[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 43, Number 24 (Monday, June 18, 2007)]
[Pages 803-811]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks to the Associated Builders and Contractors

June 14, 2007

    Thank you all. Thank you. Thanks for coming. I'm proud to be with 
you; glad to be

[[Page 804]]

back with the Associated Builders and Contractors. I appreciate your 
organization. I didn't realize you were founded in 1950, about the same 
time a piano nearly fell through the roof at the White House--
[laughter]--thereby causing Harry Truman to decide to renovate it. And 
for that, Laura and I are very grateful. [Laughter]
    I am grateful for your organization as well. I thank you for being 
builders, doers, and dreamers. I thank you for being people who are 
willing to take risk to help build our Nation and, at the same time, 
employ people. I want to talk to you today about how to keep the 
entrepreneurial spirit strong, how to keep this economy growing, and our 
need to protect the American people from harm. And I appreciate you 
giving me a chance to come and do so.
    David Meyer, thank you, and I thank your board for inviting me. 
Joining us today is one of my finest Secretaries, Secretary Carlos 
Gutierrez, Secretary of the Department of Commerce. I appreciate you 
coming, Carlos, and thank you for being here. Carlos was born in Cuba. 
His folks decided that it would be best that he and they come to a free 
society. He rose to become the CEO of a major U.S. corporation, and now 
he sits in the Cabinet of the United States of America. That's what the 
American Dream is all about, and it's in this Nation's interest to 
preserve dreams.
    I want to thank Congressman Todd Platts from Pennsylvania for 
joining us. Todd--there you are. How you doing, Todd? Thanks for being 
here; honored you're here. His mother is a manufacturer. She 
manufactures peanut fudge, and Platts always brings me some of it. 
[Laughter] I can't ride enough mountain bikes to--[laughter]. Give her 
my best.
    Thanks for letting me come by. I love entrepreneurs, and I like to 
be with them. Entrepreneurs are folks that really work hard. Nothing 
more exciting than having your own business. I'm sure some of you 
probably wondered growing up whether it'd be possible, whether you'd be 
able to have the ingenuity and the capacity to say, ``This is my 
business.'' But you've obviously overcome the difficult hurdles that 
face small-business owners and businessowners, and you're succeeding. 
And I'm grateful. The role of government is to make your jobs easier, 
not harder. It makes sense to encourage entrepreneurship.
    And that begins with tax policy. I believe if you have more money in 
your pocket, you're more likely to buy a piece of equipment or hire a 
new worker. I think the best way to overcome economic difficulties that 
we've had in the past is to cut the taxes on everybody who pays taxes. 
That requires fundamental trust, for those of us in government, in your 
capacity to spend your money better than the government can spend it. 
But that's what I believe.
    And I also believe that with more money in circulation in private 
hands, it encourages small-business growth and activity and commerce. 
And that's why we cut taxes not only on people with children and people 
who are married, but we cut taxes on small businesses. As a matter of 
fact, I thought it was fair to cut taxes on everybody who pays taxes, 
not to say, ``Okay, well, this group pays, and you get a tax cut, but 
this group pays, and you don't get a tax cut.'' That's not good tax 
policy, as far as I'm concerned.
    We put the--cut taxes on dividends and capital gains to encourage 
investment. We put the death tax on the road to extinction. I say, ``on 
the road to extinction''; it's not totally extinct. And I would hope 
that you would prioritize getting rid of the death tax as part of your 
legislative agendas for not only this year but next year and the years 
to come, to make sure that we get rid of the death tax once and for all. 
It would be good for our farmers and small-business owners. I don't 
think you ought to be taxed twice, once when you're living and once when 
you die. [Laughter]
    There is a lot of political debate in Washington about tax cuts, if 
you can imagine. Some would rather have your money to increase the size 
of government. Others, like me, say, ``Well, we got plenty of money. You 
ought to have more money.'' I just want to point out the facts. Since we 
enacted major tax relief in 2003, in the face of recession and corporate 
scandals and attacks, our economy has added more than 8 million new jobs 
in 45 months of uninterrupted job growth. Unemployment is low. Inflation 
is down. The

[[Page 805]]

entrepreneurial spirit is strong. Small businesses are growing. This 
economy is good, and the way to keep it good and to keep it strong is to 
make the tax cuts we passed permanent.
    You'll hear people say, ``No, we can't do that because we must 
balance the budget.'' Now really, I've been around here long enough to 
know how it works in Washington, and that is--they'll say, ``Well, we're 
going to raise your taxes. Don't worry, we're just only going to tax the 
rich.'' Well, first of all, it doesn't work that way. You can't raise 
enough money on the so-called rich in order to whet the appetite of some 
of the spenders here. [Laughter]
    And secondly, the money is not going to go to balance the budget. 
The money inevitably goes to new programs, expanded government. The best 
way to balance the budget, in my judgment, is to keep taxes low, so the 
economy grows, and be wise about how we spend your money. And our 
strategy is working. This just isn't theory; it's actually working. This 
year, the Treasury Department reported that Federal revenues through May 
are up 8 percent over the same period last year. In other words, a 
revenue stream is growing because of economic activity. And because we 
worked with the Congress last year to hold down spending, the budget 
deficit this year is about a third lower than it was at this time last 
year.
    And if we continue to be wise about how we spend the money and keep 
the economic vitality alive, we can balance the budget by 2012. Now this 
is going to take discipline here in Washington, DC. Sometimes this city 
may be short of fiscal discipline, but that's why they give the 
President the veto. And I'm looking forward to working with the Congress 
to make sure that we're wise about how we spend your money.
    A couple of other issues I want to talk briefly about. Look, I 
understand the health care issues you face. Health care needs to be 
affordable and available, no question. But we've got to make sure we do 
it without asking the Federal Government to run the health care program. 
We want decisions made by providers and patients.
    I heard the word Dave said about regulation and redtape. I 
understand your concerns. I also understand your concerns about these 
junk lawsuits. The country needs to make sure we put an end to junk 
lawsuits that threaten job providers and job creators such as yourself.
    You know, I just returned this week from Poland--Gdansk, Poland. We 
had a great trip, by the way. And it was really fantastic to represent 
the United States of America overseas. We're such a beacon of hope and a 
beacon of liberty. And anyway, we just came--and that's a city, by the 
way, where trade union activists once risked and gave their lives for 
the right to elect their government freely under a secret ballot. 
[Laughter]
    And for the last 60 years in our country, secret ballots have 
allowed workers to vote their conscience on whether to form a union or 
remain unaffiliated. The House has passed, as you well know, and the 
Senate is considering what they call card check legislation. It simply 
means that workers would be denied the right to have a secret ballot. 
The legislation would expose workers to intimidation. It violates the 
principle of our democracy. And if it ever makes it to my desk, I'm 
going to veto it.
    Supporting free enterprise also means building an immigration system 
that upholds our laws and keeps this economy strong. You have made 
comprehensive immigration reform one of your top legislative priorities, 
and I thank you for your commitment on this vital issue. And it is a 
vital issue. We have worked--Carlos Gutierrez and Michael Chertoff, two 
members of my Cabinet, have worked very closely with others in my 
administration, with Republicans and Democrats in the United States 
Senate to produce a bipartisan immigration bill. And it took a lot of 
work. It took many months of intense negotiations. And it represents the 
best hope for lasting reform.
    I was disappointed last week when the bill was temporarily withdrawn 
by the Senate majority leader. Leaders of both parties since then have 
expressed their commitment to resolving the issues that led to the 
setback and bring the bill back to the floor. And I appreciate that 
commitment, and I urge them to do so as quickly as possible so Congress 
can pass and I can sign, this year, comprehensive immigration reform.

[[Page 806]]

    The need for reform is urgent. Our immigration system has been 
broken for many years. Most Americans agree that the 1986 immigration 
law failed; it didn't work. It failed because it did not secure our 
border. It failed because it did not create a reliable system for 
employers to verify the legal status of their workers. And it encouraged 
more people to come to America illegally. It didn't work, and it needs 
to be fixed. When you find something that doesn't work, you have a 
responsibility to fix it.
    The number of illegal immigrants in our country has continued to 
grow, and illegal immigration is now supported by criminal enterprises. 
In other words, there are people who are preying on these folks that are 
coming to do work that Americans aren't doing. You've got a whole system 
of coyotes; those are smugglers, human smugglers taking advantage of a 
broken system. You've got document forgers--people wanting to work and 
they know they've got to have some papers, and there are people, a whole 
industry of people providing them with false documents. People are being 
exploited as a result of a broken system, and this isn't right. We can 
do better.
    I understand Americans are skeptical about immigration reform. 
There's a lot of people saying, ``Well, there's just no possible way 
that they can achieve important objectives. After all, they tried in 
'86, and it failed.'' People are--got a lot of emotions on this issue. 
You probably hear it at the coffee shops, talking about the issue. 
People are very emotional about immigration reform, and people have got 
different perspectives on a course of action. Most say--many say the 
most important issue is to secure the border. Others say an important 
part of immigration reform is to find the workers they need to help a 
growing economy. Still others say that it's important to resolve the 
status of 12 million people already here illegally and help immigrants 
assimilate into our society. There's varieties of opinions about this 
subject.
    I believe that we must address all these concerns in order to have 
an effective system, and that's why I strongly support comprehensive 
immigration reform. And I appreciate you understanding that in order to 
have a system that works, all the issues must be addressed.
    By moving forward with the bill in the Senate, we will make our 
border more secure. In other words, if you're worried about border 
security, you ought to be supporting this bill. For decades, we have not 
been in complete control of the border. I was honored to be the Governor 
of Texas. I know something about a large border with Mexico--
[laughter]--and we weren't in control of that border. A lot of people 
then say, ``Well, if you hadn't been in control, do you have the 
capacity to secure the border?'' You'll hear a lot of people here say, 
``Well, since you didn't do it in the past, you can't do it in the 
future.'' In other words, people are worried about that issue.
    The first step to comprehensive reform must be to enforce 
immigration laws at the border and at worksites across the country. The 
administration--our administration has taken significant steps, by the 
way, to increase border security and worksite enforcement. Since I've 
took office, we've more than doubled funding for border security. I 
mean, there's a focused effort, by the way, to do what many Americans 
want us to do, which is to secure that border. We've expanded the number 
of Border Patrol agents from about 9,000 to about 13,000. We've set our 
Nation on the course to double the size of Border Patrol during my 
Presidency. In other words, we're going to add another 5,000 agents.
    I was in Artesia, New Mexico, to a border training center. I watched 
these good folks prepare for this very important job. We've increased 
the number of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents--I'm sure you 
understand what an ICE agent is--from about 8,000 in 2002 to more than 
11,000. In other words, on the enforcement side, we've made some serious 
efforts to do what the American people expect us to do.
    There used to be a problem with catch-and-release. Our Border Patrol 
agents would find somebody trying to sneak into our country illegally. 
They would say, ``We caught you; now report back to the local 
immigration court so you can have your hearing,'' because there was no 
place to hold these good people--or these people. And guess what would 
happen? They'd head off into society and say,

[[Page 807]]

``See you later,'' and never return for the court date. So we worked 
with Congress and expanded the number of beds on our border, and we've 
effectively ended catch-and-release.
    I want to tell you a statistic that may surprise you. Last year, we 
apprehended and sent home more than about 1.1 million people entering 
our country illegally. Now think about that. In one year alone, our 
Border Patrol agents and law enforcement agents found 1.1 million people 
coming into our country illegally and sent them home. They're working 
hard down there, and they're making progress. People are doing the jobs 
we expect them to do, and now we're going to build on this progress.
    So this bill sets clear benchmarks for border security that must be 
met before other elements of this legislation are triggered. We make a 
priority of securing the border. These benchmarks include further 
increasing Border Patrol agents, building miles of fencing, and 
modernizing the border. You can't fence the whole border, but you can 
use fencing in a way to help known--to help stop people at known 
crossing points. It's a smart part of making sure the border is secure, 
along with other ways to modernize the border--berms and electronics and 
UAVs. We're going to improve our surveillance capability. In other 
words, we're modernizing the border. It hadn't been that way. And we're 
making progress to modernize that border.
    It also includes benchmarks for giving honest employers the tools to 
verify that they're hiring legal workers. Most people want to comply 
with the law. I know you do. Yet it's awfully hard for you to be a 
document verifier. That's not what you--[applause]. It's a burden to 
place on small-business owners, to be--say, ``Okay, you've got to make 
sure that the documents that look real are real.'' These document 
forgers are good. They know what they're doing. They're preying on 
innocent people who want to simply find work to put food on the table 
back at home.
    And so the bill we're talking about says, okay, enough is enough 
when it comes to document forgery. We'll create a tamper-resistant 
identity card for foreign workers and a mandatory electronic system for 
verifying employment eligibility. This will make sure that you're 
complying with the law, that you don't have to guess, that you don't 
hope you're dealing with some forged document. It will make it easier 
for you to do your--run your businesses, and at the same time, it will 
make it easier for the government to punish those who hire illegal 
immigrants--knowingly hire illegal immigrants. In other words, it gives 
us a chance to enforce the law, and that's what the American people 
want.
    It's important for the people to know that their government is 
serious about meeting these benchmarks. One common concern is whether 
the government will provide the resources to meet the goals in the bill. 
People say, ``It's fine to talk about it; are you actually going to do 
something?'' To answer these concerns, I support an amendment that will 
provide $4.4 billion in immediate additional funding for securing our 
borders and enforcing our laws at the worksite. This funding will come 
from the fines and penalties that we collect from those who have come to 
our country illegally.
    By matching our benchmarks with these critical funds, we're going to 
show the American people that the promises in this bill will be kept. 
And so I call on the Senators to pass this amendment and to show the 
American people that we're going to do our jobs of securing this border 
once and for all.
    But by moving forward with this bill, we'll also help meet the needs 
of a growing economy. When the economy grows, people are looking for 
workers. That's economics one. [Laughter] You're probably some who are 
looking for workers. As you get expanded work orders, you're wondering 
whether you can find the workers to meet the needs. That's what happens 
when the economy grows. You need workers to make the economy grow.
    The reality is, in America, that the construction industry and other 
sectors depend on foreign workers to fill jobs Americans are not doing. 
That's the reality of the world we live in. So once our border security 
and worksite enforcement measure is in place, this bill will create a 
new temporary-worker program. The program will establish a lawful and 
orderly process for foreign workers to come to America on a temporary 
basis. This will help

[[Page 808]]

reduce the number of people trying to sneak across our border. If you're 
truly interested in border security, it makes sense to give people a 
legal way to come to do work Americans aren't doing, on a temporary 
basis.
    See, people are sneaking in because they want to work. It makes 
sense, to me, to say, ``Instead of sneaking in, here's a temporary-
worker card that's tamper-proof, that you can go fill jobs that 
Americans aren't doing. Therefore, you don't sneak across.'' Such a 
system will take pressure off the border and let our Border Patrol 
agents focus on drug runners or gun runners or terrorists. I strongly 
believe that it's in our economic interest and in our security interest 
to have a temporary-worker program.
    This legislation will also create a merit-based point system for 
admitting new immigrants to our country. The system will reward new 
applicants based upon skills and education so we can ensure that America 
continues to have the world's most talented workforce. It's a reform of 
an immigration system that hadn't worked. The bill is a practical way to 
address problems that have sprung up as a result of an immigration 
system that hasn't worked. By moving forward, this bill will resolve the 
status of those who are here illegally--already here illegally.
    Look, we need to do this without animosity and without amnesty. I 
know there are some people who, I guess, believe that we could just kick 
them out of the country. That's just totally impractical. It won't work. 
We need a practical solution to a problem that has arisen as a result of 
a bill that didn't work, the 1986 immigration bill.
    Amnesty is forgiveness with no penalty for people who have broken 
our laws to get here. In contrast, this bill requires illegal workers to 
pay a fine, to register with the government, to undergo background 
checks, to pay their back taxes, to hold down a steady job, and to learn 
English in a set period of time.
    At the end of 8 years, if they want to apply for a green card--in 
other words, get in line for citizenship--after 8 years, they'll have to 
return to their home country so they can apply from there, pay an 
additional fine. In short, they will prove themselves worthy of a great 
land.
    The legislation will also help newcomers to our country assimilate 
into our society. One of the great beauties of America has been, people 
can come to this country with a dream and become Americans; that's 
assimilate.
    Carlos Gutierrez's story is a great story. Mel Martinez's parents 
put him on an airplane from Cuba to Florida because a tyrant emerged on 
that island. He was in my Cabinet. I was at the Coast Guard Academy the 
other day; the number-one graduate at the Coast Guard Academy talked 
about his migrant worker grandfather who came to America with a dream. 
And now the grandson stands in front of the President talking about the 
beauties of America. You know, Americans must be confident in our 
ability to assimilate newcomers. We have done so in the past, and we 
will do so in the future. People newly arrived with dreams lift our 
soul; they invigorate our society; they work hard to become Americans. 
And it's important for us to help them assimilate.
    And the key to that, the key to unlocking the full promise of 
America is the ability to read, write, and speak English. And so the 
bill affirms that English is the language of our land. And the bill will 
expand opportunities to help new immigrants learn our language and the 
shared ideals that make us all Americans.
    We have an historic window of opportunity to act now. Now is the 
time to get it done. We've got to summon the political courage to move 
forward on comprehensive reform. Doing nothing is not a solution. If we 
fail to act, the problems of 1986 will continue. The pressures on our 
border will not be alleviated. Employers will be left without a reliable 
system for verifying the legal status of their workers. Jobs will go 
unfulfilled. Hard-working immigrants will remain in the shadows of our 
society. And our Nation will continue to have a broken immigration 
system.
    The American people expect people in Washington, DC, to solve 
problems. I believe we can express our feelings, disagree on certain 
elements of the legislation, and still come together on a solution. I'm 
confident that we can pass a bill into law this year, and it will show 
the American people that we can

[[Page 809]]

prove we're serious about confronting the great issues of our time.
    Now is the time to set aside all the political wrangling that tends 
to dominate the scene here in Washington, DC, and do hard work and pass 
a comprehensive immigration bill. And I'm counting on your help to get 
it done. [Applause] Thank you all.
    As we work on this legislation at home, we're meeting important 
responsibilities abroad. On September the 11th, 2001, we saw that 
problems originating in a failed and oppressive state 7,000 miles away 
could bring murder and destruction to our cities. Nine-Eleven was a 
turning point for our Nation. We learned that our Nation's security 
depends on fighting our enemies overseas so we do not have to face them 
here at home. And we learned that to secure our country, we must advance 
the cause of freedom as the great alternative to tyranny and terror.
    We're in an ideological conflict with ambitious men who have a 
different view of government than we do. They don't believe in dissent. 
They don't believe in freedom to worship as one sees fit. They want to 
extend their power and reach throughout the Middle East. They want to 
reestablish a caliphate. And they murder to achieve their objectives. 
You can't talk reason to these people. You cannot negotiate with them. 
We must stay on the offense and bring them to justice before they hurt 
us again.
    We went into Afghanistan and helped remove an oppressive government 
that harbored the terrorists who planned the 9/11 attacks. Today, 
because we acted, the terrorist camps in Afghanistan have been shut 
down. Al Qaida lost its safe haven. Twenty-five million people have been 
liberated. The Afghan people have elected a Government that is fighting 
terrorists instead of harboring them. It's in our Nation's security 
interests, it's in our national interest to stand with that young 
democracy in Afghanistan and give their people a chance to live in 
liberty.
    In Iraq, we removed a cruel dictator who was an enemy of the United 
States of America, had used--who had used weapons of mass destruction, 
who was paying the families of suicide bombers, who had invaded his 
neighbors, who was given a chance to disclose or disarm by the U.N. 
Security Council not once, but numerous times. He made the wrong choice. 
I made the choice to uphold what the free world said. The world is 
better off without Saddam Hussein in power, and so are the Iraqis.
    And now we're undertaking the difficult and dangerous work of 
helping Iraq establish a functioning democracy that can protect our 
people and be an ally in this struggle against radicals and extremists 
who use murder to achieve an ideological objective. And the stakes are 
high, and it's tough work.
    In December 2005, if you can remember that far back--[laughter]--
nearly 12 million Iraqis went to the polls. I was pleased but not 
surprised. I believe in the universality of freedom. I believe people 
want to be free. And here, after years of tyranny, when given a chance, 
12 million people went to the polls. And by going to the polls, they 
chose a new Government under the most progressive, democratic 
Constitution in the Arab world.
    A thinking enemy watched all this. And in 2006, Al Qaida--the folks 
who orchestrated the attack on the United States of America on September 
the 11th, 2001--and other Sunni extremists ramped up their attacks, 
which led to a tragic escalation of sectarian violence. In the face of 
the violence, I had a choice to make: to withdraw our troops, or to send 
reinforcements to help the Iraqis quell the violence.
    Had I been polled during that period of time, I'd have said I was--I 
didn't approve of what was happening in Iraq. I'd have been one of the, 
``You can put me down as not approving.'' The sectarian violence was 
getting more severe, and I had a choice. It's what Presidents do. They 
make decisions. And that's what you do. You make decisions. I made a 
decision. I decided to send more troops with a new mission to help the 
Iraqi Government secure the population and get control of Baghdad. I put 
our troops under a new commander, General David Petraeus, who wrote the 
Army's new manual on counterinsurgency warfare.
    It is too early to judge the results of this new strategy. General 
Petraeus recently put it this way: ``We haven't even started the full 
surge yet.'' He just got his troops on the ground. Only at the end of 
this week will

[[Page 810]]

the last of the five reinforcement brigades become fully operational.
    Under our new strategy, American and Iraqi forces are now living 
side by side in Baghdad neighborhoods. As Iraqis see forces patrolling 
their streets, they're gaining the trust, and they're getting new 
cooperation from the residents.
    Now, just as an example of what I'm talking about, Iraqi and 
coalition forces have captured more weapon caches since the beginning of 
the year than they did all of last year. Why? Because people are 
beginning to trust that the security situation will improve. They're 
willing to step forward. Most people want to live in peace. Iraqi 
mothers want their children to grow up in a peaceful world, just like 
our mothers do. There's something universal about motherhood, isn't 
there? They want something better for their children, and they don't 
like the violence, and they're expecting their Government to help them. 
And that's what we're doing; we're helping to provide security.
    We're also seeing gains from our new strategy in Anbar Province. 
Anbar is a large Sunni area west of Baghdad that has been a hotbed for 
insurgents and Al Qaida. This is where Al Qaida said they were going to 
establish a new safe haven. They have made it clear they want safe 
havens. Why? Because they want to attack again; they want to spread 
their ideology. This is what the enemy has said. And I take the words of 
the enemy very seriously, and so should the American people.
    With the help of tribal sheikhs, American and Iraqi forces have 
cleared and held terrorist strongholds in Ramadi and Fallujah. The 
population is tired of Al Qaida. They're tired of murder. And we're 
striking powerful blows against Al Qaida in Anbar, and that helps our 
security here at home.
    The summer is going to be a critical period for our new strategy. 
I've cautioned that the enemies of free Iraq will--particularly Al Qaida 
and illegal militias--are going to continue their campaigns of terror 
and intimidation to stop the progress of a free society. We can expect 
heavy fighting in the coming weeks. We can expect more casualties, both 
American and Iraqi casualties.
    Just yesterday, two minarets of the Golden Mosque of Samarra were 
blown up in an attack that had all the hallmarks of Al Qaida. The mosque 
is one of the most sacred places in Shi'a Islam. The same mosque that 
was blown up last year--the Golden Dome was blown up, and that caused 
the sectarian violence to get out of hand, which caused me to make a 
decision to send more troops in, as opposed to withdrawing them.
    You see, these killers hope that their attacks, like this one, will 
create enough confusion and chaos that we will abandon this young 
democracy. They have objectives; they have goals; they want to drive us 
out. They thrive on chaos. Why? Because it enables them to develop safe 
haven. If they ever gain safe haven, the United States becomes even more 
vulnerable to attack. One of the lessons of September the 11th is, what 
happens overseas matters to the security of the United States of 
America. It is better to defeat them overseas than face them here on our 
soil again.
    The act of cruelty that took place yesterday and has taken place by 
these car bombs that destroy innocent life reveals the terrorists for 
what they are: the enemy of every Iraqi who seeks to live in peace. 
That's what they are. They're the enemy of people who want to live in 
peace.
    I call on Iraqis to reject this provocation. America will continue 
to stand behind the Iraqi people as they fight these extremists and 
terrorists, people who want to destroy both our countries. With our 
help, we expect the Iraqi Government to pass laws that help the people 
of that troubled land reconcile their differences so that the people who 
voted for democracy can raise their families in a secure environment. We 
all have obligations to make sure that this young democracy survives. 
That's what the Iraqi people expect our Government to do, and that's 
what the American people expect us to tell the Iraqi Government to do.
    Obviously, this is more than a military mission; there must be a 
political track at the same time. This is a difficult fight, and the 
temptation is to look for an easy way out. Some in Washington who--want 
to declare defeat before our troops even had the chance

[[Page 811]]

to make it work. The consequences of failure would be grave.
    If we withdraw before the Iraqi Government can defend itself, we 
would leave a dangerous security vacuum, which extremist forces like Al 
Qaida would compete to fill. Sectarian violence would multiply on a 
horrific scale. Fighting could engulf the entire region in chaos. The 
extremists who emerge victorious in this struggle could use Iraq as a 
base to launch new attacks against America. Ultimately, our troops might 
have to return to Iraq in order to protect ourselves, and confront an 
entrenched enemy that is even more dangerous. The stakes are high.
    We will not abdicate our responsibility and leave this problem to 
future generations. Now is the time to confront the danger. Now is the 
time to do the hard work necessary for this democracy to survive. Now is 
the time to stand with the Iraqi people, not only for their security but 
for our own. And that is why we will complete the mission.
    For all the talk about consequences of failure, we also need to 
remember the consequences of success in Iraq. Success will give us a new 
ally in the war on terror. This is a global war that we're fighting 
against ideologues who use murder as a weapon to achieve their 
objectives. It's important for us to support forms of government that 
defeat an ideology of hate. And the best form of government that defeats 
ideology of hate is one of hope, and that's liberty. And it's worked 
throughout the history of the United States of America and the world, 
for that matter. We have seen freedom's power to transform societies 
before.
    My dad, like many of your relatives, defended our Nation in a bloody 
war against the Japanese and the Germans. I doubt right after World War 
II somebody would have predicted that one of George W. Bush's--well, 
they wouldn't have predicted I'd have been President anyway, but--
[laughter]--particularly my friends in Midland, Texas. [Laughter] But I 
doubt somebody would have said a future President would be sitting down 
at a table with the Japanese, keeping the peace. After a bloody war, 
with the sworn enemy being the Japanese and the Germans, I doubt anybody 
would have said--had the confidence necessary to say that liberty has 
got the capacity to transform enemies into allies. But that's what 
happened.
    I went to the G-8, and Angela Merkel, who is a really fine leader 
for Germany, was at the table. And Shinzo Abe from Japan was at the 
table. We're talking about peace. We're talking about dealing with the 
conditions that cause radicalism to prevail, dealing with forms of 
government that frustrate people so much that 19 kids get on an airplane 
and kill nearly 3,000 Americans. But we've got to be confident as we 
look at the future. Liberty has transformed enemies to allies. Liberty 
has got the capacity to defeat an ideology based upon hate. Liberty has 
got the ability to bring light into societies.
    We've done this kind of hard work before. And it's in our interests 
to secure a young generation of Americans against the threats of the 
21st century, to do this work again. I'm optimistic about our future. I 
believe the United States can achieve anything she sets her mind to. And 
so I come to you today to talk about making this economy stronger, to 
dealing with problems, and to how the United States intends to handle 
the biggest issue facing us, and that's to make sure we protect the 
American people. The challenges are great, but this country can handle 
any challenge that comes our way.
    Proud to be with you. May God bless you.

Note: The President spoke at 10:39 a.m. at the Capital Hilton. In his 
remarks, he referred to David R. Meyer, chairman, Associated Builders 
and Contractors National Executive Committee; and President Fidel Castro 
Ruz of Cuba.