[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 43, Number 18 (Monday, May 7, 2007)]
[Pages 553-557]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida

May 1, 2007

    Thank you all. Thank you all for letting me come by to say hello. I 
am proud to address the CENTCOM Coalition Conference. CENTCOM's 
Coalition Village is a welcome reminder that in the fight against 
radicals and extremists and murderers of the innocent, we stand as one. 
We appreciate your country's contributions to this enormous challenge in 
the 21st century.
    I appreciate the fact that your work has helped to liberate millions 
of people. I appreciate the fact that your work has helped keep millions 
of people safe. And so I thank you for defending the security of the 
civilized world.
    I appreciate the fact that Fox Fallon has taken on this very 
important command. I can remember visiting him on the Hawaiian Islands. 
He had a house that overlooked the Pacific. It was quite a luxurious 
place. I told him, though, Tampa Bay is a good place to live, and the 
mission is vital. And so I thank you for taking it on, Admiral.
    I appreciate General Doug Brown, commander of the U.S. Special 
Operations Command. I'm proud to be here with General David Petraeus, 
commander, Multi-National Force--Iraq. I thank the coalition members 
here. I welcome the ambassadors who have joined us. I thank Dr. Rubaie, 
National Security Adviser to the Prime Minister of a free Iraq. It's 
good to see you, sir. Please give my very best to the Prime Minister. I 
thank the other Iraqis who are here with us. Thank you for your courage; 
thank you for your determination; thank you for making history.
    CENTCOM has built an impressive record of achievement in a short 
period of time. This command was established by President Ronald Reagan 
to deter a Soviet invasion of the Middle East in the latter days of the 
cold war. That era is receding into memory, but it was a long struggle--
one of constant dangers and one of fierce debates. Victory often seemed 
elusive. Yet victory did come, because America and her allies stood firm 
against an empire and an ideology that vowed to destroy us.
    Once again, history has called on great nations to assume great 
responsibilities. And once again, it is vital that allies, despite 
occasional disagreements, hold firm against vicious and determined 
enemies.
    We saw the action of this vicious and determined enemy here in 
America on September the 11th, 2001. Terrorists murdered citizens from 
more than 80 countries. Since that September morning, acts of terror 
have appeared in places like Mombasa and Casablanca and Riyadh and 
Jakarta and Istanbul and London and Amman and Madrid and Beslan and Bali 
and Algiers and elsewhere.

[[Page 554]]

September the 11th was not an isolated incident. These terrorists bring 
death to innocents all across the globe. They bring death to commuters 
on subway trains and guests who have checked into the wrong hotel and 
children attending their first week of school.
    Our main enemy is Al Qaida and its affiliates. Their allies choose 
their victims indiscriminately. They murder the innocent to advance a 
focused and clear ideology. They seek to establish a radical Islamic 
caliphate so they can impose a brutal new order on unwilling people, 
much as Nazis and Communists sought to do in the last century. This 
enemy will accept no compromise with the civilized world. Here is what 
Al Qaida charter says about those who oppose their plans: ``We will not 
meet them halfway, and there will be no room for dialog with them.'' 
These enemies have embraced a cult of death. They are determined to 
bring days of even greater destruction on our people. They seek the 
world's most dangerous weapons. Against this kind of enemy, there is 
only one effective response: We must go on the offense, stay on the 
offense, and take the fight to them.
    America is joined in this fight by more than 90 nations, including 
every country represented in this room. An era of new threats requires 
new forms of engagement, new strategies, and new tactics. So we have 
reinvigorated historic alliances, such as NATO, and formed new and 
dynamic coalitions to address the dangers of the--of our time. Our broad 
coalition has protected millions of people. We have worked to stop the 
spread of dangerous weapons. We have taken the fight to the enemy where 
they live so we don't have to face them where we live. This is a record 
that all our countries can be proud of, and the United States of America 
is proud to stand with you.
    Working together, America and our allies have shared intelligence 
that helped thwart many attacks. We uncovered and stopped terrorist 
conspiracies targeting Embassies in Yemen and Singapore and ships in the 
Straits of Hormuz and the Straits of Gibraltar. We stopped a Southeast 
Asian terror cell grooming operatives for terrorist attacks. We stopped 
an Al Qaida cell seeking to develop anthrax. British authorities 
disrupted a plot to blow up aircraft flying over the Atlantic toward the 
United States.
    Working together, coalition forces have captured or killed key 
leaders of terrorist networks. Philippine forces killed top leaders of 
an Al Qaida affiliate. Spanish police captured fugitives wanted in 
connection with the Madrid train bombings. Terrorist cells have been 
broken up by countries including Britain and Canada and Denmark and 
Italy and France and Indonesia, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, and 
Turkey. We must stay on the offense. We must defeat the enemy overseas 
so we don't have to face them in our countries.
    Working together, America and our allies have shut down funding 
channels and frozen terrorist assets, making it harder for our enemies 
to finance attacks. It makes it hard for the enemies to purchase 
weapons, to train and move around their recruits. The international 
community, through the United Nations, has imposed measures to identify 
terrorist financiers and prevent them from using international financial 
systems to fund their acts of murder and terror.
    Working together, America and our allies are training local forces 
to conduct counterterrorism activities in their own regions. We are 
helping key nations stop terrorists from establishing safe havens inside 
their borders, including Indonesia and the Philippines and Yemen. The 
Trans-Sahara Counterterrorism Partnership provides counterterrorism and 
military assistance to Chad and Mali, Niger, Mauritania, Algeria, 
Morocco, Nigeria, Senegal, and Tunisia. The East African 
Counterterrorism Initiative provides border security and police training 
to Comoros, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Tanzania, 
and Uganda.
    We're active. We're working together to make this world a safer 
place. Working together, our coalition is taking steps to stop 
terrorists from obtaining the world's most dangerous weapons. More than 
80 nations have joined the Proliferation Security Initiative. We're 
working to stop shipments of materials related to weapons of mass 
destruction on land, at sea, and in the air.
    Working together, America and other nations have acted boldly to 
confront adversaries who threaten international security. In

[[Page 555]]

Afghanistan, coalition forces drove the Taliban from power, removed Al 
Qaida training camps, and helped bring freedom to 25 million people.
    Since their liberation, the Afghan people have made enormous 
strides. Afghans chose the first democratically elected President in 
their history. They've held free elections for a National Assembly. The 
Afghan economy has doubled in size. And more than 4.6 million Afghan 
refugees have come home. It's one of the largest return movements in the 
history of the world.
    The Taliban and their Al Qaida allies are actively working to 
undermine this progress. They want power to impose their vision. Our 
coalition, led by NATO, is going on the offense against them. Coalition 
and Afghan forces have conducted dozens of operations over the past few 
months to go after enemy strongholds, including an operation launched 
this week targeting the Taliban in Helmand Province in the south of 
Afghanistan. We've seized dozens of caches of weapons and ammunition and 
improvised explosive devices. We're making progress in training the 
growing Afghan National Army. At least 20 other nations are supporting 
efforts to rebuild Afghanistan. We appreciate these contributions. And 
we will stand with our partners and the Afghan people until this 
important work is done.
    Just as America and our allies are standing together in Afghanistan, 
a determined coalition is committed to winning the fight in Iraq. Four 
years ago, we confronted a brutal tyrant who had used weapons of mass 
destruction, supported terrorists, invaded his neighbors, oppressed his 
people, and tested the resolve and the credibility of the United 
Nations. Saddam Hussein ignored every opportunity to comply with more 
than a dozen resolutions passed by the U.N. Security Council. So 
coalition forces went into Iraq, removed his vicious regime, and helped 
bring freedom to the Iraqi people.
    In 2005, nearly 12 million Iraqis demonstrated their desire, their 
deep desire to live in freedom and peace. Iraqis voted in three national 
elections--choosing a transitional government, adopting the most 
progressive, democratic Constitution in the Arab world, and then 
electing a Government under that Constitution. In 2006, a thinking 
enemy, a brutal enemy responded to this progress and struck back, 
staging sensational attacks that led to a tragic escalation of sectarian 
rage and reprisal in Baghdad.
    As sectarian violence threatened to destroy this young democracy, 
our coalition faced a choice. One option was to help the Iraqi 
Government tamp down the sectarian violence and provide them with the 
breathing space they need to achieve reconciliation, provide them the 
breathing space they need to take the political and economic measures 
necessary to make sure our military efforts were effective. The other 
option was to pull back from the capital before the Iraqis could defend 
themselves against these radicals and extremists and death squads and 
killers. That risked turning Iraq into a cauldron of chaos. Our enemy, 
the enemies of freedom, love chaos. Out of that chaos, they could find 
new safe havens.
    Withdrawal would have emboldened these radicals and extremists. It 
would have confirmed their belief that our nations were weak. It would 
help them gain new recruits, new resources. It would cause them to 
believe they could strike free nations at their choice.
    Withdrawal would have increased the probability that coalition 
troops would be forced to return to Iraq one day and confront an enemy 
that is even more dangerous. Failure in Iraq should be unacceptable to 
the civilized world. The risks are enormous.
    So after an extensive review, I ordered a new strategy that is 
dramatically different from the one we were pursuing before. I listened 
to our military commanders; I listened to politicians from both sides of 
the aisle. I made a decision. And I appointed our new commander, General 
David Petraeus, to carry out this strategy. This new strategy recognizes 
that our top priority must be to help the Iraqi Government secure its 
capital so they can make economic and political progress.
    The Iraqis cannot yet do this on their own. So I ordered 
reinforcements to help Iraqis secure their population, to go after those 
inciting sectarian violence, and to help the Iraqis get their capital 
under control.

[[Page 556]]

    This strategy is still in its early stages. Some of the 
reinforcements General Petraeus requested have not yet arrived in 
Baghdad. He believes it will take months before we can adequately gauge 
the strategy's potential for success. Yet at this early hour, we are 
seeing some signs that give us hope. Coalition forces have captured a 
number of key terrorist leaders who are providing information about how 
Al Qaida operates in Iraq. They stopped a car bomb network that had 
killed many citizens of Baghdad, and destroyed major car bomb factories. 
There has been a decline in sectarian violence. And in some areas of the 
capital, Iraqis are returning to their neighborhoods with an increased 
feeling of security.
    Terrorists and the extremists continue to unleash horrific acts of 
violence. Al Qaida is playing a major role. Last week, General Petraeus 
called Al Qaida ``probably public enemy number one'' in Iraq. He said 
that Al Qaida has made Iraq ``the central front in their global 
campaign.'' And that's why success in Iraq is critical to the security 
of free people everywhere.
    There are those who say America is engaged in this fight alone. Each 
of you here knows better. The Iraqis are suffering a lot, but they're in 
this fight. I'm impressed by the courage of the Iraqi people. Today 
there are more than 30 nations supporting the operations in Iraq. I 
appreciate the 17 NATO nations that have contributed forces or been part 
of the NATO Training Mission to help the Iraqis. I appreciate Georgia's 
recent decision to contribute 2,000 troops.
    America joins in honoring the coalition troops who have been killed 
in Iraq and the others who have been wounded in combat. I want your 
countries to know that the sacrifices made by these brave soldiers are 
for a noble cause, a necessary cause, and we grieve for them as we 
grieve for our own. Your countries have risked too much and fought too 
hard for anyone to dismiss or disregard your contributions. Our nations 
are standing together in this fight, and I want your citizens to know, 
America is deeply grateful.
    America is also grateful for the increasing contributions 
international organizations are making for Iraq's stability. On 
Thursday, the United Nations will host a conference in Egypt to sign an 
International Compact for Iraq, an agreement that will bring new 
economic assistance in exchange for greater economic reform. Then on 
Friday, Iraq's neighbors will meet to discuss ways to promote political 
reconciliation in Iraq, to promote stability in Iraq. These meetings 
will be attended by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and senior 
officials from other G-8 nations. Iran and Syria have been invited to 
attend, and this will be an important test of whether these regimes are 
truly interested in playing a constructive role in Iraq.
    Everyone in this room knows the consequences of failure in Iraq, and 
that we should also appreciate the consequences of success because we 
have seen them before. Following World War II, many nations helped lift 
the defeated populations of Japan and Germany and stood with them as 
they built representative governments from societies that had been 
ravaged and decimated. We committed years and resources to this cause. 
And that effort has been repaid many times over in three generations of 
prosperity and peace. During the cold war, the NATO Alliance worked to 
liberate nations from Communist tyranny, even as allies bickered, and 
millions marched in the streets against us, and the pundits lost hope. 
We emerged from that struggle with a Europe that is now whole and free 
and at peace.
    We look back at that history and marvel at what millions of ordinary 
people accomplished. Yet success was not preordained, and the outcome 
was not certain. Only now we can see those eras with the proper 
perspective. And I believe that one day, future generations will look 
back at this time in the same way, and they will be awed by what our 
coalition has helped to build. They will see that we strengthened 
alliances, offered new relevance to international institutions, 
encouraged new forms of multilateral engagement, and laid the foundation 
of peace for generations to come.
    These are difficult times. These are tough times. These are times 
that test the resolve of free people. These are times that require hard 
work and courage and faith in the ability of liberty to yield the peace 
we want. And so I thank you for your contributions. Thank

[[Page 557]]

you for standing for what's right. Thank you for helping the liberated. 
And thank you for working for peace.
    God bless.

Note: The President spoke at 12:45 p.m. In his remarks, he referred to 
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki of Iraq; and President Hamid Karzai of 
Afghanistan.