Ileana Ros-Lehtinen: “The stakes are high in Iraq. The stakes are high in Afghanistan. But the stakes are even higher and the threat is even…”

“The stakes are high in Iraq. The stakes are high in Afghanistan. But the stakes are even higher and the threat is even worse were we to pull out, were we to set arbitrary deadlines, and were we to tell those Iraqi citizens who three times came out in an incredible show of their love for democracy, under threats of death to them and to their family members were they to vote, those proud days when they wore their purple finger upright and said yes, I was happy to vote. They have stood up a democracy, through very difficult ethnic, religious and a lot of political divisions that Saddam Hussein, the dictator who ruled for too many years sowed in order to keep himself in power. And now they have got a unified government. Now Saddam Hussein is on trial. Now we have captured so many of those al Qaeda leaders, the successes that we have had in Afghanistan in making sure that the Taliban would not control that beautiful country again. Were we to fail in these efforts, what would we say to those Iraqi families who sacrificed so long and so hard to finally have a democracy? For those freedom-loving Afghani citizens, for those freedom loving Iraqi citizens, and for the United States' own survival, we have got to make sure we win this war against these jihadist entities.”