Mike Pence

Mr. PENCE

Mr. PENCE. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman.

Mr. PENCE. I yield to the gentleman from Illinois.

Mr. PENCE. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the gentleman for his tireless efforts in crafting this HIV/AIDS relief bill. I have, as the gentleman knows personally, the utmost respect for him and for his distinguished career and leadership of this committee in particular. I appreciate him granting me this colloquy. Many of us have learned, Mr. Chairman, that there are a number of foreign countries that actually use abortion as a means of preventing mother to child transmission of HIV/AIDS. It is my hope that the distinguished chairman would today confirm that in carrying out this foreign assistance program, that it is the policy of the United States that abortion is not prevention of or treatment of mother to child transmission of HIV/AIDS.

Mr. PENCE

Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, there is an epidemic of AIDS and HIV in Africa. It is heartbreaking to report this pandemic affecting 42 million souls, 8,500 deaths every day, and entire villages without a single adult. Earlier this week we heard the President describe a compassionate vision of moral obligation for the American people addressing this crisis that would bring not only $15 billion, but would put a priority on the values of the American people, namely, abstinence and faithfulness to marriage, over condom distribution. Sadly, Mr. Speaker, unless the House amends the bill today and adopts the Hyde-Pitts amendment that specifies that 33 percent of the prevention money will be spent on abstinence and monogamy programs first over and above condom distribution, the global AIDS bill will not reflect the values of the American people or the vision of the President of the United States of America. The timeless values of abstinence and marital faithfulness before condom distribution are the cure for what ails the families of Africa. It is important that we not just send them money, but we must send them values that work.

Mr. PENCE

Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, there is an epidemic of AIDS and HIV in Africa that can be described as a pandemic on that continent, 42 million infected with HIV, 8,500 deaths every day, entire villages in Africa where there is no single living adult. Yesterday as I sat in the East Room of the White House, I heard President Bush describe a compassionate vision of moral obligation for the American people addressing this crisis that would bring with it not only $15 billion over 5 years, but to put a priority on the values of the American people, abstinence and monogamy, and then condom distribution, and would protect faith-based organizations in the process. Sadly, Mr. Speaker, unless the House amends the bill we will consider tomorrow, the global AIDS bill will not reflect the values of the American people or the vision of the President of the United States of America. President Bush was right when he said we will not pass on the other side of the road, citing the good Samaritan in this crisis. But as we decide whether we will support abstinence first and protect the role of faith-based organizations in Africa, let us remember the good Samaritan not only stopped and provided money, but he took the man to a place where he could be made whole. Faith-based organizations and those timeless values are such a place and I urge support of the Pitts and Smith amendments.

Mr. PENCE

Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. Mr. Speaker, I rise today with a heart filled with gratitude, not just as a congressman, but as a parent of three small children for the efforts of the conferees in developing this historic child protection legislation. This will save lives. I would particularly like to single out the courageous and tenacious and dogged efforts of the chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner), for the gentleman's commitment against, at times, withering public relations challenges to move meaningful legislation for our kids through this body. I also rise humbly to thank conferees for including language known as the Truth in Domain Names language in the conference report which I authored in the last Congress and again in this. Mr. Speaker, the very moment this conference report becomes law, not only will our children become safer from predators, but the Internet will become safer for our children, families, and teachers. As millions of Americans do every night, I help my kids with their homework. As we surf the Web for useful information about history or government or science, my kids with the most innocent intentions will type in domain names which are harmless, but what pops up are sites with smut, profanity and pornography; and there was no law on the books to prevent that until today. With the Truth in Domain Names language in this legislation, we render those Web sites illegal; and anyone who uses a misleading domain name on the Internet to deceive a person into viewing material constituting obscenity can face fines of up to 2 years in prison; and if they mislead children, they can face 4 years in prison. The minute the President signs this bill, using a misleading domain name with the intent to deceive a child will become a criminal act. Mr. Speaker, this historic legislation will make our children measurably safer from those who would prey on them. Also, Congress can today make playing on the information superhighway much safer for our kids, and so they should. I urge my colleagues to strongly support this conference report.

Mr. PENCE

Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, just three weeks from the launch of Operation Iraqi Freedom, the battle for Baghdad is drawing to a close. Less than 2 hours ago, amidst the cheers and grateful smiles of the newly freed people of Iraq, the 3rd Army met the 1st Marine expeditionary force at the Tigris River. Thanks to U.S. and coalition courage and leadership, liberty has reached the center of Baghdad, darkened by tyranny for more than a quarter of a century. Soon we will turn this body's attention to reconstruction, to interim governments, to the creation of a free and democratic Iraq, and as the President said in Belfast yesterday, the United Nations will play a vital role in helping to stand up our humanitarian efforts. Despite the fondest wishes of the President of France, I would offer, Mr. Speaker, since the U.N. chose against being central to the war, the U.N. should not and will not be central to the peace.

Mr. PENCE

Mr. PENCE. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of the Cunningham amendment. Mr. Chairman, this is a difficult decision. As a member of the Committee on International Relations, and coming from a State that has produced not only the current chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, but also a former chairman of the House Committee on International Relations, Indiana has a great tradition of engagement on international affairs. Hoosiers believe in economic and in cultural engagement. I am very much aware, Mr. Chairman, of the relationship that we enjoy with Turkey. I am also very much aware that in a matter of weeks we will appropriate another quarter of a billion dollars in assistance to Turkey. I will be first among those on this floor at that time to support that funding, to strengthen that relationship. This is, however, a different question today. The Cunningham amendment is all about whether or not this part of the national government, which is truly the heart of the national government, should resonate with the hearts of the American people who are disappointed in our friend, the nation of Turkey. It is not that they are no longer our friend, but it is that we are disappointed in recent decisions that have endangered American lives and cost us in our effectiveness in Operation Iraqi Freedom. I will vote for the Cunningham amendment to stand with the American people, who choose at this time to send this message to that friend.

Mr. PENCE

Mr. PENCE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Osborne), probably one of the leading congressional advocates for youth issues, the gentleman from the Committee on Education and the Workforce.

Mr. PENCE. Mr. Chairman, I have one remaining speaker on this amendment and would reserve the right to close.

Mr. PENCE. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Aderholt), a distinguished member of the Committee on Appropriations, one of the leading advocates of pro-family issues in Congress. (Mr. ADERHOLT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. PENCE. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman. The Pence amendment will make it a criminal act to knowingly use a misleading domain name with the intent to deceive a person into viewing obscenity on the Internet; and, most especially, it would make it a criminal act to knowingly use a misleading domain name with the intent to deceive a minor into viewing material on the Internet that is harmful. Like many of the Members, I believe the Internet should remain free of regulation, Mr. Chairman. The Pence amendment is not regulation of the Internet. It is an anti-fraud bill. It does not prevent any material from being displayed on the Internet. In fact, a domain name that includes word or words to indicate sexual content on the site like the word ``sex'' or ``porn'' is by definition in this law not considered misleading. The amendment simply requires Web site owners to be honest about the content of their site, preventing families just like mine from surfing the Internet as their children do homework and all of a sudden finding themselves in a place of prurient and pornographic material. I am not the only one with this problem. A recent survey conducted in the year 2000 by the Crimes Against Children Research Center found that 71 percent of teens had accidentally come across inappropriate sexual material on the Internet. Another study conducted by the Berkeman Center at Harvard Law School reviewed 5,000 domain names that were just slight misspellings of existing Web sites and found, and I am quoting, ``A majority of these domain names are variations on sites frequently used by children; and although their domain names do not suggest the presence of sexually explicit content, more than 89 percent of the Web sites examined contained sexually explicit material.'' The Pence amendment is endorsed by leading organizations of a child advocate nature, and I urge its passage. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PENCE. I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.

Mr. PENCE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 3 minutes. Mr. Chairman, I rise today as the author of the Pence amendment, the Truth in Domain Names Act, as a legislator, as a member of the Committee on the Judiciary, its Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property; but also, most importantly, Mr. Chairman, I rise today as a dad who loves to sit my 9-year-old daughter or my 11- year-old son on my knee and help them with their homework on the Internet. It was the experience of doing that that inspired me in the last Congress to author the Truth in Domain Names Act, and it has inspired me to bring this amendment to the underlying bill, the Child Abduction Prevention Act, today. Thanks to the extraordinary leadership of the gentleman from Wisconsin (Chairman Sensenbrenner), we are considering a bill today that will make measurable progress in protecting our children from child predators. I would offer humbly today, Mr. Chairman, that the Pence amendment is just such a bill.

Mr. PENCE. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. PENCE

Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, I rise this evening to denounce the creation and the broadcast of the inhumane treatment of United States prisoners of war held by the Iraqi military, photographed by the Iraqi military in violation of the Geneva Convention and broadcast worldwide by the Qatar government-owned Al Jazeera network. For those who have been living somewhere other than in front of television the last 48 hours, Mr. Speaker, we all were witness of Iraqi forces parading five captured American soldiers, including a woman, before television cameras this past weekend. The Iraqi television footage, which was replayed to the entire Arab world for half a day, to over a billion people by the Qatar-based and -operated Al Jazeera network, not only showed these American POWs under a state of great indignity and duress, but it also showed the bodies of at least four other soldiers, graphically and closely portrayed, two of whom appeared to have been shot in the head, raising suspicions that they had been executed after being captured. Mr. Speaker, the Geneva Convention is quite clear and both Iraq and the United States and civilized elements of the media attain to the standards of that convention. It provides in part: Prisoners of war must at all times be humanely treated. Likewise, prisoners of war must at all times be protected, particularly against acts of violence or intimidation and against insults or public curiosity. Measures of reprisal against prisoners of war are prohibited. It is quite clear, and I cite now Human Rights Watch International, that the humiliating display of prisoners of war is a war crime. The leaders of our military who at this very hour, with tens of thousands of brave soldiers at their side, labor on behalf of liberty and on behalf of our freedoms, have made it quite clear that those who have treated American POWs, past, present and future, will be held to an account, Mr. Speaker. They will be hunted, and they will be prosecuted as war criminals. But I rise not only in disgust over the behavior of Iraqi military personnel, which comes as no surprise to those of us who are students of the inhumanity of the regime of Saddam Hussein, but I rise also to condemn the decision by the Al Jazeera network to broadcast these materials. Also, as has been observed by military personnel in the field, the very broadcast of these materials to over a billion people in the world was a violation of the Geneva Convention. I would cite Lieutenant General John Abizaid, the deputy commander of Allied forces who said that any state-owned media or network that shows these materials is also in violation of the Geneva Convention and, quote, ``will be held to account.'' This behavior to perform it but also to broadcast it is, in his words, absolutely unacceptable. Today and tomorrow, Members of this body on both sides of the aisle as a part of our briefings, Mr. Speaker, in the name of the American people and on their behalf, will view these reprehensible 6 minutes which were played over and over again to over a billion people in the world. I rise today not just to offer warning to the deaf ears of an inhumane regime in Baghdad but I rise to offer a warning to the government of Qatar that is friendly to the United States, our own central command is in part located there at this hour, and say that your government-owned media should think very, very carefully about any future decisions which portray American POWs in any way that is violative of international convention, of the Geneva Convention, or of the dignity of those brave men and women who fight on our behalf. The Iraqi soldiers are warned, but let our friends in the government of Qatar also be warned that those who violate this convention will be held to account.

Mr. PENCE

Mr. PENCE. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to me. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of the majority budget resolution today. Mr. Chairman, I love being in Congress. It is a place of unbounded personalities and unbounded debate and enthusiasm. But today is the first day that I have been called a henchman and anti- Christian all in the same speech, simply because I believe that in this struggling economy that we should speed tax relief to working families, small businesses, and family farms. Or perhaps it is because I believe that once we set aside the spending, a historic increase in military spending for defense, once we set aside our commitment to our veterans, our commitment to our seniors, and even our commitment to seniors' health care in Medicare, that what is left behind, Mr. Chairman, I suppose I earn those monikers because I believe that we could find one penny out of all of the remaining spending in waste, fraud, and abuse. I come from a heartland district that serves most of eastern Indiana here in Washington, D.C. One of the maxims that we Hoosiers have endorsed since a Californian rode to the White House on that message in 1980 was that government is too big and it spends too much. I believe the overwhelming majority of the American people believe that today, from the storied days of the Grace Commission to the present moment, the Republican vision of government has not been a vision of hardship for families or cuts in education. The truth of it has been about meeting our public obligations while sharpening our pencils and trying to serve the interests of taxpayers in the long term. Those who doubt that the provisions of the Republican budget that call for the finding of one cent out of every dollar, outside defense, homeland security, Medicare, and Social Security, cannot happen ought to look at some research on government spending. According to the GAO, the Federal Government right now cannot account for $17.3 billion that it spent in 2001. Also, according to the Government Accounting Office, they are currently refusing to certify the government's own accounting books because, in an almost Enron-like statement, they say the bookkeeping is too poor by the Federal Government to do that. In fact, the Federal Government made nearly $20 billion in overpayments on contracts, according to their own records. In department after department we find examples, not always through malfeasance and misfeasance, but oftentimes through mistake and error and sometimes negligence, we find ample evidence of waste and abuse. The Republican budget is about taking a penny out of a dollar out of those nonessential programs, because government is too big and does spend too much.

Mr. PENCE

Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, today is a solemn day. History awaits America tonight, and while I would never question the patriotism of anyone who would challenge the wisdom of U.S. policy exercising their first amendment rights on this floor or in this Nation, I will challenge the wisdom of those who say that we are come upon this moment because of diplomatic failure, that we have come upon this moment because of a failure on the part of the President to lead the world toward consensus. Let us be clear, Mr. Speaker, the President did not fail. Diplomacy did not fail. The United Nations failed in abdicating its historic role, minted in the aftermath of the Second World War, to be a bulwark against tyranny in the world. The United Nations failed, but as the world awaits our leadership and that of 30 other nations in the coalition of the willing, let us be clear, Mr. Speaker. The United Nations failed, but liberty will prevail.

Mr. PENCE

Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, last night President George W. Bush spoke with vision and courage and in keeping with the highest ideals of this Nation and its storied history. It is clear that the long nightmare of the Iraqi people is about to come to an end. Diplomacy may have failed, but liberty will prevail. Saddam Hussein was offered disarmament and peace. He has chosen exile or war. As our troops labor in encampments across the Middle East, let us, in every form of prayer and petition, labor in prayer on behalf of them, their families, our leaders, and innocent civilians in harm's way in the difficult days that lie ahead.

Mr. PENCE

Mr. PENCE. Madam Speaker, surely he came to save that which was lost. As the father of two beautiful daughters, I was elated last night to see a little girl by the name of Elizabeth Smart lost 9 months ago to her family and her community restored to hearth and home. It was an awesome sight and a reunion that is difficult to imagine in its joy this side of eternity. As a member of the Committee on the Judiciary and as the author of legislation protecting children from Internet pornographers, Madam Speaker, I am delighted to report this week against the backdrop of that awesome news Congress was caught doing something. It is truly astonishing. In the midst of the disappearance of Elizabeth Smart and far too many others, last year Congress passed the Child Abduction Prevention Act, taking strong action to prevent child kidnappings in the future. It included a national Amber alert. But sadly, the Senate failed to act on that important legislation. Undeterred, the chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner), was already moving this bill last week when public vigilance restored Elizabeth Smart to her family. Different from action in the other body earlier today, that creates a national coordinator that already exists within the Justice Department and a voluntary national Amber alert. The Child Abduction Prevention Act that was already marked up last week and scheduled for consideration in the Committee on the Judiciary this coming week creates a national Amber alert communication network. It gives the judicial branch the ability to impose life sentences for child sex offenders, creates a mandatory life sentence for two strike offenders. It eliminates the statute of limitation for child abduction and it doubles Federal funds to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. There is real substance in the Child Abduction Prevention Act. This is a time against the backdrop of this extraordinarily joyous news that we in Washington need legislation, not symbolism and photo ops. To the family of Elizabeth Smart and her brave and courageous parents, may the Lord bless your reunion. But to my colleagues, let us seize this historic occasion of joy to pass meaningful legislation. Let us move the Child Abduction Prevention Act among my colleagues on the Committee on the Judiciary, and as swiftly as is possible, let us move it to the floor of the House of Representatives and to the President's desk. Our children, including Elizabeth Smart, deserve no less.

Mr. PENCE

Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the Help Efficient, Accessible, Low-cost, Timely Healthcare Act of 2003. As I rise today, in the midst of a contentious debate, Mr. Speaker, I think of my family and my parents. I think of the good health that God has so mercifully given our family over the years. I think about this great country of ours and the cutting-edge research of universities and our hospitals, like those in Muncie and Anderson and Richmond, Indiana, that I serve here in Washington. We undoubtedly have the best health care system in the world, the envy of other nations. Yet, Mr. Speaker, the costs of health care are rising so much so, to the point where constituents of mine, like Gary Miller of Portland, Indiana, are in fear of losing access to health care due to its affordability. Gary Miller just called my office this morning as we began the debate on this bill to register his concern about the rising cost of health care in America. Well, I am here today, Mr. Speaker, to tell people like Gary Miller that help is on the way. Physicians in this country are some of the finest people you will ever meet. It takes a special heart of compassion to help people that are hurting physically day in and day out. And no well-meaning compassionate physician, Mr. Speaker, should be forced to close the door of his or her practice just because they cannot afford to pay health care premiums caused by frivolous litigation. Even the most well-meaning trial lawyers in the country are filing litigation that is driving health care premiums through the roof. The Good Book tells us: ``You shall not muzzle the ox while it treads out the grain.'' And today I say to my colleagues, it is time to take the muzzle off physicians in this country and allow them to practice medicine and continue to heal our land. It is time to free doctors from the fear of bankruptcy and potential limitless litigation that currently hurts patients by causing doctors to engage in defensive medicine. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on this bill so people like Gary Miller do not have to live in fear of losing access to health care again. I urge a ``yes'' vote so we can get this country back on the road to affordable and available health care for all Americans.

Mr. PENCE

Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, long ago it was written, ``Choose this day whom you will serve.'' Today, as we go about the people's business in this House of Representatives, in another body on the east coast of this country, an international security council meets and makes decisions about who the United Nations will serve in these momentous times. Will the United Nations be a cover for tyrants and for nations who give them succor and support, or will the United Nations fulfill its historic mission and be about the business of advancing freedom in the world, confronting tyranny in the world, supporting civil liberties and basic human rights? It is time for the U.N. to choose. But as the members of that historic body meet this very week and make these momentous decisions, let them know that in this Congress, after these times have passed, we will debate and we will decide and we will choose the metes and bounds of the commitment of the United States of America to the United Nations.

Mr. PENCE

Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, I was here on September 11, 2001. I saw the skies filled with mud-brown smoke rising from the devastation at the Pentagon. I felt that anger that every American felt then and that continues to simmer in the lesser angels of our nature to this very hour. There is in my heartland Indiana district a small mosque in Muncie, Indiana, where each weekend a small community, less than 1,000 people of Arabic descent, gather to practice their religious faith, each of them contributing in important ways in our community. They reached me in the immediate hours after September 11 and expressed to me their concern as family people for their well-being in the wake of this attack that was unanimously effected by Arab extremists against our country. It was then that I issued a statement I read again today. I said then that the terrorists who attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon are not representative of the overwhelming majority of Arabs or Muslims in the United States, and we could not allow anger at this horrible act to lead us to hate or discriminate against innocent individuals who happened to be of Middle Eastern descent. I said that terror has no regard for religion or ethnicity, and if we attack the innocent simply because of their ethnic status, we are no better than the terrorists who attacked us. So we come to these days in which we find ourselves again perhaps on the precipice of a war in the Middle East, with the news in our Muncie newspaper this weekend that a recent graduate of Ball State University was arrested on terrorist charges at his home in Idaho. I thought with this news and the potential for war abroad and terrorist attacks at home, it would be appropriate to rise again to remind the people of my district and the State and even of this country that we cannot allow the hatred that terrorists and their sympathizers possess to inflame our hearts and distort our communities. I urge my fellow citizens to continue to embrace those ideals of the Declaration of Independence, and understand while we believe and have built a Nation founded on the premise that all men are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights, we cannot and must not give voice of persecution or permit acts of discrimination against those among us of Middle Eastern descent. Millions of Arab Americans, like those in my district, contribute daily in vital ways to our communities and our Nation in every professional class, medicine, academia, engineering, and yes, to the U.S. armed forces. The Good Book tells us, and what does the Lord require of you? To do justice, to love kindness, to walk humbly with your God. Let us as we go into these difficult times and in the difficult days ahead rededicate ourselves to practice justice and kindness toward every American, citizen and visitor of Middle Eastern descent, that we may hold up those ideals that brave Americans fight to defend in these days.

Mr. PENCE

Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in the wake of so many thoughtful remarks made in this Chamber as perhaps this Congress is about to adjourn a weekend before America may again be called upon to lead the civilized world and the arsenal of democracy into battle. We have heard from my colleagues this afternoon, many of the strategic and military and diplomatic justifications for that. They are legion. The violations of U.N. Resolution 1441 are painfully and patently obvious. The rejection by the regime of Saddam Hussein over the last 2 decades through five Presidential administrations and 17 U.N. resolutions, of one international convention after another, argue for the civilized world, for the forces of order, to rise up against the forces of disorder, as the columnist Thomas Friedman, from the New York Times, is want to say. I rise today after having received a very thoughtful e-mail from a constituent named David in Richmond, Indiana. David is opposed to the war strongly, and he wrote to me after urging my staff to make sure that I saw the letter, not knowing that I see all my mail, but he urged me to look at a Web site, and so I did. It was not just a Web site opposed to the war, but it was mostly a Web site, takebackthemedia.com, or some such thing, that showed very moving photographs of families in Baghdad. Mr. Speaker, I brought a few of those photographs with me today, like this photograph of a beautiful baby boy curled up on a rug with his official travel papers of his family before him to prove his location. He looks an often lot like one of my three small children. David had me look at these pictures of families, like this beautiful young family with a boy about the age of my 11-year-old son, families on the streets of Baghdad. The argument was if as a Member of Congress, I were to look into the faces of those who may by virtue of living in Baghdad fall into harm's way, I might change my mind about the use of force. Mr. Speaker, I must tell Members, as I told David in a phone call, when I look into these bright shining faces of families who live in Baghdad, in the region of what used to be Mesopotamia, this picture taken January 5, 2003, I am not moved away from taking action to remove this regime, I am moved closer toward it. As I said to David in a phone call late yesterday, when I look into these faces, I see an argument for removing Saddam Hussein because I cannot imagine, particularly for the four young women depicted in this photograph, what it is like to live in Iraq during these last 20 years. Mr. Speaker, that is why I rise today. It is in the hope of talking about the human rights record of this regime that I come to the floor today. We recall a great deal of focus in the 1990s on the human rights record of Slobodan Milosevic, and the world community coming together, including France and Germany, calling on the United States of America to challenge and to remove Slobodan Milosevic for one reason: Because of his record of abuse of human rights, his wanton killing of Muslims strictly out of a policy horrifically known as ethnic cleansing. President Clinton did nobly lead America into the breach with France and Germany under the color and authority of NATO and remove that barbarous dictator. There were no U.N. resolution. There was no previous example of them attacking their neighbors or discussion of weapons of mass destruction, there was just a dictator who abused and tortured and killed his own countrymen for ethnic reasons. So I am a bit confused when the human rights record of Saddam Hussein seems to be irrelevant to many who oppose the war. It is a record against which the record of Slobodan Milosevic pales in comparison. The United Nations Commission on Human Rights has actually said that Saddam Hussein's record on human rights is second only to that of Adolph Hitler in the 20th century, and I want to speak on some facts, things that we know about Saddam Hussein and his regime. It is about these beautiful young girls that I hope Members' hearts will attach, to think of a regime in which these young girls are forced to live is my purpose today. First, from the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, a 1997 report, the Commission on Human Rights, reaffirming that all member states have an obligation to promote and protect human rights elaborates the following actions by Iraq that it strongly condemns: One, the massive and extremely grave violations of human rights and international humanitarian law by the Government of Iraq, resulting in an all-pervasive, repression and oppression sustained by broad-based discrimination, and this is the U.N.'s terms, against his own people, widespread terror. Two, suppression of freedom of thought, expression, religion, information, association, assembly and movement through fear of arrest, imprisonment and other sanctions. Summary and arbitrary executions were also condemned by the U.N. Commission on Human Rights in 1997, including political killings, enforced or involuntary disappearances by the thousands. Without regard to due process, political opponents of Saddam Hussein, according to the U.N. Human Rights Commission, have disappeared into the mist. Arbitrary arrest, detention consisting of a routine failure to respect due process of law, and again thinking of these families, Mr. Speaker, I quote, ``widespread systemic torture in its most cruel forms. The enactment and implementation of decrees prescribing cruel and inhuman punishment, namely mutilation for punishment of offenses and diversion of medical care services for such mutilations.'' Mr. Speaker, this is a barbarous regime, and I begin by quoting from the United Nations because we hear so much about how we ought to rely on the United Nations and I begin there, but the facts simply continue to flow. Think about that for a moment, Mr. Speaker. Widespread terror against his own people, the suppression of human rights, suppression of freedom of thought, expression, religion, information, association, assembly and movement through fear of arrest, imprisonment and other sanctions, summary and arbitrary executions and political killings, widespread and systematic torture in its most cruel forms. That is from the Commission on Human Rights United Nations High Commissioner, April 16, 1997. Mr. Speaker, citing from the report published by Great Britain, let us talk about what we know from organizations like Amnesty International and others, let us talk about the torture that is sanctioned by the government of Saddam Hussein and in which he has been personally involved on many occasions. From the British report, we find that the victims of torture and their families have reported the following methods of torture to international human rights like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, eye gouging. Amnesty International reported the case of a Kurdish businessman in Baghdad who was executed in 1997. When his family retrieved his body, the eyes had been gouged out and the empty eye sockets stuffed with paper. Piercing of hands with an electric drill. A common method of torture for political detainees, Amnesty International reported one victim who then had acid poured into his open wounds during interrogation in Iraq. Suspension from the ceiling. Victims are blindfolded, stripped and suspended for hours by their wrists, often with their hands tied behind their backs. This causes dislocation of shoulders, tearing of muscles and ligaments. Iraq is also known to use electric shock. A common torture method, shocks are applied to various parts of the body including ears, tongue, fingers and genitalia. Sexual abuse. Victims, particularly women, have been raped and sexually abused as a means of interrogation on a routine basis by this regime. Mock executions. Victims are told to be executed by firing squad. A mock execution is staged. Victims are hooded, brought before a firing squad, and then blanks are fired as a form of torture. David Scheffer, U.S. Ambassador at Large for War Crimes, reported that photographic evidence showed that Iraq had used acid baths during the invasion of Kuwait. Victims were hung by their wrists and gradually lowered into acid. These are unspeakable acts of barbarism, Mr. Speaker. I am a bit loathe in this, what is a public forum by definition, to speak these words after school is out, but I think it is important as we think through the strategic issues, as we think through the diplomatic issues, international convention, disarmament, international terrorism, that we also think of this. These are the facts that I must assume that the sincere activists, perhaps at this very hour, are engaged in some demonstration here in America, or perhaps even on the streets of Baghdad, these are the facts that these people must not know. How could any decent human being, knowing the official barbarism of the regime of Saddam Hussein, ever deign to defend it. Let us talk for a moment about the cost to fellow Muslims. There are many who want to divide the world along religious lines between the West and the Islamic world, suggesting that we in the West are not challenging an outlaw regime in Baghdad that has attacked 3 of its 5 adjacent neighbors during its regime and used chemical weapons on its own people, but rather that we are somehow engaged in a war against an ``ism,'' against a religion. Here is the truth, again citing the recent British report published this fall. The truth of it is that Muslims have had no greater enemy in contemporary history than Saddam Hussein. I believe it is accurate to say that Saddam Hussein has killed more Muslims than any government leader in the past 50 years, including Slobodan Milosevic who sought, through a policy of ethnic cleansing, to destroy the Muslim population in the form of Yugoslavia. The Iran-Iraq war, which ranged from 1980 to 1988, resulted in 1 million Muslim casualties dead and wounded. Iranian casualties in that war, Mr. Speaker, were estimated at between 450,000 and 730,000. Iraqi casualties were between 150,000 and 340,000. Really not since our Civil War have we ever as a nation experienced casualties the likes of which occurred in a barbaric and ruthless war between these two nations for 8 years. During the 1988 Anfal campaign in Iraqi Kurdistan, Iraqi troops were responsible for the death or disappearance of up to 100,000 Muslim Kurds. Also according to Great Britain on March 16, 1988, Iraqi troops killed up to 5,000 and injured some 10,000 Muslim Kurds in a single day in a chemical weapon attack on the town of Halabja in northern Iraq. The 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait led to the death of 1,000 Kuwaiti Muslim nationals. 605 prisoners of war remain completely unaccounted for since 1991, including nationals of Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, India, Syria, Lebanon, Iran, Egypt, Bahrain and Oman. Between 3 million and 4 million Muslim Iraqis have abandoned their homes and sought refuge outside of Iraq. Many hundreds of thousands of Iraq's Muslims have been displaced internally. Estimates of 900,000 according to the United Kingdom's report may be conservative. In the north, towns and villages were systematically destroyed by the regime during the war with Iran. Further south, non-Arabs in the region of Kirkuk have been relocated to other parts of Iraq and Arabs induced to occupy their homes and lands. And in the south, between 300,000 and 500,000 Muslim citizens have been forced from their traditional homes in Iraq's marshlands. Thousands of Muslims have been arbitrarily arrested, ill treated, tortured, and executed in Iraq in recent years. This is according to the International Alliance for Justice News Service, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch Country Report, and the U.S. Committee for Refugees Report, and I will cite each of the following. The regime of Saddam Hussein has reaped an extraordinary and barbarous toll on Muslims in the region over its 20-some-odd-year history. This is also a regime that has used chemical weapons according to the Human Rights Watch's ``Genocide in Iraq'' report. Mr. Speaker, I will say for a moment that while I have great respect for Amnesty International and great respect for Human Rights Watch and as a member of the Committee on International Relations I greatly cherish any organization that makes its business to attend to the human rights of people around the world, I must concede standing on this particular side of the aisle, Mr. Speaker, not to have a great deal culturally in common with most of the people that are drawn to the work of these organizations. I have a passion for human rights. I am on the Subcommittee on the Middle East for precisely that reason. I am interested in advancing the human rights of people all across the world in whatever brief time that I have in this institution. But I know that most people who think about these things and donate to these organizations have a little bit of a different political view from mine and I suspect, Mr. Speaker, a different political view of the war from mine. And so I am hoping that somehow through this process, we can reach some of those who object to this war, who express fealty and appreciation for Human Rights Watch and for Amnesty International and for all the plethora of groups out there that largely draw their support from the left, who have nonetheless chronicled as a great service to mankind the barbarism of this regime. According to the Human Rights Watch ``Genocide in Iraq'' report, which carried extensive research into chemical weapons attacks in northern Iraq, based on field interviews, they have determined that at least 60 villages as well as the town of Halabja were attacked with mustard gas, nerve gas or a combination of the two during the Anfal campaign against the Kurds between 1987 and 1988. Human Rights Watch says that the Iraqi regime has used chemical weapons for at least four complementary purposes: number one, to attack base camps and main-force concentrations of Kurdish guerillas; two, to harass and kill retreating guerillas; three, to inflict, I make emphasis here, Mr. Speaker, that we are not simply talking about Iraq deploying chemical weapons in a military environment, which according to international convention and expectation is barbarism but also, according to Human Rights Watch, they have deployed chemical weapons to inflict exemplary collective punishment on civilians for simply supporting the Kurdish guerillas. The most dramatic case is the chemical bombing of Halabja after the seizure of the town by guerillas and Iranian revolutionary guards. And lastly, they have used it simply to spread terror among civilian populations as a whole, flushing villagers out of their homes to facilitate their capture, relocation, and killing. The list of chemical attacks by Iraq against its own citizens, and not just in a military context, is astonishing and horrifying. And the list goes on, Mr. Speaker, of evidence upon evidence of a regime that has lost any connection to the civilized world. But I want to go back to these pictures, if I can; and I have not yet shown all of them. These are some great-looking kids. This photograph that I got off the aforementioned Web site was apparently taken on December 19, 2002, in Baghdad, and those are some beautiful little girls. I have got two little girls of my own. They are 9 and 8 years old, Mr. Speaker. I think that I would do anything to deliver my little girls from living in the kind of society and under the kind of regime that I am here to describe and that organizations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have identified and associated with the regime under the leadership of Saddam Hussein. Let me share with you some testimony which was presented before the Congressional Human Rights Caucus on the human rights situation in northern Iraq, the Kurdish minority. This is the testimony of Bayanne Surdashi, a Kurdish humanitarian aid worker now in asylum in the United States of America. After pleasantries, Bayanne told the following story. This is a Kurdish Iraqi and her personal story: ``I was 12 years old when I experienced firsthand the suffering of my people. One evening in the spring of 1987, one of my aunts and her whole family showed up on our doorstep in Sulaymaniyah unexpectedly. We learned that their village, Askar, was one of several that were attacked by Iraqi helicopters using chemical gas and then turned into rubble by bulldozers. My aunt's family had managed to avoid the military and find their way to our home. They spent 11 months hiding with us. ``Later the Iraqi regime relocated them to newly built government settlements where they could be closely watched by the military. They were not allowed to return to their farms and were turned from hard- working independent people into people dependent on the government for their very simplest needs. Over time my family discovered that at least 40 of our relatives living in the villages had been killed during this genocidal campaign known as the government's Anfal policy. Only those relatives who managed to escape or hide survived the horror of Anfal which killed more than 150,000 Kurds. ``Three years later after our failed uprising against Saddam Hussein in 1991, the Iraqi army used every possible form of brutality as they moved into northern Iraq, destroying everyone and everything before them. In the middle of a cold, rainy winter, we were awakened by the sound of bombs. It was clear that Saddam's army was very close. My parents feared that Saddam would again use chemical gas like he did during the genocidal campaign, so, like hundreds of thousands of other frightened Kurds, we fled. We said good-bye to our home, and we joined a flood of other refugees crowding the streets on our way out of the city and out of Iraq in search of sanctuary. We walked on foot for 10 days through the mountains before we reached Iran and safety, poorly clothed from harsh weather and without enough food or water. We were surrounded by the sound of misery and distress and witnessed families burying their dead along the road and weeping mothers unable to let go of their dead infants. Due to shock, one of my brothers suffered terrible seizures a few times a day. ``When we finally returned home,'' Bayanne would conclude before this congressional committee, ``we learned that some of our relatives did not survive the exodus. My mother's aunt had been in the hospital when we left but died along with hundreds of other patients abandoned by the staff who were forced to flee the city as well. My uncle was found frozen to death in the mountains. On the radio we heard more than a thousand Kurds died every day during the exodus.'' That was the testimony of a 12-year-old little girl who because of the courage of her family made it out. This could be a picture of her, Bayanne Surdashi. She is now a Kurdish humanitarian aid worker. She escaped. Hundreds of thousands did not. But when I think of my children that same age and I think of that horror through which she passed, my blood runs cold. And I am amazed that others' does not. I am amazed, Mr. Speaker. I really am. And I just must assume that those who oppose the use of force in Iraq do not know this. Because I believed when I voted to authorize the use of force, Mr. Speaker, I believed it was right under international conventions going from the U.N. resolution 687 that was the cease-fire in 1991 and that it was appropriate for us to make clear to Iraq that they must disarm, they must disclose, they must destroy their weapons and cease any liaisons with terrorist organizations. I supported giving the President that authority. I have supported the administration unflaggingly in its attempt to develop international support for this war and believe those arguments are enough. But there is this, which when taken in its totality, 20 years of barbarism, we see that the case against Iraq does not end with diplomatic resolutions, Mr. Speaker. The case against Iraq does not end with liaisons with terrorist organizations. The case against Iraq ends here. It ends with what will end when that regime ends. I want to speak specifically to the issue of torture, which as I have said before is systematic in Iraq. I think again of David who asked me to look at a Web site, Mr. Speaker, where there were pictures, and I think of innocent Iraqis like this. This photograph was taken January 5, 2003, on the streets of Baghdad. These are adorable kids who maybe look an awful lot like the kids that we now know are tortured to extract information from their parents by this regime. Mr. Speaker, I am very moved by that thought, and the sheer horror of it, but I want to reflect for a moment on what the word ``systematic'' means. We are not talking, Mr. Speaker, about the torture that happens on the margins in the basement of the prison because of the brutality of prison guards who are operating outside the rule of law. When the U.N. Commission on Human Rights and Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch use the phrase that torture is systematic in Iraq, that means it is part of the system of Iraq. It is part of the ordinary undue process that the people of Iraq must endure. And I hope I make this point, Mr. Speaker, that we are not talking about a regime that has left the rails. We are not talking about a regime that some of its operators have lost their way. We are talking about a regime that sanctions the torture and killing of its own people. The most senior figures in this regime, according to international sources, have been personally involved in torture. Saddam Hussein runs Iraq with close members of his own family, the ``filthy 40'' that we heard about in the media this week, most of them either married into the family or in some way related by blood. Most of these come from his hometown of Tikrit. These are the only people he feels he can trust. He directly controls the security services and, through them and a huge party network, his influence reaches deep into Iraqi society. Saddam presides over the all-powerful Revolutionary Command Council, which enacts laws and institutions and it has been through this council, according to Amnesty International in a report published in August of 2001, ``torture is used systematically against political detainees. The scale and severity of torture in Iraq can only result from the acceptance of its use at the highest level.'' Over the years, Amnesty International and other human rights organizations have received thousands of reports of torture and interviewed dozens of torture victims who survived and escaped. Some of the propagandists, Tariq Aziz comes to mind, may step before the cameras some day in the near future and hold out something from a statute book in Iraq that says that torture is illegal in Iraq. But according to the report recently published by the British Government, our intelligence sources are not aware of a single case of an Iraqi official suspected of carrying out torture being brought to justice or prosecuted, not one. I quote again, Amnesty International in a report from 2001: ``Torture is used systematically against political detainees,'' and stay with me now. ``The scale and severity of torture in Iraq can only result from the acceptance of its use at the highest level,'' according to Amnesty International. Let me tell the story about a family, and I think we have a picture of a wonderful family in Baghdad. This photograph taken on the streets of Baghdad on January 7, 2003. A father, maybe a grandfather, with his arm around what looks to be about an 11- or 12-year-old boy and a daughter in a shawl, and it is a warm family photograph. Let me read the story of a family arrested in late 2000, not long ago. They were taken to two separate interrogation centers in Iraq within Republican Guard facilities located along the road to Abu Ghraib, according to a report published by the United Kingdom. The husband was held in one center whilst the wife and children were held in a women's facility. The husband and wife were interrogated under torture about the husband's sale of vehicle that the interrogator said had been captured by Iraqi security forces during a raid on Iraqi oppositionists. The interrogators said separately to both husband and wife that they would cease the torture if they signed confessions admitting to be collaborating with oppositionists. They refused. The wife was stripped naked and cigarettes stubbed out on all parts of her body when she refused to implicate her husband. This was August of 2000. I am not talking about ancient history, Mr. Speaker. According to testimony, she was beaten and thrown around the interrogation room. Her children were forced to watch the torture. She was eventually released, having been told her husband would continue being tortured until she returned to confess. She was arrested again 2 weeks late and the same pattern of torture was repeated, leaving her a psychological wreck. During his testimony, the husband's arms were tied behind his back. He was then suspended in the air using a hook hung from the ceiling. According to testimony, this caused intense pain as his muscle and shoulder ligaments were torn. After a period, the interrogators entered the room and the husband was unhooked, placed in a chair. From close range, he was then shot at with a pistol whenever he refused to agree to sign the confession. Sometimes shots were fired which missed his body. At other times, a pistol muzzle was placed against his fingers, toes, and arms and fired so as to mutilate those areas. Over the following 2 weeks, further interrogations occurred at intervals following periods of food and water deprivation. Eventually the husband and wife's wider family paid a bribe to an Iraqi intelligence officer and they were released, and subsequently survived to escape from Iraq and testify. Mr. Speaker, I recite these things because I think many people just do not know them. I recite these things because there are many who want to morally equivocate in this case and even to suggest that there are other countries that have weapons of mass destruction, Iraq is no different. Iraq is different, Mr. Speaker. Let me give you more examples. Among these pictures that I was presented when I went to a Web site called to my attention by a constituent who opposed the war who asked me to look into the eyes of some recent photographs of people who live in Baghdad and think about the cost of this war. Among those photographs here is a January 5 picture of four beautiful girls and one little boy, and it is a good starting point for us to talk about women in Iraq, Mr. Speaker. I am not going to quote some propagandist organization on the right or some pro-war organization. I am going to quote from the Human Rights Alliance in France and Amnesty International's report in 2001 about the treatment of women by the regime in Baghdad. According to Amnesty International, a 25-year-old woman known as Um Haydar was beheaded in the street without charge or trial at the end of December, 2000, after her husband, suspected by the authorities, of involvement in Islamic armed activities, fled the country. Beheaded in the street without a trial. And some think this is just another country, Mr. Speaker. Men belonging to Saddam Fidayeen took Haydar from her house in the al-Karrada district in front of her children and mother-in-law. Two men held her arms and a third pulled her head from behind and beheaded her in front of her family, according to witnesses with firsthand knowledge presented to Amnesty International. Human Rights Alliance in France, their report in 2002, young woman was arrested because her husband had refused to join the war against Iran. Pregnant at the time, she gave birth in prison on 3 December, 1999. She said, ``I breast-fed my son, but they took him away when he was 17 days old so that he would not become like me. I'm still looking for him. I never had further news of him.'' This woman, who was also horribly tortured in prison, still said she suffers endless torture, the torture of not knowing where her son is. This according to Human Rights Alliance in France. Najat Mohammed Haydar, an obstetrician in Baghdad, was beheaded in October, 2000, apparently on suspicion of prostitution, according to Amnesty International. Even by Iraqi standards, her execution was an outrage, Mr. Speaker. There was no evidence to support the charge of prostitution. She was reportedly arrested before the introduction of the policy to behead prostitutes. The real reason for her death was believed to be, according to Amnesty International, her criticism of corruption in the Iraqi health service. A female obstetrician in Baghdad was beheaded in October of 2000. I cannot say enough, and as I prepared for these remarks today, these are things that shocked my conscious and mind. I know where I was in October of 2000, Mr. Speaker, and to think that there is still a place in the world where a professional woman, an OBGYN, a medical doctor could criticize her government's health policy and be beheaded publicly is a frightening thought. But that is Baghdad and that is Iraq. A few more personal stories, Mr. Speaker, and then I will yield this Chamber to another colleague. It is the individual stories that touch me the deepest. When I got that e-mail from David in my district, I had to thank him. He challenged me, Mr. Speaker. He said that if you support this war, I challenge you to go to a Web site where there are photographs of families that live in Baghdad, recent photographs of the people who may fall under the wake of U.S. military involvement. He challenged me, and I rose to the challenge, and I went to the Web site, but instead of finding myself backing away from engagement, I found myself drawn to it. I looked into the face of this little boy and he looks like mine. And it is the personal stories that draw me into this and reaffirm my belief that the rule of law and the laws that govern civilized men and women on planet earth are not the province of the west. They are not the province of English-speaking people or Europeans, but the freedom from terror, the obligations of due process, the freedom of speech and association, these are things that attach to the human heart that this little boy, sitting on a carpet in Baghdad, smiling for all the world to the camera, not knowing what may well be coming to his city, touches me deeply. A few more personal stories and I will close. These are from an Amnesty International report issued in November of 1999. They are personal stories regarding Iraq's obvious human rights violation, and I say this it as often as I can, Mr. Speaker, that I might per chance by some be heard that what I am reading now is not from some pro-war, pro- Bush Web site or document. This is from Amnesty International. Abd al- Wahid al-Rifa'i, married with nine children, according to Amnesty International, was arrested without a warrant on 8 March, 1999, at 2 a.m. Taken from his house in Baghdad by plainclothes security men, initially he was held in the headquarters of the General Security Directorate. According to Amnesty International and testimony thereafter, he was then taken to a hospital because of ill health, returned to the Baghdad security headquarters where he is currently held without charge or trial. Since his arrest, his family has not been allowed to visit him. He is believed to have been arrested because authorities suspected he was in contact with the opposition through his brother, an active anti-government opponent who lives in Europe. His brother, a businessman, fled with his wife and children to Jordan in 1995. The previous month, he had been detained in Iraq accused of having contacts with opposition abroad, and was tortured. This included beatings, suspension by his feet, electric shock to his lips and genitals. He escaped by bribing a prison official in August of 1995, and a criminal court sentenced him to death in absentia. His brother remains incarcerated without charges in his absence. Ibrahim Amin al-'Azzawi, a 70-year-old lawyer, according to Amnesty International, was arrested on the morning of 23 March 1999. Four plainclothes security men took him away from his house in Baghdad. He was reportedly not involved in any opposition activities. The previous evening his daughter, Bushra, married with two children, came with her children to her parents' house in a state of shock. She told her family, who are Sunni Muslims, that her husband had been arrested at his house and taken away by security men. The whole family could not sleep that night. When the four security men came to the house around 6 a.m., they knocked at the door, and it was Ibrahim Amin al-'Azzawi who opened the door. They searched the house, confiscated documents, and arrested Ibrahim without giving him any reason for the arrest. The family then feared that the security men would return and arrest them. Bushra and her two children and her two unmarried sisters and their 61-year-old mother collected some of their valuables and ran from the house. A few weeks later, they managed to flee the country. They believe that the reason behind their father's arrest was that his son- in-law, a Shi'a Muslim, was suspected of involvement in some antigovernment activities. Ibrahim Amin al-'Azzawi was executed. His body was buried by the authorities. No information of a charge, trial, or sentencing was available. No information was made available to Amnesty International as to the fate of his son-in-law. This was a 70-year-old lawyer in Baghdad, who upon hearing that his son-in-law had been arrested in the dead of night, went to his house to comfort his daughter and was himself dragged off and executed. This is Iraq, Mr. Speaker. This is Iraq today, 1999, according to Amnesty International. Let me tell you a story about a 67-year-old man, married with four grown children. Ayatollah al-Shaikh Murtadha al-Burujerdi is his name, I say with respect, age 67. He was shot dead by armed men on the night of 22 April 1998 as he walked home from the shrine of Imam Ali in al- Najaf one of the Shiite Muslims' holiest cities, where he had led the congregation in dawn prayers. His two companions were also shot and sustained injuries. He had reportedly been harassed in the past by Iraqi security services, and there had been at least one attempt on his life in 1991, and following the Shiite uprising in the South, he was arrested with scores of other Shiite scholars, was detained, and then released. A few weeks before his murder, he had been visited by a delegation from the Ministry of Religious Endowments and Religions Affairs, urging him to stop leading the prayers. He was reported to have stated to the delegation he would only agree if he received in writing an order from the Iraqi government. Following the assassination, an official statement released by the government blamed the intelligence service of a foreign country. Amnesty International. These names are hard for me to pronounce, but these facts are not hard for me to understand: a 67-year-old grandfather coming back from a prayer service, shot and killed. Two men were coming back from one of the holiest places for Shiite Muslims were also shot and wounded. His offense was praying. The list, Mr. Speaker, goes on and on and on. There is persecution of the Kurds that has been documented again and again. There has been much human rights and religious persecution within Iraq. It is a record of mindless barbarism that is contemporary, not ancient history. Some may believe that these were things of a frontier period in the regime before law and order took hold. These things may happen, they say; but I am talking from the benefit of the great work of Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. Mr. Speaker, I speak of things that have happened within months of this day. A woman who was a medical doctor was beheaded because she criticized the government; a grandfather walking back from a prayer service, shot and killed simply because he did not adhere to the government's demand that he stop leading prayers with the Shiite Muslims; and the systematic use of torture as part of government policy. So I rise today to simply add something to the discussion. I do so with great humility, Mr. Speaker, knowing that each one of us among the 435 who are privileged to serve in this place are simply part of a national conversation. We are the way America talks to itself. I had a burden on my heart, Mr. Speaker, that America ought to be talking about this. We get caught up in resolutions and weapons of mass destruction, and were they or were they not involved with al Qaeda, were they or were they not involved in September 11. Each one of us, by our own lights and by the facts, will decide what we believe, and decide what we believe should be the proper course of action. However, what I see the debate bereft of is an honest discussion of the barbaric and virtually unprecedented record on human rights that is contemporary Iraq under Saddam Hussein. These families, these kids. December 19, 2002, this paragraph was taken of two beautiful little girls, about the age of my girls, in Baghdad. When I think of the man who was beheaded in front of his wife and children, when I think of the parents who were incarcerated and tortured in front of their children, when I think of the woman who escaped from Iraq, but they took her boy of 17 days away because they did not want him to be polluted by her ideology and thinking, she grieves to this day, not for the torture that she suffered and no doubt the physical scars she bore, but she feels the emotional scars of not knowing where her baby boy is. It is about these families, Mr. Speaker, that I believe in the justness of our cause. I think of those words from Ecclesiastes, Chapter 4: ``Again I looked and saw all the oppression that was taking place under the sun. I saw the tears of the oppressed, and they have no comforter. Power was on the side of their oppressors, and they have no comforter. I declared that the dead who had already died are happier than the living who are still alive; but better than both is he who has not yet been, who has not seen the evil that is done under the sun.'' When I look into these eyes, Mr. Speaker, I see the tears of the oppressed. When I look into these eyes, I know the evil that is done under the sun. Because of the outstanding work of Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, I am able, and millions are able, to know of these things, and the reality of them. But let it not be said in this place that they have no comforter, that they have no defender; because in the days ahead, as we pause and reflect this weekend, each of us going to our own place of worship, I suspect many millions of Americans in churches and synagogues and mosques and in their own private devotions will pray. We will, each of us, pray, not just for the safety of our troops, but we will pray for these who shed the tears of the oppressed. We will pray that God will have his mercy on all the innocent in the way of war, confident that our military will use extraordinary efforts to avoid casualties by noncombatants. It is my hope that somewhere in the heart of hearts of the children in these pictures that I have shown today, and in the families they represent, there will be the knowledge that there is a defender; there is a nation, some 50 nations, that stand ready to end their oppression, to dry their tears, and to lead Iraq into a new dawn of civilization, a new dawn of freedom from oppression and torture and the abuse of women and the stifling of basic civil and human rights. That is my prayer, that is my hope, and of that I remain confident, that the United States of America will, if need be by force, or by showing enough force that it is voluntary, lead Iraq into that bright future.

Mr. PENCE

Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, today marks the 30th day since the Shuttle Columbia disaster, and thus the end of what is for Jews around the world a traditional 30-day mourning period for the untimely death of Israeli astronaut Colonel Ilan Ramon. It is my privilege to rise here on the blue carpet of the House of Representatives as friends and family and leadership gather at this very hour in Jerusalem with the bereaved and with the family and children of Colonel Ramon to remember a life of extraordinary accomplishment. Colonel Ramon's journey into space occurred in the midst of continued suffering in his homeland, a horrendous period of violence, and his bravery helped lift the spirits of his countrymen. No one understood the significance of his expedition more than Colonel Ramon himself. Before launching from the Kennedy Space Center on January 16, 2003, Ramon remarked ``Being the first Israeli astronaut, I feel I am representing all Jews and all Israelis. I'm the son of a Holocaust survivor. I carry on the suffering of the Holocaust generation, and I'm kind of proof that despite all the horror they went through, we are going forward.'' Mr. Speaker, Colonel Ramon rose from the lowest depths to the highest heights and brought his country, his people, and the entire world with him. He graduated as a fighter pilot from the Israel Air Force flight school and commanded a squadron of pilots in the raid on the Iraqi nuclear reactor at Osirak in 1981, saving Israel and the world from the threat of a nuclear Iraq led by Saddam Hussein. Colonel Ramon died together with Christians from America and with a Muslim from Pakistan. He died living out the prophetic dream of unity in one purpose that is shared by all those who embrace the Abrahamic tradition of faith. His life is a testimony to the great idea that one man can truly change the world, that a child from any background, any faith, any social status can indeed turn out to be an Ilan Ramon. Mr. Speaker, Colonel Ilan Ramon did more than die a hero as part of Columbia seven. He lived as a hero. May his memory be blessed and his family comforted among the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem and America this day.