Benjamin Gilman: “we want to welcome President Musharraf to Washington. President Musharraf has been a brave ally in our war against…”

“we want to welcome President Musharraf to Washington. President Musharraf has been a brave ally in our war against terrorism. Our nation thanks him for his efforts to find Daniel Pearl the missing Wall Street Journal reporter. We also wish to thank him for closing his nation's borders to members of the Taliban and al Qaeda who are fleeing our armed forces. Mr. Speaker, nearly 90 constituents of mine died as a result of the September 11 terrorist attack. Accordingly, the visit this week of President Musharraf is significant for our 20th district of New York. The reason is that for many years a number of us in the Congress were concerned about the support that Pakistan gave to the Taliban and, of course, the Taliban sheltered the terrorists who attacked our Nation. President Musharraf is now reining in his countrymen who were responsible for many of the problems in Afghanistan and Kashmir and we commend him for the risks and hard decisions he makes. Our nation is providing Pakistan significant military economic assistance so that its citizens will feel secure and its society can thrive. We are doing this in the belief that if the people of Pakistan have hope then the extremists will be less able to recruit among the poor. We feel certain that with President Musharraf's guidance his government will achieve these ends.”