    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: George W. Bush (2006, Book II)]
    [October 2, 2006]
    [Pages 1743-1749]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at a Reception for Congressional Candidate Dean Heller in Reno, Nevada
    October 2, 2006

        Thank you all for coming. It's good to be back in Reno. I appreciate
    the invitation. I'm here to say as clearly as I can, Dean Heller is the
    right person for the United States Congress. And I want to thank you for
    helping him.
        I appreciate the fantastic fundraiser. It's a good sign, Dean, when
    your friends and neighbors are willing to put a little hard-earned cash
    into the hat in order to help you. [Laughter] But he's going to need
    more than your money; he's going to need your time. And so coming down
    the stretch, I call on the grassroots activists and those who have been
    participating in campaigns to put up the signs and go to your houses of
    worship or your community centers and say, ``We've got a good man in
    Dean Heller; he loves his family; he loves his country; he loves the
    people of the Second Congressional District. Let's send him to
    Washington, DC.''

    [[Page 1744]]

        All he's got to do is get his family to go to work for him.
    [Laughter] I met a bunch of them today. I'm really proud to be with--
    [laughter]--with Lynne and the four children. I like a man who knows
    his priorities. We need people in Washington who have got the right
    priorities. And the priorities--he and I share a priority: our faith,
    our family, and our country.
        Now, I wasn't Dean's first choice. [Laughter] He wisely had put in a
    request for Laura--[laughter]--who sends her love
    and her best to all our friends out here in Reno, in Nevada. We're
    blessed with friends. I wouldn't be standing here without the people of
    this good State voting for me, not once but twice. And in selecting me,
    you selected a really fine person to be the First Lady. I can't tell you
    how proud I am of Laura. I am a lucky man that she said yes when I asked
    her to marry me, and some of her friends in Texas wondered whether it
    was a wise decision or not, but we're doing great.
        And we're really proud--I'm proud to be here. She, like me, understands Dean Heller will make a great
    United States Congressman. I want to thank his predecessor, Jim
    Gibbons. I've been honored to work with Jim on
    behalf of the people. Another predecessor is here; Barbara
    Vucanovich is with us. Barbara, it's good
    to see you. I'm proud you're here. Mother and
    Dad send their best. [Laughter] This
    Barbara knows the other Barbara. [Laughter]
        I want to thank Kenny Guinn and
    Dema for joining us today. Kenny Guinn has been a
    great Governor for the State of Nevada. We're proud to call him friend,
    and I'm proud to call Dema friend. You know, one of the interesting
    things that we get to do is to share the White House with our friends
    from around the country. We've had the Governor and his wife spend the
    night with us when the National Governors were in town. And I remember
    Kenny walking around the White House saying, ``My goodness, I can't
    believe I'm here.'' [Laughter] And then he looked at me. [Laughter]
        I hope you all support Jim Gibbons to
    replace Governor Kenny Guinn. And now that
    I'm going down the election roster and--make sure you put Ensign back in too; he's a great United States Senator.
        I want to thank Brian Krolicki; he's
    going to be the Lieutenant Governor of the State of Nevada. Thanks for
    coming, Brian. We've got the mayor here, Bob Cashell. Bob, good to see you again. Mr. Mayor, proud you're
    here. And all the local officials--it's a good sign when the local
    officials are coming. It's when they stay away from the rallies, is when
    you get nervous. [Laughter]
        I want to thank you all. It really is important you're here.
    Obviously, this is a race that my administration considers to be an
    important race. That's why I got on the airplane after meeting with the
    Prime Minister of Turkey to come out
    here and help Dean.
        I want to thank Troy Marston; he led the
    Pledge of Allegiance--Private 1st Class, 3d Brigade, 101st Airborne,
    recently returned from Iraq. It is an honor to be the Commander in Chief
    of the finest military in the world. And the reason we're the finest
    military in the world is because of the men and women who have
    volunteered to wear the uniform of the United States of America. And
    being--one of your jobs and one of my jobs is to make sure our troops
    have all that is necessary to do their job and protect the United States
    of America.
        I've been looking forward to this campaign because it gives me a
    chance to travel around the country making it clear there are
    significant differences in what we believe and what the other bunch
    believes. You take taxes, for example. You know, Dean talked about the
    fact that when we came in, we had a recession and then there was a
    terrorist attack and then we went to war and there was corporate
    scandals; there was hurricanes and high gasoline

    [[Page 1745]]

    prices. And yet this economy is growing. And the reason it's growing,
    and the primary reason in my mind it's growing is because we cut the
    taxes on the working people; we cut the taxes on the small-business
    owners; we cut taxes on families with children.
        We put an end to the marriage penalty--or started to put an end to
    the marriage penalty. I really don't understand a tax code that
    penalizes marriage. [Laughter] We ought to be encouraging marriage in
    the United States. The tax cuts we passed have worked.
        And this election campaign is one in which the people have got a
    stark choice. You listen to those Democrats in Washington talk. I don't
    know how they're talking in Nevada, but I can tell how they're talking
    in Washington. And they're saying, ``Well, we're not going to--we're
    going to let these tax cuts expire,'' see, hoping the American people
    don't pay attention to those words.
        See, if you let the tax cuts expire--in other words, if you don't
    make the tax cuts permanent--it means your taxes are going to go up.
    It's a tax increase. The way I like to put it is, if the Democrats take
    control of the United States Congress, they're going to have their hand
    in your pocket; they're going to be running up your taxes. Raising the
    taxes on the people who work for a living, raising the taxes on the
    farmers and ranchers, raising the taxes on the small-business owners is
    bad economic policy. And that's why we need Dean Heller in the United
    States Congress.
        Oh, you'll hear them tell you up there, or over there, they'll say,
    ``Well, we need to raise taxes just on some of you in order to balance
    the budget.'' That's not the way Washington, DC, works. They'll raise
    your taxes, and they'll figure out new ways to spend your money. The
    best way to balance the budget is to keep progrowth economic policies in
    place so this economy grows and to prioritize how we spend your money.
    And the priorities I've set for the United States Congress is winning
    this war on terror and making sure we've got what it takes to defend the
    American people.
        You know, it's amazing what happens when you grow the economy. See,
    cutting taxes is counterintuitive for some in Washington, but when you
    reduce taxes, it causes the economy to grow. And when the economy grows,
    there's more tax revenues coming in. And that's what's happened
    recently. And that's why we're cutting the deficit in half prior to the
    goal I set in 2009. We need fiscally responsible people in Washington,
    DC. And Dean Heller will be a fine Congressman when it comes to watching
    your money.
        We need people in Washington, DC, who understand that we need to
    make sure health care is available and affordable. Now, there's an
    interesting debate up there in the Nation's Capital, and it's this: who
    best to decide how to make decisions for health care, who best to make
    that decision--the Federal Government, or the doctors and patients? We
    believe that the doctors and patients should be making the health care
    decisions in the United States of America. And one way to make sure
    health care is available and affordable is to do something about these
    junk lawsuits that are running good doctors out of practice.
        Now, I'm looking forward to working with Dean on good domestic
    policy that keeps this economy growing and keeps the power--
    decisionmaking power in the hands of the people. And I'm looking forward
    to working with him to do our most solemn duty, and that's to protect
    you.
        You know, when I ran in 2000--I remember campaigning here--you know,
    I didn't want to be a war President. As a matter of fact, anybody who
    says, ``Vote for me; I want to be a war President''--don't vote for him.
    [Laughter] No one should ever wish that. But an enemy declared war on
    us, a war we didn't want, but it's a war we must engage. September the
    11th made it abundantly clear that the

    [[Page 1746]]

    most solemn responsibility of the Federal Government is to protect the
    American people.
        We're fighting an enemy that knows no rules. They're inhumane. They
    are evil people who have taken the religion and kill in the name of that
    religion to achieve geopolitical objectives. They're bound by a common
    ideology. They want to establish a caliphate that ranges from Indonesia
    to Spain. I'm not making this up. I'm simply repeating that which we
    have learned about the enemy from their own words.
        You can't negotiate with these people. Therapy is not going to work.
    [Laughter] The best way to deal with this enemy is to bring them to
    justice before they hurt the American people again.
        You know, it's a difficult task to protect the homeland, because
    we've got to be right 100 percent of the time, and these killers have
    got to be right once. And therefore, I thought it was important to make
    sure that those on the frontline of fighting terror and the extremists
    had all the tools necessary to protect the American people.
        And that's why I called upon Congress to eliminate the walls and
    barriers that had arisen over time between the intelligence services and
    the criminal justice people, so they can share intelligence that is
    necessary to protect you. And that's why I thought it was important to
    set up a program that said, if Al Qaida or an Al Qaida affiliate is
    making a phone call into the United States of America, we need to know
    why in order to protect the American people.
        And I want our fellow citizens to look at who voted for those
    proposals and what political party voted against them. There's a clear
    difference of opinion about how to protect this homeland.
        You know, recently, we just had an important debate in Washington,
    DC. It's a debate over whether or not the Central Intelligence Agency
    should have a program that enabled our professionals to question high-
    value detainees to determine if they had information that could help
    protect the homeland. Obviously, I thought that was an important
    program. I submitted the bill after a speech in the East Room of the
    White House. I submitted that bill to the Congress. See, I understand
    the nature of the information we received from people such as Khalid
    Sheikh Mohammed; he is the mastermind
    of the September the 11th attacks.
        I'll be signing that bill pretty soon. The Congress passed the bill,
    but I want you all to remember, when you go to the polls here in Nevada,
    what political party supported the President to make sure we had the
    tools necessary to protect the American people, and which political
    party didn't.
        I have made the decision that the best way to protect the American
    people is to get on the offense against this enemy and stay on the
    offense. There is a difference of opinion in Washington. If you listen
    closely to some of the leaders of the Democrat Party, it sounds like
    they think the best way to protect the American people is, wait until
    we're attacked again. That's not the way it's going to be under my
    administration. We will stay on the offense, we will defeat the enemy
    overseas so we do not have to face them here at home.
        And it's hard work, but it's necessary work. It's the calling of the
    21st century. It's the call of a generation to determine whether we have
    the will and the vision to protect the American people.
        Now, the lesson I have learned from September the 11th was two--
    one--many, but two of the most notable ones were, if you find somebody
    harboring a terrorist, they're equally as guilty as the terrorists and
    must be held to account. And that's why we removed the Taliban from
    Afghanistan and freed 25 million people from the clutches of a barbaric
    regime.
        And I saw a threat in Iraq, and so did Members of the United States
    Congress and people on the United Nations Security Council. Saddam
    Hussein was a state sponsor of terror. He had
    killed thousands of his own people. He had used weapons of

    [[Page 1747]]

    mass destruction. He was a sworn enemy of the United States. He paid
    families of suicide bombers. He was a threat, and the United Nations
    said that loud and clear. It was his choice to make, of whether or not
    he wanted war. He chose war, and the world is better off without Saddam
    Hussein in power.
        And I think it's a legitimate question to ask candidates running for
    Congress or United States Senators who have been critical of policy,
    whether or not they think the world would be better off with Saddam
    Hussein in power. You know, when this
    question was asked to a senior member of the Intelligence Committee, the
    Democrat member, he
    said, ``Yes, the world would be better off, given the world today, with
    Saddam Hussein in power.''
        Well, I just see it differently. I think it's important we take
    threats before they come home to hurt us. America cannot wait to be
    attacked again. In order to protect the United States of America, we
    must stay on the offense, and we will do so.
        The other thing you hear coming out of the Nation's Capital is
    whether Iraq is a distraction on the war on terror: You know, it's not
    part of the war on terror. I happen to think it's a central front in the
    war on terror. Success in Iraq will help make this country more secure.
    Failure in Iraq will mean that we will have left behind a treacherous
    world for children and our grandchildren.
        But if you don't take my word, take the word of Usama bin Laden or Mr. Zawahiri
    about the importance of Iraq. The number one and two of Al Qaida have
    made it clear that Iraq is the central front in the war on terror, and
    their ambitions are to drive the United States out of Iraq and to
    abandon the 12 million people who went to the polls and to say it's not
    worth it. They believe it's worth it. Al Qaida thinks it's necessary in
    order to defeat America. They want us to leave so they can have a safe
    haven from which to plot and plan new attacks against the United States
    of America.
        Imagine a world where moderate governments have been toppled by
    extremists and extremists get ahold of oil. If you think it was tough at
    $70 a barrel, imagine what it will be like when these extremists get
    ahold of a valuable resource and say to the free world, ``Do it our way,
    or we're going to have an unbelievable economic peril.'' And couple with
    that an Iran with a nuclear weapon, and 20 or 30 years from now, the
    world will look back and say, ``What happened to America? How come they
    couldn't see the threat?''
        The threat is real. We will help those 12 million people who
    demanded freedom in Iraq achieve a stable democracy that can govern
    itself, defend itself, and sustain itself, and America and generations
    of Americans will be more secure.
        You know, people ask me all the time, do you really think people in
    the Middle East want to be free? It's a legitimate question, I guess.
    But it belies the fact that we believe in the universality of freedom.
    Freedom is not just an American possession. It's not our gift to the
    world. I happen to believe there is an Almighty, and I believe one of
    the great gifts of that Almighty is the desire to be free, to every man,
    woman, and child on the face of the Earth.
        So in the short term, our strategy is clear: We will stay on the
    offense; we will bring people to justice before they can hurt us again.
    In the long term, we will defeat the ideology of hatred with an ideology
    of hope.
        I have made it clear to the American people, I view the struggle
    we're in as the great ideological struggle of the 21st century. It's
    akin to the cold war in some ways. It is the difference between tyranny
    and freedom, between moderation and extremism. Make no mistake about it:
    Most moms in the Middle East yearn for the same things our mom's want,
    which is a peaceful world in which to raise their children. Most people
    in the Middle East long

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    for peace. What we're dealing with are radicals and extremists who have
    a dark vision for the future. And the fundamental question facing this
    country is, will we have the nerve, will we have the willpower, will we
    have the perseverance to do the hard work today so a generation of
    younger Americans can grow up in a more peaceful world?
        And I take great hope, and I'm optimistic about achieving our
    objectives. First, I know how good our military is. Point them in the
    right direction, give them a clear goal, and they'll achieve the
    objective. Second, I know how hard people are working to protect you.
    Our intelligence is getting better. See, it's a different kind of war.
    You used to--could measure progress based upon the number of airplanes
    in the air or number of ships on the sea. It's hard to measure progress
    in this kind of war. But I'm just telling you, we're dismantling Al
    Qaida one person at a time. We're on the hunt. And it's just a matter of
    time before Usama bin Laden gets the justice
    he deserves.
        You know, let me conclude by sharing this story with you. You might
    remember, I had an interesting experience recently when I went down with
    the former Prime Minister of Japan, my
    buddy, Koizumi, who just left office recently. And we went down to
    Elvis's place--[laughter]--in Memphis. It was an interesting experience.
    [Laughter] I went there for a couple of reasons. One, I wanted to see
    Elvis's place; I'd never been--[Laughter]--60 years old and had never
    been to Graceland. Plus, Laura wanted to go.
    Secondly, Prime Minister Koizumi really wanted to go. [Laughter] He
    likes Elvis; he likes his songs; he likes everything about Elvis.
        Thirdly, I wanted to tell a story about what's possible and what
    will happen if we keep faith in the values that led to our formation and
    has led to us doing hard work in order to keep the peace. You see, the
    story I tell is the one that started with 18-year-old George H.W.
    Bush, my dad, when he joined the United
    States Navy to fight the sworn enemy, the Japanese. A lot of other
    people did too. It was a brutal war. A lot of folks died.
        And I find it interesting--not only interesting, I find it ironic in
    many ways that some 60 years later, the son of the 18-year-old fighter
    pilot was on Air Force One, flying to
    Memphis, Tennessee, with the Prime Minister of the former
    enemy, talking about how to keep the
    peace. We talked about North Korea. We talked about the fact that the
    way you defeat extremists and radicals is by helping people realize the
    blessings of liberty. Isn't that interesting? The Prime Minister of the
    former enemy talking about the blessings of liberty and freedom.
        Something happened between World War II and 2006, and that was,
    Japan adopted a Japanese-style democracy. Liberty has the capacity to
    transform enemies into allies. Liberty has the capacity to transform
    regions of hate into regions of hope. What you're seeing is the
    beginning of a victory against an ideology of extremists, by an ideology
    that yields the blessings of peace, an ideology that enables the sons of
    former enemies to sit down, crafting strategy to make the world a better
    place for generations to come.
        And that's what's going to happen some day. Elected leaders in the
    Middle East will be sitting down with an American President, talking
    about how to keep the peace. And our children and our grandchildren will
    be better off for it.
        And those are the stakes in this election. It's an important
    election. And we need people in the United States Congress who see the
    world the way it is, not the way we would hope it would be now. We have
    to have clear-eyed realists on the one hand but people who have got
    faith in the great values, the universal values that can enable us to
    look back when history passes by and say, we did our jobs. We were
    called to serve, and we served by leaving behind a

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    better world--and Dean Heller is such a man.
        Thanks for coming. God bless.

    Note: The President spoke at 5:29 p.m. at the Mercury Air Center. In his
    remarks, he referred to Lynne Heller, wife of congressional candidate
    Dean Heller; Gov. Kenny C. Guinn of Nevada and his wife, Dema; Mayor Bob
    Cashell of Reno, NV; Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey;
    Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, senior Al Qaida leader responsible for planning
    the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, who was captured in Pakistan
    on March 1, 2003; and former President Saddam Hussein of Iraq. He also
    referred to S. 3930, the ``Military Commissions Act of 2006.''