Bill Delahunt: “I think we all agree, and there is not a single individual in this House that would disagree with the statement that…”

“I think we all agree, and there is not a single individual in this House that would disagree with the statement that Saddam Hussein represented the kind of a despot and the kind of thug and the kind of dictator that we all find reprehensible. But what I find ironic is that in our effort to undermine and to defeat Saddam Hussein, we have now allied ourselves with similar thugs, with similar despots, with similar reprehensible heads of state. I find it fascinating that Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld visits Uzbekistan and praises the President of Uzbekistan, Ivan Karimov, who to call a thug is a disservice to the term thug. He is absolutely a replica of Saddam Hussein. There are some 6,000 political prisoners today in Uzbekistan. And what do we hear from the White House, what do we hear from the Department of State? Nothing. Nothing. Yet when we read the Department of State's report on human rights abuses in Uzbekistan, it is damning. It is damning. What do we hear about the thug, the despot by the name of Turkman Bashi, who resides in Turkmenistan, who is also our new friend and ally, who by the way not only is a thug but is clearly a psychopath? Maybe the gentleman is unaware of this, but he changed the month of January, the name January, and named it after himself. But he has displayed a certain filial affection for his mother, because he then went forward and changed the name of the month of April and named it after his mother. And these are our new friends.”