Mike Pence: “scripture tells us to mourn with those who mourn and to grieve with those who grieve. I rise today to join our allies…”

“scripture tells us to mourn with those who mourn and to grieve with those who grieve. I rise today to join our allies and his family and neighbors and friends to grieve the passing by assassination last week of a courageous Iraqi in Anbar province, Sheik Abdul Sattar Buzaigh al Rishawi, a man 37 years of age that I had the privilege of meeting this last April when I visited Falluja in Ramadi. It was there that I learned from General Odierno, as well, in our nearly 1-hour meeting with Sheik Sattar about how what has come to be known, Mr. Speaker, globally as the Anbar Awakening was born. You see, it was this Iraqi sheik, whose father had been killed by al Qaeda in Iraq, his three brothers had been murdered by al Qaeda, who said sometime in late 2006, 'I have had enough.' What the general told me, and the Sheik affirmed, as he came across the river in Ramadi, sat down with the Marines perhaps in the same room where we are pictured here, and said, 'How can we, as Sunni sheik leaders, work with you, American forces, and the Maliki government to rid Ramadi, to rid al Anbar of al Qaeda?'”