[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 9]
[House]
[Page 13302]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       ANOTHER SOLUTION IN SYRIA

  (Mr. PITTENGER asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. PITTENGER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to oppose the President's 
action in Syria.
  I just returned from the Middle East, meeting with heads of state in 
Qatar, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and our ambassador to NATO. I'm 
firmly convinced that any action on our part will further destabilize 
Syria and cause a collapse of the government. What will happen then? 
What will happen is that country will then fall in the hands of 
Hezbollah, Hamas, al Qaeda, and the Muslim Brotherhood.
  At the end of the day, what's important, Mr. Speaker, is who has 
control of those weapons of mass destruction. While what Mr. Assad has 
done has been barbaric and evil, we will never forgive ourselves for 
the havoc that will be played upon this world if those weapons fall 
into the hands of Islamic extremists. We need to work together 
collectively to address the problem of identifying and finding those 
weapons of mass destruction and securing those for the future.
  There are many people who are living outside of their country now as 
refugees. There are tens of thousands of able men who could be 
recruited to be a part of that solution.

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