Patrick Leahy: “While I was disappointed by President Bush's remarks last week, the Bush administration and the Pakistani Government…”

“While I was disappointed by President Bush's remarks last week, the Bush administration and the Pakistani Government should be commended for the capture of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, one of al-Qaida's top leaders who was reportedly the mastermind of the September 11 attacks. Whether others within al-Qaida will quickly fill Mr. Mohammed's shoes remains to be seen, but the fact that the U.S. Government and other governments are methodically tracking these people down sends an important message and should give some comfort to the American people. This is encouraging. Let's hope we can soon celebrate the capture of Osama bin Laden, because capturing the leaders of al-Qaida should be our highest priority. But the world is increasingly apprehensive as the United States appears to be marching inexorably towards war with Iraq. Today, there are more than 250,000 American men and women in uniform in the Persian Gulf preparing for the order to attack. We hear that the decision must be made within a matter of days because it is too costly to keep so many troops deployed overseas. In other words, now that we have spent billions of dollars to ship all those soldiers over there, we need to use them because we cannot back down now, as I have heard some people say. Frankly, this is one of the worst reasons possible to rush into war. We should not back down. Saddam Hussein must be disarmed.”