[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 41, Number 20 (Monday, May 23, 2005)]
[Pages 825-830]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks at the International Republican Institute Dinner

May 18, 2005

    Thank you all. Thank you. Thanks. Please be seated. Thank you for 
the warm welcome. I thank John for that introduction. John McCain is a 
man of honor and integrity and personal courage. He's an outstanding 
chairman for the International Republican Institute. He campaigned with 
me, for which I was grateful, and one time he said, ``Do you believe in 
free speech?'' I said, ``I do.'' He said, ``Why don't you get over to 
the IRI and give one, then?'' [Laughter]
    It was an honor to meet your mother, John--Roberta. There she is. 
Mrs. McCain, it's good to see you. If you're anything like my mother, 
I'm sure you're telling John what to do. [Laughter] If he's anything 
like me, he's listening to you about half the time. [Laughter] But thank 
you very much, John.
    I appreciate your president, Lorne Craner. He did a fantastic job in 
our administration as Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy and 
Human Rights and Labor, and he continues to do good work.
    I regret Laura is not with us tonight. You probably think she's 
working on some of her one-liners. [Laughter] She's actually packing her 
bags because she's off for Jordan and Israel and Egypt to continue to 
deliver the freedom message, and I can't think of a better messenger.
    I want to thank Peter Madigan and John Thain. I want to thank the 
Members of the Congress who are here tonight. I particularly want to say 
hello and thanks to my close friend Ambassador Jerry Bremer for his 
fantastic work in Iraq. Thank you, Jerry, for your good job.
    I'm pleased to know that Paul Wolfowitz is with us tonight, 
President-elect of the World Bank. I'm going to miss him as a part of my 
administration. But I want to tell you something: The world will be 
better off with Paul Wolfowitz as the head of the World Bank.
    I want to thank the members of the diplomatic corps.
    And I want to thank you for this fine award. I understand a little 
later on you're going to give an award to a true champion of freedom, 
and that is Pope John Paul II. Everywhere he went, Pope John Paul 
preached the call of freedom is for every member of the human family, 
because the Author of Life wrote it into our common human nature. And in 
the end, even the Berlin Wall could not withstand the force of this 
humble Polish priest who became the Bishop of Rome and a true hero for 
the ages. Thank you for honoring this good man.

[[Page 826]]

    I'm here to thank you for supporting the IRI. And I appreciate the 
work IRI is doing to advance the cause of liberty. For more than two 
decades, IRI has been at the forefront of democratic change in more than 
a hundred countries. You've trained the next generation of leaders. 
You've strengthened political parties. You've monitored elections, and 
you're helping to build civil societies. You've made an enormous 
difference in the lives of millions across the world. I hope that makes 
you feel good. The world is safer and freer and more peaceful because of 
the International Republican Institute. Thank you for your good work.
    These are incredibly exciting times. They must be exciting times for 
you, and they're exciting times for me. They should be exciting times 
for everybody because freedom is making unprecedented progress across 
the globe. In the last 18 months, we have witnessed revolutions of Rose, 
Orange, Purple, Tulip, and Cedar. And these are just the beginnings. 
Across the Caucasus and central Asia, hope is stirring at the prospect 
of change, and change will come. Across the broader Middle East, we are 
seeing the rise of a new generation whose hearts burn for freedom, and 
they will have it.
    This is a period of great idealism, when dreams of liberty are 
coming true for millions. Yet, to achieve idealistic goals, we need 
realistic policies to help nations secure their freedom and practical 
strategies to help young democracies consolidate their gains.
    To help young democracies succeed, we need to recognize that freedom 
movements can create a vacuum. Democratic change and free elections are 
exhilarating events. Yet we know from experience they can be followed by 
moments of uncertainty. When people risk everything to vote, it can 
raise expectations that their lives will improve immediately, but 
history teaches us that the path to a free society is long and not 
always smooth.
    During my visit to Europe, I stopped in a country that is now in the 
early stages of its transition from free elections to a free society, 
and that's the nation of Georgia. It was a fantastic honor to represent 
our country in front of thousands of people and to stand side by side 
with a true lover of freedom, President Saakashvili. It was an 
unbelievable experience to stand in Freedom Square to celebrate the 
peaceful revolution that took place 18 months ago. Yet, it has taken 
nearly 15 years of struggle for the citizens of this young democracy to 
establish freedom and justice in their country. But I've seen the 
resolve of Georgia's leaders and the spirit of the Georgian people. And 
I can assure you, they have the will to succeed, and the United States 
of America will help them.
    Almost every new democracy has gone through a period of challenge 
and confusion. In Slovakia, the Velvet Revolution was followed by a 
period of neoauthoritarian rule before freedom firmly took hold. In 
Romania, the communist regime was toppled in 1989, and today, the post-
communist leadership is still dealing with the legacy of corruption they 
inherited as they work to build a vibrant democracy. In Ukraine, 
citizens waited 13 years after independence for the Orange Revolution 
that solidified the democratic gains. All these countries still have 
much more work to do, but their people are courageous, and their leaders 
are determined. And with our help, they will prevail.
    And as we push the freedom agenda, we must remember the history of 
our own country. The American Revolution was followed by years of chaos. 
In 1783, Congress was chased from Philadelphia by angry veterans 
demanding backpay, and the Congress stayed on the run for 6 months. Our 
first effort at a governing charter, the Articles of Confederation, 
failed miserably. It took several years before we finally adopted our 
Constitution and inaugurated our first President. It took a 4-year civil 
war and a century of struggle after that before the promise of our 
Declaration was extended to all Americans.
    No nation in history has made the transition from tyranny to a free 
society without setbacks and false starts. What separates those nations 
that succeed from those that falter is their progress in establishing 
free institutions. So to help young democracies succeed, we must help 
them build free institutions to fill the vacuum created by change. 
Democracy takes different forms in different cultures. Yet we know that 
in all cultures, successful democracies are built on certain

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common foundations, and they include the following rights:
    First, all successful democracies need freedom of speech, with a 
vibrant free press that informs the public, ensures transparency, and 
prevents authoritarian backsliding.
    Second, all successful democracies need freedom of assembly, so 
citizens can gather and organize in free associations to press for 
reform and so that a peaceful, loyal opposition can provide citizens 
with real choices.
    Third, all successful democracies need a free economy to unleash the 
creativity of its citizens and create prosperity and opportunity and 
economic independence from the state.
    Fourth, all democracies need an independent judiciary to guarantee 
rule of law and assure impartial justice for all citizens.
    And fifth, all democracies need freedom of worship, because respect 
for the beliefs of others is the only way to build a society where 
compassion and tolerance prevail.
    These are the foundations that sustain human freedom. Societies that 
lay these foundations not only survive but thrive. Societies that fail 
to do so often find they have built their future on sand instead of rock 
and risk sliding back into tyranny. So we have a great responsibility. 
We must help these young democracies build the free institutions that 
will protect their liberty and extend it to future generations.
    To help young democracies succeed and build these institutions of 
liberty, we must enlist the help of many individuals and institutions: 
nongovernmental organizations have a role to play; the United States 
Government has a role to play; and the world's free nations all have 
important roles to play.
    To build free institutions, we're counting on groups like IRI. As 
more and more people rise up to demand their freedom, the world is 
seeing a proliferation of democratic transitions. For IRI and others in 
the business of promoting democratic change, this is good news. It means 
you are in a growth industry. We need you to continue your vital work to 
help ensure free and fair elections across the world. At the same time, 
we also need you to focus your skills and experience on what comes after 
the elections are over, and the media has left, and the world's 
attention has turned elsewhere.
    As new democracies emerge, we need you to help civic associations in 
those countries transform from regime opponents to issue advocates, so 
they can press legitimate governments for essential reforms. We need you 
to help the democratic reformers you have trained make the transition 
from dissidents to elected legislators by teaching them how to build 
coalitions and set legislative agendas and master unfamiliar skills like 
constituent service. We need you to help businesses in new market 
economies organize trade associations and chambers of commerce, so they 
can promote progrowth economic policies. And we need you to teach newly 
elected governments the importance of building public support for their 
policies and programs as well as how to effectively deal with a free 
news media. By helping people build these institutions and develop the 
habits of liberty, you are helping them transform new democracies into 
lasting free societies.
    To build free institutions, the United States Government has 
responsibilities. To help meet this goal, since taking office my 
administration has provided more than $4.6 billion for programs to 
support democratic change around the world, and we have requested over 
1.3 billion for these efforts in our 2006 budget. Our 2006 budget also 
requests $80 million for the National Endowment of Democracy, more than 
double NED's budget when I took office. The reason I bring this up is I 
want you to understand that we have funding, but we will focus that 
funding to help new democracies after the elections are over.
    We must also improve the responsiveness of our Government to help 
nations emerging from tyranny and war. Democratic change can arrive 
suddenly, and that means our Government must be able to move quickly to 
provide needed assistance. So last summer, my administration established 
a new Office of Reconstruction and Stabilization in the State 
Department, led by Ambassador Carlos Pascual. This new office is charged 
with coordinating our Government's civilian efforts to meet an essential 
mission, helping the

[[Page 828]]

world's newest democracies make the transition to peace and freedom and 
a market economy.
    You know, one of the lessons we learned from our experience in Iraq 
is that while military personnel can be rapidly deployed anywhere in the 
world, the same is not true of U.S. Government civilians. Many fine 
civilian workers from almost every department of our Government 
volunteered to serve in Iraq. When they got there, they did an amazing 
job under extremely difficult and dangerous circumstances, and America 
appreciates their service and sacrifice.
    But the process of recruiting and staffing the Coalition Provisional 
Authority was lengthy, and it was difficult. That's why one of the first 
projects of the new Office of Reconstruction and Stabilization is to 
create a new Active Response Corps made up of foreign and civil service 
officers who can deploy quickly to crisis situations as civilian first-
responders. This new Corps will be on call, ready to get programs 
running on the ground in days and weeks instead of months and years. The 
2006 budget requests $24 million for this office and $100 million for a 
new Conflict Response Fund. If a crisis emerges and assistance is 
needed, the United States of America will be ready.
    This office will also work to expand our use of civilian volunteers 
from outside our Government who have the right skills and are willing to 
serve in these missions. After the liberation of Iraq and Afghanistan, 
Americans from all walks of life stepped forward to help these newly 
liberated nations recover.
    Last summer, a Lancaster, Ohio, police officer named Brian Fisher 
volunteered to spend a year in Baghdad training Iraqi police. Brian 
says, ``The Iraqi people have been under a dictatorship, and now they 
are moving toward democracy, and I want to do something to help.'' What 
a fantastic spirit that Brian showed, but he's not alone. Last May, a 
Notre Dame Law School professor named Jimmy Gurule helped train 39 Iraqi 
judges, some of whom will conduct the trials of Saddam Hussein and other 
senior members of his regime. Because of efforts of people like him and 
Brian, these trials will be fair and transparent.
    These are ordinary Americans who are making unbelievable 
contributions to freedom's cause. And the spirit of the citizenship of 
this country is remarkable, and we're going to put that spirit to work 
to advance the cause of liberty and to build a safer world.
    We're improving the capacity of our military to assist nations that 
are making democratic transitions. In Iraq and Afghanistan, our men and 
women in uniform are serving with unbelievable courage and distinction, 
and they make this country incredibly proud. The main purpose of our 
military is to win the war on terror, is to find and defeat the 
terrorists overseas so we do not face them here at home. A major goal of 
our military is to train Iraqi and Afghan security forces so these 
nations can defend their people and fight the terrorists themselves. But 
at the same time, America's Armed Forces are also undertaking a less 
visible but increasingly important task, helping these people of these 
nations build civil societies from the rubble of oppression.
    In Afghanistan, U.S. and coalition forces are deploying Provincial 
Reconstruction Teams in remote regions of that country. These teams are 
helping the Afghan Government to fix schools, dig wells, build roads, 
repair hospitals, and build confidence in the Afghan Government's 
ability to deliver real change in people's lives. In Iraq, soldiers of 
the 1st Cavalry Division launched ``Operation Adam Smith,'' provided 
Iraqi entrepreneurs with small-business loans, taught them the important 
skills to run a business, like accounting and marketing and writing 
business plans.
    To give our military more resources for this vital work, we are 
rebalancing our forces, moving people out of skills that are in low 
demand, such as heavy artillery, and adding more military police and 
civil affairs specialists that are needed in these types of situations. 
By transforming our military, we will make our Armed Forces faster, more 
agile, and more lethal, and we will make them more effective in helping 
societies transition from war and despotism to freedom and democracy.
    To build free institutions, all free nations have responsibilities. 
We know that democracies do not foment terror or invade their

[[Page 829]]

neighbors. Democratic societies are peaceful societies, which is why, 
for the sake of peace, the world's established democracies must help the 
world's newest democracies succeed.
    The United States will continue to call upon our friends and allies 
across the world to help in this noble cause. And today, many nations 
are stepping forward with practical help. And some of the most active 
countries are those who have had recent experience with tyrants 
themselves. Hungary has established an International Center for 
Democratic Transition to share its experiences with emerging 
democracies. Lithuania is now preparing to deploy a Provincial 
Reconstruction Team in western Afghanistan. Slovakia is bringing Iraqi 
political leaders to their country to show them firsthand how a nation 
moves from dictatorship to democracy. With the help of IRI, Poland and 
Lithuania and Latvia are working with civil society leaders in Belarus 
to bring freedom to Europe's last dictatorship.
    Bahrain and Jordan, the Czech Republic, and Britain and Italy are 
hosting hundreds of Iraqi judges so they can study modern legal 
techniques that will help Iraq establish the rule of law. Many nations 
are contributing troops for stability operations. In Afghanistan, 40 
countries have forces on the ground, and NATO has taken charge of the 
International Security Assistance Force in Kabul. In Iraq, 30 nations 
have forces deployed, and NATO is helping to train army officers and 
police and civilian administrators of a new Iraq.
    This is incredibly important work. And I will remind the leaders of 
free countries how important this work is.
    And it's not easy work. It's tough work. As we're seeing in the 
Middle East, freedom often has deadly enemies, men who celebrate murder, 
incite suicide, and thirst for absolute power. By working together to 
aid democratic transitions, we will isolate and defeat the forces of 
terror and ensure a peaceful world for generations to come.
    Today, much of our focus is on the broader Middle East, because I 
understand that 60 years of Western nations excusing and accommodating 
the lack of freedom in that region did nothing to make us safe. If the 
Middle East remains a place where freedom does not flourish, it will 
remain a place of stagnation and resentment and violence ready for 
export. The United States has adopted a new policy, a forward strategy 
of freedom in the Middle East, a strategy that recognizes the best way 
to defeat the ideology that uses terror as a weapon is to spread freedom 
and democracy. And we're beginning to see the effects of this new 
approach.
    Iraq and Afghanistan have held free elections and are now building 
free societies. In Afghanistan, they have for the first time a 
democratically elected President, and they are now seeing the rebirth of 
civil society in a place that until recently had only known the terror 
of the Taliban. Iraqis now have an elected Transitional National 
Assembly, a new Prime Minister, and they are on their way to writing a 
new constitution for a free Iraq. In this vital work, Iraqis and Afghans 
have the support of the American people and, thankfully, the support of 
the International Republican Institute.
    The Palestinian people have gone to the polls and have chosen a 
leader committed to negotiation instead of violence. And now we must 
help them build free institutions that will be a foundation for lasting 
peace. I've asked Jim Wolfensohn to help President Abbas build a modern 
economy and lasting political institutions. If we want to have two 
states living side by side in peace, the world must insist that the 
Palestinians develop the institutions necessary for a free, democratic 
society to grow and emerge.
    Egypt will hold its first multiparty Presidential election this 
fall. The success of this important step can be advanced by the presence 
of international monitors and by rules that allow for a real campaign.
    In Lebanon, the citizens of that nation rose up to demand their 
independence and will vote in elections that are set to start at the end 
of this month. Those elections must go forward with no outside 
influence. And when the Lebanese people have chosen their leaders, the 
world's free nations will be there to help them build a lasting 
democracy.
    In these countries and across the world, those who claim their 
liberty will have an unwavering ally in the United States. This 
administration will stand with the democratic

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reformers, no matter how hard it gets. We have a responsibility to build 
a more peaceful world. And we know that by extending liberty to millions 
who have not known it, we will advance the cause of freedom and the 
cause of peace. And we're confident--we are confident in the future 
because we know that the future belongs to freedom.
    And we know the tree of liberty begins as a sapling, vulnerable to 
violent winds and gathering storms. Yet if nurtured and protected, it 
will grow into a mighty oak that can withstand any storm, and when it 
does, the very winds that once threatened it will carry its seeds across 
borders and barriers to take root in still other lands.
    We will encourage freedom's advance. We will nurture its progress, 
and we will help the nations that choose it to navigate the pitfalls 
that follow. This is the challenge of a new century. It is the calling 
of our time. And America will do its duty.
    May God bless you all. Thank you.

Note: The President spoke at 7:09 p.m. at the Renaissance Hotel. In his 
remarks, he referred to Senator John McCain, chairman, Lorne Craner, 
president, and Peter T. Madigan, vice-chairman, International Republican 
Institute; John A. Thain, chief executive officer, New York Stock 
Exchange; L. Paul Bremer III, former Presidential Envoy to Iraq; 
President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia; President Hamid Karzai of 
Afghanistan; Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jafari of the Iraqi Transitional 
Government; President Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) of the Palestinian 
Authority; and outgoing World Bank President James D. Wolfensohn, 
Special Envoy for Gaza Disengagement.