New Rise of Assad

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. HILL. Mr. Speaker, recently, Syrian President Bashar Al Assad was invited back into the Arab League after 12 years of being in exile.

I can't tell you how incredibly frustrating and disappointing this is to many, particularly the innocent people of Syria who have endured more than a decade of war, murder, and torture.

Assad's readmittance to the Arab League sends the wrong signal.

It sends the signal to the rest of the world that his atrocious war crimes against his own citizens over the past twelve years are acceptable.

A recent Reuters article had the headline Arabs bring Syria's Assad back into the fold, but want actions, action on the drug trade.

Well that's rich, because the only reason there is an epidemic in the drug trade in the Gulf and the region, is because of Assad.

Assad turned Russia and Iran to maintain his death machine, and now the Captagon drug trade, led by his cousins, led by his military, providing an independent source of funding for his regime while he poisons his neighbors and takes their money and fuels terrorism in the region.

And yet he's invited back to the Arab League meeting.

It's preposterous.

My bill that passed last year's National Defense Authorization Act was called the Captagon Act and requires the U.S. Government to develop a multilateral and all of government approach to disrupting and dismantling the production of the Captagon drug right in the heart of Syria.

Recently, the Treasury Department along with our ally the United Kingdom, took steps to sanction key actors in Assad's inner circle who are producing and trafficking Captagon.

This is a good step, but it's months late Mr. Speaker

It's in the right direction of disrupting and dismantling the trafficking networks associated with this illicit drug.

But it's just a good start, and it comes years after we know the deadly impact of Captagon in the region, on families, but also fueling of terror by Assad through the billions of dollars transferred from that illicit trafficking.

So it's critical that governments across the globe to continue to show their support for the Syrian people by denouncing those who seek to normalize relations with the repulsive regime, granting Assad admittance to the Arab League once again sends the opposite message, it rewards barbaric behavior.

The United States government has an obligation to sanction Assad in our efforts to dismantle the Captagon drug trade and hold Assad accountable for his war crimes.

And that's why I'm pleased this week to cosponsor the Middle East Subcommittee Chairman Joe Wilson's new bill H.R. 2302, The Assad Regime Anti-Normalization Act.

This bill was passed this week unanimously in the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Congress will act where this administration has continuously failed to consistently do so.

I look forward to supporting this bill on the House floor and seeing it signed into law.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source