Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2009

Floor Speech

INTELLIGENCE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2009

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. MARIO DIAZ-BALART of Florida. I want to thank the sponsor of this sense of Congress.

We saw just a few weeks ago what happened in Colombia where the Colombian military and that democratically elected government freed a number of hostages, including Americans, that had been held hostage for over 5 years. If there's ever been a time when U.S. aid has been used effectively, we saw it just a few days ago.

It is time that this Congress stop criticizing the democratically elected government of Colombia. Stop criticizing the Colombian people and start putting the blame where the blame needs to be, and that is on those murderous FARC. The Colombian Government is doing an incredible job, a wonderful job fighting those narcoterrorist thug murderers, and they're doing it with our help. It's great that we're finally going to commend them.

I hope that this is just the first step. I hope we pass a free trade deal with Colombia because they deserve it. The democracy in Colombia deserves it, and we cannot turn our back. I hope we also stop that cut to our friend Colombia that reduces the funding to the Government of Colombia.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source