Charles Skelton: “Mr. Speaker, I rise with heavy heart, a heavy heart for two reasons. The first reason is that a group of American…”

“Mr. Speaker, I rise with heavy heart, a heavy heart for two reasons. The first reason is that a group of American soldiers forgot that they were soldiers and they forgot that the middle name of a soldier is 'honor,' in doing the despicable acts that they did in that prison. That breaks my heart. I know it breaks the hearts of Americans who saw those pictures and learned of those acts which border on the unspeakable. But the seconds reason my heart is broken is that the occurrences happened between October and December of last year; they were reported in January of this year. A two star general in the Army, Major General Taguba was called to investigate and his report was rendered in February. And as ranking member on this committee, I found out about it this month, in May, not by any official sources, but through the news media. Mr. Speaker, that also breaks my heart. We in Congress under the Constitution are the first of the three parts of government listed.”