Barbara Cubin: “Mr. Speaker, as I have traveled through Wyoming, my fellow citizens have made their feelings very clear on the threat…”

“Mr. Speaker, as I have traveled through Wyoming, my fellow citizens have made their feelings very clear on the threat posed by Saddam Hussein, the threat posed by his weapons of mass destruction and the threat posed by his support of terrorism. They support the President's actions to ensure that Saddam Hussein's arsenal of chemical and biological weapons is totally dismantled, his ties to terrorist organizations are severed and the people of Iraq are given a chance to emerge from Saddam's oppressive shadow. The people of Wyoming hope and pray for peace, but they will not accept peace at the price of fear. Wyoming has a proud history of defending our Nation, from the Peacekeeper and the Minuteman missile silos based in our State that helped win the Cold War, to our many sons and daughters who made the ultimate sacrifice in the defense of liberty. One of the first casualties in our war on terror was a young man from Cheyenne, Wyoming. His name was John Edmunds. Should we let this threat build and tell John Edmunds' widow and his parents, Donn and Mary, that his death was in vain, that it did not mean anything? How would we explain that we lacked the will to finish what we started? By explaining that the U.N. was not ready? Saddam Hussein has long been an enemy of humanity and freedom. He has murdered his own people with poison gas.”