[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.