On the recordMarch 30, 2011
in response to the Senator from Kentucky, I would like to say that he is new to the Senate. I do not question his sincerity when it comes to the enforcement of our Constitution. I share his feelings about the responsibility of Congress under that Constitution to declare war. I have held previous Presidents of both political parties to that standard and believe that this President should be held to that standard as well. I may regret some of his characterizations of our President, but I will not go into that at this moment. I will say the following: Let's make the record clear about how we got into this situation and why we got into the situation, which the President said the other night. This was not a matter of waiting until Congress came back from its vacation; it was a matter of innocent people being killed in Libya. It was no mistake what Qadhafi was going to do. He said pointblank: I am going to Benghazi. I am going house to house and room to room and kill people, my own people. It should not come as any surprise because he has a history of that, not only killing his own people but killing those innocent passengers on Pan Am 103. He is a ruthless, bloody dictator, so much so that the Arab League of Nations broke precedent and called for Libya to be suspended as long as Qadhafi was in charge. His own Arab League of Nations suspended him. They then turned to the United Nations and said: Please stop him from killing his own people.
