[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 7]
[House]
[Page 10393]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       THE FUTURE OF OUR COUNTRY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, I am really distressed after 
listening to all the debate today. I have not seen this House split 
like this in the 25 years that I have been here, and I am really 
concerned not only about the future of Iraq and our troops over there, 
but I am concerned about the future of this country.
  After 9/11, we were told by the President that this was going to be a 
long, arduous war against al Qaeda and that we had to go after 
terrorists around the world, wherever they are. Al Qaeda has attacked 
the USS Cole, as has been mentioned. It has attacked our embassies in 
Africa. It has attacked our residences in Saudi Arabia. It has attacked 
in Britain. It has attacked in France. It has attacked in Spain. They 
are not going to go away.
  Al Qaeda, according to General Petraeus today, he mentioned them 
about five or six times, is one of the major adversaries that we face 
today. In fact, the new military leader, or war leader, this is the 
successor to al-Zarqawi, who was killed in 2006, a member of al Qaeda, 
is al-Muhajer, an al Qaeda leader who is now the head of the military 
wing of al Qaeda and the terrorist movement in Iraq. They have stated 
that they want to create an Islamic state and they are hell-bent to do 
it.
  Al Qaeda, they are the ones that attacked the World Trade Center and 
killed 3,000 Americans. They are the ones that flew the plane into the 
Pentagon. They are the ones that attacked the plane and it flew into 
the ground in Pennsylvania, al Qaeda.
  And they are the ones that apparently, according to the majority, are 
going to drive us out of Iraq, and if they do, my concern is that that 
will be a breeding ground and a launching pad for terrorism not only in 
the Middle East but around the world. I really have a concern about 
that, and if that happens, I think that what will happen is we will be 
involved in a much, much bigger war down the road.
  We may be, if we pull out of Iraq, and I have no doubt that the 
opposition is going to push like the dickens to get it done, if we pull 
out of Iraq before the job is done, and I have sympathy for our troops 
and their families and everybody else, but if we pull out of Iraq 
before the job is done, I think we may very well be sowing the seeds 
for World War III. And as I have said on this floor a number of times 
and have talked to my colleagues, appeasement and weakness leads to 
horrible things.
  Lord Chamberlain, going to Munich and talking to Hitler and appeasing 
him, led to 62 million people dying in World War II. We are now in a 
nuclear age. We have people who will blow themselves up in order to get 
their aims. They do not want to live. They want to die. They want to be 
martyrs.
  Can you imagine what will happen if Iran develops a nuclear program 
and they have briefcase nuclear weapons? They will blow themselves up 
with a nuclear weapon. As I said earlier today, two blocks from here 
they could ignite one of those bombs, and it would kill all of us. They 
could do it two or three blocks from the White House, and it will 
destroy completely an eight-square-block area and radioactive fallout 
will be all over the place, killing tens of thousands of others.
  I am really worried, and I hope my colleagues will think long and 
hard about not only today or yesterday, but the future. If we don't 
deal with this problem correctly now, if we don't let al Qaeda know 
that they can't win, then I believe the problems down the road are 
going to be much more severe, and thousands, maybe hundreds of 
thousands, and maybe millions of people will die as a result of the 
wrong decision we are making right now.

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