For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
June 11, 2001
Remarks by President Bush on McVeigh Execution
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THE PRESIDENT: This morning, the
United States of America carried out the severest sentence for the
gravest of crimes. The victims of the Oklahoma City bombing
have been given not vengeance, but justice. And one young
man met the fate he chose for himself six years ago.
For the survivors of the crime and for the
families of the dead, the pain goes on. Final punishment of
the guilty cannot alone bring peace to the innocent. It
cannot recover the loss or balance the scales, and it is not meant to
do so. Today, every living person who was hurt by the evil
done in Oklahoma City can rest in the knowledge that there has been a
reckoning. At every point, from the morning of April 19,
1995 to this hour, we have seen the good that overcomes evil.
We saw it in the rescuers who saved and
suffered with the victims. We have seen it in a community
that has grieved and held close the memory of the lost. We
have seen it in the work of detectives, marshal, and police. And we've
seen it in the courts. Due process ruled. The
case was proved. The verdict was calmly reached. And the
rights of the accused were protected and observed to the full and to
the end.
Under the laws of our country, the matter is
concluded. Life and history bring tragedies, and often they
cannot be explained. But they can be
redeemed. They are redeemed by dispensing justice, though
eternal justice is not ours to deliver. By remembering those
who grieve, including Timothy McVeigh's mother, father and sisters, and
by trusting in purposes greater than our own, may God in his mercy
grant peace to all; to the lives that were taken six years ago, to the
lives that go on, and to the life that ended today.
END
9:47 A.M. EDT
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