Jack Kingston: “imagine if we could rewind the tape, we could rewind it back to September 10, 2001. We are sitting around looking at the…”

“imagine if we could rewind the tape, we could rewind it back to September 10, 2001. We are sitting around looking at the world. We know that in 1993, the World Trade Center was bombed. We know that 17 Americans were killed when the USS Cole was bombed in Yemen. We know that two embassies in Africa have been bombed. We have withdrawn from Somalia. If it was September 10, 2001, and we were taking a sober assessment of the world, what would we do differently? Particularly what would we do differently as respects the events of September 11? Mr. Speaker, obviously we cannot rewind the tape ever, but the reality is we are sitting potentially on another September 10 date right now. We have been in this world for a long time. We are looking at a world where Saddam Hussein had 90 days from April, 1991, to disarm after withdrawing from Kuwait and after the U.N. action that we know of as Desert Storm. We know that in the 12 years that followed April 19, 1991, he flaunted the weapons inspection process. We know that weapons inspectors such as Scott Ritter quit in disgust. We know that it was criticized. We know that he went 4 years without having U.N. weapons inspectors. We know that indeed 17 U.N. resolutions have gone by. Our President has been very patient with the U.N. diplomatic process. It is too bad that it failed. It is too bad that maybe the U.N. could have stepped forward a little bit stronger during any of the time in the last 12 years, but that did not happen.”