[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 9]
[House]
[Page 13433]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1500
                           THE SYRIAN CRISIS

  (Mr. ENGEL asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. ENGEL. Mr. Speaker, as the ranking member on the House Foreign 
Affairs Committee, I want to associate myself with the remarks of 
President Obama last night in his speech to the Nation.
  I, like everyone else, hope that a diplomatic solution can be found 
and that somehow, between Russia, Syria and the United States, we can 
find common ground where Assad will not have his weapons of mass 
destruction and will be put under international control.
  But if this is possible, I believe it was only possible because there 
is a credible threat of U.S. military might, and that causes the 
equation of both the Russians and the Syrians to think about the United 
States.
  And that's why I believe so strongly that if this falls apart, we 
need to strike in Syria to let Assad know that it is unacceptable to 
gas the civilian population. It is indeed a war crime.
  Many of us today watched pictures of children foaming at the mouth 
and dying and shaking, and it's just something that will live with me 
for the rest of my life.
  So I think what the President's proposing is balanced; it's moderate. 
I will vote ``yes,'' and I urge my colleagues to do the same.

                          ____________________