Brian J. Mast

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Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I would first respond to my colleague, the ranking member, about hearings that we have had. He has heard me say this before. He lived it. We had Secretary Rubio not too long ago. The ranking member left halfway through the hearing never to return. He didn't want to hear from Secretary Rubio. Some of his members took their time to talk about Secretary Rubio's shoes. That was their opportunity to hear from the administration at the highest levels, to talk a little bit about the threat of Iran. I could use any window of time. I could identify hundreds of attacks in just the 30 months before Epic Fury, or I could identify hundreds more in the last 30 years. I am going to use the window of time to identify a few, since my colleague, the marine, Representative Moulton, made the comments that I quoted earlier. In January 2020, 109 U.S. troops suffered attack and injuries after an Iranian ballistic missile attack on Al Asad Air Base in Iraq. That was just one attack that took place in that ongoing window of time. In March of '23, an Iranian drone attack killed an American contractor and wounded five U.S. servicemembers and another contractor in a strike on a coalition base in Syria. In October of '23, Iran-backed terrorists, of course, as everybody is well aware, killed 46 Americans and kidnapped at least 12 Americans in the October 7 genocidal massacre. In January of '24, Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorists killed 3 U.S. servicemembers and wounded more than 40 other servicemembers in a drone attack at Tower 22: Sergeant Rivers, Sergeant Sanders, and Sergeant Moffett. In November of '24, an Iranian national and IRGC asset was charged with plotting to assassinate President Trump. I have more. The list goes on and on. These are just some of the many attacks that I could list since Representative Moulton made the quote that I spoke about, where he is talking about his service and before Epic Fury began. This is the continual threat, the imminent threat that Iran is and has been. They attack the United States of America every single chance they get. They attack in the Strait of Hormuz--not just the United States of America but any country going through there--every chance they get. This is just the first time that the United States of America has said enough is enough, that we will not tolerate this any longer. That same entity that has been attacking us endlessly for all of these years will not be an entity that is allowed to have a nuclear weapon. Why? Because, at best, they now have the capability to hold the entire Gulf hostage because they have a nuclear weapon, and, at worst, they are an entity that does what they have been doing: utilize every asset at their disposal to attack the United States of America and our allies. Mr. Speaker, I have spoken for a few minutes, and Ranking Member Meeks spoke for a few minutes. I don't know if we have come to that time where my colleague on the other side is happy to detail the pieces of equipment that he wants removed from the battle space, as he mentioned. As is the letter of this resolution, he wants to remove these U.S. forces from hostilities. I am hoping that now is that later time that the Representative will detail what he wants removed. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.