[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 38, Number 47 (Monday, November 25, 2002)]
[Pages 2064-2067]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks to the Prague Atlantic Student Summit in Prague

November 20, 2002

    Thank you all very much for that warm welcome. It's an honor to be 
here in Prague, home to so much of Europe's history and culture and the 
scene of so much courage in the service of freedom. After the recent 
floods, I know it's been tough on the citizens of the Czech Republic to 
not only recover, but to host this important gathering. So, on behalf of 
all the American delegation and all the Americans who are here, I 
express our gratitude for the fantastic hospitality we received. We 
thank the Czech people and their leadership for working hard to make 
sure this summit is a successful summit, and we wish them all the very 
best.
    I want to thank Jimmy for his kind words. Really proud of Jimmy, and 
we're proud to have him at West Point. He's a credit to the Academy; 
he's a credit to the people of Lithuania. And we wish him all the very 
best.
    I want to thank Alan Lee Williams, Antonio Borges Carvalho, for 
their tremendous work at the Atlantic Treaty Association. I'm grateful 
to Christopher Makins, who's the president of the Atlantic Council of 
the United States, for organizing this event. I want to thank Tom Dine, 
president of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, for joining us. I want 
to thank all the good folks who work there for joining us as well. I 
appreciate your service.
    Dwight Eisenhower said this of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty: 
``The simplest and clearest charter in the world is what you have, which 
is to tell the truth.'' And for more than 50 years, the charter has been

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faithfully executed, and it's the truth that sets this continent free.
    I'm honored to be traveling with members of my senior staff: the 
Secretary of State of the United States Colin Powell, who's done such a 
fantastic job for our country and for world peace; Condoleezza Rice, 
who's my National Security Advisor, is here; Chief of Staff Andy Card, 
Ambassador Nick Burns to NATO; a few others who I don't particularly 
want to recognize for fear of damaging my reputation--[laughter]--but 
all of them doing a great job. Thank you all for coming.
    I also want to recognize Members of the Congress who are here. I'm 
thrilled to see Members of the Senate. I thought you were voting. 
[Laughter] But Senators Frist and Voinovich and their wives are with us. 
I see Lantos--yes--Gallegly--Elton, good to see you, buddy, from 
California. Who else? That's it--two Members of the House, two members 
of the Senate. Thank you all for coming. I'm honored you're here.
    This NATO summit that convenes tomorrow will be the first ever held 
at the capital of a Warsaw Pact. The days of the Warsaw Pact seem 
distant--they must seem to you. After all, the Warsaw Pact ended a half 
a lifetime ago for you. It was a dark and distant era. The years since 
have brought great challenge and great hope to all of the countries on 
this continent. And tomorrow in Prague we will have reached a decisive 
moment, an historic moment, for tomorrow we will invite new members into 
our Alliance. It's a bold decision, to guarantee the freedom of millions 
of people.
    At the summit, we'll make the most significant reforms in NATO since 
1949, reforms which will allow our Alliance to effectively confront new 
dangers. And in the years to come, all of the nations of Europe will 
determine their place in world events. They will take up global 
responsibilities or choose to live in isolation from the challenges of 
our time.
    As for America, we made our choice. We are committed to work toward 
world peace, and we're committed to a close and permanent partnership 
with the nations of Europe. The Atlantic Alliance is America's most 
important global relationship. We're tied to Europe by history. We are 
tied to Europe by the wars of liberty we have fought and won together. 
We're joined by broad ties of trade. And America is bound to Europe by 
the deepest convictions of our common culture, our belief in the dignity 
of every life and our belief in the power of conscience to move history.
    In this city and town squares across the Czech Republic are 
monuments to Jan Hus who said this: ``Stand in the truth you have 
learned, for it conquers all and is mighty to eternity.'' That ideal has 
given life to the Czech Republic, and it is shared by the Republic I 
lead.
    America believes that a strong, confident Europe is good for the 
world. We welcome the economic integration of Europe. We believe that 
integration will extend prosperity on both sides of the Atlantic. We 
welcome a democratic Russia as part of this new Europe, because a free 
and peaceful Russia will add to the security of this continent. We 
welcome the growing unity of Europe in commerce and currency and 
military cooperation, which is closing a long history of rivalry and 
violence. This continent, wounded by nazism and communism, is becoming 
peaceful and secure and democratic for the first time. And now that the 
countries of Europe are united in freedom, they will no longer fight 
each other and bring war to the rest of the world.
    Because America supports a more united Europe, we strongly support 
the enlargement of NATO, now and in the future. Every European democracy 
that seeks NATO membership and is ready to share in NATO's 
responsibilities should be welcome in our Alliance. The enlargement of 
NATO is good for all who join us. The standards for membership are high, 
and they encourage the hard work of political and economic and military 
reform.
    And nations in the family of NATO, old or new, know this: Anyone who 
would choose you for an enemy also chooses us for an enemy. Never again 
in the face of aggression will you stand alone.
    A larger NATO is good for Russia as well. Later this week I will 
visit St. Petersburg. I will tell my friend Vladimir Putin and the 
Russian people that they too will gain from

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the security and stability of nations to Russia's west. Russia does not 
require a buffer zone of protection. It needs peaceful and prosperous 
neighbors who are also friends. We need a strong and democratic Russia 
as our friend and partner to face the next century's new challenges. 
Through the NATO-Russia Council we must increase our cooperation with 
Russia for the security of all of us.
    Expansion of NATO also brings many advantages to the Alliance, 
itself. Every new member contributes military capabilities that add to 
our common security. We see this already in Afghanistan, for forces from 
Romania, Bulgaria, Estonia, Lithuania, Slovakia, and others have joined 
with 16 NATO Allies to help defeat global terror.
    And every new member of our Alliance makes a contribution of 
character. Tomorrow NATO grows larger. Tomorrow the soul of Europe grows 
stronger. Members recently added to NATO and those invited to join bring 
greater clarity to purposes of our Alliance, because they understand the 
lessons of the last century. Those with fresh memories of tyranny know 
the value of freedom. Those who have lived through a struggle of good 
against evil are never neutral between them. Czechs and Slovaks learned 
through the harsh experience of 1938 that when great democracies fail to 
confront danger, greater dangers follow. And the people of the Baltics 
learned that aggression left unchecked by the great democracies can rob 
millions of their liberty and their lives.
    In Central and Eastern Europe the courage and moral vision of 
prisoners and exiles and priests and playwrights caused tyrants to fall. 
This spirit now sustains these nations through difficult reforms. And 
this spirit is needed in the councils of a new Europe.
    Our NATO Alliance faces dangers very different from those it was 
formed to confront, yet never has our need for collective defense been 
more urgent. The Soviet Union is gone, but freedom still has enemies. 
We're threatened by terrorism. Bred within failed states, it's present 
within our own cities. We're threatened by the spread of chemical and 
biological and nuclear weapons which are produced by outlaw regimes and 
could be delivered either by missile or terrorist cell. For terrorists 
and terrorist states, every free nation--every free nation--is a 
potential target, including the free nations of Europe.
    We're making progress on this, the first war of the 21st century. 
Today, more than 90 nations are joined in a global coalition to defeat 
terror. We're sharing intelligence. We're freezing the assets of terror 
groups. We're pursuing the terrorists wherever they plot and train. And 
we're finding them and bringing them to justice, one person at a time.
    Today, the world is also uniting to answer the unique and urgent 
threat posed by Iraq. A dictator who has used weapons of mass 
destruction on his own people must not be allowed to produce or possess 
those weapons. We will not permit Saddam Hussein to blackmail and/or 
terrorize nations which love freedom.
    Last week Saddam Hussein accepted U.N. inspectors. We've heard those 
pledges before and seen them violated time and time again. We now call 
an end to that game of deception and deceit and denial. Saddam Hussein 
has been given a very short time to declare completely and truthfully 
his arsenal of terror. Should he again deny that this arsenal exists, he 
will have entered his final stage with a lie. And deception this time 
will not be tolerated. Delay and defiance will invite the severest of 
consequences.
    America's goal, the world's goal is more than the return of 
inspectors to Iraq. Our goal is to secure the peace through the 
comprehensive and verified disarmament of Iraq's weapons of mass 
destruction. Voluntary or by force, that goal will be achieved.
    To meet all of this century's emerging threats, from terror camps in 
remote regions to hidden laboratories of outlaw regimes, NATO must 
develop new military capabilities. NATO forces must become better able 
to fight side by side. Those forces must be more mobile and more swiftly 
deployed. The Allies need more special operations forces, better 
precision strike capabilities, and more modern command structures.
    Few NATO members will have state-of-the-art capabilities in all of 
these areas. I recognize that. But every nation should develop some. 
Ours is a military alliance, and every member must make a military 
contribution

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to that alliance. For some Allies, this will require higher defense 
spending. For all of us, it will require more effective defense 
spending, with each nation adding the tools and technologies to fight 
and win a new kind of war.
    And because many threats to the NATO members come from outside of 
Europe, NATO forces must be organized to operate outside of Europe. When 
forces were needed quickly in Afghanistan, NATO's options were limited. 
We must build new capabilities, and we must strengthen our will to use 
those capabilities.
    The United States proposes the creation of a NATO response force 
that will bring together well-equipped, highly ready air, ground, and 
sea forces from NATO Allies, old and new. This force will be prepared to 
deploy on short notice wherever it is needed. A NATO response force will 
take time to create, and we should begin that effort here in Prague.
    Yet, security against new threats requires more than just new 
capabilities. Free nations must accept our shared obligations to keep 
the peace. The world needs the nations of this continent to be active in 
the defense of freedom, not inward-looking or isolated by indifference. 
Ignoring dangers or excusing aggression may temporarily avert conflict, 
but they don't bring true peace.
    International stability must be actively defended, and all nations 
that benefit from that stability have a duty to help. In this noble 
work, America and the strong democracies of Europe need each other, each 
playing our full and responsible role. The good we can do together is 
far greater than the good we can do apart.
    Great evil is stirring in the world. Many of the young here are 
coming up in a different world, different era, a different time, a 
different series of threats. We face perils we've never thought about, 
perils we've never seen before. But they're dangerous. They're just as 
dangerous as those perils that your fathers and mothers and grandfathers 
and grandmothers faced.
    The hopes of all mankind depend on the courage and the unity of 
great democracies. In this hour of challenge, NATO will do what it has 
done before: We will stand firm against the enemies of freedom, and 
we'll prevail.
    The transatlantic ties of Europe and America have met every test of 
history, and we intend to again. U-boats could not divide us. The 
threats and standoffs of the cold war did not make us weary. The 
commitment of my Nation to Europe is found in the carefully tended 
graves of young Americans who died for this continent's freedom. That 
commitment is shown by the thousands in uniforms still serving here, 
from the Balkans to Bavaria, still willing to make the ultimate 
sacrifice for this continent's future.
    For 100 years, place names of Europe have often stood for conflict 
and tragedy and loss. Single words evoke sad and bitter experience: 
Verdun, Munich, Stalingrad, Dresden, Nuremberg, and Yalta. We have no 
power to rewrite history. We do have the power to write a different 
story for our time.
    When future generations look back at this moment and speak of Prague 
and what we did here, that name will stand for hope. In Prague, young 
democracies will gain new security; a grand alliance will gather its 
strength and find new purpose. And America and Europe will renew the 
historic friendship that still keeps the peace of the world.
    Thank you for your interest. May God bless you all.

Note: The President spoke at 4:40 p.m. at the Hilton Prague. In his 
remarks, he referred to U.S. Military Academy cadet Gedrimas ``Jimmy'' 
Jaglinskas, who introduced the President; Alan Lee Williams, chairman, 
and Antonio Borges Carvalho, secretary general, Atlantic Treaty 
Association; Karen Frist, wife of Senator Bill Frist; Janet Voinovich, 
wife of Senator George V. Voinovich; President Vladimir Putin of Russia; 
and President Saddam Hussein of Iraq.