[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 7]
[House]
[Page 8760]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                            OFFICE OF PEACE

  (Mr. KUCINICH asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. KUCINICH. Madam Speaker, in a moment I will introduce legislation 
with 46 cosponsors to create a Department-level office of peace and the 
Department of Peace is introduced at this moment when it seems that war 
is inevitable, when our troops are in the streets of Baghdad, when 
members of the administration talk about the possibility of invasion of 
Iran and the possibility of invasion of Syria.
  This is the moment when we need to ask whether war is inevitable or 
not. This is the moment when a Department of Peace can take steps to 
making nonviolence an organizing principle in our society and when we 
can create a structure in our government where we can strive to make 
war itself archaic.
  Forty-seven Members of Congress have put their names on this 
legislation because we are at a moment in the history of our Nation and 
in the world where we need to be asking questions. Is war inevitable? 
Forty-seven Members of Congress say no. Is peace inevitable? The answer 
must be yes.

                          ____________________