone with the impression that people of the Arab 
culture and descent or the Persian culture and descent are dedicated to 
the destruction of our way of life. They are most emphatically not.
  I believe that the vast majority of people of the Islamic faith, of 
the Arab and Persian ethnicities, wish to live in freedom and to 
celebrate diversity and to join the future, rather than wallowing in 
the past.
  But it is irrefutable that there is a force present in the world, a 
small but malignant force present in the world, that wishes to do us 
grave harm, that wishes to destroy our way of life and destroy the 
chance to spread our way of life to those in all corners of the world 
who would wish to enjoy it, and that force calls itself radical Islam.
  It is a perversion of the Islamic faith. It is a hijacking of that 
faith of peace. But it is what those who practice this poisonous 
attitude call themselves. And where they find sanctuary and where they 
find money and where they find weaponry and where they find personnel 
and where they find leadership, these are the places that will incubate 
the next September 11.
  There are really two views about terrorism in America, and they are 
not liberal and conservative, or Republican and Democrat, or military 
and diplomatic. The two views are these:
  Some people view terrorism as a series of essentially unrelated 
crimes; horrible crimes, but crimes that spring from independent 
criminals. With the exception of the link between the USS Cole bombing 
and the first World Trade Center and the second one, all of which can 
be attributed to al Qaeda, proponents of this view would argue that we 
need to react to each one of these isolated incidents by prosecuting 
those who committed the offense, shoring up our defenses so it cannot 
happen again.
  The other view of terrorism, which I hold and I believe that history 
teaches us is the correct view, is that these are not a series of 
isolated incidents; that we are engaged in a struggle between those who 
would destroy our way of life and those who would stand by us and 
protect our way of life.

                              {time}  2115

  The most horrific example of that struggle was the one that he 
experienced in September of 2001. Shame on

[[Page 3359]]

us if we do not learn from that example. If we draw the lesson that 
September 11 was about one terrorist organization operating out of one 
country that on one occasion was able to succeed in a massive terrorist 
attack against this country, we are misreading history to our great 
peril.
  If instead we understand what happened then differently, if instead 
we say that the lesson that we learn is that when you give terrorists 
leadership and personnel and money and weaponry and sanctuary, they 
will attack. It is not in our interest to make lists of countries that 
we want to attack. It diminishes our strength. It lessens our standing 
in the world, and we should not do it. But it is most emphatically in 
our interest to categorize and understand where the next sanctuary 
might be.
  Everyone in this Chamber wishes that he or she had the foresight to 
know that Afghanistan was such a sanctuary 3 years ago. We could have 
avoided a calamity of unspeakable proportions in this country. The 
issue tonight, Mr. Speaker, is where is the next sanctuary.
  I believe that the heroic actions accomplished by American troops and 
allied troops in Iraq has gone a long way toward removing Iraq as such 
a sanctuary. I am certain that the heroic efforts of our troops in 
Afghanistan have essentially removed Afghanistan as such a potential 
sanctuary.
  Tonight our attention should very much be focused on Iran as such a 
sanctuary. It is a state that is capable of imprisoning and beating 
innocent people for dancing and taking photographs. It is a state that 
for 23 years lied about its development of nuclear bombs. It is a state 
that is either trying to put a good-faith effort forward to stop its 
weapons program or trying to put the best face on an effort that really 
is not taking place as the weapons program continues.
  The lesson of September 11 is do not take chances on estimates. Act 
and make sure others cannot act against you.
  I believe that this country should engage in three steps immediately. 
First, we should unambiguously announce that the policy of the United 
States of America is to encourage regime change in Iran, by which I 
mean the Council of Elders that runs the country; and by which I mean 
the replacement of that Council of Elders with a truly representative 
group of people chosen by the Iranian people.
  The second thing we should do is fully enforce the Iran Sanctions Act 
passed by this Congress a few years ago. We should inventory every 
trade, aid, economic and regulatory tool at our disposal and use those 
tools. We should broadcast freedom into Iran more aggressively. We 
should break down the information barriers and tell young Iranians that 
we will be on their side if they rise up and fight for freedom. We 
should encourage the patriotic, law abiding citizens of this country 
who are of Iranian descent to become actively engaged in encouraging 
their brothers and sisters in their native land to make the regime 
change that will benefit them and us.
  The third step is that we should seek international cooperation on 
every level for this effort. It will not be easy. There will be those 
who will say this is yet another American overreaction, that this is a 
further policy of American unilateralism. We should never be 
unilateral. We should always seek the cooperation of allies.
  We should also understand the attacks that are launched by terrorists 
will be unilateral. They will have one target. They will start with the 
Israelis. They always do. But they will eventually get to the United 
States of America. We should ask for and actively seek the cooperation 
of our European and Asian friends in meeting these efforts. Frankly, 
the actions of the International Atomic Energy Agency have been very 
helpful in this regard. We should continue those efforts, but we should 
not make the mistake of assuming that their security risk here is the 
same as our security risk.
  When there is a demonstration sponsored by the medieval elements in a 
country like Iran, it is not the German flag that they burn. They do 
not shout death to Germany. They do not destroy likenesses of the 
Eiffel Tower or Big Ben. They burn the American flag. They smash 
likenesses of the American Capitol, and they clearly let us know that 
we are the ones who are in their sights. So be it.
  If we understand that we are the targets, then we must understand we 
have a special responsibility to act. I believe that this is a program 
for peace. I think the best way to achieve peace is to show those who 
would disrupt peace that you will not tolerate it. It is peace through 
strength, and after we have been lied to for 23 years about the 
creation of a nuclear bomb, a nuclear bomb which could be floated into 
the harbors of this country and used as a weapon of awful destruction 
against the people of America, after we have seen the torture against 
innocent people that takes place in Iran every day and is taking place 
tonight, I think the stakes are clear. If we are true to our conviction 
of peace through strength, we will make regime change the policy of the 
United States of America. Not through violence, not through attack, not 
through aggression, not through war. We should always reserve the right 
to act in our defense. But we should always understand that the best 
way to project our power is through our freedom, our economic might, 
our diplomatic credibility which sadly needs to be rebuilt in many 
ways.
  It is my objective as a Member of the United States Congress that I 
will never again have another day like September 12, 2001, when I came 
to this building not sure whether it was safe to be in, after a 
sleepless night, and asked myself what I had failed to do to prevent 
the mayhem that had occurred in my country the day before. I asked 
myself whether any of the $3 trillion of the taxpayers' money I had 
voted to spend on intelligence and defense of this country had done us 
any good the previous day. I never want to live another September 12. I 
never again want to have to think what we could have done to learn the 
lessons of terrorism and stop another terrorist attack.
  If we take decisive action and, among other things, if we pursue the 
policy of regime change in Iran, I believe that the likelihood of 
having another September 12, 2001, will diminish; and more importantly, 
the likelihood of a catastrophic repeat of September 11, 2001, using a 
nuclear weapon will diminish greatly.
  We owe our country nothing less. We owe the decent people of Iran 
nothing less; and we owe it to our sense of history to get this very 
important job done.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank Mr. Paul Bauer of my staff who was 
very instrumental in getting the research done for this effort. And, 
again, I would like to thank the staff of the House of Representatives 
for being with us so I would have this opportunity to speak.

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