[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 2]
[House]
[Page 1706]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                    IRAN VIOLATES INTERNATIONAL LAW

  (Mr. POE of Texas asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. POE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, it was a routine exercise, sailing 
from Kuwait to Bahrain through the Persian Gulf, until, allegedly, the 
navigation system failed on one of the two U.S. gunboats. Mysteriously, 
the boats lost communication.
  Next, 10 American sailors surrendered and were captured by Iran. They 
were led off the boat at gunpoint and held hostage. Iran, 
unsurprisingly, violated Article 13 of the Geneva Convention by failing 
to protect our sailors from ``insults and public curiosity.''
  Here is a poster of our sailors surrendering to the small boat of 
Iranians. The bottom photograph apparently shows arms taken off the two 
American boats. I assume the Iranians kept those.
  Iran's Supreme Leader has awarded victory medals to its navy 
commanders for capturing the Americans.
  International law states that anyone can have innocent passage 
through a state's territorial waters, as long as it is nonthreatening, 
continuous, and expeditious.
  Iran claimed the Americans were sent to spy. These claims turned out 
to be delusional. Iran acted without consequences, and the U.S. did not 
act at all.
  Many questions remain. Where was the effective air cover for the 
Navy? Why did the sailors ``give up the ship''? Who gave the order to 
surrender?
  The Navy needs to let the American public know how two American boats 
were confiscated by the Iranians and why it happened.
  And that is just the way it is.

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