[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 25 (Friday, March 8, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Page S1712]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  COMMENDING AND SUPPORTING OUR TROOPS

  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate 
proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 222, submitted earlier today by 
the two leaders.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the resolution by title.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       A resolution (S. Res. 222) commending and supporting the 
     troops.

  There being no objection, the Senate proceeded to consider the 
resolution.
  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, in more than 20 weeks of operations in 
Afghanistan, our troops have liberated Afghanistan, decimated the 
Taliban, disrupted al Qaeda operations and captured hundreds of al 
Qaeda terrorists.
  Their success lulled much of the world into thinking that our work in 
Afghanistan was done. The somber news of earlier this week--that eight 
of America's finest soldiers had been killed in action--reminds us that 
there is much to be done in Afghanistan.
  Right now, our troops are doing that work. They are engaged in the 
largest ground offensive of the war, confronting the hardest of the 
hard core of al Qaeda.
  The resolution that we are about to pass reminds our troops that we 
are thinking of them and are praying for them. The 6-month anniversary 
of September 11 is next week.
  It expresses our condolences to the families of those who have lost 
loved ones in Operation Enduring Freedom.
  And it makes absolutely clear on the 6-month juncture, to the al 
Qaeda terrorists, and to all who of those who wish to take notes, that 
we will not stop until they have been defeated.
  But this resolution is also important for another reason. On 
September 14, we voted unanimously to send our troops into action 
against the perpetrators of the cowardly and heinous attacks on the 
World Trade Center and the Pentagon. That was our constitutional duty, 
and it is one that none of us takes lightly.
  The soldiers who were killed this week--and in the last twenty-one 
weeks of Operation Enduring Freedom--died doing the work that we sent 
them out to do. It is only fitting, then, that we take a moment here in 
the Senate to thank them and their families and to reaffirm the 
commitment that we made on September 14--that we will not rest until 
the perpetrators of the September 11 attacks are brought to justice.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution and 
preamble be agreed to, en bloc, the motion to reconsider be laid upon 
the table, with no intervening action or debate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The resolution (S. Res. 222) was agreed to.
  The preamble was agreed to.
  (The resolution is printed in the Record under ``Statements on 
Submitted Resolutions.'')

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