Elton Gallegly: “Mr. Speaker, my concern about the Iraq resolution offered by my friends on the other side of the aisle is what impact it…”

“Mr. Speaker, my concern about the Iraq resolution offered by my friends on the other side of the aisle is what impact it will have on our troops and our mission and its consequences on our mission. How can you say support our troops when you don't support sending in the people necessary to back them up to do the job that we sent them there to do to start with? Let's be clear, Mr. Speaker, about who the real enemy is. We are at war with the Islamic jihadists. Jihadists have vowed to destroy America, the West and all sympathizers with democracy. We are at war for our very existence against jihadists who have vowed to enslave us with a fundamentalist philosophy that rejects all human rights. The consequences of failure in Iraq are not just failure in Iraq. Iraq's stability has direct repercussions on Iran, Saudi Arabia, Israel and all of the Middle East. If our efforts to bring peace and stability to Iraq are successful, we will accomplish a great deal. If not, if Iraq fails, it will provide Islamic jihadists with a sanctuary similar to the one we removed from Afghanistan, only the sanctuary in Iraq would be many times worse, as the terrorists would have access to billions of dollars of oil resources to carry out their evil plans. Such a sanctuary would threaten Europe and the United States. If we are in support of our military men and women, we must support their mission against Islamic jihadists.”