    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: George W. Bush (2007, Book I)]
    [June 14, 2007]
    [Pages 747-756]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks to the Associated Builders and Contractors
    June 14, 2007

        Thank you all. Thank you. Thanks for coming. I'm proud to be with
    you; glad to be back with the Associated Builders and Contractors. I
    appreciate your organization. I didn't realize you were founded in 1950,
    about the same time a piano nearly fell through the roof at the White
    House--[laughter]--thereby causing Harry Truman to decide to renovate
    it. And for that, Laura and I are very grateful.
    [Laughter]
        I am grateful for your organization as well. I thank you for being
    builders, doers,and dreamers. I thank you for being people who are
    willing to take a risk to help build our Nation and, at the same time,
    employ people. I want to talk to you today about how to keep the
    entrepreneurial spirit strong, how to keep this economy growing, and our
    need to protect the American people from harm. And I appreciate you
    giving me a chance to come and do so.
        David Meyer, thank you, and I thank your
    board for inviting me. Joining us today is one of my finest Secretaries,
    Secretary

    [[Page 748]]

    Carlos Gutierrez, Secretary of the
    Department of Commerce. I appreciate you coming, Carlos, and thank you
    for being here. Carlos was born in Cuba. His folks decided that it would
    be best that he and they come to a free society. He rose to become the
    CEO of a major U.S. corporation, and now he sits in the Cabinet of the
    United States of America. That's what the American Dream is all about,
    and it's in this Nation's interest to preserve dreams.
        I want to thank Congressman Todd Platts from Pennsylvania for joining us. Todd--there you
    are. How you doing, Todd? Thanks for being here; honored you're here.
    His mother is a manufacturer. She manufactures peanut fudge, and Platts
    always brings me some of it. [Laughter] I can't ride enough mountain
    bikes to--[laughter]. Give her my best.
        Thanks for letting me come by. I love entrepreneurs, and I like to
    be with them. Entrepreneurs are folks that really work hard. Nothing
    more exciting than having your own business. I'm sure some of you
    probably wondered growing up whether it'd be possible, whether you'd be
    able to have the ingenuity and the capacity to say, ``This is my
    business.'' But you've obviously overcome the difficult hurdles that
    face small-business owners and business owners, and you're succeeding.
    And I'm grateful. The role of government is to make your jobs easier,
    not harder. It makes sense to encourage entrepreneurship.
        And that begins with tax policy. I believe if you have more money in
    your pocket, you're more likely to buy a piece of equipment or hire a
    new worker. I think the best way to overcome economic difficulties that
    we've had in the past is to cut the taxes on everybody who pays taxes.
    That requires fundamental trust, for those of us in government, in your
    capacity to spend your money better than the government can spend it.
    But that's what I believe.
        And I also believe that with more money in circulation in private
    hands, it encourages small-business growth and activity and commerce.
    And that's why we cut taxes not only on people with children and people
    who are married, but we cut taxes on small businesses. As a matter of
    fact, I thought it was fair to cut taxes on everybody who pays taxes,
    not to say: ``Okay, well, this group pays, and you get a tax cut, but
    this group pays, and you don't get a tax cut.'' That's not good tax
    policy, as far as I'm concerned.
        We put the--cut taxes on dividends and capital gains to encourage
    investment. We put the death tax on the road to extinction. I say, ``on
    the road to extinction''; it's not totally extinct. And I would hope
    that you would prioritize getting rid of the death tax as part of your
    legislative agendas for not only this year but next year and the years
    to come, to make sure that we get rid of the death tax once and for all.
    It would be good for our farmers and small-business owners. I don't
    think you ought to be taxed twice: once when you're living and once when
    you die. [Laughter]
        There is a lot of political debate in Washington about tax cuts, if
    you can imagine. Some would rather have your money to increase the size
    of government. Others, like me, say: ``Well, we got plenty of money. You
    ought to have more money.'' I just want to point out the facts. Since we
    enacted major tax relief in 2003, in the face of recession and corporate
    scandals and attacks, our economy has added more than 8 million new jobs
    in 45 months of uninterrupted job growth. Unemployment is low. Inflation
    is down. The entrepreneurial spirit is strong. Small businesses are
    growing. This economy is good, and the way to keep it good and to keep
    it strong is to make the tax cuts we passed permanent.
        You'll hear people say, ``No, we can't do that because we must
    balance the budget.'' Now really, I've been around here long enough to
    know how it works in Washington, and that is--they'll say, ``Well, we're
    going to raise your taxes. Don't worry, we're just only going to tax the
    rich.'' Well,

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    first of all, it doesn't work that way. You can't raise enough money on
    the so-called rich in order to whet the appetite of some of the spenders
    here. [Laughter]
        And secondly, the money is not going to go to balance the budget.
    The money inevitably goes to new programs, expanded government. The best
    way to balance the budget, in my judgment, is to keep taxes low, so the
    economy grows, and be wise about how we spend your money. And our
    strategy is working. This just isn't theory; it's actually working. This
    year, the Treasury Department reported that Federal revenues through May
    are up 8 percent over the same period last year. In other words, a
    revenue stream is growing because of economic activity. And because we
    worked with the Congress last year to hold down spending, the budget
    deficit this year is about a third lower than it was at this time last
    year.
        And if we continue to be wise about how we spend the money and keep
    the economic vitality alive, we can balance the budget by 2012. Now this
    is going to take discipline here in Washington, DC. Sometimes this city
    may be short of fiscal discipline, but that's why they give the
    President the veto. And I'm looking forward to working with the Congress
    to make sure that we're wise about how we spend your money.
        A couple of other issues I want to talk briefly about. Look, I
    understand the health care issues you face. Health care needs to be
    affordable and available, no question. But we've got to make sure we do
    it without asking the Federal Government to run the health care program.
    We want decisions made by providers and patients.
        I heard the word Dave said about
    regulation and redtape. I understand your concerns. I also understand
    your concerns about these junk lawsuits. The country needs to make sure
    we put an end to junk lawsuits that threaten job providers and job
    creators such as yourself.
        You know, I just returned this week from Poland, Gdansk, Poland. We
    had a great trip, by the way. And it was really fantastic to represent
    the United States of America overseas. We're such a beacon of hope and a
    beacon of liberty. And anyway, we just came--and that's a city, by the
    way, where trade union activists once risked and gave their lives for
    the right to elect their government freely under a secret ballot.
    [Laughter]
        And for the last 60 years in our country, secret ballots have
    allowed workers to vote their conscience on whether to form a union or
    remain unaffiliated. The House has passed, as you well know, and the
    Senate is considering what they call ``card check legislation.'' It
    simply means that workers would be denied the right to have a secret
    ballot. The legislation would expose workers to intimidation. It
    violates the principle of our democracy. And if it ever makes it to my
    desk, I'm going to veto it.
        Supporting free enterprise also means building an immigration system
    that upholds our laws and keeps this economy strong. You have made
    comprehensive immigration reform one of your top legislative priorities,
    and I thank you for your commitment on this vital issue. And it is a
    vital issue. We have worked--Carlos Gutierrez and Michael Chertoff, two
    members of my Cabinet, have worked very closely with others in my
    administration, with Republicans and Democrats in the United States
    Senate to produce a bipartisan immigration bill. And it took a lot of
    work. It took many months of intense negotiations. And it represents the
    best hope for lasting reform.
        I was disappointed last week when the bill was temporarily withdrawn
    by the Senate majority leader. Leaders of both parties since then have
    expressed their commitment to resolving the issues that led to the
    setback and bring the bill back to the floor. And I appreciate that
    commitment, and I urge them to do so as quickly as possible so Congress
    can pass and I can

    [[Page 750]]

    sign, this year, comprehensive immigration reform.
        The need for reform is urgent. Our immigration system has been
    broken for many years. Most Americans agree that the 1986 immigration
    law failed; it didn't work. It failed because it did not secure our
    border. It failed because it did not create a reliable system for
    employers to verify the legal status of their workers. And it encouraged
    more people to come to America illegally. It didn't work, and it needs
    to be fixed. When you find something that doesn't work, you have a
    responsibility to fix it.
        The number of illegal immigrants in our country has continued to
    grow, and illegal immigration is now supported by criminal enterprises.
    In other words, there are people who are preying on these folks that are
    coming to do work that Americans aren't doing. You've got a whole system
    of coyotes; those are smugglers, human smugglers, taking advantage of a
    broken system. You've got document forgers, people wanting to work and
    they know they've got to have some papers, and there are people, a whole
    industry of people, providing them with false documents. People are
    being exploited as a result of a broken system, and this isn't right. We
    can do better.
        I understand Americans are skeptical about immigration reform.
    There's a lot of people saying: ``Well, there's just no possible way
    that they can achieve important objectives; after all, they tried in
    '86, and it failed.'' People are--got a lot of emotions on this issue.
    You probably hear it at the coffee shops, talking about the issue.
    People are very emotional about immigration reform, and people have got
    different perspectives on a course of action. Most say--many say the
    most important issue is to secure the border. Others say an important
    part of immigration reform is to find the workers they need to help a
    growing economy. Still others say that it's important to resolve the
    status of 12 million people already here illegally and help immigrants
    assimilate into our society. There's varieties of opinions about this
    subject.
        I believe that we must address all these concerns in order to have
    an effective system, and that's why I strongly support comprehensive
    immigration reform. And I appreciate you understanding that in order to
    have a system that works, all the issues must be addressed.
        By moving forward with the bill in the Senate, we will make our
    border more secure. In other words, if you're worried about border
    security, you ought to be supporting this bill. For decades, we have not
    been in complete control of the border. I was honored to be the Governor
    of Texas. I know something about a large border with Mexico--
    [laughter]--and we weren't in control of that border. A lot of people
    then say: ``Well, if you hadn't been in control, do you have the
    capacity to secure the border?'' You'll hear a lot of people here say:
    ``Well, since you didn't do it in the past, you can't do it in the
    future.'' In other words, people are worried about that issue.
        The first step to comprehensive reform must be to enforce
    immigration laws at the border and at worksites across the country. The
    administration--our administration has taken significant steps, by the
    way, to increase border security and worksite enforcement. Since I've
    took office, we've more than doubled funding for border security. I
    mean, there's a focused effort, by the way, to do what many Americans
    want us to do, which is to secure that border. We've expanded the number
    of Border Patrol agents from about 9,000 to about 13,000. We've set our
    Nation on the course to double the size of Border Patrol during my
    Presidency. In other words, we're going to add another 5,000 agents.
        I was in Artesia, New Mexico, to a border training center. I watched
    these good folks prepare for this very important job. We've increased
    the number of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents--I'm sure you
    understand what an ICE agent is--from about 8,000 in 2002 to more

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    than 11,000. In other words, on the enforcement side, we've made some
    serious efforts to do what the American people expect us to do.
        There used to be a problem with catch-and-release. Our Border Patrol
    agents would find somebody trying to sneak into our country illegally.
    They would say: ``We caught you; now report back to the local
    immigration court so you can have your hearing,'' because there was no
    place to hold these good people--or these people. And guess what would
    happen? They'd head off into society and say, ``See you later,'' and
    never return for the court date. So we worked with Congress and expanded
    the number of beds on our border, and we've effectively ended catch-and-
    release.
        I want to tell you a statistic that may surprise you. Last year, we
    apprehended and sent home more than about 1.1 million people entering
    our country illegally. Now think about that. In 1 year alone, our Border
    Patrol agents and law enforcement agents found 1.1 million people coming
    into our country illegally and sent them home. They're working hard down
    there, and they're making progress. People are doing the jobs we expect
    them to do, and now we're going to build on this progress.
        So this bill sets clear benchmarks for border security that must be
    met before other elements of this legislation are triggered. We make a
    priority of securing the border. These benchmarks include further
    increasing Border Patrol agents, building miles of fencing, and
    modernizing the border. You can't fence the whole border, but you can
    use fencing in a way to help known--to help stop people at known
    crossing points. It's a smart part of making sure the border is secure,
    along with other ways to modernize the border--berms and electronics and
    UAVs. We're going to improve our surveillance capability; in other
    words, we're modernizing the border. It hasn't been that way. And we're
    making progress to modernize that border.
        It also includes benchmarks for giving honest employers the tools to
    verify that they're hiring legal workers. Most people want to comply
    with the law. I know you do. Yet it's awfully hard for you to be a
    document verifier. That's not what you--[applause]. It's a burden to
    place on small-business owners, to be--say: ``Okay, you've got to make
    sure that the documents that look real are real.'' These document
    forgers are good. They know what they're doing. They're preying on
    innocent people who want to simply find work to put food on the table
    back at home.
        And so the bill we're talking about says, okay, enough is enough
    when it comes to document forgery. We'll create a tamper-resistant
    identity card for foreign workers and a mandatory electronic system for
    verifying employment eligibility. This will make sure that you're
    complying with the law, that you don't have to guess, that you don't
    hope you're dealing with some forged document. It will make it easier
    for you to do your--run your businesses, and at the same time, it will
    make it easier for the government to punish those who hire illegal
    immigrants--knowingly hire illegal immigrants. In other words, it gives
    us a chance to enforce the law, and that's what the American people
    want.
        It's important for the people to know that their government is
    serious about meeting these benchmarks. One common concern is whether
    the government will provide the resources to meet the goals in the bill.
    People say: ``It's fine to talk about it. Are you actually going to do
    something?'' To answer these concerns, I support an amendment that will
    provide $4.4 billion in immediate additional funding for securing our
    borders and enforcing our laws at the worksite. This funding will come
    from the fines and penalties that we collect from those who have come to
    our country illegally.
        By matching our benchmarks with these critical funds, we're going to
    show the American people that the promises in this

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    bill will be kept. And so I call on the Senators to pass this amendment
    and to show the American people that we're going to do our jobs of
    securing this border once and for all.
        But by moving forward with this bill, we'll also help meet the needs
    of a growing economy. When the economy grows, people are looking for
    workers. That's Economics 1. [Laughter] You're probably some who are
    looking for workers. As you get expanded work orders, you're wondering
    whether you can find the workers to meet the needs. That's what happens
    when the economy grows--you need workers to make the economy grow.
        The reality is, in America, that the construction industry and other
    sectors depend on foreign workers to fill jobs Americans are not doing.
    That's the reality of the world we live in. So once our border security
    and worksite enforcement measure is in place, this bill will create a
    new temporary-worker program. The program will establish a lawful and
    orderly process for foreign workers to come to America on a temporary
    basis. This will help reduce the number of people trying to sneak across
    our border. If you're truly interested in border security, it makes
    sense to give people a legal way to come to do work Americans aren't
    doing, on a temporary basis.
        See, people are sneaking in because they want to work. It makes
    sense to me to say: ``Instead of sneaking in, here's a temporary-worker
    card that's tamper-proof, that you can go fill jobs that Americans
    aren't doing. Therefore, you don't sneak across.'' Such a system will
    take pressure off the border and let our Border Patrol agents focus on
    drug runners or gun runners or terrorists. I strongly believe that it's
    in our economic interest and in our security interest to have a
    temporary-worker program.
        This legislation will also create a merit-based point system for
    admitting new immigrants to our country. The system will reward new
    applicants based upon skills and education so we can ensure that America
    continues to have the world's most talented workforce. It's a reform of
    an immigration system that hasn't worked. The bill is a practical way to
    address problems that have sprung up as a result of an immigration
    system that hasn't worked. By moving forward, this bill will resolve the
    status of those who are here illegally--already here illegally.
        Look, we need to do this without animosity and without amnesty. I
    know there are some people who, I guess, believe that we could just kick
    them out of the country. That's just totally impractical; it won't work.
    We need a practical solution to a problem that has arisen as a result of
    a bill that didn't work, the 1986 immigration bill.
        Amnesty is forgiveness with no penalty for people who have broken
    our laws to get here. In contrast, this bill requires illegal workers to
    pay a fine, to register with the government, to undergo background
    checks, to pay their back taxes, to hold down a steady job, and to learn
    English in a set period of time.
        At the end of 8 years, if they want to apply for a green card--in
    other words, get in line for citizenship--after 8 years, they'll have to
    return to their home country so they can apply from there, pay an
    additional fine. In short, they will prove themselves worthy of a great
    land.
        The legislation will also help newcomers to our country assimilate
    into our society. One of the great beauties of America has been, people
    can come to this country with a dream and become Americans; that's
    assimilate.
        Carlos Gutierrez's story is a great
    story. Mel Martinez's parents put him on an airplane from Cuba to Florida because a
    tyrant emerged on that island. He was in my
    Cabinet. I was at the Coast Guard Academy the other day; the number-one
    graduate at the Coast Guard Academy talked about his migrant worker
    grandfather who came to America with a dream. And now the grandson
    stands in front of the President talking about the beauties of

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    America. You know, Americans must be confident in our ability to
    assimilate newcomers. We have done so in the past, and we will do so in
    the future. It's a--people newly arrived with dreams lift our soul; they
    invigorate our society; they work hard to become Americans. And it's
    important for us to help them assimilate.
        And the key to that, the key to unlocking the full promise of
    America, is the ability to read, write, and speak English. And so the
    bill affirms that English is the language of our land. And the bill will
    expand opportunities to help new immigrants learn our language and the
    shared ideals that make us all Americans.
        We have an historic window of opportunity to act now. Now is the
    time to get it done. We've got to summon the political courage to move
    forward on comprehensive reform. Doing nothing is not a solution. If we
    fail to act, the problems of 1986 will continue. The pressures on our
    border will not be alleviated. Employers will be left without a reliable
    system for verifying the legal status of their workers. Jobs will go
    unfulfilled. Hard-working immigrants will remain in the shadows of our
    society. And our Nation will continue to have a broken immigration
    system.
        The American people expect people in Washington, DC, to solve
    problems. I believe we can express our feelings, disagree on certain
    elements of the legislation, and still come together on a solution. I'm
    confident that we can pass a bill into law this year, and it will show
    the American people that we can prove we're serious about confronting
    the great issues of our time.
        Now is the time to set aside all the political wrangling that tends
    to dominate the scene here in Washington, DC, and do hard work and pass
    a comprehensive immigration bill. And I'm counting on your help to get
    it done. [Applause] Thank you all.
        As we work on this legislation at home, we're meeting important
    responsibilities abroad. On September the 11th, 2001, we saw that
    problems originating in a failed and oppressive state 7,000 miles away
    could bring murder and destruction to our cities. Nine/Eleven was a
    turning point for our Nation. We learned that our Nation's security
    depends on fighting our enemies overseas so we do not have to face them
    here at home. And we learned that to secure our country, we must advance
    the cause of freedom as the great alternative to tyranny and terror.
        We're in an ideological conflict with ambitious men who have a
    different view of government than we do. They don't believe in dissent.
    They don't believe in freedom to worship as one sees fit. They want to
    extend their power and reach throughout the Middle East. They want to
    reestablish a caliphate. And they murder to achieve their objectives.
    You can't talk reason to these people. You cannot negotiate with them.
    We must stay on the offense and bring them to justice before they hurt
    us again.
        We went into Afghanistan and helped remove an oppressive government
    that harbored the terrorists who planned the 9/11 attacks. Today,
    because we acted, the terrorist camps in Afghanistan have been shut
    down. Al Qaida lost its safe haven. Twenty-five million people have been
    liberated. The Afghan people have elected a government that is fighting
    terrorists instead of harboring them. It's in our Nation's security
    interests; it's in our national interest to stand with that young
    democracy in Afghanistan and give their people a chance to live in
    liberty.
        In Iraq, we removed a cruel dictator who was an enemy of the United
    States of America, had used--who had used weapons of mass destruction,
    who was paying the families of suicide bombers, who had invaded his
    neighbors, who was given a chance to disclose or disarm by the U.N.
    Security Council not once, but numerous times. He made the wrong choice.
    I made the choice to uphold what the free world

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    said. The world is better off without Saddam Hussein in power, and so
    are the Iraqis.
        And now we're undertaking the difficult and dangerous work of
    helping Iraq establish a functioning democracy that can protect our
    people and be an ally in this struggle against radicals and extremists
    who use murder to achieve an ideological objective. And the stakes are
    high, and it's tough work.
        In December 2005, if you can remember that far back--[laughter]--
    nearly 12 million Iraqis went to the polls. I was pleased but not
    surprised. I believe in the universality of freedom. I believe people
    want to be free. And here, after years of tyranny, when given a chance,
    12 million people went to the polls. And by going to the polls, they
    chose a new government under the most progressive, democratic
    constitution in the Arab world.
        A thinking enemy watched all this. And in 2006, Al Qaida--the folks
    who orchestrated the attack on the United States of America on September
    the 11th, 2001--and other Sunni extremists ramped up their attacks,
    which led to a tragic escalation of sectarian violence. In the face of
    the violence, I had a choice to make: to withdraw our troops, or to send
    reinforcements to help the Iraqis quell the violence.
        Had I been polled during that period of time, I'd have said I was--I
    didn't approve of what was happening in Iraq. I'd have been one of the
    ``you-can-put-me-down-as-not-approving.'' The sectarian violence was
    getting more severe, and I had a choice. It's what Presidents do; they
    make decisions. And that's what you do; you make decisions. I made a
    decision. I decided to send more troops with a new mission to help the
    Iraqi Government secure the population and get control of Baghdad. I put
    our troops under a new commander, General David Petraeus, who wrote the Army's new manual on counterinsurgency
    warfare.
        It is too early to judge the results of this new strategy. General
    Petraeus, recently put it this way: ``We
    haven't even started the full surge yet.'' He just got his troops on the
    ground. Only at the end of this week will the last of the five
    reinforcement brigades become fully operational.
        Under our new strategy, American and Iraqi forces are now living
    side by side in Baghdad neighborhoods. As Iraqis see forces patrolling
    their streets, they're gaining the trust, and they're getting new
    cooperation from the residents.
        Now, just as an example of what I'm talking about: Iraqi and
    coalition forces have captured more weapon caches since the beginning of
    the year than they did all of last year. Why? Because people are
    beginning to trust that the security situation will improve; they're
    willing to step forward. Most people want to live in peace. Iraqi
    mothers want their children to grow up in a peaceful world, just like
    our mothers do. There's something universal about motherhood, isn't
    there? They want something better for their children, and they don't
    like the violence, and they're expecting their Government to help them.
    And that's what we're doing: We're helping to provide security.
        We're also seeing gains from our new strategy in Anbar Province.
    Anbar is a large Sunni area west of Baghdad that has been a hotbed for
    insurgents and Al Qaida. This is where Al Qaida said they were going to
    establish a new safe haven. They have made it clear they want safe
    havens. Why? Because they want to attack again, they want to spread
    their ideology. This is what the enemy has said. And I take the words of
    the enemy very seriously, and so should the American people.
        With the help of tribal sheikhs, American and Iraqi forces have
    cleared and held terrorist strongholds in Ramadi and Fallujah. The
    population is tired of Al Qaida. They're tired of murder. And we're
    striking powerful blows against Al Qaida in Anbar, and that helps our
    security here at home.

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        The summer is going to be a critical period for our new strategy.
    I've cautioned that the enemies of free Iraq will--particularly Al Qaida
    and illegal militias--are going to continue their campaigns of terror
    and intimidation to stop the progress of a free society. We can expect
    heavy fighting in the coming weeks. We can expect more casualties, both
    American and Iraqi casualties.
        Just yesterday two minarets of the Golden Mosque of Samarra were
    blown up in an attack that had all the hallmarks of Al Qaida. The mosque
    is one of the most sacred places in Shi'a Islam. The same mosque that
    was blown up last year--the Golden Dome was blown up, and that caused
    the sectarian violence to get out of hand, which caused me to make a
    decision to send more troops in, as opposed to withdrawing them.
        You see, these killers hope that their attacks, like this one, will
    create enough confusion and chaos that we will abandon this young
    democracy. They have objectives; they have goals; they want to drive us
    out. They thrive on chaos. Why? Because it enables them to develop safe
    haven. If they ever gain safe haven, the United States becomes even more
    vulnerable to attack. One of the lessons of September the 11th is, what
    happens overseas matters to the security of the United States of
    America. It is better to defeat them overseas than face them here on our
    soil again.
        The act of cruelty that took place yesterday and has taken place by
    these car bombs that destroy innocent life reveals the terrorists for
    what they are: the enemy of every Iraqi who seeks to live in peace.
    That's what they are; they're the enemy of people who want to live in
    peace.
        I call on Iraqis to reject this provocation. America will continue
    to stand behind the Iraqi people as they fight these extremists and
    terrorists, people who want to destroy both our countries. With our
    help, we expect the Iraqi Government to pass laws that help the people
    of that troubled land reconcile their differences so that the people who
    voted for democracy can raise their families in a secure environment. We
    all have obligations to make sure that this young democracy survives.
    That's what the Iraqi people expect our Government to do, and that's
    what the American people expect us to tell the Iraqi Government to do.
        Obviously, this is more than a military mission; there must be a
    political track at the same time. This is a difficult fight, and the
    temptation is to look for an easy way out. Some in Washington who--want
    to declare defeat before our troops even had the chance to make it work.
    The consequences of failure would be grave.
        If we withdraw before the Iraqi Government can defend itself, we
    would leave a dangerous security vacuum, which extremist forces like Al
    Qaida would compete to fill. Sectarian violence would multiply on a
    horrific scale. Fighting could engulf the entire region in chaos. The
    extremists who emerge victorious in this struggle could use Iraq as a
    base to launch new attacks against America. Ultimately, our troops might
    have to return to Iraq in order to protect ourselves, and confront an
    entrenched enemy that is even more dangerous. The stakes are high.
        We will not abdicate our responsibility and leave this problem to
    future generations. Now is the time to confront the danger. Now is the
    time to do the hard work necessary for this democracy to survive. Now is
    the time to stand with the Iraqi people, not only for their security but
    for our own. And that is why we will complete the mission.
        For all the talk about consequences of failure, we also need to
    remember the consequences of success in Iraq. Success will give us a new
    ally in the war on terror. This is a global war that we're fighting
    against ideologues who use murder as a weapon to achieve their
    objectives. It's important for us to support forms of government that
    defeat an ideology of hate. And the best form of government that defeats

    [[Page 756]]

    ideology of hate is one of hope, and that's liberty. And it's worked
    throughout the history of the United States of America and the world,
    for that matter. We have seen freedom's power to transform societies
    before.
        My dad, like many of your relatives,
    defended our Nation in a bloody war against the Japanese and the
    Germans. I doubt right after World War II somebody would have predicted
    that one of George W. Bush's--well, they wouldn't have predicted I'd
    have been President anyway, but--[laughter]--particularly my friends in
    Midland, Texas. [Laughter] But I doubt somebody would have said a future
    President would be sitting down at a table with the Japanese, keeping
    the peace. After a bloody war, with the sworn enemy being the Japanese
    and the Germans, I doubt anybody would have said--had the confidence
    necessary to say that liberty has got the capacity to transform enemies
    into allies. But that's what happened.
        I went to the G-8, and Angela Merkel, who
    is a really fine leader for Germany, was at the table. And Shinzo
    Abe from Japan was at the table. We're talking
    about peace. We're talking about dealing with the conditions that cause
    radicalism to prevail, dealing with forms of government that frustrate
    people so much that 19 kids get on an airplane and kill nearly 3,000
    Americans. But we've got to be confident as we look at the future.
    Liberty has transformed enemies to allies. Liberty has got the capacity
    to defeat an ideology based upon hate. Liberty has got the ability to
    bring light into societies.
        We've done this kind of hard work before. And it's in our interests
    to secure a young generation of Americans against the threats of the
    21st century, to do this work again. I'm optimistic about our future. I
    believe the United States can achieve anything she sets her mind to. And
    so I come to you today to talk about making this economy stronger, to
    dealing with problems, and to how the United States intends to handle
    the biggest issue facing us, and that's to make sure we protect the
    American people. The challenges are great, but this country can handle
    any challenge that comes our way.
        Proud to be with you. May God bless you.

    Note: The President spoke at 10:39 a.m. at the Capital Hilton. In his
    remarks, he referred to David R. Meyer, chairman, Associated Builders
    and Contractors National Executive Committee; President Fidel Castro Ruz
    of Cuba; and Ens. Marc A. Mares, USCG.