    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: George W. Bush (2006, Book II)]
    [September 5, 2006]
    [Pages 1600-1609]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks to the Military Officers Association of America
    September 5, 2006

        Thank you all. Please be seated. General Hendrix, thank you for the invitation to be here. Thanks for the
    kind introduction. I'm honored to stand with the men and women of the
    Military Officers Association of America. I appreciate the board of
    directors who are here and the leaders who have given me this platform
    from which to speak. I'm proud to be here with active members of the
    United States military. Thank you for your service. I'm proud to be your
    Commander in Chief.
        I want to--pleased also to stand with members of the diplomatic
    corps, including many representing nations that have been attacked by Al
    Qaida and its terrorist allies since September the 11th, 2001. Your
    presence here reminds us that we're engaged in a global war against an
    enemy that threatens all civilized nations. And today, the civilized
    world stands together to defend our freedom; we stand together to defeat
    the terrorists; and we're working to secure the peace for generations to
    come.
        I appreciate my Attorney General joining us today, Al
    Gonzales. Thank you for being here. The
    Secretary of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff, is with us. Three Members of the United States
    Senate--I might say, three important Members of the United States
    Senate--Senate President pro tem Ted Stevens of Alaska. Thank you for joining us, Senator--chairman of
    the Appropriations Committee, Senator Thad Cochran of Mississippi; the chairman of the Armed Services
    Committee, John WarnerNM/ of Virginia.
        I thank Norb Ryan, as well, for his
    leadership. I do appreciate all the folks that are at Walter Reed who
    have joined us today. I'm going to tell the parents of our troops, we
    provide great health care to those who wear the uniform. I'm proud of
    those folks at Bethesda and Walter Reed--are providing you the best
    possible care to help you recover from your injuries. Thank you for your
    courage. Thank you

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    for joining us here today. May God bless you in your recovery.
        Next week, America will mark the fifth anniversary of September the
    11th, 2001, terrorist attacks. As this day approaches, it brings with it
    a flood of painful memories. We remember the horror of watching planes
    fly into the World Trade Center and seeing the towers collapse before
    our eyes. We remember the sight of the Pentagon broken and in flames. We
    remember the rescue workers who rushed into burning buildings to save
    lives, knowing they might never emerge again. We remember the brave
    passengers who charged the cockpit of their hijacked plane and stopped
    the terrorists from reaching their target and killing more innocent
    civilians. We remember the cold brutality of the enemy who inflicted
    this harm on our country--an enemy whose leader, Usama bin Laden, declared the massacre of nearly 3,000 people
    that day, I quote, ``an unparalleled and magnificent feat of valor,
    unmatched by any in humankind before them.''
        In 5 years since our Nation was attacked, Al Qaida and terrorists it
    has inspired have continued to attack across the world. They've killed
    the innocent in Europe and Africa and the Middle East, in central Asia
    and the Far East and beyond. Most recently they attempted to strike
    again in the most ambitious plot since the attacks of September the
    11th, a plan to blow up passenger planes headed for America, over the
    Atlantic Ocean.
        Five years after our Nation was attacked, the terrorist danger
    remains. We're a nation at war, and America and her allies are fighting
    this war with relentless determination across the world. Together with
    our coalition partners, we've removed terrorist sanctuaries, disrupted
    their finances, killed and captured key operatives, broken up terrorist
    cells in America and other nations, and stopped new attacks before
    they're carried out. We're on the offense against the terrorists on
    every battlefront, and we'll accept nothing less than complete victory.
        In the 5 years since our Nation was attacked, we've also learned a
    great deal about the enemy we face in this war. We've learned about them
    through videos and audio recordings and letters and statements they've
    posted on web sites. We've learned about them from captured enemy
    documents that the terrorists have never meant for us to see. Together,
    these documents and statements have given us clear insight into the mind
    of our enemies: their ideology, their ambitions, and their strategy to
    defeat us.
        We know what the terrorists intend to do because they've told us.
    And we need to take their words seriously. So today I'm going to
    describe, in the terrorists' own words, what they believe, what they
    hope to accomplish, and how they intend to accomplish it. I'll discuss
    how the enemy has adapted in the wake of our sustained offensive against
    them and the threat posed by different strains of violent Islamic
    radicalism. I'll explain the strategy we're pursuing to protect America
    by defeating the terrorists on the battlefield and defeating their
    hateful ideology in the battle of ideas.
        The terrorists who attacked us on September the 11th, 2001, are men
    without conscience, but they're not madmen. They kill in the name of a
    clear and focused ideology, a set of beliefs that are evil but not
    insane. These Al Qaida terrorists, and those who share their ideology,
    are violent Sunni extremists. They're driven by a radical and perverted
    vision of Islam that rejects tolerance, crushes all dissent, and
    justifies the murder of innocent men, women, and children in the pursuit
    of political power. They hope to establish a violent political utopia
    across the Middle East, which they call a caliphate, where all would be
    ruled according to their hateful ideology. Usama bin Laden has called the 9/11 attacks, in his words, ``a great
    step towards the unity of Muslims and establishing the righteous
    caliphate.''
        This caliphate would be a totalitarian Islamic empire encompassing
    all current and

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    former Muslim lands, stretching from Europe to north Africa, the Middle
    East, and Southeast Asia. We know this because Al Qaida has told us.
    About 2 months ago, the terrorist
    Zawahiri--he's Al Qaida's second in command--declared that Al Qaida
    intends to impose its rule in ``every land that was a home for Islam,
    from Spain to Iraq.'' He went on to say, ``The whole world is an open
    field for us.''
        We know what this radical empire would look like in practice,
    because we saw how the radicals imposed their ideology on the people of
    Afghanistan. Under the rule of the Taliban and Al Qaida, Afghanistan was
    a totalitarian nightmare, a land where women were imprisoned in their
    homes; men were beaten for missing prayer meetings; girls could not go
    to school; and children were forbidden the smallest pleasures, like
    flying kites. Religious police roamed the streets, beating and detaining
    civilians for perceived offenses. Women were publicly whipped. Summary
    executions were held in Kabul's soccer stadium in front of cheering
    mobs. And Afghanistan was turned into a launching pad for horrific
    attacks against America and other parts of the civilized world,
    including many Muslim nations.
        The goal of these Sunni extremists is to remake the entire Muslim
    world in their radical image. In pursuit of their imperial aims, these
    extremists say there can be no compromise or dialog with those they call
    infidels, a category that includes America, the world's free nations,
    Jews, and all Muslims who reject their extreme vision of Islam. They
    reject the possibility of peaceful coexistence with the free world.
    Again, hear the words of Usama bin Laden
    earlier this year: ``Death is better than living on this Earth with the
    unbelievers among us.''
        These radicals have declared their uncompromising hostility to
    freedom. It is foolish to think that you can negotiate with them. We see
    the uncompromising nature of the enemy in many captured terrorist
    documents. Here are just two examples. After the liberation of
    Afghanistan, coalition forces searching through a terrorist safe house
    in that country found a copy of the Al Qaida charter. This charter
    states that ``There will be continuing enmity until everyone believes in
    Allah. We will not meet the enemy halfway. There will be no room for
    dialog with them.'' Another document was found in 2000 by British police
    during an antiterrorist raid in London, a grisly Al Qaida manual that
    includes chapters with titles such as ``Guidelines for Beating and
    Killing Hostages.'' This manual declares that their vision of Islam
    ``does not make a truce with unbelief, but rather confronts it.'' The
    confrontation calls for ``the dialog of bullets; the ideals of
    assassination, bombing, and destruction; and the diplomacy of the cannon
    and machine gun,'' end quote.
        Still other captured documents show Al Qaida's strategy for
    infiltrating Muslim nations, establishing terrorist enclaves,
    overthrowing governments, and building their totalitarian empire. We see
    this strategy laid out in a captured Al Qaida document found during a
    recent raid in Iraq, which describes their plans to infiltrate and to
    take over Iraq's western Anbar Province. The document lays out an
    elaborate Al Qaida governing structure for the region that includes an
    education department, a social services department, a justice
    department, and an execution unit responsible for ``sorting out, arrest,
    murder, and destruction.''
        According to their public statements, countries that have--they have
    targeted stretch from the Middle East to Africa to Southeast Asia.
    Through this strategy, Al Qaida and its allies intend to create
    numerous, decentralized operating bases across the world, from which
    they can plan new attacks and advance their vision of a unified,
    totalitarian Islamic state that can confront and, eventually, destroy
    the free world.
        These violent extremists know that to realize this vision, they must
    first drive out the main obstacle that stands in their way--the United
    States of America. According

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    to Al Qaida, their strategy to defeat America has two parts. First,
    they're waging a campaign of terror across the world. They're targeting
    our forces abroad, hoping that the American people will grow tired of
    casualties and give up the fight. And they're targeting America's
    financial centers and economic infrastructure at home, hoping to
    terrorize us and cause our economy to collapse.
        Bin Laden calls this his ``bleed-until-
    bankruptcy plan,'' end quote. And he cited the attacks of 9/11 as
    evidence that such a plan can succeed. With the 9/11 attacks, Usama bin
    Laden says, ``Al Qaida spent $500,000 on the event, while America lost--
    according to the lowest estimate--$500 billion,'' meaning that every
    dollar of Al Qaida defeated a million dollars of America. Bin Laden
    concludes from this experience that ``America is definitely a great
    power, with unbelievable military strength and a vibrant economy, but
    all these have been built on a very weak and hollow foundation.'' He
    went on to say, ``Therefore, it is very easy to target the flimsy base
    and concentrate on their weak points, and even if we're able to target
    one-tenth of these weak points, we will be able to crush and destroy
    them.''
        Secondly, along with this campaign of terror, the enemy has a
    propaganda strategy. Usama bin Laden laid
    out this strategy in a letter to the Taliban leader, Mullah Omar, that coalition forces uncovered in Afghanistan in
    2002. In it bin Laden says that Al Qaida intends to launch, in his
    words, ``a media campaign to create a wedge between the American people
    and their Government.'' This media campaign, bin Laden says, will send
    the American people a number of messages, including ``that their
    Government will bring them more losses, in finances and casualties.''
    And he goes on to say that ``They are being sacrificed to serve the big
    investors, especially the Jews.'' Bin Laden says that by delivering
    these messages, Al Qaida ``aims at creating pressure from the American
    people on the American Government to stop their campaign against
    Afghanistan.''
        Bin Laden and his allies are absolutely
    convinced they can succeed in forcing America to retreat and causing our
    economic collapse. They believe our Nation is weak and decadent and
    lacking in patience and resolve. And they're wrong. Usama bin Laden has
    written that the ``defeat of American forces in Beirut in 1983 is proof
    America does not have the stomach to stay in the fight.'' He's declared
    that ``In Somalia, the United States pulled out, trailing
    disappointment, defeat, and failure behind it.'' And last year, the
    terrorist Zawahiri declared that
    Americans ``know better than others that there is no hope in victory.
    The Vietnam specter is closing every outlet.''
        These terrorists hope to drive America and our coalition out of
    Afghanistan so they can restore the safe haven they lost when coalition
    forces drove them out 5 years ago. But they've made clear that the most
    important front in their struggle against America is Iraq, the nation
    bin Laden has declared the ``capital of the
    caliphate.'' Hear the words of bin Laden: ``I now address the whole
    Islamic nation: Listen and understand. The most serious issue today for
    the whole world is this third world war that is raging in Iraq.'' He
    calls it ``a war of destiny between infidelity and Islam.'' He says,
    ``The whole world is watching this war,'' and that it will end in
    ``victory and glory or misery and humiliation.'' For Al Qaida, Iraq is
    not a distraction from their war on America; it is the central
    battlefield where the outcome of this struggle will be decided.
        Here is what Al Qaida says they will do if they succeed in driving
    us out of Iraq. The terrorist Zawahiri
    has said that Al Qaida will proceed with ``several incremental goals.
    The first stage: Expel the Americans from Iraq. The second stage:
    Establish an Islamic authority or emirate, then develop it and support
    it until it achieves

    [[Page 1604]]

    the level of caliphate. The third stage: Extend the jihad wave to the
    secular countries neighboring Iraq. And the fourth stage: The clash with
    Israel.''
        These evil men know that a fundamental threat to their aspirations
    is a democratic Iraq that can govern itself, sustain itself, and defend
    itself. They know that given a choice, the Iraqi people will never
    choose to live in the totalitarian state the extremists hope to
    establish. And that is why we must not and we will not give the enemy
    victory in Iraq by deserting the Iraqi people.
        Last year, the terrorist Zarqawi declared in a message posted on the
    Internet that democracy ``is the essence of infidelity and deviation
    from the right path.'' The Iraqi people disagree. Last December, nearly
    12 million Iraqis from every ethnic and religious community turned out
    to vote in their country's third free election in less than a year. Iraq
    now has a unity government that represents Iraq's diverse population,
    and Al Qaida's top commander in Iraq breathed his last breath.
        Despite these strategic setbacks, the enemy will continue to fight
    freedom's advance in Iraq, because they understand the stakes in this
    war. Again, hear the words of bin Laden in a
    message to the American people earlier this year. He says, ``The war is
    for you or for us to win. If we win it, it means your defeat and
    disgrace forever.''
        Now, I know some of our country hear the terrorists' words and hope
    that they will not or cannot do what they say. History teaches that
    underestimating the words of evil and ambitious men is a terrible
    mistake. In the early 1900s, an exiled lawyer in Europe published a
    pamphlet called ``What Is To Be Done?''--in which he laid out his plan
    to launch a Communist revolution in Russia. The world did not heed
    Lenin's words and paid a terrible price. The Soviet Empire he
    established killed tens of millions and brought the world to the brink
    of thermonuclear war. In the 1920s, a failed Austrian painter published
    a book in which he explained his intention to build an Aryan super-state
    in Germany and take revenge on Europe and eradicate the Jews. The world
    ignored Hitler's words and paid a terrible price. His Nazi regime killed
    millions in the gas chambers and set the world aflame in war before it
    was finally defeated at a terrible cost in lives.
        Bin Laden and his terrorist allies have
    made their intentions as clear as Lenin and Hitler before them. The
    question is, will we listen? Will we pay attention to what these evil
    men say? America and our coalition partners have made our choice. We're
    taking the words of the enemy seriously. We're on the offensive; we will
    not rest; we will not retreat; and we will not withdraw from the fight
    until this threat to civilization has been removed.
        Five years into this struggle, it's important to take stock of
    what's been accomplished and the difficult work that remains. Al Qaida
    has been weakened by our sustained offensive against them. And today, it
    is harder for Al Qaida's leaders to operate freely, to move money, or to
    communicate with their operatives and facilitators. Yet Al Qaida remains
    dangerous and determined. Bin Laden and
    Zawahiri remain in hiding in remote
    regions of this world. Al Qaida continues to adapt in the face of our
    global campaign against them. Increasingly, Al Qaida is taking advantage
    of the Internet to disseminate propaganda and to conduct virtual
    recruitment and virtual training of new terrorists. Al Qaida's leaders
    no longer need to meet face to face with their operatives. They can find
    new suicide bombers and facilitate new terrorist attacks without ever
    laying eyes on those they're training, financing, or sending to strike
    us.
        As Al Qaida changes, the broader terrorist movement is also
    changing, becoming more dispersed and self-directed. More and more,
    we're facing threats from locally established terrorist cells that are
    inspired by Al Qaida's ideology and goals but do not necessarily have
    direct links to Al Qaida, such as training and funding. Some of these

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    groups are made up of homegrown terrorists, militant extremists who were
    born and educated in Western nations, were indoctrinated by radical
    Islamists or attracted to their ideology, and joined the violent
    extremist cause. These locally established cells appear to be
    responsible for a number of attacks and plots, including those in Madrid
    and Canada and other countries across the world.
        As we continue to fight Al Qaida and these Sunni extremists inspired
    by their radical ideology, we also face the threat posed by Shi'a
    extremists who are learning from Al Qaida, increasing their
    assertiveness, and stepping up their threats. Like the vast majority of
    Sunnis, the vast majority of Shi'a across the world reject the vision of
    extremists. And in Iraq, millions of Shi'a have defied terrorist threats
    to vote in free elections and have shown their desire to live in
    freedom. The Shi'a extremists want to deny them this right. This Shi'a
    strain of Islamic radicalism is just as dangerous and just as hostile to
    America and just as determined to establish its brand of hegemony across
    the broader Middle East. The Shi'a extremists have achieved something
    that Al Qaida has so far failed to do. In 1979, they took control of a
    major power, the nation of Iran, subjugating its proud people to a
    regime of tyranny and using that nation's resources to fund the spread
    of terror and pursue their radical agenda.
        Like Al Qaida and the Sunni extremists, the Iranian regime has clear
    aims. They want to drive America out of the region, to destroy Israel,
    and to dominate the broader Middle East. To achieve these aims, they are
    funding and arming terrorist groups like Hizballah, which allow them to
    attack Israel and America by proxy. Hizballah, the source of the current
    instability in Lebanon, has killed more Americans than any terrorist
    organization except Al Qaida. Unlike Al Qaida, they've not yet attacked
    the American homeland. Yet they're directly responsible for the murder
    of hundreds of Americans abroad. It was Hizballah that was behind the
    1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut that killed 241
    Americans. And Saudi Hizballah was behind the 1996 bombing of Khobar
    Towers in Saudi Arabia that killed 19 Americans, an attack conducted by
    terrorists who we believe were working with Iranian officials.
        Just as we take the words of the Sunni extremists seriously, we must
    take the words of the Shi'a extremists seriously. Listen to the words of
    Hizballah's leader, the terrorist Nasrallah,
    who has declared his hatred of America. He says, ``Let the entire world
    hear me. Our hostility to the Great Satan, America, is absolute.
    Regardless of how the world has changed after 11 September, death to
    America will remain our reverberating and powerful slogan. Death to
    America.''
        Iran's leaders, who back Hizballah, have also declared their
    absolute hostility to America. Last October, Iran's President declared in a speech that some people ask--in
    his words--``whether a world without the United States and Zionism can
    be achieved. I say that this goal is achievable.'' Less than 3 months
    ago, Iran's President declared to America and other Western powers:
    ``Open your eyes and see the fate of pharaoh. If you do not abandon the
    path of falsehood, your doomed destiny will be annihilation.'' Less than
    2 months ago, he warned, ``The anger of Muslims may reach an explosion
    point soon. If such a day comes, America and the West should know that
    the waves of the blast will not remain within the boundaries of our
    region.'' He also delivered this message to the American people: ``If
    you would like to have good relations with the Iranian nation in the
    future, bow down before the greatness of the Iranian nation and
    surrender. If you don't accept to do this, the Iranian nation will force
    you to surrender and bow down.'' America will not bow down to tyrants.
        The Iranian regime and its terrorist proxies have demonstrated their
    willingness to

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    kill Americans, and now the Iranian regime is pursuing nuclear weapons.
    The world is working together to prevent Iran's regime from acquiring
    the tools of mass murder. The international community has made a
    reasonable proposal to Iran's leaders and given them the opportunity to
    set their nation on a better course. So far, Iran's leaders have
    rejected this offer. Their choice is increasingly isolating the great
    Iranian nation from the international community and denying the Iranian
    people an opportunity for greater economic prosperity. It's time for
    Iran's leader to make a different choice. And we've made our choice.
    We'll continue to work closely with our allies to find a diplomatic
    solution. The world's free nations will not allow Iran to develop a
    nuclear weapon.
        The Shi'a and Sunni extremists represent different faces of the same
    threat. They draw inspiration from different sources, but both seek to
    impose a dark vision of violent Islamic radicalism across the Middle
    East. They oppose the advance of freedom, and they want to gain control
    of weapons of mass destruction. If they succeed in undermining fragile
    democracies like Iraq and drive the forces of freedom out of the region,
    they will have an open field to pursue their dangerous goals. Each
    strain of violent Islamic radicalism would be emboldened in their
    efforts to topple moderate governments and establish terrorist safe
    havens.
        Imagine a world in which they were able to control governments, a
    world awash with oil, and they would use oil resources to punish
    industrialized nations. And they would use those resources to fuel their
    radical agenda and pursue and purchase weapons of mass murder. And armed
    with nuclear weapons, they would blackmail the free world and spread
    their ideologies of hate and raise a mortal threat to the American
    people. If we allow them to do this, if we retreat from Iraq, if we
    don't uphold our duty to support those who are desirous to live in
    liberty, 50 years from now, history will look back on our time with
    unforgiving clarity and demand to know why we did not act.
        I'm not going to allow this to happen, and no future American
    President can allow it either. America did not seek this global
    struggle, but we're answering history's call with confidence and a clear
    strategy. Today we're releasing a document called the National Strategy
    for Combating Terrorism. This is an unclassified version of the strategy
    we've been pursuing since September the 11th, 2001. This strategy was
    first released in February 2003; it's been updated to take into account
    the changing nature of this enemy. This strategy document is posted on
    the White House web site, whitehouse.gov, and I urge all Americans to
    read it.
        Our strategy for combating terrorism has five basic elements. First,
    we're determined to prevent terrorist attacks before they occur, so
    we're taking the fight to the enemy. The best way to protect America is
    to stay on the offense. Since 9/11, our coalition has captured or killed
    Al Qaida managers and operatives and scores of other terrorists across
    the world. The enemy is living under constant pressure, and we intend to
    keep it that way. And this adds to our security. When terrorists spend
    their days working to avoid death or capture, it's harder for them to
    plan and execute new attacks.
        We're also fighting the enemy here at home. We've given our law
    enforcement and intelligence professionals the tools they need to stop
    the terrorists in our midst. We passed the PATRIOT Act to break down the
    wall that prevented law enforcement and intelligence from sharing vital
    information. We created the terrorist surveillance program to monitor
    the communications between Al Qaida commanders abroad and terrorist
    operatives within our borders. If Al Qaida is calling somebody in
    America, we need to know why in order to stop attacks.

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        I want to thank these three Senators for working with us to give our
    law enforcement and intelligence officers the tools necessary to do
    their jobs. And over the last 5 years, Federal, State, and local law
    enforcement have used those tools to break up terrorist cells and to
    prosecute terrorist operatives and supporters in New York and Oregon and
    Virginia and Texas and New Jersey and Illinois, Ohio, and other States.
    By taking the battle to the terrorists and their supporters on our own
    soil and across the world, we've stopped a number of Al Qaida plots.
        Second, we're determined to deny weapons of mass destruction to
    outlaw regimes and terrorists who would use them without hesitation.
    Working with Great Britain and Pakistan and other nations, the United
    States shut down the world's most dangerous nuclear trading cartel, the
    A.Q. Khan network. This network had
    supplied Iran and Libya and North Korea with equipment and know-how that
    advanced their efforts to obtain nuclear weapons. And we launched the
    Proliferation Security Initiative, a coalition of more than 70 nations
    that is working together to stop shipments related to weapons of mass
    destruction on land, at sea, and in the air. The greatest threat this
    world faces is the danger of extremists and terrorists armed with
    weapons of mass destruction, and this is a threat America cannot defeat
    on her own. We applaud the determined efforts of many nations around the
    world to stop the spread of these dangerous weapons. Together, we pledge
    we'll continue to work together to stop the world's most dangerous men
    from getting their hands on the world's most dangerous weapons.
        Third, we're determined to deny terrorists the support of outlaw
    regimes. After September the 11th, I laid out a clear doctrine: America
    makes no distinction between those who commit acts of terror and those
    that harbor and support them, because they're equally guilty of murder.
    Thanks to our efforts, there are now three fewer state sponsors of
    terror in the world than there were on September the 11th, 2001.
    Afghanistan and Iraq have been transformed from terrorist states into
    allies in the war on terror. And the nation of Libya has renounced
    terrorism and given up its weapons of mass destruction programs and its
    nuclear materials and equipment. Over the past 5 years, we've acted to
    disrupt the flow of weapons and support from terrorist states to
    terrorist networks. And we have made clear that any government that
    chooses to be an ally of terror has also chosen to be an enemy of
    civilization.
        Fourth, we're determined to deny terrorist networks control of any
    nation or territory within a nation. So, along with our coalition and
    the Iraqi Government, we'll stop the terrorists from taking control of
    Iraq and establishing a new safe haven from which to attack America and
    the free world. And we're working with friends and allies to deny the
    terrorists the enclaves they seek to establish in ungoverned areas
    across the world. By helping governments reclaim full sovereign control
    over their territory, we make ourselves more secure.
        Fifth, we're working to deny terrorists new recruits by defeating
    their hateful ideology and spreading the hope of freedom--by spreading
    the hope of freedom across the Middle East. For decades, American policy
    sought to achieve peace in the Middle East by pursuing stability at the
    expense of liberty. The lack of freedom in that region helped create
    conditions where anger and resentment grew and radicalism thrived and
    terrorists found willing recruits. And we saw the consequences on
    September the 11th, when the terrorists brought death and destruction to
    our country. The policy wasn't working.
        The experience of September the 11th made clear, in the long run,
    the only way to secure our Nation is to change the course of the Middle
    East. And so America has committed its influence in the world

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    to advancing freedom and liberty and democracy as the great alternatives
    to repression and radicalism. We're taking the side of democratic
    leaders and moderates and reformers across the Middle East. We strongly
    support the voices of tolerance and moderation in the Muslim world.
    We're standing with Afghanistan's elected Government against Al Qaida
    and the Taliban remnants that are trying to restore tyranny in that
    country. We're standing with Lebanon's young democracy against the
    foreign forces that are seeking to undermine the country's sovereignty
    and independence. And we're standing with the leaders of Iraq's unity
    Government as they work to defeat the enemies of freedom and chart a
    more hopeful course for their people. This is why victory is so
    important in Iraq. By helping freedom succeed in Iraq, we will help
    America and the Middle East and the world become more secure.
        During the last 5 years, we've learned a lot about this enemy. We've
    learned that they're cunning and sophisticated. We've witnessed their
    ability to change their methods and their tactics with deadly speed,
    even as their murderous obsessions remain unchanging. We've seen that
    it's the terrorists who have declared war on Muslims, slaughtering huge
    numbers of innocent Muslim men and women around the world.
        We know what the terrorists believe. We know what they have done,
    and we know what they intend to do. And now the world's free nations
    must summon the will to meet this great challenge. The road ahead is
    going to be difficult, and it will require more sacrifice. Yet we can
    have confidence in the outcome, because we've seen freedom conquer
    tyranny and terror before. In the 20th century, free nations confronted
    and defeated Nazi Germany. During the cold war, we confronted Soviet
    communism, and today, Europe is whole, free, and at peace.
        And now freedom is once again contending with the forces of darkness
    and tyranny. This time the battle is unfolding in a new region, the
    broader Middle East. This time we're not waiting for our enemies to
    gather in strength. This time we're confronting them before they gain
    the capacity to inflict unspeakable damage on the world, and we're
    confronting their hateful ideology before it fully takes root.
        We see a day when people across the Middle East have governments
    that honor their dignity and unleash their creativity and count their
    votes. We see a day when, across this region, citizens are allowed to
    express themselves freely, women have full rights, and children are
    educated and given the tools necessary to succeed in life. And we see a
    day when all the nations of the Middle East are allies in the cause of
    peace.
        We fight for this day, because the security of our own citizens
    depends on it. This is the great ideological struggle of the 21st
    century, and it is the calling of our generation. All civilized nations
    are bound together in this struggle between moderation and extremism. By
    coming together, we will roll back this grave threat to our way of life.
    We will help the people of the Middle East claim their freedom, and we
    will leave a safer and more hopeful world for our children and our
    grandchildren.
        God bless.

    Note: The President spoke at 1:15 p.m. at the Capital Hilton Hotel. In
    his remarks, he referred to Gen. John W. Hendrix, USA (Ret.), chairman
    of the board, and Vice Adm. Norbert R. Ryan, Jr., USN (Ret.), president,
    Military Officers Association of America; President Mahmud Ahmadi-nejad
    of Iran; and A.Q. Khan, former head of Pakistan's nuclear weapons
    program.

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