Lynn C. Woolsey: “this weekend there was an extraordinary event right outside these windows. I come to the floor this evening to celebrate…”

“this weekend there was an extraordinary event right outside these windows. I come to the floor this evening to celebrate the hundreds of thousands of people who gathered on the Mall this Saturday because they have had enough of this immoral occupation in Iraq. Groups like Code Pink, United for Peace and Justice, Win Without War, and Peace Action did an exceptional job of organizing the march and rallying their members. We were fortunate to have many celebrity activists in attendance, as well as several Members of the Congress. But what made the event successful was the energy and the passion in the crowd. It was a testament to the power of the grassroots. Hundreds of thousands, from the stage as far as the eye could see, packed on the mall, standing together to send a powerful message that Americans want to bring our troops home from Iraq. Hundreds of thousands standing together to say that 4 years of bloodshed is enough, that over 3,050 lost American lives is over 3,050 too many for a war we never should have started in the first place. Hundreds of thousands standing together to register the disgust with the President's Iraq policy, the staggering civilian casualties, the billions upon billions of dollars wasted, human rights abused, our global credibility shattered, terrorists emboldened rather than defeated. Every objective measure we could possibly use leads to the conclusion that what we are doing in Iraq has been a tragic failure.”