[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 39, Number 43 (Monday, October 27, 2003)]
[Pages 1456-1459]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks to the Australian Parliament in Canberra

October 23, 2003

    President Bush. Governor-General Michael Jeffery, Prime Minister 
John Howard, Speaker of the House, Leader of the Senate, Leader of the 
Opposition Simon Crean, distinguished Members of the House and the 
Senate, Premiers, members of the diplomatic corps, ladies and gentlemen: 
Laura and I are honored to be in the Commonwealth of Australia. I want 
to thank the Prime Minister for his invitation. I want to thank the 
Members and Senators for convening this session of the Parliament. I 
want to thank the people of Australia for a gracious welcome.
    Five months ago, your Prime Minister was a distinguished visitor of 
ours in Crawford, Texas, at our ranch. You might remember that I called 
him a ``man of steel.'' [Laughter] That's Texan for ``fair dinkum.'' 
[Laughter] Prime Minister John Howard is a leader of exceptional courage 
who exemplifies the finest qualities of one of the world's great 
democracies. I'm proud to call him friend.
    Americans know Australia as a land of independent and enterprising 
and good-hearted people. We see something familiar here, something we 
like. Australians are fair-minded and tolerant and easygoing. Yet in 
times of trouble and danger, Australians are the first to step forward, 
to accept the hard duties, and to fight bravely until the fighting is 
done.
    In a hundred years of experience, American soldiers have come to 
know the courage and good fellowship of the ``diggers'' at their side. 
We fought together in the Battle of Hamel, together in the Coral Sea, 
together in New Guinea, on the Korean Peninsula, in Vietnam. And in the 
war on terror, once again we're at each other's side.
    In this war, the Australia and American people have witnessed the 
methods of the enemy. We saw the scope of their hatred on September the 
11, 2001. We saw the depth of their cruelty on October the 12, 2002. We 
saw destruction and grief, and we saw our duty. As free nations in 
peril, we must fight this enemy with all our strength.
    No country can live peacefully in a world that the terrorists would 
make for us. And no people are immune from the sudden violence that can 
come to an office building or an airplane or a nightclub or a city bus. 
Your nation and mine have known the shock and felt the sorrow and laid 
the dead to rest. And we refuse to live our lives at the mercy of 
murderers.
    The nature of the terrorist threat defines the strategy we are using 
to fight it. These committed killers will not be stopped by 
negotiations. They will not respond to reason. The terrorists cannot be 
appeased. They must be found. They must be fought, and they must be 
defeated.
    The terrorists hide and strike within free societies, so we're 
draining their funds, disrupting their plans, finding their leaders. The 
skilled work of Thai and Indonesia and other authorities in capturing 
the terrorist Hambali--suspected of planning the murders in Bali and 
other attacks--was a model of the determined campaign we are waging.
    The terrorists seek safe harbor to plot and to train, so we're 
holding the allies of terror to account. America, Australia, and other 
nations acted in Afghanistan to destroy the

[[Page 1457]]

home base of Al Qaida and rid that country of a terror regime. And the 
Afghan people, especially Afghan women, do not miss the bullying and the 
beatings and the public executions at the hands of the Taliban.
    The terrorists hope to gain chemical, biological, or nuclear 
weapons, the means to match their hatred. So we're confronting outlaw 
regimes that aid terrorists, that pursue weapons of mass destruction, 
and that defy the demands of the world. America, Australia, and other 
nations acted in Iraq to remove a grave and gathering danger, instead of 
wishing and waiting while tragedy drew closer.
    Since the liberation of Iraq, we have discovered Saddam's 
clandestine network of biological laboratories, the design work on 
prohibited long-range missiles, his elaborate campaign to hide illegal 
weapons programs. Saddam Hussein spent years frustrating U.N. inspectors 
for a simple reason: because he was violating U.N. demands. And in the 
end, rather than surrender his programs and abandon his lies, he chose 
defiance and his own undoing.
    Who can possibly think that the world would be better off with 
Saddam Hussein still in power? Surely not the dissidents who would be in 
his prisons or end up in his mass graves. Surely not the men and women 
who would fill Saddam's torture chambers and rape rooms. Surely not the 
families of the victims he murdered with poison gas. Surely not anyone 
who cares about human rights and democracy and stability in the Middle 
East. Today, Saddam's regime is gone, and no one----

[At this point, there was a disturbance in the audience.]

    Speaker Andrew. Senator Brown, I warn you--Senator Brown will excuse 
himself from the House. Senator Brown will excuse himself from the 
House. The Sergeant will remove Senator Brown from the House.
    The President.
    President Bush. Surely no one who cares about human rights and 
democracy and stability in the Middle East. Today Saddam Hussein's 
regime is gone, and no one should mourn its passing.
    In the months leading up to our action in Iraq, Australia and 
America went to the United Nations. We are committed to multilateral 
institutions, because global threats require a global response. We're 
committed to collective security, and collective security requires more 
than solemn discussions and sternly worded pronouncements. It requires 
collective will. If the resolutions of the world are to be more than ink 
on paper, they must be enforced. If the institutions of the world are to 
be more than debating societies, they must eventually act. If the world 
promises serious consequences for the defiance of the lawless, then 
serious consequences must follow.
    Because we enforced Resolution 1441 and used force in Iraq as a last 
resort, there is one more free nation in the world, and all free nations 
are more secure.
    We accepted our obligations with open eyes, mindful of the 
sacrifices that had been made and those to come. The burdens fall most 
heavily on the men and women of our Armed Forces and their families. The 
world has seen the bravery and skill of the Australian military. Your 
Special Operations forces were among the first units on the ground in 
Iraq. And in Afghanistan, the first casualty among America's allies was 
Australian, Special Air Service Sergeant Andrew Russell. This afternoon, 
I will lay a wreath at the Australian War Memorial in memory of Sergeant 
Russell and the long line of Australians who have died in the service to 
this nation. And my Nation honors their service to the cause of freedom, 
to the cause we share.
    Members and Senators, with decisive victories behind us, we have 
decisive days ahead. We cannot let up on our offensive against terror, 
even a bit. And we must continue to build stability and peace in the 
Middle East and Asia as the alternatives to hatred and fear.
    We seek the rise of freedom and self-government in Afghanistan and 
in Iraq for the benefit of their people, as an example to their 
neighbors and for the security of the world. America and Australia are 
helping the people of both those nations to defend themselves,

[[Page 1458]]

to build the institutions of law and democracy, and to establish the 
beginnings of free enterprise.
    These are difficult tasks in civil societies wrecked by years of 
tyranny. And it should surprise no one that the remnants and advocates 
of tyranny should fight liberty's advance. The advance of liberty will 
not be halted. The terrorists and the Taliban and Saddam holdouts are 
desperately trying to stop our progress. They will fail. The people of 
Afghanistan and Iraq measure progress every day. They are losing the 
habits of fear, and they are gaining the habits of freedom.
    Some are skeptical about the prospects for democracy in the Middle 
East and wonder if its culture can support free institutions. In fact, 
freedom has always had its skeptics. Some doubted that Japan and other 
Asian countries could ever adopt the ways of self-government. The same 
doubts have been heard at various times about Germans and Africans. At 
the time of the Magna Carta, the English were not considered the most 
promising recruits for democracy. [Laughter] And to be honest, 
sophisticated observers had serious reservations about the scruffy 
travelers who founded our two countries. [Laughter] Every milestone of 
liberty was considered impossible before it was achieved. In our time, 
we must decide our own belief: Either freedom is the privilege of an 
elite few, or it is the right and capacity of all humanity.
    By serving our ideals, we also serve our interests. If the Middle 
East remains a place of anger and hopelessness and incitement, this 
world will tend toward division and chaos and violence. Only the spread 
of freedom and hope in the Middle East in the long term will bring peace 
to that region and beyond. And the liberation of more than 50 million 
Iraqis and Afghans from tyranny is progress to be proud of.
    Our nations must also confront the immediate threat of 
proliferation. We cannot allow the growing ties of trade and the forces 
of globalization to be used for the secret transport of lethal 
materials. So our two countries are joining together in the 
Proliferation Security Initiative. We're preparing to search planes and 
ships and trains and trucks carrying suspect cargo to seize weapons or 
missile shipments that raise proliferation concerns. Last month, 
Australia hosted the first maritime interdiction exercise in the Coral 
Sea.
    Australia and the United States are also keeping pressure on Iran to 
conform to its letter and spirit of the nonproliferation obligations. 
We're working together to convince North Korea that the continued 
pursuit of nuclear weapons will bring only further isolation. The wrong 
weapons, the wrong technology in the wrong hands, has never been so 
great a danger, and we are meeting that danger together.
    Our nations have a special responsibility throughout the Pacific to 
help keep the peace, to ensure the free movement of people and capital 
and information, and advance the ideals of democracy and freedom. 
America will continue to maintain a forward presence in Asia, continue 
to work closely with Australia.
    Today, America and Australia are working with Japan and the 
Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, and Singapore and other nations to 
expand trade and to fight terror, to keep the peace in the Taiwan 
Straits.
    Your country is hosting President Hu Jintao. Australia's agenda with 
China is the same as my country's. We're encouraged by China's 
cooperation in the war on terror. We're working with China to ensure the 
Korean Peninsula is free of nuclear weapons. We see a China that is 
stable and prosperous, a nation that respects the peace of its neighbors 
and works to secure the freedom of its own people.
    Security in the Asia-Pacific region will always depend on the 
willingness of nations to take responsibility for their neighborhood, as 
Australia is doing. Your service and your sacrifice helped to establish 
a new Government and a new nation in East Timor. And working with New 
Zealand and other Pacific Island states, you're helping the Solomon 
Islands reestablish order and build a just Government. By your 
principled actions, Australia is leading the way to peace in Southeast 
Asia. And America is grateful.
    Together----

[At this point, there was a disturbance in the audience.]

[[Page 1459]]

    President Bush. Together, my country, with Australia, is promoting 
greater economic opportunity. Our nations are now working to complete a 
U.S.-Australia Free Trade Agreement that will add momentum to the free 
trade throughout the Asian-Pacific region, while producing jobs in our 
own countries.

[At this point, there was a disturbance in the audience.]

    Speaker Andrew. Senator Nettle will resume her seat. Sergeant, 
remove Senator Nettle. Senator Nettle will resume her seat. The 
President has the call. Senator Nettle is warned. Sergeant will remove 
Senator Nettle.
    President Bush. I love free speech. [Laughter]
    Speaker Andrew. The President has the call.
    President Bush. The relationship between America and Australia is 
vibrant and vital. Together, we will meet the challenges and the perils 
of our own time. In the desperate hours of another time, when the 
Philippines were on the verge of falling and your country faced the 
prospect of invasion, General Douglas MacArthur addressed Members of the 
Australian Parliament. He spoke of a code that unites our two nations, 
the code of free people, which, he said, ``embraces the things that are 
right and condemns the things that are wrong.''
    More then 60 years later, that code still guides us. We call evil by 
its name and stand for freedom that leads to peace. Our alliance is 
strong. We value, more than ever, the unbroken friendship between the 
Australian and the American peoples. My country is grateful to you and 
to all the Australian people for your clear vision and for your strength 
of heart. And I thank you for your hospitality. May God bless you all.

Note: The President spoke at 11:30 a.m. at the Australian Parliament 
House. In his remarks, he referred to Governor-General Michael Jeffery, 
Prime Minister John Howard, Speaker of the House of Representatives Neil 
Andrew, President of the Senate Paul Calvert, and Leader of the 
Opposition Simon Crean of Australia; Nurjaman Riduan Isamuddin (known as 
Hambali), Al Qaida's chief operational planner in Southeast Asia; former 
President Saddam Hussein of Iraq; and President Hu Jintao of China. 
Speaker Andrew referred to Senator Bob Brown and Senator Kerry Nettle of 
Australia.