    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: George W. Bush (2005, Book II)]
    [December 14, 2005]
    [Pages 1851-1857]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks to the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
    December 14, 2005

        Thank you very much. Please be seated. Thank you for the warm
    welcome. I'm delighted to be here with the men and women of the Wilson
    Center. According to your mission statement, the Center was created to
    bring together two groups, political leaders and scholars. I see some of
    the political leaders who are here, and I presume you've invited me to
    uphold the scholars' end. [Laughter]
        I've come to discuss an issue of vital importance to the American
    people, and that is victory in the war on terror. On September the 11th,
    2001, our Nation awoke to a sudden attack, and we accepted new
    responsibilities. We are confronting new dangers with firm resolve.
    We're hunting down the terrorists and their supporters. We will fight
    this war without wavering, and we will prevail.
        In the war on terror, Iraq is now the central front. And over the
    last few weeks, I've been discussing our political, economic, and
    military strategy for victory in that country. An historic election will
    take place tomorrow in Iraq. And as millions of Iraqis prepare to cast
    their ballots, I want to talk today about why we went into Iraq, why we
    stayed in Iraq, and why we cannot and will not leave Iraq until victory
    is achieved.
        I want to thank Ambassador Gildenhorn for inviting me and introducing me. And I want to thank
    the members of the Board of Trustees who are here. I appreciate Lee
    Hamilton, who serves our Nation so well in
    so many different capacities. Thank you for being the president and
    director of the Woodrow Wilson Center.
        I'm proud to be traveling today with members of my Cabinet:
    Secretary of State Condi Rice; Secretary of
    Defense Donald Rumsfeld; and Secretary of
    Homeland Security Mike Chertoff. Thank you
    all for coming. I appreciate the Members of the Congress who are here.
    Thanks for taking time to come. I want to thank the members of the
    diplomatic corps that have joined us today. And thank you all for being
    here as well.
        We are living through a watershed moment in the story of freedom.
    Most of the focus now is on this week's elections, and rightly so.
    Iraqis will go to the polls to choose a government that will be the only
    constitutional democracy in the Arab world. Yet we need to remember that
    these elections are also a vital part of a broader strategy for
    protecting the American people against the threat of terrorism.
        We saw the future the terrorists intend for our Nation on that
    fateful morning of September the 11th, 2001. That day we learned that
    vast oceans and friendly neighbors are no longer enough to protect us.
    September the 11th changed our country. It changed the policy of our
    Government. We adopted a new strategy to protect the American people: We
    would hunt down the terrorists wherever they hide; we would make no
    distinction between the terrorists and those who harbor them; and we
    would advance our security at home by advancing freedom in the Middle
    East.
        September the 11th also changed the way I viewed threats like Saddam
    Hussein. We saw the destruction terrorists
    could cause with airplanes loaded with jet fuel, and we imagined the
    destruction they could cause with even more powerful weapons. At the
    time, the leaders of both political parties recognized this new reality:
    We cannot allow the world's most dangerous men to get their hands on the
    world's most dangerous weapons. In an age of terrorism and weapons of
    mass destruction, if we wait for threats to fully materialize, we will
    have waited too long.
        We removed Saddam Hussein from power
    because he was a threat to our security. He had pursued and used weapons

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    of mass destruction. He sponsored terrorists. He ordered his military to
    shoot at American and British pilots patrolling the no-fly zones. He
    invaded his neighbors. He fought a war against the United States and a
    broad coalition. He had declared that the United States of America was
    his enemy.
        Over the course of a decade, Saddam Hussein refused to comply with more than a dozen United
    Nations resolutions, including demands that he respect the rights of the
    Iraqi people, disclose his weapons, and abide by the terms of a 1991
    cease-fire. He deceived international inspectors, and he denied them the
    unconditional access they needed to do their jobs. When a unanimous
    Security Council gave him one final chance to disclose and disarm or
    face serious consequences, he refused to comply with that final
    opportunity. At any point along the way, Saddam Hussein could have
    avoided war by complying with the just demands of the international
    community. The United States did not choose war; the choice was Saddam
    Hussein's.
        When we made the decision to go into Iraq, many intelligence
    agencies around the world judged that Saddam
    possessed weapons of mass destruction. This judgment was shared by the
    intelligence agencies of governments who did not support my decision to
    remove Saddam. And it is true that much of the intelligence turned out
    to be wrong. As President, I'm responsible for the decision to go into
    Iraq, and I'm also responsible for fixing what went wrong by reforming
    our intelligence capabilities. And we're doing just that. At the same
    time, we must remember that an investigation after the war by chief
    weapons inspector Charles Duelfer found
    that Saddam was using the U.N. Oil-For-Food Programme to influence
    countries and companies in an effort to undermine sanctions, with the
    intent of restarting his weapons programs once the sanctions collapsed
    and the world looked the other way.
        Given Saddam's history and the lessons of September the 11th, my
    decision to remove Saddam Hussein was the
    right decision. Saddam was a threat, and the American people and the
    world is better off because he is no longer in power. We are in Iraq
    today because our goal has always been more than the removal of a brutal
    dictator; it is to leave a free and democratic Iraq in its place.
        As I stated in a speech in the lead-up to the war, a liberated Iraq
    could show the power of freedom to transform the Middle East by bringing
    hope and progress to the lives of millions. So we're helping the Iraqi
    people build a lasting democracy that is peaceful and prosperous and an
    example for the broader Middle East. The terrorists understand this, and
    that is why they have now made Iraq the central front in the war on
    terror.
        The enemy of freedom in Iraq is a combination of rejectionists and
    Saddamists and terrorists. The rejectionists are ordinary Iraqis, mostly
    Sunni Arabs, who miss the privileged status they had under the regime of
    Saddam Hussein. We believe that, over time,
    most of this group will be persuaded to support the democratic Iraq led
    by a Federal Government that is strong enough to protect minority
    rights. We're encouraged by the indications that many Sunnis intend to
    participate in tomorrow's elections.
        The Saddamists are former regime loyalists who harbor dreams of
    returning to power, and they're trying to foment antidemocratic
    sentiment amongst the larger Sunni community. Yet they lack popular
    support, and over time, they can be marginalized and defeated by the
    security forces of a free Iraq.
        The terrorists affiliated with or inspired by Al Qaida are the
    smallest but most lethal group. They are led by a brutal terrorist named
    Zarqawi. He's Al Qaida's chief
    operations officer in Iraq. He has stated his allegiance to Usama bin
    Laden. The terrorists have ambitions; they
    have goals. They want to stop the advance of freedom in

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    Iraq. They want to make Iraq what Afghanistan was under the Taliban, a
    safe haven from which they can plot attacks against our people. There is
    no limit to their brutality. They kill the innocent to achieve their
    aims. This is an enemy without conscience. And against such enemy, there
    is only one effective response: We will never back down; we will never
    give in; and we will never accept anything less than complete victory.
        Last month, my administration released a document called the
    ``National Strategy for Victory in Iraq.'' In recent weeks, I've been
    discussing our strategy with the American people. At the U.S. Naval
    Academy, I spoke about how we changed our approach to training Iraqi
    security forces, so they can take the fight to the enemy and eventually
    take responsibility for the security of their citizens without major
    foreign assistance. Iraqi forces are becoming more and more capable.
        This time last year, there was only a handful of Iraqi battalions
    ready for combat. Now there are more than 125 Iraqi army and police
    combat battalions in the fight against the terrorists. Of these, more
    than 70 Iraqi battalions are fighting side by side with coalition
    forces, and more than 50 others are taking the lead in the fight. So
    far, in December, there have been more than 900 combat operations in
    Iraq at the company level or above, and 75 percent of these involved
    Iraqi security forces either in the lead or fighting side by side with
    our coalition. As these Iraqi forces grow in size and strength, American
    and coalition forces can concentrate on training Iraqis and hunting down
    high-value targets like Zarqawi and his
    associates.
        Last week before the Council on Foreign Relations, I explained how
    we changed our approach to help Iraqis hold and rebuild cities taken
    from the enemy and how to help them revitalize Iraq's infrastructure and
    economy. Today, many cities like Mosul and Najaf are coming back to
    life, and Iraq's economy is growing. Thousands of new businesses have
    opened in Iraq, personal income is up, and according to one survey, 7 in
    10 Iraqis say their lives are going well, and nearly two-thirds expect
    things to improve in the next year.
        Earlier this week at the Philadelphia World Affairs Council, I spoke
    in depth about how we changed our approach to helping the Iraqis build
    their democracy. At the request of Iraqi leaders, we accelerated the
    transition to Iraqi self-government. We set four major milestone to
    guide Iraq's transition to constitutional democracy: The transfer of
    sovereignty; elections for a transitional government; the adoption of a
    democratic Constitution; and elections for a new government under that
    Constitution. In spite of the violence, Iraqis have met every milestone,
    and this is changing the political landscape in Iraq.
        Sunni Arabs who failed to participate in the January elections are
    now campaigning vigorously in this week's elections, and we can expect a
    higher turnout of Sunni voters. As Sunnis join the political process,
    Iraqi democracy becomes more inclusive, and the terrorists and
    Saddamists are becoming marginalized.
        Each of the changes we have made in our approach in Iraq is helping
    us meet the hard realities and the facts on the ground. We've adapted
    our tactics. We have fixed what was not working, and we have listened to
    those who know best, our military commanders and the Iraqi people.
        Our tactics continue to change, but our goal in Iraq has not
    changed--a free and democratic Iraq. I strongly believe a democratic
    Iraq is a crucial part of our strategy to defeat the terrorists, because
    only democracy can bring freedom and reconciliation to Iraq and peace to
    this troubled part of the world. Our efforts to advance freedom in Iraq
    are driven by our vital interests and our deepest beliefs. America was
    founded on the principle that all men are created equal, and we believe
    that the people of the Middle East desire freedom as much as we do.
    History has shown that

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    free nations are peaceful nations. And as Iraqi democracy takes hold,
    Iraqi citizens will have a stake in a common and peaceful future.
        As we advance the cause of freedom in Iraq, our Nation can proceed
    with confidence because we have done this kind of work before. After
    World War II, President Harry Truman believed that the way to help bring
    peace and prosperity to Asia was to plant the seeds of freedom and
    democracy in Japan. Like today, there were many skeptics and pessimists
    who said that the Japanese were not ready for democracy. Fortunately,
    President Harry Truman stuck to his guns. He believed, as I do, in
    freedom's power to transform an adversary into an ally. And because he
    stayed true to his convictions, today Japan is one of the world's freest
    and most prosperous nations and one of America's closest allies in
    keeping the peace. The spread of freedom to Iraq and the Middle East
    requires the same confidence and persistence, and it will lead to the
    same results.
        The people of Iraq are now seeing some of the tangible benefits of
    their new democracy. They see that as freedom advances, their lives are
    improving. Iraqis have approved a bold Constitution that guarantees the
    rule of law and freedom of assembly and property rights and freedom of
    speech and the press and women's rights and the right to vote. They see
    their freedom increasingly being defended by their own soldiers and
    police instead of foreign forces, and they see that freedom is bringing
    opportunity and a better life.
        The Iraqis still face many challenges, including security and
    reconstruction and economic reform. But they are building a strong
    democracy that can handle these challenges and that will be a model for
    the Middle East. Freedom in Iraq will inspire reformers from Damascus to
    Tehran. This new Iraq shares our deepest values, and it shares our most
    determined enemies. By helping Iraqis build a nation that can govern
    itself, sustain itself, and defend itself, we will gain an ally in the
    war on terror and a partner for peace in the Middle East.
        The stakes in Iraq are high, and we will not leave until victory has
    been achieved. Today, there's an intense debate about the importance of
    Iraq to the war on terror. The constant headlines about car bombings and
    killings have led some to ask whether our presence in Iraq has made
    America less secure. This view presumes that if we were not in Iraq, the
    terrorists would be leaving us alone. The reality is that the terrorists
    have been targeting America for years, long before we ever set foot in
    Iraq.
        We were not in Iraq in 1993, when the terrorists tried to blow up
    the World Trade Center in New York. We were not in Iraq in 1998, when
    the terrorists bombed our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. We were not
    in Iraq in 2000, when the terrorists killed 17 American sailors aboard
    the USS Cole. There wasn't a single American soldier in Iraq on
    September the 11th, 2001, when the terrorists murdered nearly 3,000
    people in the worst attack on our home since Pearl Harbor.
        These acts are part of a grand strategy by the terrorists. Their
    stated objective is to drive the United States and coalition forces out
    of the Middle East so they can gain control of Iraq and use that country
    as a base from which to launch attacks against America, overthrow
    moderate governments in the Middle East, and establish a totalitarian
    Islamic empire that stretches from Spain to Indonesia. Hear the words of
    the terrorists. In a letter to the terrorist leader Zarqawi, the Al Qaida leader Zawahiri has outlined plans that will unfold in several stages. These
    are his words: ``Expel the Americans from Iraq. Establish an Islamic
    authority over as much territory as you can to spread its power in Iraq.
    Extend the jihad wave to secular countries neighboring Iraq,'' end
    quote.
        To achieve these goals, the terrorists are targeting innocent men,
    women, and children. The enemy has only the ability to

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    create chaos for the cameras with spectacular acts of violence. They
    know they cannot defeat us militarily. So they're trying to break our
    will in the hopes of getting America to leave the battlefield early, and
    they cite Vietnam as a reason they can prevail. Zawahiri, in his letter to Zarqawi, wrote, ``The aftermath of the collapse of the American
    power in Vietnam and how they ran and left their agents is noteworthy.''
    In the past, Al Qaida has said that American pullouts of Lebanon and
    Somalia showed them that America is weak and could be made to run. And
    now the terrorists think they can make America run in Iraq. There's only
    one way the terrorists can prevail, if we lose our nerve and leave
    before the job is done. And that is not going to happen on my watch.
        Some in Washington are calling for a rapid and complete withdrawal
    of our forces in Iraq. They say that our presence there is the cause for
    instability in Iraq and that the answer is to set a deadline to
    withdraw. I disagree. I've listened carefully to all the arguments, and
    there are four reasons why I believe that setting an artificial deadline
    would be a recipe for disaster.
        First, setting an artificial deadline would send the wrong message
    to the Iraqis. As Iraqis are risking their lives for democracy, it would
    tell them that America is more interested in leaving than helping them
    succeed, put at risk all the democratic progress they have made over the
    past year.
        Secondly, setting an artificial deadline would send the wrong
    message to the enemy. It would tell them that if they wait long enough,
    America will cut and run. It would vindicate the terrorists' tactics of
    beheadings and suicide bombings and mass murder. It would embolden the
    terrorists and invite new attacks on America.
        Third, setting an artificial deadline would send the wrong message
    to the region and the world. It would tell our friends and supporters
    that America is a weak and unreliable ally, and that when the going gets
    tough, America will retreat.
        Finally, setting an artificial deadline would send the wrong message
    to the most important audience, our troops on the frontline. It would
    tell them that America is abandoning the mission they are risking their
    lives to achieve and that the sacrifice of their comrades killed in this
    struggle has been in vain. I make this pledge to the families of the
    fallen: We will carry on the fight; we will complete their mission; and
    we will win.
        Victory will be achieved by meeting certain objectives: When the
    terrorists and Saddamists can no longer threaten Iraq's democracy; when
    the Iraqi security forces can protect their own people; and when Iraq is
    not a safe haven for terrorists to plot attacks against our country.
    These objectives, not timetables set by politicians in Washington, will
    drive our force levels in Iraq. As Iraqis stand up, we will stand down.
    And when victory is achieved, our troops will then come home with the
    honor they have earned.
        One of the blessings of our free society is that we can debate these
    issues openly, even in a time of war. Most of the debate has been a
    credit to our democracy, but some have launched irresponsible charges.
    They say that we act because of oil, that we act in Iraq because of
    Israel or because we misled the American people. Some of the most
    irresponsible comments about manipulating intelligence have come from
    politicians who saw the same intelligence I saw and then voted to
    authorize the use of force against Saddam Hussein. These charges are pure politics. They hurt the morale
    of our troops. Whatever our differences in Washington, our men and women
    in uniform deserve to know that once our politicians vote to send them
    into harm's way, our support will be with them in good days and bad, and
    we will settle for nothing less than complete victory.
        Before this victory comes, we still have a lot of difficult work
    ahead. We've made

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    real progress in the last 2\1/2\ years, and the terrorists see this
    progress, and they're determined to stop it. These enemies are not going
    to give up because of a successful election. They know that as democracy
    takes root in Iraq, their hateful ideology will suffer a devastating
    blow. So we can expect violence to continue.
        We can also expect that the elections will be followed by days of
    uncertainty. We may not know for certain who's won the elections until
    the early part of January, and that's important for our citizens to
    understand. It's going to take awhile. It's also going to take awhile
    for them to form a Government. The work ahead will require patience of
    the Iraqi people and require our patience as well. Yet we must remember
    that a free Iraq is in our interests, because a free Iraq will be a
    beacon of hope. And as the Middle East grows in liberty, the American
    people will become safer and our Nation will be more secure.
        The work ahead will also require continued sacrifice. Yet we can be
    confident, because history has shown the power of freedom to overcome
    tyranny. And we can be confident because we have on our side the
    greatest force for freedom in human history, the men and women of the
    United States Armed Forces.
        One of these men was a Marine lieutenant named Ryan
    McGlothlin from Lebanon, Virginia. Ryan
    was a bright young man who had everything going for him, and he always
    wanted to serve our Nation. He was a valedictorian of his high school
    class. He graduated from William & Mary with near-perfect grade
    averages, and he was on a full scholarship at Stanford where he was
    working toward a doctorate in chemistry.
        Two years after the attacks of September the 11th, the young
    man who had the world at his feet came
    home from Stanford for a visit. He told his dad, ``I just don't feel like I'm doing something that
    matters. I want to serve my country. I want to protect our lands from
    terrorists, so I joined the Marines.'' When his father asked him if
    there was some other way to serve, Ryan replied that he felt a special
    obligation to step up because he had been given so much. Ryan didn't
    support me in the last election, but he supported our mission in Iraq,
    and he supported his fellow marines.
        Ryan was killed last month fighting
    the terrorists near the--Iraq's Syrian border. In his pocket was a poem
    that Ryan had read at his high school graduation, and it represented the
    spirit of this fine marine. The poem was called ``Don't Quit.''
        In our fight to keep America free, we'll never quit. We've lost
    wonderful Americans like Ryan McGlothlin.
    We cherish the memory of each one. We pray the loved ones--pray for the
    loved ones they've left behind, and we count it a privilege to be
    citizens of a country they served. We also honor them by acknowledging
    that their sacrifice has brought us to this moment, the birth of a free
    and sovereign Iraqi nation that will be a friend of the United States
    and a force for good in a troubled region of the world.
        The story of freedom has just begun in the Middle East. And when the
    history of these days is written, it will tell how America once again
    defended its own freedom by using liberty to transform nations from
    bitter foes to strong allies. And history will say that this generation,
    like generations before, laid the foundation of peace for generations to
    come.
        May God bless you all.

    Note: The President spoke at 11:08 a.m. in the Ronald Reagan Building
    and International Trade Center. In his remarks, he referred to Joseph
    Gildenhorn, chairman, Board of Trustees, Woodrow Wilson International
    Center for Scholars; former President Saddam Hussein of Iraq; senior Al
    Qaida associate Abu Musab Al Zarqawi; Usama bin Laden, leader of the Al
    Qaida terrorist organization; Ayman Al-Zawahiri, founder of the Egyptian
    Islamic Jihad and senior Al Qaida associate. The Office of the

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    Press Secretary also released a Spanish language transcript of these
    remarks.