Chris Smith: “I thank the distinguished chairman for yielding, and I thank him for his leadership on this bill. I want to thank…”

“I thank the distinguished chairman for yielding, and I thank him for his leadership on this bill. I want to thank Ranking Member Engel for his support and also Majority Leader McCarthy for making sure this bill came to the floor. Without that, we wouldn't be here, so I want to thank him especially for his support. Mr. Speaker, I start off by saying that, since 2013, I have chaired nine congressional hearings focused in whole or in part on atrocities in Iraq and Syria. The distinguished chairman has had another dozen or so such hearings that have brought to light these atrocities. In one of our hearings in December of 2015, Gregory Stanton, president of Genocide Watch, testified that ``weak words are not enough,'' noting that 21 human rights organizations, genocide scholars, and religious leaders wrote to President Obama imploring him to recognize the ISIS genocide. At that same hearing, Chaldean Bishop Francis Kalabat said that ``since the fall of Mosul in early June 2014, Christians have endured targeted persecution in the form of forced displacement, sexual violence, and other human rights violations.'' He said, ``ISIS has committed terrific atrocities against the Yazidis,'' and then he bottom-lined it and said the Christians are ``under threat of extinction.'' On May 9, 2016, the House passed Jeff Fortenberry's genocide resolution 393-0. A few days later, Secretary of State John Kerry declared ISIS atrocities to be a genocide.…”