Mr. Speaker, it is true that there are hungry and thirsty people in Iraq today. There are millions in Africa who are hungry and thirsty. There are millions in North Korea who are starving to death. It is this obsession with one dictator, one evil person in the world that has put me off personally right from the beginning. I remember asking in October why it was that one nation got to pick the dictator of the hour.
For example, in considering threats to world safety there was another interesting article in the Washington Post that said yes, Colin Powell has the rods to prove nuclear activity. He has the trucks pulling up and moving these rods around. Oops, the only problem is it is all in North Korea, but the President of the United States wants to go to Iraq and not North Korea. Containment is good in North Korea, which is far more threatening with its abilities and capabilities than Iraq, but the president does not want to go to Korea. He wants to go to Iraq.
One of the columnists wrote that Colin Powell or the whole administration has taken fuzzy evidence about Saddam Hussein and made it very scary and has taken very scary evidence about North Korea and kept it very fuzzy. We do not have to allow someone else to decide for us which is the worst dictator in the world at the present time. In trying to maintain peace, one is searching for connections and diplomatic ways of reaching all these people and helping them to build a more democratic state and culture.
What I object to is the demonization of one of them. I ask, what happened to Osama bin Laden? I think he has become Osama been forgotten.