    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: George W. Bush (2002, Book II)]
    [October 7, 2002]
    [Pages 1751-1757]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Address to the Nation on Iraq From Cincinnati, Ohio
    October 7, 2002

        Thank you all. Thank you for that very gracious and warm Cincinnati
    welcome. I'm honored to be here tonight. I appreciate you all coming.
        Tonight I want to take a few minutes to discuss a grave threat to
    peace and America's determination to lead the world in confronting that
    threat.
        The threat comes from Iraq. It arises directly from the Iraqi
    regime's own actions--its history of aggression and its drive toward an
    arsenal of terror. Eleven years ago, as a condition for ending the
    Persian Gulf war, the Iraqi regime was required to destroy its weapons
    of mass destruction, to cease all development of such weapons, and to
    stop all support for terrorist groups. The Iraqi regime has violated all
    of those obligations. It possesses and produces chemical and biological
    weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons. It has given shelter

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    and support to terrorism and practices terror against its own people.
    The entire world has witnessed Iraq's 11-year history of defiance,
    deception, and bad faith.
        We must also never forget the most vivid events of recent history.
    On September the 11th, 2001, America felt its vulnerability, even to
    threats that gather on the other side of the Earth. We resolved then and
    we are resolved today to confront every threat, from any source, that
    could bring sudden terror and suffering to America.
        Members of Congress of both political parties and members of the
    United Nations Security Council agree that Saddam Hussein is a threat to peace and must disarm. We agree that
    the Iraqi dictator must not be permitted to threaten America and the
    world with horrible poisons and diseases and gases and atomic weapons.
    Since we all agree on this goal, the issue is: How can we best achieve
    it?
        Many Americans have raised legitimate questions about the nature of
    the threat, about the urgency of action--why be concerned now--about the
    link between Iraq developing weapons of terror and the wider war on
    terror. These are all issues we've discussed broadly and fully within my
    administration. And tonight I want to share those discussions with you.
        First, some ask why Iraq is different from other countries or
    regimes that also have terrible weapons. While there are many dangers in
    the world, the threat from Iraq stands alone because it gathers the most
    serious dangers of our age in one place. Iraq's weapons of mass
    destruction are controlled by a murderous tyrant who has already used chemical weapons to kill
    thousands of people. This same tyrant has tried to dominate the Middle
    East, has invaded and brutally occupied a small neighbor, has struck
    other nations without warning, and holds an unrelenting hostility toward
    the United States.
        By its past and present actions, by its technological capabilities,
    by the merciless nature of its regime, Iraq is unique. As a former chief
    weapons inspector of the U.N. has said, ``The fundamental problem with
    Iraq remains the nature of the regime, itself. Saddam Hussein is a homicidal dictator who is addicted to weapons of
    mass destruction.''
        Some ask how urgent this danger is to America and the world. The
    danger is already significant, and it only grows worse with time. If we
    know Saddam Hussein has dangerous weapons
    today--and we do--does it make any sense for the world to wait to
    confront him as he grows even stronger and develops even more dangerous
    weapons?
        In 1995, after several years of deceit by the Iraqi regime, the head
    of Iraq's military industries
    defected. It was then that the regime was forced to admit that it had
    produced more than 30,000 liters of anthrax and other deadly biological
    agents. The inspectors, however, concluded that Iraq had likely produced
    2 to 4 times that amount. This is a massive stockpile of biological
    weapons that has never been accounted for and is capable of killing
    millions.
        We know that the regime has produced thousands of tons of chemical
    agents, including mustard gas, sarin nerve gas, VX nerve gas. Saddam
    Hussein also has experience in using chemical
    weapons. He has ordered chemical attacks on Iran and on more than 40
    villages in his own country. These actions killed or injured at least
    20,000 people, more than 6 times the number of people who died in the
    attacks of September the 11th.
        And surveillance photos reveal that the regime is rebuilding
    facilities that it had used to produce chemical and biological weapons.
    Every chemical and biological weapon that Iraq has or makes is a direct
    violation of the truce that ended the Persian Gulf war in 1991. Yet,
    Saddam Hussein has chosen to build and keep
    these weapons despite international sanctions, U.N. demands, and
    isolation from the civilized world.

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        Iraq possesses ballistic missiles with a likely range of hundreds of
    miles--far enough to strike Saudi Arabia, Israel, Turkey, and other
    nations--in a region where more than 135,000 American civilians and
    service members live and work. We've also discovered through
    intelligence that Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial
    vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons
    across broad areas. We're concerned that Iraq is exploring ways of using
    these UAVs for missions targeting the United States. And of course,
    sophisticated delivery systems aren't required for a chemical or
    biological attack; all that might be required are a small container and
    one terrorist or Iraqi intelligence operative to deliver it.
        And that is the source of our urgent concern about Saddam
    Hussein's links to international terrorist
    groups. Over the years, Iraq has provided safe haven to terrorists such
    as Abu Nidal, whose terror organization carried out more than 90
    terrorist attacks in 20 countries that killed or injured nearly 900
    people, including 12 Americans. Iraq has also provided safe haven to Abu
    Abbas, who was responsible for seizing the Achille Lauro and killing an
    American passenger. And we know that Iraq is continuing to finance
    terror and gives assistance to groups that use terrorism to undermine
    Middle East peace.
        We know that Iraq and the Al Qaida terrorist network share a common
    enemy--the United States of America. We know that Iraq and Al Qaida have
    had high-level contacts that go back a decade. Some Al Qaida leaders who
    fled Afghanistan went to Iraq. These include one very senior Al Qaida
    leader who received medical treatment in
    Baghdad this year, and who has been associated with planning for
    chemical and biological attacks. We've learned that Iraq has trained Al
    Qaida members in bombmaking and poisons and deadly gases. And we know
    that after September the 11th, Saddam Hussein's regime gleefully celebrated the terrorist attacks on
    America.
        Iraq could decide on any given day to provide a biological or
    chemical weapon to a terrorist group or individual terrorists. Alliance
    with terrorists could allow the Iraqi regime to attack America without
    leaving any fingerprints.
        Some have argued that confronting the threat from Iraq could detract
    from the war against terror. To the contrary, confronting the threat
    posed by Iraq is crucial to winning the war on terror. When I spoke to
    Congress more than a year ago, I said that those who harbor terrorists
    are as guilty as the terrorists themselves. Saddam Hussein is harboring terrorists and the instruments of terror,
    the instruments of mass death and destruction. And he cannot be trusted.
    The risk is simply too great that he will use them or provide them to a
    terror network.
        Terror cells and outlaw regimes building weapons of mass destruction
    are different faces of the same evil. Our security requires that we
    confront both, and the United States military is capable of confronting
    both.
        Many people have asked how close Saddam Hussein is to developing a nuclear weapon. Well, we don't know
    exactly, and that's the problem. Before the Gulf war, the best
    intelligence indicated that Iraq was 8 to 10 years away from developing
    a nuclear weapon. After the war, international inspectors learned that
    the regime had been much closer--the regime in Iraq would likely have
    possessed a nuclear weapon no later than 1993. The inspectors discovered
    that Iraq had an advanced nuclear weapons development program, had a
    design for a workable nuclear weapon, and was pursuing several different
    methods of enriching uranium for a bomb.
        Before being barred from Iraq in 1998, the International Atomic
    Energy Agency dismantled extensive nuclear weapons-related facilities,
    including three uranium enrichment sites. That same year, information
    from a high-ranking Iraqi nuclear engineer who
    had defected revealed that despite his

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    public promises, Saddam Hussein had ordered
    his nuclear program to continue.
        The evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear
    weapons program. Saddam Hussein has held
    numerous meetings with Iraqi nuclear scientists, a group he calls his
    ``nuclear mujahideen,'' his nuclear holy warriors. Satellite photographs
    reveal that Iraq is rebuilding facilities at sites that have been part
    of its nuclear program in the past. Iraq has attempted to purchase high-
    strength aluminum tubes and other equipment needed for gas centrifuges,
    which are used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons.
        If the Iraqi regime is able to produce, buy, or steal an amount of
    highly enriched uranium a little larger than a single softball, it could
    have a nuclear weapon in less than a year. And if we allow that to
    happen, a terrible line would be crossed. Saddam Hussein would be in a position to blackmail anyone who opposes
    his aggression. He would be in a position to dominate the Middle East.
    He would be in a position to threaten America. And Saddam Hussein would
    be in a position to pass nuclear technology to terrorists.
        Some citizens wonder, after 11 years of living with this problem,
    why do we need to confront it now? And there's a reason. We've
    experienced the horror of September the 11th. We have seen that those
    who hate America are willing to crash airplanes into buildings full of
    innocent people. Our enemies would be no less willing--in fact, they
    would be eager--to use biological or chemical or a nuclear weapon.
        Knowing these realities, America must not ignore the threat
    gathering against us. Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for
    the final proof, the smoking gun, that could come in the form of a
    mushroom cloud. As President Kennedy said in October of 1962, ``Neither
    the United States of America nor the world community of nations can
    tolerate deliberate deception and offensive threats on the part of any
    nation, large or small. We no longer live in a world,'' he said, ``where
    only the actual firing of weapons represents a sufficient challenge to a
    nation's security to constitute maximum peril.''
        Understanding the threats of our time, knowing the designs and
    deceptions of the Iraqi regime, we have every reason to assume the
    worst, and we have an urgent duty to prevent the worst from occurring.
        Some believe we can address this danger by simply resuming the old
    approach to inspections and applying diplomatic and economic pressure.
    Yet this is precisely what the world has tried to do since 1991. The
    U.N. inspections program was met with systematic deception. The Iraqi
    regime bugged hotel rooms and offices of inspectors to find where they
    were going next. They forged documents, destroyed evidence, and
    developed mobile weapons facilities to keep a step ahead of inspectors.
    Eight so-called Presidential palaces were declared off-limits to
    unfettered inspections. These sites actually encompass 12 square miles,
    with hundreds of structures, both above and below the ground, where
    sensitive materials could be hidden.
        The world has also tried economic sanctions and watched Iraq use
    billions of dollars in illegal oil revenues to fund more weapons
    purchases, rather than providing for the needs of the Iraqi people.
        The world has tried limited military strikes to destroy Iraq's
    weapons of mass destruction capabilities, only to see them openly
    rebuilt, while the regime again denies they even exist.
        The world has tried no-fly zones to keep Saddam from terrorizing his own people, and in the last year
    alone, the Iraqi military has fired upon American and British pilots
    more than 750 times.
        After 11 years during which we have tried containment, sanctions,
    inspections, even selected military action, the end result is that
    Saddam Hussein still has chemical and
    biological weapons and is increasing his capabilities to make more. And
    he is

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    moving ever closer to developing a nuclear weapon.
        Clearly, to actually work, any new inspections, sanctions, or
    enforcement mechanisms will have to be very different. America wants the
    U.N. to be an effective organization that helps keep the peace. And that
    is why we are urging the Security Council to adopt a new resolution
    setting out tough, immediate requirements. Among those requirements, the
    Iraqi regime must reveal and destroy, under U.N. supervision, all
    existing weapons of mass destruction. To ensure that we learn the truth,
    the regime must allow witnesses to its illegal activities to be
    interviewed outside the country, and these witnesses must be free to
    bring their families with them so they are all beyond the reach of
    Saddam Hussein's terror and murder. And
    inspectors must have access to any site, at any time, without
    preclearance, without delay, without exceptions.
        The time for denying, deceiving, and delaying has come to an end.
    Saddam Hussein must disarm himself, or for
    the sake of peace, we will lead a coalition to disarm him.
        Many nations are joining us in insisting that Saddam
    Hussein's regime be held accountable. They
    are committed to defending the international security that protects the
    lives of both our citizens and theirs. And that's why America is
    challenging all nations to take the resolutions of the U.N. Security
    Council seriously.
        And these resolutions are very clear. In addition to declaring and
    destroying all of its weapons of mass destruction, Iraq must end its
    support for terrorism. It must cease the persecution of its civilian
    population. It must stop all illicit trade outside the oil-for-food
    program. It must release or account for all Gulf war personnel,
    including an American pilot whose fate is still unknown.
        By taking these steps and by only taking these steps, the Iraqi
    regime has an opportunity to avoid conflict. Taking these steps would
    also change the nature of the Iraqi regime, itself. America hopes the
    regime will make that choice. Unfortunately, at least so far, we have
    little reason to expect it. And that's why two administrations, mine and
    President Clinton's, have stated that regime change in Iraq is the only
    certain means of removing a great danger to our Nation.
        I hope this will not require military action, but it may. And
    military conflict could be difficult. An Iraqi regime faced with its own
    demise may attempt cruel and desperate measures. If Saddam
    Hussein orders such measures, his generals
    would be well advised to refuse those orders. If they do not refuse,
    they must understand that all war criminals will be pursued and
    punished. If we have to act, we will take every precaution that is
    possible. We will plan carefully. We will act with the full power of the
    United States military. We will act with allies at our side, and we will
    prevail.
        There is no easy or risk-free course of action. Some have argued we
    should wait, and that's an option. In my view, it's the riskiest of all
    options, because the longer we wait, the stronger and bolder Saddam
    Hussein will become. We could wait and hope
    that Saddam does not give weapons to terrorists or develop a nuclear
    weapon to blackmail the world. But I'm convinced that is a hope against
    all evidence. As Americans, we want peace; we work and sacrifice for
    peace. But there can be no peace if our security depends on the will and
    whims of a ruthless and aggressive dictator. I'm not willing to stake
    one American life on trusting Saddam Hussein.
        Failure to act would embolden other tyrants, allow terrorists access
    to new weapons and new resources, and make blackmail a permanent feature
    of world events. The United Nations would betray the purpose of its
    founding and prove irrelevant to the problems of our time. And through
    its inaction, the United States would resign itself to a future of fear.

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        That is not the America I know. That is not the America I serve. We
    refuse to live in fear. This Nation, in World War and in cold war, has
    never permitted the brutal and lawless to set history's course. Now as
    before, we will secure our Nation, protect our freedom, and help others
    to find freedom of their own.
        Some worry that a change of leadership in Iraq could create
    instability and make the situation worse. The situation could hardly get
    worse for world security and for the people of Iraq. The lives of Iraqi
    citizens would improve dramatically if Saddam Hussein were no longer in power, just as the lives of
    Afghanistan's citizens improved after the Taliban. The dictator of Iraq
    is a student of Stalin, using murder as a tool of terror and control,
    within his own cabinet, within his own army, and even within his own
    family. On Saddam Hussein's orders, opponents have been decapitated,
    wives and mothers of political opponents have been systematically raped
    as a method of intimidation, and political prisoners have been forced to
    watch their own children being tortured.
        America believes that all people are entitled to hope and human
    rights, to the non-negotiable demands of human dignity. People
    everywhere prefer freedom to slavery, prosperity to squalor, self-
    government to the rule of terror and torture. America is a friend to the
    people of Iraq. Our demands are directed only at the regime that
    enslaves them and threatens us. When these demands are met, the first
    and greatest benefit will come to Iraqi men, women, and children. The
    oppression of Kurds, Assyrians, Turkomans, Shi'a, Sunnis, and others
    will be lifted. The long captivity of Iraq will end, and an era of new
    hope will begin.
        Iraq is a land rich in culture and resources and talent. Freed from
    the weight of oppression, Iraq's people will be able to share in the
    progress and prosperity of our time. If military action is necessary,
    the United States and our allies will help the Iraqi people rebuild
    their economy and create the institutions of liberty in a unified Iraq
    at peace with its neighbors.
         Later this week, the United States Congress will vote on this
    matter. I have asked Congress to authorize the use of America's
    military, if it proves necessary, to enforce U.N. Security Council
    demands. Approving this resolution does not mean that military action is
    imminent or unavoidable. The resolution will tell the United Nations and
    all nations that America speaks with one voice and is determined to make
    the demands of the civilized world mean something. Congress will also be
    sending a message to the dictator in Iraq
    that his only chance--his only choice is full compliance, and the time
    remaining for that choice is limited. Members of Congress are nearing an
    historic vote. I'm confident they will fully consider the facts and
    their duties.
        The attacks of September the 11th showed our country that vast
    oceans no longer protect us from danger. Before that tragic date, we had
    only hints of Al Qaida's plans and designs. Today in Iraq, we see a
    threat whose outlines are far more clearly defined and whose
    consequences could be far more deadly. Saddam Hussein's actions have put us on notice, and there is no refuge
    from our responsibilities.
        We did not ask for this present challenge, but we accept it. Like
    other generations of Americans, we will meet the responsibility of
    defending human liberty against violence and aggression. By our resolve,
    we will give strength to others. By our courage, we will give hope to
    others. And by our actions, we will secure the peace and lead the world
    to a better day.
        May God bless America.

    Note: The President spoke at 8:02 p.m. in the Grand Rotunda at the
    Cincinnati Museum Center at Union Terminal. In his remarks, he referred
    to President Saddam Hussein and former Minister of Military Industries
    Hussein Kamil al-Majid of Iraq; Al Qaida operational commander Abu Musab

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    Zarqawi; Iraqi nuclear engineer Khidir Hamza; former chief U.N. weapons
    inspector Richard Butler; and missing American pilot Lt. Comdr. Michael
    S. Speicher, USN. The Office of the Press Secretary also released a
    Spanish language transcript of this address.