One given in the war against terrorism seems to be that
suicide attackers are evil, deluded or homicidal misfits
who thrive in poverty, ignorance and anarchy.

President Bush, at last year's United Nations conference on
poor nations in Monterrey, Mexico, said that "we fight
against poverty because hope is an answer to terror."
Senator John Warner, the Virginia Republican, argued that a
new security doctrine including wars of preemption was
necessary because "those who would commit suicide in their
assaults on the free world are not rational." A State
Department report issued on the first anniversary of the
9/11 attacks said that development aid should be based "on
the belief that poverty provides a breeding ground for
terrorism."

As logical as the poverty-breeds-terrorism argument may
seem, study after study shows that suicide attackers and
their supporters are rarely ignorant or impoverished. Nor
are they crazed, cowardly, apathetic or asocial. If
terrorist groups relied on such maladjusted people, "they
couldn't produce effective and reliable killers," according
to Todd Stewart, a retired Air Force general who directs
the Ohio State University program in international and
domestic security.

In the suicide bombing of a cafe in Tel Aviv last week that
killed three bystanders, for instance, the bomber and the
man accused of being his accomplice grew up in Britain, in
relatively prosperous circumstances, and attended college.

The Princeton economist Alan Krueger and others released a
study in 2002 comparing Lebanese Hezbollah militants who
died in violent action to other Lebanese of the same age
group. He found that the Hezbollah members were less likely
to come from poor homes and more likely to have a secondary
school education.

Nasra Hassan, a Pakistani relief worker, interviewed nearly
250 aspiring Palestinian suicide bombers and their
recruiters. "None were uneducated, desperately poor,
simple-minded or depressed," she reported in 2001. "They
all seemed to be entirely normal members of their
families."

A 2001 poll by the nonprofit Palestinian Center for Policy
and Survey Research indicated that Palestinian adults with
12 years or more of education are far more likely to
support bomb attacks than those who cannot read.

Officials with the Army Defense Intelligence Agency who
have interrogated Saudi-born members of Al Qaeda being
detained at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, have told me that these
fundamentalists, especially those in leadership positions,
are often educated above reasonable employment level; a
surprising number have graduate degrees and come from
high-status families. Their motivation and commitment are
evident in their willingness to sacrifice material and
emotional comforts (families, jobs, physical security), to
travel long distances and to pay their own way.

The body of research shows that over all, suicide
terrorists tend not to have the attributes of the socially
dysfunctional (fatherless, friendless, jobless). They don't
vent fear of enemies or express hopelessness or a sense of
"nothing to lose" because of lack of a career or social
mobility as would be consistent with economic theories of
criminal behavior. Suicide attackers don't opt for paradise
out of despair. If they did, say Muslim clerics who
countenance martyrdom for Allah but not personal suicide,
their actions would be criminal and blasphemous.

A study of world attitudes toward America by the Pew
Research Center in December 2002 and many other polls of
Muslims from Algeria to Indonesia show ever-rising support
for "martyrs." A United Nations report indicated that as
soon as the United States began building up for the Iraq
invasion, Qaeda recruitment has picked up in 30 to 40
countries. Recruiters for groups sponsoring terrorist acts
tell researchers that volunteers are beating down the doors
to join.

This allows terrorist agents to choose recruits who are
intelligent, psychologically balanced and socially poised.
Candidates who mostly want virgins in paradise or money for
their families are weeded out. Those selected show patience
and the ability to plan and execute in subtle, quiet ways
that don't draw attention. Al Qaeda, especially, is rarely
in a hurry. It can wait years and then strike when least
expected.

It's the particular genius of the institutions like Al
Qaeda, Hamas or Hezbollah that they are able to make
otherwise well-adjusted people into human bombs. Intense
indoctrination, often lasting 18 months or more, causes
recruits to identify emotionally with their terrorist cell,
viewing it as a family for whom they are as willing to die
as a mother for her child or a soldier for his buddies.
Consider the oath taken by members of Harkat al Ansar, a
Pakistan-based ally of Al Qaeda: "Each martyr has a special
place - among them are brothers, just as there are sons and
those even more dear."

Brian Barber, a psychologist at the University of
Tennessee, has interviewed some 900 young adults from Gaza
and a comparison group of Bosnian Muslims who had also
suffered through violence but had not become a source of
suicide bombers. The Bosnians had markedly weaker
expressions of self-esteem and less hope for the future.
Faith was the largest difference: the Palestinians
routinely invoked religion to invest personal trauma with
social meaning, whereas the Bosnians did not consider
religion significant to their life.

This overall pattern was also captured in a white paper by
the Parliament of Singapore concerning captured operatives
from Jemaah Islamiyah, a militant group allied with Al
Qaeda: "These men were not ignorant, destitute or
disenfranchised. Like many of their counterparts in
militant Islamic organizations in the region, they held
normal, respectable jobs. As a group, most of the detainees
regarded religion as their most important personal value."

Like the best Madison Avenue advertisers, but to ghastlier
effect, the charismatic leaders of terrorist groups turn
ordinary desires for family and religion into cravings for
what they're pitching.

 
How do we combat these masters of manipulation? President
Bush and many American politicans maintain that these
groups and the people supporting them hate our democracy
and freedoms. But poll after poll of the Muslim world shows
opinion strongly favoring America's forms of government,
personal liberty and education. A University of Michigan
political scientist, Mark Tessler, finds Arab attitudes to
American culture most favorable among young adults
(regardless of their religious feeling) - the same
population that recruiters single out.

It is our actions that they don't like: as long ago as
1997, a Defense Department report (in response to the 1996
suicide bombing of Air Force housing at the Khobar Towers
in Saudi Arabia) noted that "historical data show a strong
correlation between U.S. involvement in international
situations and an increase in terrorist attacks against the
United States."

Shows of military strength don't seem to dissuade
terrorists: witness the failure of Israel's coercive
efforts to end the string of Palestinian suicide bombings.
Rather, we need to show the Muslim world the side of our
culture that they most respect. Our engagement needs to
involve interfaith initiatives, not ethnic profiling.
America must address grievances, such as the conflict in
the Palestinian territories, whose daily images of violence
engender global Muslim resentment.

Of course, this does not mean negotiating with terrorist
groups over goals like Al Qaeda's quest to replace the
Western-inspired system of nation-states with a global
caliphate. Osama bin Laden seeks no compromise. But most of
the people who sympathize with him just might.

Scott Atran, a research scientist at the National Center
for Scientific Research in Paris and at the University of
Michigan, is author of ``In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary
Landscape of Religion.''

Remarks by President George W. Bush announcing the end of major combat operations in Iraq Thursday evening from the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln:

Admiral Kelly, Captain Card, officers and sailors of the USS Abraham Lincoln,
my fellow Americans: Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the Battle
of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed. And now our coalition
is engaged in securing and reconstructing that country.
In this battle, we have fought for the cause of liberty, and for the peace of
the world. Our nation and our coalition are proud of this accomplishment -yet it
is you, the members of the United States military, who achieved it. Your courage
-your willingness to face danger for your country and for each other -made this
day possible. Because of you, our nation is more secure. Because of you, the
tyrant has fallen, and Iraq is free.
Operation Iraqi Freedom was carried out with a combination of precision, and
speed, and boldness the enemy did not expect, and the world had not seen before.
From distant bases or ships at sea, we sent planes and missiles that could
destroy an enemy division, or strike a single bunker. Marines and soldiers
charged to Baghdad across 350 miles (560 kilometers) of hostile ground, in one
of the swiftest advances of heavy arms in history. You have shown the world the
skill and the might of the American Armed Forces.
This nation thanks all of the members of our coalition who joined in a noble
cause. We thank the Armed Forces of the United Kingdom, Australia, and Poland,
who shared in the hardships of war. We thank all of the citizens of Iraq who
welcomed our troops and joined in the liberation of their own country. And
tonight, I have a special word for Secretary (Donald) Rumsfeld, for General
(Tommy) Franks, and for all the men and women who wear the uniform of the United
States: America is grateful for a job well done.
The character of our military through history -the daring of Normandy, the
fierce courage of Iwo Jima, the decency and idealism that turned enemies into
allies -is fully present in this generation. When Iraqi civilians looked into
the faces of our servicemen and women, they saw strength, and kindness, and good
will. When I look at the members of the United States military, I see the best
of our country, and I am honored to be your commander in chief.
In the images of fallen statues, we have witnessed the arrival of a new era.
For a hundred years of war, culminating in the nuclear age, military technology
was designed and deployed to inflict casualties on an ever-growing scale. In
defeating Nazi Germany and imperial Japan, Allied Forces destroyed entire
cities, while enemy leaders who started the conflict were safe until the final
days. Military power was used to end a regime by breaking a nation. Today, we
have the greater power to free a nation by breaking a dangerous and aggressive
regime. With new tactics and precision weapons, we can achieve military
objectives without directing violence against civilians. No device of man can
remove the tragedy from war. Yet it is a great advance when the guilty have far
more to fear from war than the innocent.
In the images of celebrating Iraqis, we have also seen the ageless appeal of
human freedom. Decades of lies and intimidation could not make the Iraqi people
love their oppressors or desire their own enslavement. Men and women in every
culture need liberty like they need food, and water, and air. Everywhere that
freedom arrives, humanity rejoices. And everywhere that freedom stirs, let
tyrants fear.
We have difficult work to do in Iraq. We are bringing order to parts of that
country that remain dangerous. We are pursuing and finding leaders of the old
regime, who will be held to account for their crimes. We have begun the search
for hidden chemical and biological weapons, and already know of hundreds of
sites that will be investigated. We are helping to rebuild Iraq, where the
dictator built palaces for himself, instead of hospitals and schools. And we
will stand with the new leaders of Iraq as they establish a government of, by,
and for the Iraqi people. The transition from dictatorship to democracy will
take time, but it is worth every effort. Our coalition will stay until our work
is done. And then we will leave -and we will leave behind a free Iraq.
The Battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on September
the 11th, 2001, and still goes on. That terrible morning, 19 evil men -the shock
troops of a hateful ideology -gave America and the civilized world a glimpse of
their ambitions. They imagined, in the words of one terrorist, that September
the 11th would be the "beginning of the end of America." By seeking to turn our
cities into killing fields, terrorists and their allies believed that they could
destroy this nation's resolve, and force our retreat from the world. They have
failed.

In the Battle of Afghanistan, we destroyed the Taliban, many terrorists, and
the camps where they trained. We continue to help the Afghan people lay roads,
restore hospitals, and educate all of their children. Yet we also have dangerous
work to complete. As I speak, a special operations task force, led by the 82nd
Airborne, is on the trail of the terrorists, and those who seek to undermine the
free government of Afghanistan. America and our coalition will finish what we
have begun.
From Pakistan to the Philippines to the Horn of Africa, we are hunting down
al-Qaida killers. Nineteen months ago, I pledged that the terrorists would not
escape the patient justice of the United States. And as of tonight, nearly
one-half of al-Qaida's senior operatives have been captured or killed.
The liberation of Iraq is a crucial advance in the campaign against terror. We
have removed an ally of al-Qaida, and cut off a source of terrorist funding. And
this much is certain: No terrorist network will gain weapons of mass destruction
from the Iraqi regime, because the regime is no more.
In these 19 months that changed the world, our actions have been focused, and
deliberate, and proportionate to the offense. We have not forgotten the victims
of September the 11th -the last phone calls, the cold murder of children, the
searches in the rubble. With those attacks, the terrorists and their supporters
declared war on the United States. And war is what they got.
Our war against terror is proceeding according to principles that I have made
clear to all:
Any person involved in committing or planning terrorist attacks against the
American people becomes an enemy of this country, and a target of American
justice.
Any person, organization, or government that supports, protects, or harbors
terrorists is complicit in the murder of the innocent, and equally guilty of
terrorist crimes.
Any outlaw regime that has ties to terrorist groups, and seeks or possesses
weapons of mass destruction, is a grave danger to the civilized world, and will
be confronted.
And anyone in the world, including the Arab world, who works and sacrifices
for freedom has a loyal friend in the United States of America.
Our commitment to liberty is America's tradition -declared at our founding,
affirmed in (President) Franklin Roosevelt's Four Freedoms, asserted in the
Truman Doctrine, and in (President) Ronald Reagan's challenge to an evil empire.
We are committed to freedom in Afghanistan, in Iraq, and in a peaceful
Palestine. The advance of freedom is the surest strategy to undermine the appeal
of terror in the world. Where freedom takes hold, hatred gives way to hope. When
freedom takes hold, men and women turn to the peaceful pursuit of a better life.
American values, and American interests, lead in the same direction: We stand
for human liberty.
The United States upholds these principles of security and freedom in many
ways -with all the tools of diplomacy, law enforcement, intelligence, and
finance. We are working with a broad coalition of nations that understand the
threat, and our shared responsibility to meet it. The use of force has been, and
remains, our last resort. Yet all can know, friend and foe alike, that our
nation has a mission: We will answer threats to our security, and we will defend
the peace.
Our mission continues. Al-Qaida is wounded, not destroyed. The scattered cells
of the terrorist network still operate in many nations, and we know from daily
intelligence that they continue to plot against free people. The proliferation
of deadly weapons remains a serious danger. The enemies of freedom are not idle,
and neither are we. Our government has taken unprecedented measures to defend
the homeland -and we will continue to hunt down the enemy before he can strike.
The war on terror is not over, yet it is not endless. We do not know the day
of final victory, but we have seen the turning of the tide. No act of the
terrorists will change our purpose, or weaken our resolve, or alter their fate.
Their cause is lost. Free nations will press on to victory.
Other nations in history have fought in foreign lands and remained to occupy
and exploit. Americans, following a battle, want nothing more than to return
home. And that is your direction tonight. After service in the Afghan and Iraqi
theaters of war -after 100,000 miles, on the longest carrier deployment in
recent history -you are homeward bound. Some of you will see new family members
for the first time -150 babies were born while their fathers were on the
Lincoln. Your families are proud of you, and your nation will welcome you.
We are mindful as well that some good men and women are not making the journey
home. One of those who fell, Corporal Jason Mileo, spoke to his parents five
days before his death. Jason's father said, "He called us from the center of
Baghdad, not to brag, but to tell us he loved us. Our son was a soldier." Every
name, every life, is a loss to our military, to our nation, and to the loved
ones who grieve. There is no homecoming for these families. Yet we pray, in
God's time, their reunion will come.
Those we lost were last seen on duty. Their final act on this earth was to
fight a great evil, and bring liberty to others. All of you -all in this
generation of our military -have taken up the highest calling of history. You
are defending your country, and protecting the innocent from harm. And wherever
you go, you carry a message of hope -a message that is ancient, and ever new. In
the words of the prophet Isaiah: "To the captives, 'Come out!' and to those in
darkness, 'Be free!"'
Thank you for serving our country and our cause. May God bless you all, and
may God continue to bless America.

At last there is joy on the streets of Baghdad and, although it is impossible to know what proportion of the Iraqi population unreservedly welcome the invaders, nobody should for a moment regret the demise of Saddam Hussein. But nor should we forget the enormity of what has happened: an unprovoked invasion of a sovereign foreign country, in which thousands of its inhabitants died. No doubt, there will be the usual postwar arguments about the statistics, but we should note that if the death rate among international journalists and among the invaders' own troops is any guide, the toll among Iraqi civilians must be high indeed. To shift the blame to Saddam Hussein - he placed rocket launchers in civilian areas, he made every vehicle a target by calling for suicide attacks, his soldiers used human shields, and so on - is neither here nor there. It was part of the British and US case that Saddam was a ruthless savage; it was their decision to provoke him. Nor should we accept the implication that military deaths somehow don't count, that a man becomes wicked and dispensable as soon as he puts on an Iraqi uniform. Again, it was the invaders themselves who proposed that resistance came more from fear of Saddam than from loyalty to him. Many of the dead soldiers must have been reluctant conscripts they too had hopes and dreams, wives, sisters, parents and children

North Korea said on Thursday that it would regard any US move to seek UN sanctions against the communist country as "the green light to a war".

The warning came after South and North Korea agreed to try to peacefully resolve the nuclear crisis, though Pyongyang has said further talks with the United States are useless unless it drops its demand that the North first scrap suspected atomic weapons programs.

North Korea says abandoning such programs would leave it defenceless and has in the past said sanctions would be seen as a step toward war.

Pyongyang "will take self-defensive measures, regarding it as the green light to a war" if Washington seeks a UN resolution authorising economic sanctions against it, North Korea said in a statement on KCNA, its official news agency.

South Korea's Foreign Minister Yoon Young-kwan declined to answer a reporter's question yesterday as to whether the South would support sanctions. He described the issue as a "very delicate and very sensitive".

An unnamed spokesman for the North's Foreign Ministry was quoted as saying by KCNA that recent US aggression compels North Korea "to opt for possessing a necessary deterrent force and put it into practice".

The agreement between the two Koreas pledging to resolve the dispute peacefully was made after four days of talks in Pyongyang. But was unlikely to mark a change in attitude by North Korea. The communist state agreed to similar communiques at previous Cabinet- level talks.

The North has insisted that the South should not meddle in the nuclear standoff, calling it a dispute with the United States.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell said the United States was reviewing an offer by North Korea to give up its missiles and nuclear facilities in exchange for substantial US economic benefits.

The North Koreans floated the proposal in talks with US envoys in Beijing last week. According to a senior US official, North Korea said for the first time during that meeting that it had nuclear weapons and was contemplating exporting them, depending on US actions.

In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao questioned whether North Korea made such an assertion. He said that as far as he knew, they have "not made such a statement".

He added that China, which also participated in the Beijing talks, supports the denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula but wants North Korea's "legitimate security concerns" to be addressed.

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder today urged the United States to exercise restraint in dealing with North Korea, joining Japan in calling for a diplomatic solution.

"We cannot use the same method as in the case of Iraq," Schroeder said after meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.

North Korea has demanded a nonaggression treaty with the United States. The US administration has ruled out such a move, but says some form of written security guarantee could be possible.

Mr Powell called the Beijing meeting "quite useful", but later told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that North Korea's proposal was "not going to take us in a direction we need to go".

On Wednesday, North Korea said nuclear talks would be a waste of time if the United States insists that the communist country first scrap its suspected atomic weapons programs before discussing possible economic and diplomatic benefits.

April 29, 2003

Following is a full transcript from a speech about Iraq by
President Bush yesterday in Dearborn, Mich., as transcribed
by Federal News Service Inc.

PRESIDENT BUSH: Thank you for that warm welcome. I'm glad
to be here. I regret that I wasn't here a few weeks ago
when the statue came down. (Applause.)

I understand you had quite a party. (LAUGHTER) I don't
blame you. A lot of the people in the Detroit area had
waited years for that great day. Many Iraqi-Americans know
the horrors of Saddam Hussein's regime first hand. You also
know the joys of freedom you have found here in America.
(Applause.)

You are living proof the Iraqi people love freedom and
living proof the Iraqi people can flourish in democracy.
People who live in Iraq deserve the same freedom that you
and I enjoy here in America. (Applause.) And after years of
tyranny and torture, that freedom has finally arrived.
(Applause.)

I have confidence in the future of a free Iraq. The Iraqi
people are fully capable of self-government. Every day
Iraqis are moving toward democracy and embracing the
responsibilities of active citizenship. Every day life in
Iraq improves as coalition troops work to secure unsafe
areas and bring food and medical care to those in need.

America pledged to rid Iraq of an oppressive regime, and we
kept our word. America now... (Applause.) America now
pledges to help Iraqis build a prosperous and peaceful
nation, and we will keep our word again. (Applause.)

Mr. Mayor, thanks. I appreciate you greeting me once again
here in Dearborn. I appreciate your leadership. If you got
any problems with the garbage or the potholes, call the
mayor. (LAUGHTER)

I want to thank members of the congressional delegation who
have joined us today. Thank you all for coming. Michigan is
well represented in the halls of the United States
Congress. (Applause.)

I want to thank the folks from the state government who
have joined us today and local governments. I appreciate so
very much the CEOs of the major automobile manufacturing
companies who are based here in Detroit who are here, Rick
Wagoner, Bill Ford and Dieter Zetsche. Thank you all for
coming. Look forward to discussing things with you later.
(Applause.)

Right before I came in here I had the opportunity to meet
with some extraordinary men and women, our fellow
Americans, who knew the cruelties of the old Iraq. And like
me, they believe deeply in the promise of a new Iraq.

I spoke with Najda Igaili (ph), a Sunni Muslim from Basra,
who moved to the United States five years ago. Najda (ph)
learned the price of dissent in Iraq in 1988 when her
brother-in-law was killed after laughing at a joke about
Saddam Hussein in a house that was bugged.

"In Iraq," Najda (ph) says, "we could never speak to anyone
about Saddam Hussein. We had to make sure the windows were
closed." (Applause.) The windows are now open in Iraq.
(Applause.) Najda (ph) and her friends will never forget
seeing the images of liberation in Baghdad. Here's what she
said. "We called each other, and we were shouting. We never
believed that Saddam Hussein would be gone."

AUDIENCE MEMBER: He's gone! (Laughter, applause.)

PRESIDENT BUSH: Like Najah (sp), a lot of Iraqis, a lot of
Iraqis feared the dictator, the tyrant, would never go
away. You're right, he's gone. (Extended applause, cheers.)

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Because of you, Mr. President, because of
you --

AUDIENCE MEMBER: The whole country is behind you, just keep
going! (Laughter, applause.)

PRESIDENT BUSH: (Chuckles.) We love free speech in America!
(Laughter, cheers, applause.)

I talked to Tariq Daoud (ph), a Catholic from Basra who now
lives in Bloomfield Hills. (Applause.)

When the dictator regime fell here's what Tariq (ph) said,
he said, "I am more hopeful today than I've ever been since
1958. We need to take the little children in Iraq and hold
their hands and really teach them what freedom is all
about." He says the new generation could really make
democracy work.

He's right to be optimistic. From the beginning of this
conflict we have seen brave Iraqi citizens taking part in
their own liberation. Iraqis have warned our troops about
land mines and enemy hideouts and military arsenals.
Earlier this month Iraqis helped Marines locate the seven
American prisoners of war who were then rescued in northern
Iraq. (Applause.)

One courageous Iraqi man gave Marines detailed layouts of a
hospital in An Nasiriyah which led to the rescue of
American soldier Jessica Lynch. (Applause.)

Iraqi citizens are now working closely with our troops to
restore order to their cities and improve the life of their
nation. In Basra hundreds of police volunteers have joined
with coalition forces to patrol the streets.

In Baghdad more than a thousand citizens are doing joint
patrols with coalition troops, and residents are also
working with coalition troops to collect unexploded
munitions from neighborhoods and repair the telephone
system. People are working to improve the lives of the
average citizens in Iraq. (Applause.)

I want you to listen to what an Iraqi engineer said who was
working with U.S. Army engineers to restore power to
Baghdad. He said, "We are very glad to work with the
Americans to have power for the facilities. The Americans
are working to help us." (Applause.)

Iraqi-Americans, including some from Michigan, are building
bridges between our troops and Iraqi civilians.

Members of the Free Iraqi Forces are serving as translators
for our troops and are delivering humanitarian aid to the
citizens.

One of these volunteers, an Iraqi-American who fled Saddam
Hussein's regime in 1991, recently returned to his homeland
with the 101st Airborne Division. A few weeks ago, when he
first say the cheering crowds of Iraqis welcome coalition
troops in Hilla, he wept.

He said, "People could hardly believe what was happening."
And he told them, "Believe it; liberation is coming."
(Applause.)

Yes, there were some in our country who doubted the Iraqi
people wanted freedom or they just couldn't imagine they
would be welcoming to a liberating force. They were
mistaken, and we know why. The desire for freedom is not
the property of one culture. It is the universal hope of
human beings in every culture. (Applause.)

Whether you're Sunni or Shi'a or Kurd or Chaldean or
Assyrian or Turkemen or Christian or Jew or Muslim.
(Applause.) No matter what your faith, freedom is God's
gift to every person in every nation. (Applause.)

As freedom takes hold in Iraq, the Iraqi people will choose
their own leaders and their own government. America has no
intention of imposing our form of government or our
culture. Yet, we will ensure that all Iraqis have a voice
in the new government and all citizens have their rights
protected. (Applause.)

In the city of An Nasiriyah, where free Iraqis met recently
to discuss the political future of their country, they
issued a statement beginning with these words: Iraq must be
democratic. (Applause.)

That historic declaration expresses the commitment of the
Iraqi people, and their friends the American people. The
days of repression from any source are over. Iraq will be
democratic. (Applause.)

The work of building a new Iraq will take time. That nation
is recovering not just from weeks of conflict, but from
decades of totalitarian rule. In a nation where the
dictator treated himself to palaces with gold faucets and
grand fountains, four out of ten citizens did not even have
clean water to drink.

While the former regime exported milk and dates and corn
and grain for its own profit, more than half a million
Iraqi children were malnourished.

As Saddam Hussein let more than $200 million worth of
medicine and medical supplies sit in warehouses, one in
eight Iraqi children were dying before the age of five. And
while the dictator spent billions on weapons, including
gold-covered AK-47s, nearly a quarter of Iraqi children
were born underweight.

Saddam Hussein's regime impoverished the Iraqi people in
every way. Today Iraq has only about half as many hospitals
as it had in 1990. Seventy percent of the schools are run
down and overcrowded. A quarter of the Iraqi children are
not in school at all. Under Saddam's regime, the Iraqi
people did not have a power system they could depend on.

These problems plagued Iraq long before the recent
conflict. We're helping the Iraqi people to address these
challenges, and we will stand with them as they defeat the
dictator's legacy. (Applause.)

Right now engineers are on the ground working with Iraqi
experts to restore power and fix broken water pipes in
Baghdad and other cities. We're working with the
International Red Cross, the Red Crescent Societies, the
International Medical Corps and other aid agencies to help
Iraqi hospitals get safe water and medical supplies and
reliable electricity.

Our coalition is cooperating with the United Nations to
help restart the ration distribution system that provides
food at thousands of sites in Iraq. And coalition medical
facilities have treated Iraqis from everything from
fractures and burns to symptoms of stroke.

One Iraqi man who was given medical help with his wife and
sister aboard the U.S. Navy ship Comfort said, "They treat
us like family. There are babies in Iraq who are not cared
for by their mothers as well as the nurses have cared for
us."

Already, we are seeing important progress in Iraq. It
wasn't all that long ago that the statue fell, and now
we're seeing progress. (Applause.)

Rail lines are reopening and fire stations are responding
to calls. Oil, Iraqi oil, owned by the Iraqi people, is
flowing again to fuel Iraq's power plants.

In Hilla, more than 80 percent of the city has now running
water. City residents can buy meats and grains and fruits
and vegetables at local shops. The mayor's office and city
council have been reestablished.

In Basra, where more than half the water treatment
facilities were not working before the conflict -- more
than half weren't functioning -- water supplies are now
reaching 90 percent of the city. The opulent presidential
palace in Basra will now serve a new and noble purpose:
We've established a water purification unit there to make
hundreds of thousands of liters of clean water available to
the residents of the city of Basra. (Applause.)

Day by day, hour by hour, life in Iraq is getting better
for the citizens. (Applause.)

Yet much work remains to be done. I have directed Jay
Garner and his team to help Iraq achieve specific long-term
goals, and they're doing a superb job.

Congress recently allocated nearly $2.5 billion for Iraq's
relief and reconstruction. With that money, we are renewing
Iraq with the help of experts from inside our government,
from private industry, from the international community
and, most importantly, from within Iraq. (Applause.)

We're dispatching teams across Iraq to assess the critical
needs of the Iraqi people. We're clearing land mines. We're
working with Iraqis to recover artifacts, to find the
hoodlums who ravished the National Museum of Antiquities in
Baghdad. (Applause.)

Like many of you here, we deplore the actions of the
citizens who ravished that museum. And we will work with
the Iraqi citizens to find out who they were and to bring
them to justice. (Applause.)

We're working toward an Iraq where for the first time every
electrical power is reliable and widely available.

One of our goals is to make sure everybody in Iraq has
electricity. Already, 17 major power plants in Iraq are
functioning. Our engineers are meeting with Iraqi
engineers, we're visiting power plants throughout the
country and determining which ones need repair, which ones
need to be modernized and which ones are obsolete.

Power plant by power plant, more Iraqis are getting the
electricity they need.

We're working to make Iraq's drinking water clean and
dependable. American and Iraqi water sanitation engineers
are inspecting treatment plants across the country to make
sure they have enough purification chemicals and power to
produce safe water.

We're working to give every Iraqi access to immunizations
and emergency treatment, and to give sick children and
pregnant women the health care they need.

Iraqi doctors and nurses and other medical personnel are
now going back to work. Throughout the country, medical
specialists from many countries are identifying the needs
of Iraqi hospitals for everything from equipment and
repairs to water to medicines.

We're working to improve Iraqi schools by funding a
back-to-school campaign that will help train and recruit
Iraqi teachers, provide supplies and equipment, and bring
children across Iraq back into clean and safe schools.
(Applause.)

And as we do that we will make sure that the schools are no
longer used as military arsenals and bunkers, and that
teachers promote reading rather than regime propaganda.
(Applause.)

And because Iraq is now free, economic sanctions are
pointless. (Applause.)

It is time for the United Nations to lift the sanctions so
the Iraqis can use their own resources to build their own
prosperity. (Applause.)

Like so many generations of immigrants, Iraqi-Americans
have embraced and enriched this great country without ever
forgetting the land of your birth.

Liberation for Iraq has been a long time coming, but you
never lost faith. You knew the great sorrow of Iraq. You
also knew the great promise of Iraq, and you shared the
hope of the Iraqi people.

You and I both know that Iraq can realize those hopes. Iraq
can be an example of peace and prosperity and freedom to
the entire Middle East. (Applause.)

It'll be a hard journey. But at every step of the way Iraq
will have a steady friend in the American people.
(Applause.) May God continue to bless the United States of
America, and long live a free Iraq. (Applause.)

"We were not lying," a Bush administration official told ABC News. "But it was just a matter of emphasis." The official was referring to the way the administration hyped the threat that Saddam Hussein posed to the United States. According to the ABC report, the real reason for the war was that the administration "wanted to make a statement." And why Iraq? "Officials acknowledge that Saddam had all the requirements to make him, from their standpoint, the perfect target."

A British newspaper, The Independent, reports that "intelligence agencies on both sides of the Atlantic were furious that briefings they gave political leaders were distorted in the rush to war." One "high-level source" told the paper that "they ignored intelligence assessments which said Iraq was not a threat."

Sure enough, we have yet to find any weapons of mass destruction. It's hard to believe that we won't eventually find some poison gas or crude biological weapons. But those aren't true W.M.D.'s, the sort of weapons that can make a small, poor country a threat to the greatest power the world has ever known. Remember that President Bush made his case for war by warning of a "mushroom cloud." Clearly, Iraq didn't have anything like that — and Mr. Bush must have known that it didn't.

Does it matter that we were misled into war? Some people say that it doesn't: we won, and the Iraqi people have been freed. But we ought to ask some hard questions — not just about Iraq, but about ourselves.

First, why is our compassion so selective? In 2001 the World Health Organization — the same organization we now count on to protect us from SARS — called for a program to fight infectious diseases in poor countries, arguing that it would save the lives of millions of people every year. The U.S. share of the expenses would have been about $10 billion per year — a small fraction of what we will spend on war and occupation. Yet the Bush administration contemptuously dismissed the proposal.

Or consider one of America's first major postwar acts of diplomacy: blocking a plan to send U.N. peacekeepers to Ivory Coast (a former French colony) to enforce a truce in a vicious civil war. The U.S. complains that it will cost too much. And that must be true — we wouldn't let innocent people die just to spite the French, would we?

So it seems that our deep concern for the Iraqi people doesn't extend to suffering people elsewhere. I guess it's just a matter of emphasis. A cynic might point out, however, that saving lives peacefully doesn't offer any occasion to stage a victory parade.

Meanwhile, aren't the leaders of a democratic nation supposed to tell their citizens the truth?

One wonders whether most of the public will ever learn that the original case for war has turned out to be false. In fact, my guess is that most Americans believe that we have found W.M.D.'s. Each potential find gets blaring coverage on TV; how many people catch the later announcement — if it is ever announced — that it was a false alarm? It's a pattern of misinformation that recapitulates the way the war was sold in the first place. Each administration charge against Iraq received prominent coverage; the subsequent debunking did not.

Did the news media feel that it was unpatriotic to question the administration's credibility? Some strange things certainly happened. For example, in September Mr. Bush cited an International Atomic Energy Agency report that he said showed that Saddam was only months from having nuclear weapons. "I don't know what more evidence we need," he said. In fact, the report said no such thing — and for a few hours the lead story on MSNBC's Web site bore the headline "White House: Bush Misstated Report on Iraq." Then the story vanished — not just from the top of the page, but from the site.

Thanks to this pattern of loud assertions and muted or suppressed retractions, the American public probably believes that we went to war to avert an immediate threat — just as it believes that Saddam had something to do with Sept. 11.

Now it's true that the war removed an evil tyrant. But a democracy's decisions, right or wrong, are supposed to take place with the informed consent of its citizens. That didn't happen this time. And we are a democracy — aren't we?