Wayne Gilchrest: “I urge my colleagues at the end of the debate to vote for the resolution that is now before us for the following…”

“I urge my colleagues at the end of the debate to vote for the resolution that is now before us for the following reasons: Blessed are the peacemakers, who freed the prisoners at Auschwitz; blessed are the peacemakers who freed Europe from the yoke of Nazism; blessed are the peacemakers who saved the people of Kuwait from Saddam Hussein; blessed are the firemen, the policemen, the medical personnel, and others who sought and brought comfort to those wounded and to the families of those who were killed on September 11; blessed are those men and women over the generations who sought peace. We are not in a panic tonight about Iraq; we are moving deliberately and methodically in a way to understand and to base our decisions on the following facts: Saddam Hussein has waged aggressive war, brutal war, against his neighbors over the last 20, 25 years; he is pursuing weapons of mass destruction to do it again; he is pursuing weapons of mass destruction against his own people on a tragically experimental basis; he has launched ballistic missiles against his neighbors; he is brutalizing and torturing his own citizens; he is harboring a network of terrorists. The list goes on, and it is endless. It is not a matter for us as peacemakers of if we go into Iraq. It is a matter of when we do it, how we do it, and who we do it with.”