[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 14]
[House]
[Pages 18596-18598]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




ADDRESS BY THE RIGHT HONORABLE TONY BLAIR, PRIME MINISTER OF THE UNITED 
             KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND NORTHERN IRELAND

  Prime Minister BLAIR. Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, Honorable 
Members of Congress, I am deeply touched by that warm and generous 
welcome. That is more than I deserve and more than I am used to, quite 
frankly. And let me begin by thanking you most sincerely for voting to 
award me the Congressional Gold Medal. But you, like me, know who the 
real heros are: those brave servicemen and -women, yours and ours, who 
fought the war, and risk their lives still. Our tribute to them should 
be measured in this way: by showing them and their families that they 
did not strive or die in vain, but that through their sacrifice, future 
generations can live in greater peace, prosperity, and hope.
  Let me also express my gratitude to President Bush. Through the 
troubled times since September 11 changed our world, we have been 
allies and friends. Thank you, Mr. President, for your leadership.
  Mr. Speaker, my thrill on receiving this award was only a little 
diminished on being told that the first Congressional Gold Medal was 
awarded to George Washington for what Congress called ``his wise and 
spirited conduct in getting rid of the British out of Boston.''
  On our way down here, Senator Frist was kind enough to show me the 
fireplace where in 1814 the British had burned the Congress library. I 
know this is kind of late, but sorry.
  Actually, you know, my middle son was studying 18th century history 
and the American War of Independence and he said to me the other day, 
you know Lord North, Dad. He was the British Prime Minister who lost us 
America. So just think, however many mistakes you make, you will never 
make one that bad.
  Members of Congress, I feel a most urgent sense of mission about 
today's world. September 11 was not an isolated event, but a tragic 
prologue; Iraq, another act, and many further struggles will be set 
upon this stage before it is over. There never has been a time when the 
power of America was so necessary, or so misunderstood; or when, except 
in the most general sense, a study of history provides so little 
instruction for our present day. We were all reared on battles between 
great warriors, between great nations, between powerful forces and 
ideologies that dominated entire continents. These were struggles for 
conquest, for land or money. And the wars were fought by massed armies. 
The leaders were openly acknowledged; the outcomes decisive. Today, 
none of us expect our soldiers to fight a war on our own territory.
  The immediate threat is not conflicts between the world's most 
powerful nations. And why? Because we all have too much to lose; 
because technology, communication, trade and travel are bringing us 
ever closer together; because in the last 50 years, countries like 
yours and mine have trebled their growth and standard of living; 
because even those powers like Russia or China or India can see the 
horizon of future wealth clearly and know they are on a steady road 
toward it; and because all nations that are free, value that freedom, 
will defend it absolutely, and have no wish to trample on the freedom 
of others.
  We are bound together as never before. This coming together provides 
us with unprecedented opportunity that also makes us uniquely 
vulnerable. And the threat comes because in another part of our globe 
there is shadow and darkness where not all the world is free; where 
many millions suffer under brutal dictatorship; where a third of our 
planet lives in poverty beyond anything even the poorest in our 
societies can imagine; where a fanatical strain of religious extremism 
has risen that is a mutation of the true and peaceful faith of Islam; 
and because in the combination of these afflictions a new and deadly 
virus has emerged.
  The virus is terrorism, whose intent to inflict destruction is 
unconstrained by human feeling and whose capacity to inflict is 
enlarged by technology. This is a battle that cannot be fought or won 
only by armies. We are so much more powerful in all conventional ways 
than the terrorists. Yet even in all our might, we are taught humility. 
In the end, it is not our power alone that will defeat this evil. Our 
ultimate weapon is not our guns, but our beliefs.
  There is a myth that, though we love freedom, others do not; that our 
attachment to freedom is a product of our culture; that freedom, 
democracy, human rights, the rule of law are American values or Western 
values; that Afghan women were content under the lash of the Taliban; 
that Saddam was somehow beloved by his people; that Milosevic was 
Serbia's savior.
  Members of Congress, ours are not Western values. They are the 
universal values of the human spirit. And anywhere, anytime ordinary 
people are given the chance to choose, the choice is the same: freedom, 
not tyranny; democracy, not dictatorship; the rule of law, not the rule 
of the secret police.
  The spread of freedom is the best security for the free. It is our 
last line of defense and our first line of attack. And just as the 
terrorist seeks to divide humanity in hate, so we have to unify it 
around an idea, and that idea is liberty. We must find the strength to 
fight for this idea and the compassion to make it universal.
  Abraham Lincoln said: ``Those that deny freedom to others, deserve it 
not for themselves.'' And it is this sense of justice that makes moral 
the love of liberty.
  In some cases, where our security is under direct threat, we will 
have recourse to arms. In others, it will be by force of reason. But in 
all cases to the same end: that the liberty we seek is not for some, 
but for all. For that is the only true path to victory in this 
struggle.
  But first we must explain the danger. Our new world rests on order. 
The danger is disorder, and in today's world it can now spread like 
contagion. The terrorists and the states that support them do not have 
large armies or precision weapons. They do not need them. Their weapon 
is chaos. The purpose of terrorism is not the single act of wanton 
destruction. It is the reaction it seeks to provoke: economic collapse, 
the backlash, the hatred, the division, the elimination of tolerance, 
until societies cease to reconcile their differences and become defined 
by them. Kashmir, the Middle East, Chechnya, Indonesia, Africa, barely 
a continent or nation is unscathed.
  The risk is that terrorism and states developing weapons of mass 
destruction come together. And when people say that risk is fanciful, I 
say we know the Taliban supported al Qaeda; we know Iraq under Saddam 
gave haven to and supported terrorists; we know there are states in the 
Middle East now actively funding and helping people who regard it as 
God's will, in the act of suicide, to take as many innocent lives with 
them on their way to God's judgment. Some of these states are 
desperately trying to acquire nuclear weapons. We know that companies 
and people with expertise sell it to the highest bidder; and we know 
that at

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least one state, North Korea, lets its people starve while spending 
billions of dollars on developing nuclear weapons and exporting the 
technology abroad. This is not fantasy. It is 21st century reality, and 
it confronts us now.
  Can we be sure that terrorism and weapons of mass destruction will 
join together? Let us say one thing. If we are wrong, we will have 
destroyed a threat that, at its least, is responsible for inhuman 
carnage and suffering. That is something I am confident history will 
forgive. But if our critics are wrong, if we are right, as I believe 
with every fiber of instinct and conviction I have that we are, and we 
do not act, then we will have hesitated in the face of this menace when 
we should have given leadership. That is something history will not 
forgive.
  But precisely because the threat is new, it is not obvious. It turns 
upside down our concepts of how we should act and when, and it crosses 
the frontiers of many nations. So just as it redefines our notions of 
security, so it must refine our notions of diplomacy.
  There is no more dangerous theory in international politics today 
than that we need to balance the power of America with other competitor 
powers, different poles around which nations gather. Such a theory may 
have made sense in 19th century Europe. It was perforce the position in 
the Cold War. Today, it is an anachronism to be discarded like 
traditional theories of security. And it is dangerous because it is not 
rivalry but partnership we need, a common will and a shared purpose in 
the face of a common threat.
  I believe any alliance must start with America and Europe. If Europe 
and America are together, the others will work with us. If we split, 
the rest will play around, play us off, and nothing but mischief will 
be the result of it.
  You may think after recent disagreements it cannot be done. But the 
debate in Europe is open. Iraq showed that, when, never forget, many 
European nations supported our action, and it shows it still when those 
that did not agreed to Resolution 1483 in the United Nations for Iraq's 
reconstruction. Today, German soldiers lead in Afghanistan. French 
soldiers lead in the Congo where they stand between peace and a return 
to genocide. So we should not minimize the differences, but we should 
not let them confound us either.
  People ask me, after the past months when, let us say, things were a 
trifle strained in Europe, why do you persist in wanting Britain at the 
center of Europe? And I say, well, maybe if the U.K. were a group of 
islands 20 miles off Manhattan, I might feel differently; but, 
actually, we are 20 miles off Calais and are joined by a tunnel. We are 
part of Europe, and we want to be; but we also want to be part of 
changing Europe.
  Europe has one potential for weakness. For reasons that are obvious, 
we spent roughly a thousand years killing each other in large numbers. 
The political culture of Europe is inevitably and rightly based on 
compromise. Compromise is a fine thing, except when based on an 
illusion; and I do not believe you can compromise with this new form of 
terrorism.
  But Europe has a strength. It is a formidable political achievement. 
Think of the past and think of the unity today. Think of it preparing 
to reach out even to Turkey, a nation of vastly different culture, 
tradition and religion, and welcome it in.
  But my real point is this: now Europe is at a point of 
transformation. Next year, 10 new countries will join. Romania and 
Bulgaria will follow. Why will these new European members transform 
Europe? Because their scars are recent. Their memories strong. Their 
relationship with freedom still one of passion, not comfortable 
familiarity. They believe in the transatlantic alliance. They support 
economic reform. They want a Europe of nations, not a superstate. They 
are our allies, and they are yours. So do not give up on Europe. Work 
with it.
  To be a serious partner, Europe must take on and defeat the anti-
Americanism that sometimes passes for its political discourse. And what 
America must do is show that this is a partnership built on persuasion, 
not command. Then the other great nations of our world and the small 
will gather around in one place, not many; and our understanding of 
this threat will become theirs. And the United Nations can then become 
what it should be, an instrument of action as well as debate.
  The Security Council should be reformed. We need a new international 
regime on the nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction. And we 
need to say clearly to United Nations' members: If you engage in the 
systematic and gross abuse of human rights in defiance of the U.N. 
charter, you cannot expect to enjoy the same privileges as those that 
conform to it.
  I agree, it is not the coalition that determines the mission, but the 
mission, the coalition. But let us start preferring a coalition and 
acting alone if we have to, not the other way round. True, winning wars 
is not easier that way. But winning the peace is. And we have to win 
both.
  You have an extraordinary record of doing so. Who helped Japan renew 
or Germany reconstruct or Europe get back on its feet after World War 
II? America.
  So when we invade Afghanistan or Iraq, our responsibility does not 
end with military victory. Finishing the fighting is not finishing the 
job. So if Afghanistan needs more troops from the international 
community to police outside Kabul, our duty is to get them. Let us help 
them eradicate their dependency on the poppy, the crop whose wicked 
residue turns up on the streets of Britain as heroin to destroy young 
British lives as much as their harvest warps the lives of Afghans.
  We promised Iraq democratic government. We will deliver it. We 
promised them the chance to use their oil wealth to build prosperity 
for all their citizens, not a corrupt elite. And we will do so. We will 
stay with these people, so in need of our help, until the job is done.
  And then reflect on this: How hollow would the charges of American 
imperialism be when these failed countries are and are seen to be 
transformed from states of terror to nations of prosperity; from 
governments of dictatorship to examples of democracy; from sources of 
instability to beacons of calm? And how risible would be the claims 
that these were wars on Muslims, if the world could see these Muslim 
nations still Muslim but with some hope for the future, not shackled by 
brutal regimes whose principal victims were the very Muslims they 
pretended to protect? It would be the most richly observed 
advertisement for the values of freedom we can imagine.
  When we removed the Taliban and Saddam Hussein, this was not 
imperialism. For these oppressed people, it was their liberation. And 
why can the terrorists even mount an argument in the Muslim world that 
it is not? Because there is one cause terrorism rides upon, a cause 
they have no belief in, but can manipulate.
  I want to be very plain. This terrorism will not be defeated without 
peace in the Middle East between Israel and Palestine. Here it is that 
the poison is incubated. Here it is that the extremist is able to 
confuse in the mind of a frighteningly large number of people the case 
for a Palestinian state and the destruction of Israel, and to translate 
this, moreover, into a battle between East and West, Muslim, Jew, and 
Christian. We must never compromise the security of the State of 
Israel.
  The State of Israel should be recognized by the entire Arab world, 
and the vile propaganda used to indoctrinate children not just against 
Israel but against Jews must cease. You cannot teach people hate and 
then ask them to practice peace. But neither can you teach people peace 
except by according them dignity and granting them hope. Innocent 
Israelis suffer. So do innocent Palestinians. The ending of Saddam's 
regime in Iraq must be the starting point of a new dispensation for the 
Middle East.
  Iraq: free and stable. Iran and Syria, who give succor to the 
rejectionist men of violence, made to realize that the world will no 
longer countenance it; that the hand of friendship can only be offered 
them if they resile completely from this malice, but that if they do, 
that hand will be there for them and

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their people. The whole of the region helped towards democracy. And to 
symbolize it all, the creation of an independent, viable, and 
democratic Palestinian state side by side with the State of Israel.
  What the President is doing in the Middle East is tough, but right. 
And let me at this point thank the President for his support and that 
of President Clinton before him and the support of Members of this 
Congress for our attempts to bring peace to Northern Ireland. One thing 
I have learned about peace processes, they are always frustrating, 
often agonizing, and occasionally seem hopeless; but for all that, 
having a peace process is better than not having one.
  And why has a resolution of Palestine such a powerful appeal across 
the world? Because it embodies an evenhanded approach to justice. Just 
as when this President recommended and this Congress supported a $15 
billion increase in spending on the world's poorest nations to combat 
HIV/AIDS, it was a statement of concern that echoed rightly round the 
world.
  There can be no freedom for Africa without justice, and no justice 
without declaring war on Africa's poverty, disease, and famine with as 
much vehemence as we remove the tyrant and the terrorist.
  In Mexico in September, the world should unite and give us a trade 
round that opens up our markets. I am for free trade, and I will tell 
you why. Because we cannot say to the poorest people in the world we 
want you to be free but just do not try to sell your goods in our 
market. And because ever since the world started to open up, it has 
prospered.
  That prosperity has to be environmentally sustainable, too. I 
remember at one of our earliest international meetings a European Prime 
Minister telling President Bush that the solution was quite simple: 
just double the tax on American gasoline. Your President gave him a 
most eloquent look.
  It reminded me of the first leader of my party, Keir Hardy, in the 
early part of the 20th century. He was a man who used to correspond 
with the Pankhursts, the great campaigners for women's votes. Shortly 
before the election in June, 1913, one of the Pankhurst sisters wrote 
Hardy saying she had been studying Britain carefully, and there was a 
worrying rise in sexual immorality linked to heavy drinking. So she 
suggested he fight the election on the platform of votes for women, 
chastity for men, and prohibition for all. He replied saying, ``Thank 
you for your advice, the electoral benefits of which are not 
immediately discernible.'' We all get that kind of advice.
  But, frankly, we need to go beyond even Kyoto; and science and 
technology is the way. Climate change, deforestation, and the voracious 
drain on natural resources cannot be ignored. Unchecked, these forces 
will hinder the economic development of the most vulnerable nations 
first and, ultimately, all nations. We must show the world that we are 
willing to step up to these challenges around the world and in our own 
backyards.
  Members of Congress, if this seems a long way from the threat of 
terror and weapons of mass destruction, it is only to say again that 
the world's security cannot be protected without the world's heart 
being won. So America must listen as well as lead, but Members of 
Congress, do not ever apologize for your values. Tell the world why you 
are proud of America. Tell them when the ``Star Spangled Banner'' 
starts, Americans get to their feet: Hispanics, Irish, Italians, 
Central Europeans, East Europeans, Jews, Muslims, white, Asian, black, 
those who go back to the early settlers and those whose English is the 
same as some New York cab drivers I have dealt with but whose sons and 
daughters could run for Congress. Tell them why Americans, one and all, 
stand upright and respectful, not because some State official told them 
to but because whatever race, color, class, or creed they are, being 
American means being free. That is what makes them proud.
  As Britain knows, all predominant power seems for a time invincible, 
but in fact it is transient. The question is: What do you leave behind? 
What you can bequeath to this anxious world is the light of liberty. 
That is what this struggle against terrorist groups or states is about. 
We are not fighting for domination. We are not fighting for an American 
world, though we want a world in which America is at ease. We are not 
fighting for Christianity, but against religious fanaticism of all 
kinds.
  This is not a war of civilizations, because each civilization has a 
unique capacity to enrich the stock of human heritage. We are fighting 
for the inalienable right of humankind, black or white, Christian or 
not, left, right or merely indifferent, to be free; free to raise a 
family in love and hope; free to earn a living and be rewarded by your 
own efforts; free not to bend your knee to any man in fear; free to be 
you so long as being you does not impair the freedom of others. That is 
what we are fighting for, and that is a battle worth fighting.
  I know it is hard on America. And in some small corner of this vast 
country out in Nevada or Idaho, these places I have never been to but 
have always wanted to go, I know out there is a guy getting on with his 
life, perfectly happily, minding his own business, saying to you, the 
political leaders of this country, why me and why us and why America?
  The only answer is because destiny put you in this place in history 
in this moment in time, and the task is yours to do.
  And our job, my nation that watched you grow, that you have fought 
alongside and now fights alongside you, that takes enormous pride in 
our alliance and great affection in our common bond, our job is to be 
there with you.
  You are not going to be alone. We will be with you in this fight for 
liberty. We will be with you in this fight for liberty; and if our 
spirit is right, and our courage firm, the world will be with us. Thank 
you.
  [Applause, Members rising.]
  At 4 o'clock and 42 minutes p.m., the Prime Minister of the United 
Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, accompanied by the 
committee of escort, retired from the Hall of the House of 
Representatives.
  The Assistant to the Sergeant at Arms escorted the invited guests 
from the Chamber in the following order:
  The Members of the President's Cabinet;
  The Acting Dean of the Diplomatic Corps.

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