Ed Royce: “I yield myself such time as I may consume. Well, Madam Speaker, let me begin by saying I appreciate the gentleman from…”

“I yield myself such time as I may consume. Well, Madam Speaker, let me begin by saying I appreciate the gentleman from Massachusetts' spirit of cooperation. Mr. McGovern and I have worked on a number of issues from victims' rights to trying to stop the exploitation of child soldiers in Africa, and so I appreciate that spirit on his part. As I noted in my opening testimony, my opening statement here, the threat of ISIS is real, and I do think we should reflect on that as we debate this issue. {time} 1100 Never has a terrorist organization itself controlled so much territory, especially such a large, resource-rich safe haven, as ISIS has in this caliphate, as they perceive it, now. Never has a terrorist organization possessed the heavy weaponry and cash and personnel as ISIS does today, and this includes thousands of Western passports and thousands of individuals who are passport holders from the West. One militant engaged in this battle recently returned to Europe and attacked a museum in Brussels, so more of that is coming as a result of ISIS. And let's not take this debate to mean that we should not be doing anything to offset that organization. I think the President has failed U.S. national security interests by not, for example, authorizing or accepting the request made by the government in Iraq and by our personnel in our Embassy for drone strikes on these terrorist ISIS camps.…”