06 March 2002

Lawmaker Says Bush's "Axis of Evil" Description Accurate

One of the leading human rights advocates in the House of Representatives says President Bush was right in calling the regimes in Baghdad, Tehran and Pyongyang an "axis of evil."

Representative Joseph Pitts (Republican of Pennsylvania) compared Bush's use of the term to President Ronald Reagan calling the former Soviet Union "an evil empire."

Iraq has used poison gas to kill its own people, Pitts said. Iran finances violence and murder in the Middle East, he added, while North Korea runs concentration camps where people enter and "never come home."

Pitts is a member of the Helsinki Commission on human rights compliance, as well as of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus. The Pennsylvania Republican is also a member of the House International Relations Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia, and the founder of the Religious Prisoners Congressional Task Force, which has advocated for prisoners of conscience in various countries.

Following is the text of Representative Joseph Pitts March 6 remarks from the Congressional Record:

Mr. Pitts: Mr. Speaker, when the leader of the free world came to this Chamber in January to deliver his State of the Union address, he described the axis of evil governments. He mentioned them by name: Iran, Iraq and North Korea.

Since then, some people have criticized the speech. In fact, one of President Bush's predecessors said the speech was "over simplistic" and "counterproductive."

Mr. Speaker, the Government of Iran spends millions of dollars financing the murder of innocent civilians and violence in the Middle East. The Government of Iraq has used chemical weapons to kill its own citizens and has invaded its neighbors. North Korea is the only country I know of today that has concentration camps where people enter and never come home from. They literally starve their citizens.

If that is not evil, I do not know what is. Years ago another President referred to the Soviet Union as an evil empire, and some of us remember the Soviet refusenik Natan Sharansky. He was in a gulag when President Reagan gave that speech. Mr. Sharansky told me, when I met him, that news of that speech spread like wildfire through the Soviet gulags. Not until then did they realize that a leader in the West understood the nature of communism.