William M. ``Mac'' Thornberry: “I have listened to the first 5 hours of this debate, trying to listen carefully to each speaker. And it seems to me that…”

“I have listened to the first 5 hours of this debate, trying to listen carefully to each speaker. And it seems to me that some people try, as best they can, to isolate Iraq from the rest of the war on terror. Now, that may be politically convenient for them to do, but it is not what the real world is like. As a matter of fact, it was not long ago that we found a letter from Zawahari, Osama's number two, to Zarqawi in Iraq talking about tactics. Just as the Cold War had several battles across the globe, the war on terrorism has several battlefields across the globe. And I believe that it is clear from their own words, the terrorists see Iraq as the central front in our war against them now and into the future. Secondly, we seem to have a lot of armchair strategists who want to redeploy this way or redeploy that way, because they say nothing is going right. I would recommend they read the document found this morning, or released this morning, that was found in Zarqawi's house. It says that things are going pretty well for us, and not so well for them. I think it is a little early to give up. Thirdly, there are a lot of people who want to debate the procedures or debate Congress's job or debate past decisions. And it is true, history will have to pass judgment on decisions that the military commanders and the President and the Congress have made in the past. They will do so when the air of partisanship has faded.…”