Ted Poe: “2 days ago, amidst intimidation and threats and actual violence, the people of Iraq spoke out against the past…”

“2 days ago, amidst intimidation and threats and actual violence, the people of Iraq spoke out against the past oppression of Saddam Hussein and his dynasty of tyrants and spoke loudly for democracy. And I was there, privileged to be there, to witness this birth of a new era in this Nation of Iraq. I saw how the Iraqi people boldly, with the courage of a free people, said no to the outlaw desperadoes that plague their land almost daily, with the terror of abuse, ambush, and assassination. A people yearning to be free cannot be deterred by the acts of cowardly villains who harm the innocent and the unarmed. Even on this day, January 30, Iraq's Election Day, a day of promise, there were still 212 reported acts of violence against these people, 44 of whom died, one being an 8-year-old mentally challenged boy. Yet 60 percent of these proud Iraqis walked to 30,000 polling stations with watchful Iraqi security police on rooftops of schools armed with M-16 rifles. Yet they ventured out with their families. They stood in lines, received historic ballots with 111 selections from which to choose. They entered a cardboard voting booth, and they made their free choice. They all cast a vote for Iraq. I talked to these people, the young and the elderly, who were all defiant of the violence and proud to be voters in this first free and fair election that carries the hope of democracy. I even saw husbands taking photographs of their wives while their wives were voting.”