Patsy T. Mink: “Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight overwhelmed by indescribable grief and sorrow. A taking of any innocent life is an atrocity.…”

“Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight overwhelmed by indescribable grief and sorrow. A taking of any innocent life is an atrocity. A taking of hundreds is a massacre of monumental proportions. Yesterday, a massacre of unthinkable numbers occurred. The World Trade Center and the Pentagon were deliberate targets of fanatics. These terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners. They slammed three of these planes into these buildings, knowing the mayhem and chaos that this destruction would cause. As a Nation, we are left emotionally speechless at the loss of so many innocent lives. We are numbed by the number of firefighters, police, and other volunteers who plunged into the burning buildings to save lives and who lost their lives in the process. We are stunned by the courage of those who called from the airplanes. A call from that ill-fated plane that crashed in the fields near Pittsburgh may have been the fourth suicide plane headed to the Capitol. We may not have been in New York City or anywhere near the Pentagon, but all who witnessed these attacks on television knew then we were living in a terrible new world. Our resolve today is to root out the perpetrators of this heinous plot to destroy us. We must explore all avenues to make sure that this can never happen again. We must not surrender until the country is made safe again for our children and for their families.”