Today I would like to share with you excerpts from a message given to
the Iraqi National Assembly by Congressman Nick Rahall Member of the U.S.
House of Representatives from West Virginia.
I come as an advocate of peace through dialogue. Instead of
assuming that war must come, let us find ways to discover how to
prove that war is unnecessary. A key to this terrible box that we're now
locked in -- is dialogue. We are here to try and help open doors. Doors
to genuine dialogue. It is time and, in my opinion, far past time that
American and Iraqi officials talk to each other without threats.
We want to open doors to possibilities that will protect life instead
of maiming and killing. Doors that will give peace a chance. We've
had far too much heated rhetoric between our two countries. Another war
in this region would be greatly damaging. Any new war would be a war against
public health, and also against the environment.
Iraq is the cradle of civilization. We do not wish to see civilization
strangled in its cradle. Iraq was once the Garden of Eden. Humanity
must not turn the Garden of Eden into Hell.
The evidence from the last war is quite compelling:
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degradation of the infrastructure;
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a wrecked economy;
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shocking escalation of infant mortality and communicable disease, and many
other negative health indicators for the entire population.
We do not wish to see this devastation repeated.
In this context, I am reminded of what Dwight Eisenhower, the great
U.S. general and President, once said: "Every gun and rocket that is fired,
every warship launched, signifies, in a final sense, a theft from those
who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. The
world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of
its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children."
But time is now terribly short to reverse the momentum toward war. The
Christian scriptures say "Blessed are the peacemakers." They do not say
"Blessed are the warmongers." I happen to believe that the vast majority
of the American people do not want to wage war, but would rather wage peace.
Our delegation is here on behalf of peace. We believe that a new war
is not only unnecessary, but wrong. Speaking personally, I will encourage
my colleagues in the Congress to enter into dialogue with the Iraq National
Assembly for the future benefit of both our nations.
Here ends excerpts from the talk of Congressman Nick Rahall to the Iraqi
National
Please direct your Congresspeople and your Senators to make similar
delegations to Iraq