Mr. Speaker, today I rise to support the bipartisan resolution on Iraq, which we will vote on later this week.

Mr. Speaker, I have been a member of this body for the past 14 years, and I have heard Members throughout those years describe various votes as the most important votes that they will cast during their careers in Congress. I would submit to my colleagues that those votes -- all of them -- pale in comparison to any vote to send young American soldiers into harm's way.

My family knows the pain of war. On August 9, 1970, my brother Bill was killed in Vietnam. He was a medical corpsman, out in the field patching up his buddies, when he stepped on a land mine and lost his life. I do not want any other American family to go through what the McNulty family went through back in 1970. That is why I only favor a military option as the last option.

As a great New York Governor used to say when involved in debates, "Let's look at the record." Let us look at the record with regard to Saddam Hussein. He has chemical and biological weapons. He has used them. He has killed tens of thousands of Kurds. He gassed to death 5,000 Kurds in a single day -- 2,000 more than all of the people we lost on September 11, 2001. And, as the President pointed out last night, there have been 750 attacks on American pilots just in the past year.

There are 135,000 American service personnel within the range of Saddam's missiles right now. And what is most disturbing of all, Mr. Speaker, is Saddam's efforts to obtain nuclear weapons. Most of the experts up until recently have been saying that he is 2 to 5 years away from a nuclear capability. Now several are saying it is less than a year.

Mr. Speaker, how can we possibly contain a modern nuclear war? I remember the statement by then-President Lyndon Johnson when asked about the impact of a modern nuclear war. He responded to the question by saying simply, "The survivors will envy the dead."

Mr. Speaker, this is the bottom line. Saddam Hussein can never be allowed to possess a nuclear capability. This bipartisan resolution emphasizes international cooperation, working with the United Nations, and exhausting all other options before we go to a military option. It ensures that military force will be used only as a last resort.

This is a substantial reordering of priorities from the first draft, and for that I thank the bipartisan leadership. I support the resolution.