Jack Kingston: “Now, let us just kind of go back in time. Suppose it is August 2001, and a Member of Congress is speaking to a Rotary…”

“Now, let us just kind of go back in time. Suppose it is August 2001, and a Member of Congress is speaking to a Rotary Club or something and says, listen, there is a guy out there, a known terrorist named Osama bin Laden. He has a group called al-Qaeda, and they have found sanctuary and training opportunities inside the corrupt Taliban government of Afghanistan. Now, I am telling you here and now, in August 2001, ladies and gentlemen, we need to instruct the President of the United States and instruct the CIA to take him out. We need to work with maybe an international coalition to get rid of this guy. Now, if a Member of Congress had been saying that 13 months ago, he would have been laughed at, he would have been ridiculed, and he would have been called a warmonger and, yet, how right that statement would have been 13 months ago. Now, are we not in the same position? We have Saddam Hussein, he hates America, he harbors terrorists, he has been directly and indirectly involved with all kinds of terrorist activity, many against America, all around the globe. Is it not prudent to take the course of action that our President is doing? Mr. Speaker, this is not time for partisanship or cowering behind whatever boundaries or ideas that one has; this is time to put our best thoughts together and work together as a Nation, as Democrats and Republicans, and bring America's interest first to the floor of this House and get behind the President of the United States.”