[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 41, Number 50 (Monday, December 19, 2005)]
[Pages 1855-1860]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks to the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

December 14, 2005

    Thank you very much. Please be seated. Thank you for the warm 
welcome. I'm delighted to be here with the men and women of the Wilson 
Center. According to your mission statement, the Center was created to 
bring together two groups, political leaders and scholars. I see some of 
the political leaders who are here, and I presume you've invited me to 
uphold the scholars' end. [Laughter]
    I've come to discuss an issue of vital importance to the American 
people, and that is victory in the war on terror. On September the 11th, 
2001, our Nation awoke to a sudden attack, and we accepted new 
responsibilities. We are confronting new dangers with firm resolve. 
We're hunting down the terrorists and their supporters. We will fight 
this war without wavering, and we will prevail.
    In the war on terror, Iraq is now the central front. And over the 
last few weeks, I've been discussing our political, economic, and 
military strategy for victory in that country. An historic election will 
take place tomorrow in Iraq. And as millions of Iraqis prepare to cast 
their ballots, I want to talk today about why we went into Iraq, why we 
stayed in Iraq, and why we cannot and will not leave Iraq until victory 
is achieved.
    I want to thank Ambassador Gildenhorn for inviting me and 
introducing me. And I want to thank the members of the Board of Trustees 
who are here. I appreciate Lee Hamilton, who serves our Nation so well 
in so many different capacities. Thank you for being the president and 
director of the Woodrow Wilson Center.
    I'm proud to be traveling today with members of my Cabinet: 
Secretary of State Condi Rice; Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld; and 
Secretary of Homeland Security Mike Chertoff. Thank you all for coming. 
I appreciate the Members of the Congress who are here. Thanks for taking 
time to come. I want to thank the members of the diplomatic corps that 
have joined us today. And thank you all for being here as well.
    We are living through a watershed moment in the story of freedom. 
Most of the focus now is on this week's elections, and rightly so. 
Iraqis will go to the polls to choose a government that will be the only 
constitutional democracy in the Arab world. Yet we need to remember that 
these elections are also a vital part of a broader strategy for 
protecting the American people against the threat of terrorism.
    We saw the future the terrorists intend for our Nation on that 
fateful morning of September the 11th, 2001. That day we learned that 
vast oceans and friendly neighbors are no longer enough to protect us. 
September the 11th changed our country. It changed the policy of our 
Government. We adopted a new strategy to protect the American people: We 
would hunt down the terrorists wherever they hide; we would make no 
distinction between the terrorists and those who harbor them; and we 
would advance our security at home by advancing freedom in the Middle 
East.
    September the 11th also changed the way I viewed threats like Saddam 
Hussein. We saw the destruction terrorists could cause with airplanes 
loaded with jet fuel, and we imagined the destruction they could cause 
with even more powerful weapons. At the time, the leaders of both 
political parties recognized this new reality: We cannot allow the

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world's most dangerous men to get their hands on the world's most 
dangerous weapons. In an age of terrorism and weapons of mass 
destruction, if we wait for threats to fully materialize, we will have 
waited too long.
    We removed Saddam Hussein from power because he was a threat to our 
security. He had pursued and used weapons of mass destruction. He 
sponsored terrorists. He ordered his military to shoot at American and 
British pilots patrolling the no-fly zones. He invaded his neighbors. He 
fought a war against the United States and a broad coalition. He had 
declared that the United States of America was his enemy.
    Over the course of a decade, Saddam Hussein refused to comply with 
more than a dozen United Nations resolutions, including demands that he 
respect the rights of the Iraqi people, disclose his weapons, and abide 
by the terms of a 1991 cease-fire. He deceived international inspectors, 
and he denied them the unconditional access they needed to do their 
jobs. When a unanimous Security Council gave him one final chance to 
disclose and disarm, or face serious consequences, he refused to comply 
with that final opportunity. At any point along the way, Saddam Hussein 
could have avoided war by complying with the just demands of the 
international community. The United States did not choose war--the 
choice was Saddam Hussein's.
    When we made the decision to go into Iraq, many intelligence 
agencies around the world judged that Saddam possessed weapons of mass 
destruction. This judgment was shared by the intelligence agencies of 
governments who did not support my decision to remove Saddam. And it is 
true that much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong. As President, 
I'm responsible for the decision to go into Iraq, and I'm also 
responsible for fixing what went wrong by reforming our intelligence 
capabilities. And we're doing just that. At the same time, we must 
remember that an investigation after the war by chief weapons inspector 
Charles Duelfer found that Saddam was using the U.N. Oil-For-Food 
Programme to influence countries and companies in an effort to undermine 
sanctions, with the intent of restarting his weapons programs once the 
sanctions collapsed and the world looked the other way.
    Given Saddam's history and the lessons of September the 11th, my 
decision to remove Saddam Hussein was the right decision. Saddam was a 
threat, and the American people and the world is better off because he 
is no longer in power. We are in Iraq today because our goal has always 
been more than the removal of a brutal dictator; it is to leave a free 
and democratic Iraq in its place.
    As I stated in a speech in the lead-up to the war, a liberated Iraq 
could show the power of freedom to transform the Middle East by bringing 
hope and progress to the lives of millions. So we're helping the Iraqi 
people build a lasting democracy that is peaceful and prosperous and an 
example for the broader Middle East. The terrorists understand this, and 
that is why they have now made Iraq the central front in the war on 
terror.
    The enemy of freedom in Iraq is a combination of rejectionists and 
Saddamists and terrorists. The rejectionists are ordinary Iraqis, mostly 
Sunni Arabs, who miss the privileged status they had under the regime of 
Saddam Hussein. We believe that, over time, most of this group will be 
persuaded to support the democratic Iraq led by a Federal Government 
that is strong enough to protect minority rights. We're encouraged by 
the indications that many Sunnis intend to participate in tomorrow's 
elections.
    The Saddamists are former regime loyalists who harbor dreams of 
returning to power, and they're trying to foment antidemocratic 
sentiment amongst the larger Sunni community. Yet they lack popular 
support, and over time, they can be marginalized and defeated by the 
security forces of a free Iraq.
    The terrorists affiliated with or inspired by Al Qaida are the 
smallest but most lethal group. They are led by a brutal terrorist named 
Zarqawi. He's Al Qaida's chief operations officer in Iraq. He has stated 
his allegiance to Usama bin Laden. The terrorists have ambitions; they 
have goals. They want to stop the advance of freedom in Iraq. They want 
to make Iraq what Afghanistan was under the Taliban, a safe haven from 
which they can plot attacks against our people.

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There is no limit to their brutality. They kill the innocent to achieve 
their aims. This is an enemy without conscience. And against such enemy, 
there is only one effective response: We will never back down; we will 
never give in; and we will never accept anything less than complete 
victory.
    Last month, my administration released a document called the 
``National Strategy for Victory in Iraq.'' In recent weeks, I've been 
discussing our strategy with the American people. At the U.S. Naval 
Academy, I spoke about how we changed our approach to training Iraqi 
security forces, so they can take the fight to the enemy and eventually 
take responsibility for the security of their citizens without major 
foreign assistance. Iraqi forces are becoming more and more capable.
    This time last year, there was only a handful of Iraqi battalions 
ready for combat. Now there are more than 125 Iraqi army and police 
combat battalions in the fight against the terrorists. Of these, more 
than 70 Iraqi battalions are fighting side by side with coalition 
forces, and more than 50 others are taking the lead in the fight. So 
far, in December, there have been more than 900 combat operations in 
Iraq at the company level or above, and 75 percent of these involved 
Iraqi security forces either in the lead or fighting side by side with 
our coalition. As these Iraqi forces grow in size and strength, American 
and coalition forces can concentrate on training Iraqis and hunting down 
high-value targets like Zarqawi and his associates.
    Last week before the Council on Foreign Relations, I explained how 
we changed our approach to help Iraqis hold and rebuild cities taken 
from the enemy and how to help them revitalize Iraq's infrastructure and 
economy. Today, many cities like Mosul and Najaf are coming back to 
life, and Iraq's economy is growing. Thousands of new businesses have 
opened in Iraq, personal income is up, and according to one survey, 7 in 
10 Iraqis say their lives are going well, and nearly two-thirds expect 
things to improve in the next year.
    Earlier this week at the Philadelphia World Affairs Council, I spoke 
in depth about how we changed our approach to helping the Iraqis build 
their democracy. At the request of Iraqi leaders, we accelerated the 
transition to Iraqi self-government. We set four major milestone to 
guide Iraq's transition to constitutional democracy: The transfer of 
sovereignty; elections for a transitional government; the adoption of a 
democratic Constitution; and elections for a new government under that 
Constitution. In spite of the violence, Iraqis have met every milestone, 
and this is changing the political landscape in Iraq.
    Sunni Arabs who failed to participate in the January elections are 
now campaigning vigorously in this week's elections, and we can expect a 
higher turnout of Sunni voters. As Sunnis join the political process, 
Iraqi democracy becomes more inclusive, and the terrorists and 
Saddamists are becoming marginalized.
    Each of the changes we have made in our approach in Iraq is helping 
us meet the hard realities and the facts on the ground. We've adapted 
our tactics. We have fixed what was not working, and we have listened to 
those who know best, our military commanders and the Iraqi people.
    Our tactics continue to change, but our goal in Iraq has not 
changed--a free and democratic Iraq. I strongly believe a democratic 
Iraq is a crucial part of our strategy to defeat the terrorists, because 
only democracy can bring freedom and reconciliation to Iraq and peace to 
this troubled part of the world. Our efforts to advance freedom in Iraq 
are driven by our vital interests and our deepest beliefs. America was 
founded on the principle that all men are created equal, and we believe 
that the people of the Middle East desire freedom as much as we do. 
History has shown that free nations are peaceful nations. And as Iraqi 
democracy takes hold, Iraqi citizens will have a stake in a common and 
peaceful future.
    As we advance the cause of freedom in Iraq, our Nation can proceed 
with confidence because we have done this kind of work before. After 
World War II, President Harry Truman believed that the way to help bring 
peace and prosperity to Asia was to plant the seeds of freedom and 
democracy in Japan. Like today, there were many skeptics and pessimists 
who said that the Japanese were not ready for democracy. Fortunately, 
President Harry Truman stuck to his guns.

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He believed, as I do, in freedom's power to transform an adversary into 
an ally. And because he stayed true to his convictions, today Japan is 
one of the world's freest and most prosperous nations, and one of 
America's closest allies in keeping the peace. The spread of freedom to 
Iraq and the Middle East requires the same confidence and persistence, 
and it will lead to the same results.

    The people of Iraq are now seeing some of the tangible benefits of 
their new democracy. They see that as freedom advances, their lives are 
improving. Iraqis have approved a bold Constitution that guarantees the 
rule of law and freedom of assembly and property rights and freedom of 
speech and the press and women's rights and the right to vote. They see 
their freedom increasingly being defended by their own soldiers and 
police instead of foreign forces. And they see that freedom is bringing 
opportunity and a better life.

    The Iraqis still face many challenges, including security and 
reconstruction and economic reform. But they are building a strong 
democracy that can handle these challenges and that will be a model for 
the Middle East. Freedom in Iraq will inspire reformers from Damascus to 
Tehran. This new Iraq shares our deepest values, and it shares our most 
determined enemies. By helping Iraqis build a nation that can govern 
itself, sustain itself, and defend itself, we will gain an ally in the 
war on terror and a partner for peace in the Middle East.

    The stakes in Iraq are high, and we will not leave until victory has 
been achieved. Today, there's an intense debate about the importance of 
Iraq to the war on terror. The constant headlines about car bombings and 
killings have led some to ask whether our presence in Iraq has made 
America less secure. This view presumes that if we were not in Iraq, the 
terrorists would be leaving us alone. The reality is that the terrorists 
have been targeting America for years, long before we ever set foot in 
Iraq.

    We were not in Iraq in 1993, when the terrorists tried to blow up 
the World Trade Center in New York. We were not in Iraq in 1998, when 
the terrorists bombed our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. We were not 
in Iraq in 2000, when the terrorists killed 17 American sailors aboard 
the U.S.S. Cole. There wasn't a single American soldier in Iraq on 
September the 11th, 2001, when the terrorists murdered nearly 3,000 
people in the worst attack on our home since Pearl Harbor.

    These acts are part of a grand strategy by the terrorists. Their 
stated objective is to drive the United States and coalition forces out 
of the Middle East so they can gain control of Iraq and use that country 
as a base from which to launch attacks against America, overthrow 
moderate governments in the Middle East, and establish a totalitarian 
Islamic empire that stretches from Spain to Indonesia. Hear the words of 
the terrorists. In a letter to the terrorist leader Zarqawi, the Al 
Qaida leader Zawahiri has outlined plans that will unfold in several 
stages. These are his words: ``Expel the Americans from Iraq. Establish 
an Islamic authority over as much territory as you can to spread its 
power in Iraq. Extend the jihad wave to secular countries neighboring 
Iraq,'' end quote.

    To achieve these goals, the terrorists are targeting innocent men, 
women, and children. The enemy has only the ability to create chaos for 
the cameras with spectacular acts of violence. They know they cannot 
defeat us militarily. So they're trying to break our will in the hopes 
of getting America to leave the battlefield early, and they cite Vietnam 
as a reason they can prevail. Zawahiri, in his letter to Zarqawi, wrote, 
``The aftermath of the collapse of the American power in Vietnam and how 
they ran and left their agents is noteworthy.'' In the past, Al Qaida 
has said that American pullouts of Lebanon and Somalia showed them that 
America is weak and could be made to run. And now the terrorists think 
they can make America run in Iraq. There's only one way the terrorists 
can prevail, if we lose our nerve and leave before the job is done. And 
that is not going to happen on my watch.

    Some in Washington are calling for a rapid and complete withdrawal 
of our forces in Iraq. They say that our presence there is the

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cause for Sinstability in Iraq and that the answer is to set a deadline 
to withdraw. I disagree. I've listened carefully to all the arguments, 
and there are four reasons why I believe that setting an artificial 
deadline would be a recipe for disaster.
    First, setting an artificial deadline would send the wrong message 
to the Iraqis. As Iraqis are risking their lives for democracy, it would 
tell them that America is more interested in leaving than helping them 
succeed, put at risk all the democratic progress they have made over the 
past year.
    Secondly, setting an artificial deadline would send the wrong 
message to the enemy. It would tell them that if they wait long enough, 
America will cut and run. It would vindicate the terrorists' tactics of 
beheadings and suicide bombings and mass murder. It would embolden the 
terrorists and invite new attacks on America.
    Third, setting an artificial deadline would send the wrong message 
to the region and the world. It would tell our friends and supporters 
that America is a weak and unreliable ally, and that when the going gets 
tough, America will retreat.
    Finally, setting an artificial deadline would send the wrong message 
to the most important audience, our troops on the frontline. It would 
tell them that America is abandoning the mission they are risking their 
lives to achieve and that the sacrifice of their comrades killed in this 
struggle has been in vain. I make this pledge to the families of the 
fallen: We will carry on the fight; we will complete their mission; and 
we will win.
    Victory will be achieved by meeting certain objectives: When the 
terrorists and Saddamists can no longer threaten Iraq's democracy; when 
the Iraqi security forces can protect their own people; and when Iraq is 
not a safe haven for terrorists to plot attacks against our country. 
These objectives, not timetables set by politicians in Washington, will 
drive our force levels in Iraq. As Iraqis stand up, we will stand down. 
And when victory is achieved, our troops will then come home with the 
honor they have earned.
    One of the blessings of our free society is that we can debate these 
issues openly, even in a time of war. Most of the debate has been a 
credit to our democracy, but some have launched irresponsible charges. 
They say that we act because of oil, that we act in Iraq because of 
Israel or because we misled the American people. Some of the most 
irresponsible comments about manipulating intelligence have come from 
politicians who saw the same intelligence I saw and then voted to 
authorize the use of force against Saddam Hussein. These charges are 
pure politics. They hurt the morale of our troops. Whatever our 
differences in Washington, our men and women in uniform deserve to know 
that once our politicians vote to send them into harm's way, our support 
will be with them in good days and bad, and we will settle for nothing 
less than complete victory.
    Before this victory comes, we still have a lot of difficult work 
ahead. We've made real progress in the last 2\1/2\ years, and the 
terrorists see this progress, and they're determined to stop it. These 
enemies are not going to give up because of a successful election. They 
know that as democracy takes root in Iraq, their hateful ideology will 
suffer a devastating blow. So we can expect violence to continue.
    We can also expect that the elections will be followed by days of 
uncertainty. We may not know for certain who's won the elections until 
the early part of January, and that's important for our citizens to 
understand. It's going to take awhile. It's also going to take awhile 
for them to form a Government. The work ahead will require patience of 
the Iraqi people and require our patience as well. Yet we must remember 
that a free Iraq is in our interests, because a free Iraq will be a 
beacon of hope. And as the Middle East grows in liberty, the American 
people will become safer, and our Nation will be more secure.
    The work ahead will also require continued sacrifice. Yet we can be 
confident, because history has shown the power of freedom to overcome 
tyranny. And we can be confident because we have on our side the 
greatest force for freedom in human history, the men and women of the 
United States Armed Forces.
    One of these men was a Marine lieutenant named Ryan McGlothlin from 
Lebanon, Virginia. Ryan was a bright young man who had everything going 
for him, and he always

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wanted to serve our Nation. He was a valedictorian of his high school 
class. He graduated from William & Mary with near-perfect grade 
averages, and he was on a full scholarship at Stanford where he was 
working toward a doctorate in chemistry.
    Two years after the attacks of September the 11th, the young man who 
had the world at his feet came home from Stanford for a visit. He told 
his dad, ``I just don't feel like I'm doing something that matters. I 
want to serve my country. I want to protect our lands from terrorists, 
so I joined the Marines.'' When his father asked him if there was some 
other way to serve, Ryan replied that he felt a special obligation to 
step up because he had been given so much. Ryan didn't support me in the 
last election, but he supported our mission in Iraq, and he supported 
his fellow Marines.
    Ryan was killed last month fighting the terrorists near the--Iraq's 
Syrian border. In his pocket was a poem that Ryan had read at his high 
school graduation, and it represented the spirit of this fine Marine. 
The poem was called ``Don't Quit.''
    In our fight to keep America free, we'll never quit. We've lost 
wonderful Americans like Ryan McGlothlin. We cherish the memory of each 
one. We pray the loved ones--pray for the loved ones they've left 
behind, and we count it a privilege to be citizens of a country they 
served. We also honor them by acknowledging that their sacrifice has 
brought us to this moment, the birth of a free and sovereign Iraqi 
nation that will be a friend of the United States and a force for good 
in a troubled region of the world.
    The story of freedom has just begun in the Middle East. And when the 
history of these days is written, it will tell how America once again 
defended its own freedom by using liberty to transform nations from 
bitter foes to strong allies. And history will say that this generation, 
like generations before, laid the foundation of peace for generations to 
come.
    May God bless you all.

Note: The President spoke at 11:08 a.m. in the Ronald Reagan Building 
and International Trade Center. In his remarks, he referred to Joseph 
Gildenhorn, Chairman, Board of Trustees, Woodrow Wilson International 
Center for Scholars; former President Saddam Hussein of Iraq; senior Al 
Qaida associate Abu Musab Al Zarqawi; Usama bin Laden, leader of the Al 
Qaida terrorist organization; Ayman Al-Zawahiri, founder of the Egyptian 
Islamic Jihad and senior Al Qaida associate. The Office of the Press 
Secretary also released a Spanish language transcript of these remarks.