Newt Gingrich: “I rise and I note the presence of my colleague, the distinguished minority leader, who also will speak this afternoon…”

“I rise and I note the presence of my colleague, the distinguished minority leader, who also will speak this afternoon, because both of us I think want to make the point that the leadership of this Congress is very committed to supporting the President of the United States and in supporting, frankly, all of the people around the planet who are concerned about Saddam Hussein and the danger of bacteriological and chemical weapons of terror. The fact is that the United States has no argument with the people of Iraq. The United States has no wish to harm the people of Iraq; the United States wishes that we could reach an agreement which would allow the sanctions to be limited, the people to have prosperity, and Iraq to live in peace with its neighbors. But the current dictator, Saddam Hussein, has a track record unlike any other leader in the world. He has used chemical weapons against his neighbors. He has used chemical weapons against his own people. He shot his own son-in-law when he returned from defecting. He is clearly a brutal and dangerous dictator who, despite having lost a war against the coalition, despite having subjected his own people to 7 years of economic sanctions, despite the United Nations inspectors in this country, despite the world media watching him, despite pressure diplomatically from virtually every country in the world, has persisted in trying to build and retain chemical and bacteriological weapons of mass destruction.”