Iowa Congressman Steve King today spoke out on the floor of the House in favor of continuing the action in Iraq in the aftermath of the death of al-Qaida leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. King says al-Zarqawi committed terrible acts, including killing someone and placing explosives in their bodies.

King says al-Zarqawi would then put the body alongside the road and wait for the person’s family to come along, and then would blow up the body and kill the family.

King says al-Zarqawi spent his time trying to come up with other things to do to people. King, a republican, say al-Zarqawi wanted to create chaos and confusion in Iraq. He says the goal was to create a civil war among the confusion so al-Zarqawi could take power and turn Iraq into a terrorist camp so he could “train and dispatch people around the world to attack people unlike him.”

King says the situation in Iraq is not a civil war, and he says the good work done in Iraq is overlooked by the reports of violence. King says 100-thousand lives have been saved in the operation. King says even with that he continues to hear the media and others call for the U.S. to get out of Iraq. King says the creating peace in the Middle East is important to everyone.

King says if Afghanistan and Iraq can both emerge as nations of free people, they become a “lodestar” in the march toward freedom, and King says freedom can’t be held back. King used several charts during his talk to show that the violence in Iraq is not any worse than the violence in some of the largest cities in the U.S.