Ed Royce: “Mr. Speaker, let me respond to the gentlewoman and to the argument in terms of what has not been found regarding weapons…”

“Mr. Speaker, let me respond to the gentlewoman and to the argument in terms of what has not been found regarding weapons of mass destruction. The Committee on International Relations had a hearing on this very recently. During that hearing we heard testimony to the fact that Saddam Hussein was on the edge of a precipice with regards to the ability to unleash weapons of mass destruction. I am just going to briefly mention some of the work of Jeffrey Goldberg, who spent many months inside Iraq; and as he says, when Saddam Hussein maneuvered UNSCOM, the weapons inspectors, out of the country in 1998, the weapons inspectors had found a sizable portion of his arsenal, but were vexed by what they could not find. His scientists have produced and weaponized anthrax. They have manufactured botulinum toxin which causes muscular paralysis and death. They have made a bacterium which causes gas gangrene, a condition in which the flesh rots. They have also made wheat-cover smut which can be used to poison crops, and ricin, which, when absorbed into the lungs, causes hemorrhagic pneumonia.”