Chuck Hagel: “thank you. I wish to strongly endorse and support the McCain-Biden resolution. Mr. President, I'm an original cosponsor.…”

“thank you. I wish to strongly endorse and support the McCain-Biden resolution. Mr. President, I'm an original cosponsor. I have listened this afternoon to my colleagues, who have all made significant contributions to this issue. There are many complicating currents coursing through this very complicated issue. There are no good answers. But surely one of the answers is not to not deal with this issue. We cannot escape our responsibility in this body to debate this issue. We should have had this debate weeks ago. There are very significant consequences attached to what we're doing. We've heard some of those stated directly and very well from our colleagues this afternoon. First, let's be clear on the making of war. It is not risk-free. It is not antiseptic. It is not without uncertainty. One not need read an awful lot of history to understand that. General Eisenhower's comments and what he wrote and put in his pocket hours before the D-Day invasion in case D-Day failed. And he wrote out in longhand a paragraph that said essentially, I take full responsibility for the failure. So you see, as we look back even 50 years ago, we understand that war is uncertain. But we also understand there are things worth going to war for, and there are things worth dying for. Questions raised today will be continued to be raised about national interests of our country: Should we be at war? All fair questions. Legitimate questions.”