Frank Lautenberg: “I found today to be a rather startling day by virtue of the news we have heard about what is happening with our troops…”

“I found today to be a rather startling day by virtue of the news we have heard about what is happening with our troops in Iraq, what is happening to those who are in battle, those we are asking to carry on the battle for, let me call it, the liberation of Iraq, the opportunity to turn that society into a democratic society. This was brought to me by virtue of a couple of things that happened. First, I participated with colleagues in the Governmental Affairs Committee markup of intelligence reform. It is a task that I and so many others on the committee, and throughout this body, take very seriously. We are upset about what happened on 9/11. We just commemorated the third anniversary of that horrific day. I went to a community in New Jersey, Middletown, NJ, and spoke to a group that included survivor families of 9/11. Thirty-seven of their residents lost their lives on that terrible day. I walked around the memorial walk they established and saw pictures placed on granite stones of those who perished, with messages of love and longing for fathers who died, for brothers, for sisters, and for mothers who were killed that day, murdered. It digs further into the searing memory of that fateful day. It reminds all of us about what our responsibilities are to try and get this country back on an even keel and to stop mourning the loss of young people because though we struggled hard to turn out our bill on intelligence reform this day, we did not complete it.”