“Last October, I voted to give President Bush the authority to engage in war with Iraq in order to disarm Saddam Hussein as a last resort. I trust that our President has truly reached that last resort - that he has exhausted all diplomatic avenues, that he has given the UN inspectors the time they need to assess the situation, and that while he does not have the complete support of the international community, he has built a coalition of allies to aid the United States in our effort to protect us and the world from Saddam’s evil tendencies.

“My thoughts now turn to our brave and dedicated men and women in uniform who will execute this war and who will risk their lives to bring a peaceful end to this effort, and to their families waiting at home. They are in my heart and in my prayers. 

“I have a brother-in-law who serves in the U.S. Air Force. I have a first cousin in the U.S. Army. I was thinking of them when I cast my vote in support of this action last October. I do not want war, none of us want war. While this preemptive measure is not the usual method our nation chooses, I know that it comes out of the painful lessons we learned on September 11, 2001; that our world has changed, our enemy has changed, and our approach to dealing with those enemies must also change.

"My hope is that this war will be swift, that we can remove Saddam Hussein from power with little loss of life, and that we can get back on track to restoring peace to our nation and our world."