I, like most of you will never forget the morning of September 1st, 2013. I was down at our beach house overlooking the Atlantic Ocean and I was sitting on the porch when a phone call came through to me. It was a beautiful day, much like September 11, 2001, it was a beautify day in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.  And I couldn’t believe what had happened, I could believe that people were tied and bound and executed in cold blood. For some reason I thought about the Alamo. In the Alamo, Texas was hoping to gain its freedom from Mexico, and a little more than 200 Texans, poorly armed, held out in this little fort, for days against 10,000 members of Santa Anna’s army. Eventually all of the people in the Alamo, all of these revolutionaries were killed. But it wasn’t long before Santa Anna’s army was defeated, and before Texas became a free part of the United States of America. And I believe with all my heart, that’s what’s going to happen, as an outgrowth of what happened on September 1st, 2013.
And as I listened to the reports and we got more and more information, I felt grief and anger. Anger because our country had caused this by failing to live to the promises we made, by failing to do what America had always done in the past, and that was be the protector of people who were fighting for liberty and freedom and decency. We had made an explicit promise and we failed to live up to that promise. We failed to live up to it six times. This was the sixth attack in which members of the original Camp Ashraf were killed. We did nothing other than protest in the first five. We called for an independent investigation but there never was an independent investigation and we never forced there to be. We actually sat in a room with Martin Kobler and negotiated an agreement, a memo of understanding, about what the conditions would be at (Liberty). And (Liberty) was going to be a temporary transit facility. A temporary transit facility. Let the record show that not one of those promises has been kept. Not one promise about the conditions at (Liberty), not one promise about the temporary transit facility, not one single promise has been kept.
And Governor Ridge read you part of the letter that we all wrote and signed. It was our 2nd letter to President Obama, and I suggested to the group that we send the same letter to the President every week, every week until something’s done. The United States has failed. As proud of being an American, when I listed to General Shelton and Governor Ridge and General Mukasey, and the others, and Senator Torricelli, as proud as I am that have fought like the Dickens to try to get this done, I am ashamed of what our government has failed to do. Well it’s time for us all to act, it’s time for the world community to act, it’s time for the UN to act, and it’s time for the US to act. In the name of decency, let’s honor our commitment.