Cornyn: We Don't Need 'Permission' to Protect Our Nation

CORNYN: WE DON'T NEED 'PERMISSION' TO PROTECT OUR NATION

U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, made the following statement Tuesday regarding a recent statement by former Gov. Howard Dean that the liberation of Iraq should only have taken place with U.N. "permission:"

"Since when do we need 'permission' to protect our nation, our allies and the security of an entire region? Since when does the United States of America need to ask permission before ending decades of rape rooms, torture chambers and the genocide of hundreds of thousands of civilians? It's disappointing, and I believe quite telling, that he would want to abdicate the responsibility of our national security to a body that left its own sanctions unenforced for more than a decade.

"If the ask-the-U.N.'s-permission crowd had their way, Saddam would still be in power today, rather than in the custody of the 4th Infantry Division.

"I encourage Mr. Dean to visit the troops and families at Fort Hood, home of the 4th Infantry Division and the storied 1st Cavalry Division. It's a perspective worth having, and something he is apparently lacking."