David Price: “Mr. Speaker, there is a good possibility that our country will be at war in Iraq before the month is out. The President…”

“Mr. Speaker, there is a good possibility that our country will be at war in Iraq before the month is out. The President held out little hope for any alternative approach to disarming Iraq at his press conference last Thursday. Yet a majority of the American people continue to urge for more time for inspections while we are facing something close to a diplomatic meltdown with major allies. A failure to secure allied support will have major consequences for every American. Our citizens alone will shoulder the financial burden of this war and its aftermath. Our troops will need to be kept indefinitely in post-war Iraq, our country alone as an occupying force will be the target of hatred, resentment and hostility from many in the Arab world, and America will risk losing our standing among the world's democracies as one who leads by moral suasion and example as well as by military might. Pollsters here at home say they have rarely seen an issue where the public's reaction is more conditional or ambivalent. Tonight I want to suggest this is because the Bush administration has not answered basic questions about this war and has backed us into a situation where we seem to be choosing between equally unsatisfactory ways of dealing with what most agree is a deadly challenge.”