Byron Dorgan: “I have an amendment pending, as my colleagues know, that I cannot get a vote on. I don't know whether the other side…”

“I have an amendment pending, as my colleagues know, that I cannot get a vote on. I don't know whether the other side will relent and give us a vote on the amendment. I offered it a week ago today. The amendment deals with the issue of al-Qaida. This bill is about the recommendations by the 9/11 Commission. It has been, I am told, 2,002 days since 9/1/2001. I was sitting in the Capitol that morning at a Democratic leadership meeting on that side of the Capitol with windows that looked out to the east. We saw first on the television set the airplanes that attacked the World Trade Center. We saw the second plane fly into the second building of the World Trade Center. We then saw black smoke rising from the Pentagon that morning. Then this building was evacuated. That has been a long while ago. Yet it seems like only yesterday. We looked up into the real bright blue sky that morning and saw F-16 fighter jets flying air cover over this Nation's capital. We discovered later, because they boasted about it, that it was al-Qaida--Osama bin Laden, al-Zawahiri--who attacked this country and murdered several thousand of America's citizens. They boasted about it. They sent us videotapes, audiotapes telling us they were the ones who attacked our country. Well, it is not 9/1/2001 today. It is a couple of thousand days later. Those who boasted they attacked this country are now living in Pakistan.”