Political Quotes

“I thank both managers for a superb debate and discussion over the course of the last several days--and really the last several weeks--as we have focused on an issue that is no more important to the American people than the safety and security of the American people. We can take great pride in what our Nation and our military men and women have accomplished in Iraq. We thank them. We thank their families for their commitment and for their dedication. But we did not go into Iraq in pursuit of oil or riches or some other national advantage. We went as a volunteer--as a nation willing to enforce the mandates of the you U.N. Security Council when others were content to allow Saddam Hussein to defy those mandates. Some critics accused us at the time of ``unilateralism,'' but in fact we acted to vindicate multilateralism--most importantly, the authority of the Security Council and the credibility of many resolutions it adopted with respect to Iraq between 1991 and 2003. We went into Iraq to end a cruel dictatorship and free a people that was no less deserving of freedom than any other. As a result of our efforts, the dictatorship has ended, and the people of Iraq are now embarked on a grand democratic project, seeking to build a pluralistic, multiethnic, multireligious democracy in the heart of the Arab world. This is a project without precedent in the Arab world.…”