In the President's Words: 'Free People Will Keep the Peace of the World'

February 27, 2003

Following is a transcript of the speech given yesterday by President Bush to the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, as recorded by The New York Times:

We meet here during a crucial period in the history of our nation and of the civilized world. Part of that history was written by others; the rest will be written by us.

On a September morning, threats that had gathered for years in secret and far away led to murder in our country on a massive scale. As a result, we must look at security in a new way, because our country is a battlefield in the first war of the 21st century.

We learned a lesson: the dangers of our time must be
confronted actively and forcefully before we see them again in our skies and in our cities. And we set a goal: we will not allow the triumph of hatred and violence in the affairs of men.

Our coalition of more than 90 countries is pursuing the
networks of terror with every tool of law enforcement and with military power. We have arrested or otherwise dealt with many key commanders of Al Qaeda. Across the world, we are hunting down the killers one by one. We are winning, and we're showing them the definition of American justice. And we are opposing the greatest danger in the war on terror - outlaw regimes arming with weapons of mass
destruction.

In Iraq, a dictator is building and hiding weapons that
could enable him to dominate the Middle East and intimidate the civilized world, and we will not allow it. This same tyrant has close ties to terrorist organizations and could supply them with the terrible means to strike this country, and America will not permit it.

The danger posed by Saddam Hussein and his weapons cannot be ignored or wished away. The danger must be confronted. We hope that the Iraqi regime will meet the demands of the United Nations and disarm fully and peacefully. If it does not, we are prepared to disarm Iraq by force. Either way,
this danger will be removed.

The safety of the American people depends on ending this direct and growing threat. Acting against the danger will also contribute greatly to the long-term safety and stability of our world. The current Iraqi regime has shown the power of tyranny to spread discord and violence in the Middle East. A liberated Iraq can show the power of freedom to transform that vital region by bringing hope and progress into the lives of millions. America's interest in security and America's belief in liberty both lead in the
same direction - to a free and peaceful Iraq.

The first to benefit from a free Iraq would be the Iraqi
people themselves. Today they live in scarcity and fear under a dictator who has brought them nothing but war and misery and torture. Their lives and their freedom matter little to Saddam Hussein. But Iraqi lives and freedom matter greatly to us.

Bringing stability and unity to a free Iraq will not be
easy. Yet that is no excuse to leave the Iraqi regime's
torture chambers and poison labs in operation. Any future the Iraqi people choose for themselves will be better than the nightmare world that Saddam Hussein has chosen for them.

If we must use force, the United States and our coalition stand ready to help the citizens of a liberated Iraq. We will deliver medicine to the sick. And we are now moving into place nearly three million emergency rations to feed the hungry. We will make sure that Iraq's 55,000 food distribution sites, operating under the oil-for-food program, are stocked and open as soon as possible. The United States and Great Britain are providing tens of millions of dollars to the U.N. High Commission on Refugees and to such groups as the World Food Program and Unicef to
provide emergency aid to the Iraqi people.

We will also lead in carrying out the urgent and dangerous work of destroying chemical and biological weapons. We will provide security against those who try to spread chaos or settle scores or threaten the territorial integrity of Iraq. We will seek to protect Iraq's natural resources from sabotage by a dying regime, and ensure those resources are used for the benefit of the owners: the Iraqi people.

The United States has no intention of determining the
precise form of Iraq's new government. That choice belongs to the Iraqi people. Yet we will ensure that one brutal dictator is not replaced by another. All Iraqis must have a voice in the new government, and all citizens must have their rights protected.

Rebuilding Iraq will require a sustained commitment from many nations, including our own. We will remain in Iraq as long as necessary and not a day more. America has made and kept this kind of commitment before in the peace that followed a world war. After defeating enemies, we did not leave behind occupying armies, we left constitutions and
parliaments. We established an atmosphere of safety in which responsible, reform-minded local leaders could build lasting institutions of freedom. In societies that once bred fascism and militarism, liberty found a permanent home.

There was a time when many said that the cultures of Japan and Germany were incapable of sustaining democratic values. Well, they were wrong. Some say the same of Iraq today. They are mistaken. The nation of Iraq, with its proud heritage, abundant resources and skilled and educated people is fully capable of moving toward democracy and living in freedom.

The world has a clear interest in the spread of democratic values, because stable and free nations do not breed the ideologies of murder. They encourage the peaceful pursuit of a better life. And there are hopeful signs of the desire for freedom in the Middle East. Arab intellectuals have called on Arab governments to address the freedom gap so
their peoples can fully share in the progress of our times. Leaders in the region speak of a new Arab charter that champions internal reform, greater political participation, economic openness and free trade. And from Morocco to Bahrain and beyond, nations are taking genuine steps toward political reform. A new regime in Iraq would serve as a
dramatic and inspiring example of freedom for other nations in the region.

It is presumptuous and insulting to suggest that a whole region of the world or the one-fifth of humanity that is Muslim is somehow untouched by the most basic aspirations of life. Human cultures can be vastly different, yet the human heart desires the same good things everywhere on earth. In our desire to be safe from brutal and bullying oppression, human beings are the same. In our desire to care for our children and give them a better life, we're the same. For these fundamental reasons, freedom and democracy will always and everywhere have greater appeal than the slogans of hatred and the tactics of terror.

Success in Iraq could also begin a new stage for Middle Eastern peace and set in motion progress towards a truly democratic Palestinian state. The passing of Saddam Hussein's regime will deprive terrorist networks of a wealthy patron that pays for terrorist training and offers rewards to families of suicide bombers.

And other regimes will be given a clear warning that
support for terror will not be tolerated. Without this
outside support for terrorism, Palestinians who are working for reform and long for democracy will be in a better position to choose new leaders - true leaders who strive for peace, true leaders who faithfully serve the people. A Palestinian st ate must be a reformed and peaceful state that abandons forever the use of terror.

For its part the new government of Israel, as the terror threat is removed and security improves, will be expected to support the creation of a viable Palestinian state and to wrk as quickly as possible toward a final status agreement. As progress is made toward peace, settlement activity in the occupied territories must end.

And the Arab states will be expected to meet their
responsibilities to oppose terrorism, to support the
emergence of a peaceful and democratic Palestine, and state clearly they will live in peace with Israel.

The United States and other nations are working on a road map for peace. We are setting out the necessary conditions for progress toward the goal of two states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security. It is the commitment of our government and my personal commitment to implement the road map and to reach that goal. Old
patterns of conflict in the Middle East can be broken if
all concerned will let go of bitterness and hatred and
violence and get on with the serious work of economic
development and political reform and reconciliation.
America will seize every opportunity in pursuit of peace, and the end of the present regime in Iraq would create such an opportunity.

In confronting Iraq, the United States is also showing our commitment to effective international institutions. We're a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. We helped to create the Security Council.

We believe in the Security Council so much that we want its words to have meaning. The global threat of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction cannot be confronted by one nation alone. The world needs today, and will need tomorrow, international bodies with the authority and the will to stop the spread of terror and chemical and biological and nuclear weapons. A threat to all must be answered by all. High-minded pronouncements against proliferation mean little unless the strongest nations are
willing to stand behind them and use force if necessary. After all, the United Nations was created, as Winston Churchill said, to make sure that the force of right will in the ultimate issue be protected by the right of force.

Another resolution is now before the Security Council. If the Council responds to Iraq's defiance with more excuses and delays, if all its authority proves to be empty, the United Nations will be severely weakened as a source of stability and order. If the members rise to this moment, then the Council will fulfill its founding purpose.

I've listened carefully as people and leaders around the world have made known their desire for peace. All of us want peace. The threat to peace does not come from those who seek to enforce the just demands of the civilizedworld. The threat to peace comes from those who flout those demands. If we have to act, we will act to restrain the violent and defend the cause of peace. And by acting we
will signal to outlaw regimes that in this new century the boundaries of civilized behavior will be respected.

Protecting those boundaries carries a cost. If war is
forced upon us by Iraq's refusal to disarm, we will meet an enemy who hides his military forces behind civilians, who has terrible weapons, who is capable of any crime. These dangers are real, as our soldiers and sailors, airmen and marines fully understand. Yet no military has ever been better prepared to meet these challenges.

Members of our armed forces also understand why they may be called to fight. They know that retreat before a dictator guarantees even greater sacrifices in the future. They know that America's cause is right and just: the liberty for an oppressed people and security for the American people.

And I know something about these men and women who wear our uniform. They will complete every mission they are given with skill and honor and courage.

Much is asked of America in this year 2003. The work ahead is demanding. It will be difficult to help freedom take hold in a country that has known three decades of dictatorship, secret police, internal divisions and war. It'll be difficult to cultivate liberty and peace in the Middle East after so many generations of strife, yet the security of our nation and the hope of millions depend on us. And Americans do not turn away from duties because they
are hard. We have met great tests in other times and we will meet the tests of our time.

We go forward with confidence because we trust in the power of human freedom to change lives and nations. By the resolve and purpose of America and of our friends and allies, we will make this an age of progress and liberty. Free people will set the course of history and free people will keep the peace of the world.

Thank you all very
much.

(zxtvp12mp98 _8)

I read your comments and I appreciate your support. Your words eased my mind. Previously, as Ive told you, I’m coping and surviving. But old memories, old fears stir ruefully.

Am I of so little faith, you ask, that I spend life running scared? Yes, I’m scared - I stand alone – the memories are in my mind. I am the one who suffers. I am the one who has to cling to sanity. How can I not be anxious and scared? I am afraid of the past especially because of what is happening today. There are times when I just want to hide away, go-off somewhere but I can’t so I have to live and face up to them. I yearn sometimes for moments of quietness when my mind does not recall. Am I being foolish, as you’ve indicated? Even when my rational mind knows that it’s wrong to hold a fixed, negative image of what occurred, I frequently find that I’m carrying around a lot of inappropriate baggage. The past is a burden; a burden I’ve accepted but it brings me little pleasure and its weight sits heavily upon me.

I’ve settled fully into my life here and built a happiness that precludes the darkness of the past but still it is there always in my mind. It dulls me. It is as if a shadow hangs there, just out of range that slowly extends as the years pass. It lurks hidden but yet present, invisible to all – unseen and unheard, only present to myself. So it goes on, idyll and menace. The days blend one into another. Time seemingly moving forward unconcerned with the events of the morrow. Responsibility, burdens, fun, days, better days, worse days, days of action and more philosophical days – it all comes together.

I recognise that the memories are a paean to the past. Memories whirl inside my head, bits of remembered faces and colours, sights and smells and I recall distant shores, of people I have known and left behind. Some are dead of course, but something still binds me to that time, to what took place, even after all these years; I am still a part of it. It's strange how one's past never really releases its hold; it always remains in a phrase, a remembered sight, sound or smell - a sharp aching feeling even after all these years. Nothing can alter what happened; the scar will always remain, deep and ragged in my soul.

I've spent so much time reliving and working over events of the past that I'm no longer sure what might have happened and what I have imagined as happened! I also know that the past cannot hurt me but what has happened recently seems to bring forth indistinguishable ordeals of fog bound horror. It lives on in my imagination, a vivid, terrifying nightmare of images. Save for the awfulness of certain memories I am coping better, perhaps because I have become psychologically tuned by past experiences to deal with their ogres. I also begin to see clearly how my experiences have clung close to the outer edges of my life for many years.

I’ve laboured long and hard to wall off that part of my life. Some of the wall is still sealed, cutting off, blocking off the dark places where I fear to look. At times the brick wall trembles as if something is pushing against it and I fight off a cold wave of nameless fears, scared that once this wall tumbles, the doors in my mind will fly open. I tell myself there is nothing to fear and that I am cursed with too vivid an imagination. My thoughts are irrational, stupid, childish. But something bothers me, something terrible. Something I don't want to think about. I keep close to my chest the memories like a deck of cards. Everything has changed as I have changed but I'm left with the knowledge that at any given instant, the security and hope of my life could fall away. Occasionally, in my dreams the wall appears. I work on the wall, I lay the mortar smooth and thick, each row of bricks solid and even to hide the doors behind. Sometimes in my dream the wall begins to crack and there is no escape and I have to work harder and harder to put the bricks back in place, to keep out the horrors that lurk behind those doors. The wall in my dream never seems complete and I wake, after the dream tired and exhausted.

Yes, the secret remains locked within myself, a secret kept within a signed document, just another classified secret among the many hidden in the vaults. Such secrets will be revealed, but not in my lifetime and even if it did appear, the secret itself would become a lie, deniable to all. The truth hidden whichever way you look at it. The cardboard men would make sure of that. As I am, denied and deniable alone and lonely with memories.

Yes, events of that time are impervious to rational explanation and I'm left only with the same razor-sharp memory or experience. Certainly there are sizeable gaps in my comprehension, mysteries both inside my head and out that remain unilluminated, but that only makes me the more determined not to succumb to any sentiment or self-delusion that would give those mysteries power over me. I experience a chaos of feelings all unsettling and in a sense familiar, as though they've been inside of me for years biding their time behind a screen of pragmatism I’ve established to keep them out of sight. Fear, I know is a poison, a taste in my mouth I live with. Such fears are a daily reality forever echoing deep within. I tread my way with cautious steps to avoid a sudden slide into that time. I've become closed and isolated even though I am living in the midst of a loving family – I shore up that wall behind which lie the horrors of the past – the fear of what occurred, the deaths that will forever haunt the memory. I hide from the known. The only way to survive. The guilt remains. But the greater reality, and the one I resist in my fearfulness and limitation is that it will resurrect itself and that the darkness of that time will encroach on the present. One of the harsh truths I have learned about fear is that no one can accompany you through it. A fear so easily triggered – nothing but a spectre of the past, which can so easily find itself in the present. I understand this fear so well, the limitations it places upon me. The sleepless nights, the beating heart, the ache in the pit of the stomach, the uncontrollable shakes. It is nothing but a memory held within … as long as it remains steady, then it can be lived with, even used to spur action. I won't break under it.

It comes down to a choice between two evils and one has to ask, “which is the greater”? On the one hand it is immoral to fight, to become a part and the cause of death and destruction; on the other hand, it is a greater moral wrong to ignore what is happening. I have come to the conclusion that bad as such action is, it is sometimes far worse if we do nothing.

May be a lot of life is shaped by the above kind of choices. Often we have to choose between evils, always hoping that we choose the lesser one. It’s a high price to pay, but the alternative of ignoring what is happening, by not becoming involved, by shutting our eyes to the fact that there are degrees of evil, some worse than others, is abandonment of everything that is good because we allow the greater evil to win. Such moral issues are complex. Often, unbeknownst, we do the wrong thing believing it is right. I’ve come to understand that life will never be clean and clear cut and that there is often no choice between black and white and that the choice lies too many times within the grey area. It makes me anguished to think of the choices that are open to us. I guess no-one likes to face the fact that sometimes an immoral act is the only right thing to be done and that the world is not what it seems, it is not just black and white!

I believe there are no limits for man in the world. He can see forever and he will achieve more than can ever be believe and yet while he will create, the darkness that hides in every man will destroy and matters of the spirit will be pushed aside in his rush to achieve. His learning will continue to be hard and deadly. There is something ignoble about mankind. Such an ugly notion, but I fear man's savagery and greed and his capacity to abuse. When you read Euripides, Menander and Theophrastus, Sophocles and Oedipus one realises how little mankind has changed in the intervening years. Human problems are complex but all the trouble in the world is human trouble. All the cruel and malicious indifference confronted has a human face and soul. We are at best indifferent and at worst wantonly cruel. We are all still savages at heart.

I am fascinated with this world of ours and watch its events with some interest. I often ask myself – why is it we never learn from past mistakes? Is it because our lives are of such short duration, or is it because we deliberately shut our minds from what we know?

I remain doubtful as to whether we have fully developed a mechanism of working together. The UN has become a council of a few who direct or merely aid others, as they think wise or to suit their own self interests. We have yet to set up the joint-machinery to deal with the multiple problems that accompany our every forward step and I suspect we will find ourselves moving from one expediency to another, sowing the seeds of future discontents - racial, religious and political. I also attach an interesting article with some further comments from ‘Quandrant’ - July/August - p37 “World out of balance” which I think you’ll find of interest.

As I once said before, your comments are often an enjoyable tour through the quotations of Plato, Aristotle and Freud and I find your own viewpoints vivid and fascinating. Your sense of history and military experience stands you in good stead. I am often ignorant of, or uninformative about, the complexity of what is happening in the world today - it is always hard to place recent events in a proper perspective and you open my mind not only to what is happening today but to the challenges that lie ahead. I guess as you say we cannot afford the luxury of self-imposed blinkers! I truly believe ... “Freedom is, in truth, a sacred thing. But then what is virtue if not free choice of what is good?” ....

"The best lack all conviction," WB Yeats
wrote in his poem The Second Coming, "while the worst are full of passionate intensity".

As the world contemplates war with Iraq, there is much passionate intensity. Most is from the anti-war side, though there is passion too from
those who insist that something must be done about Saddam Hussein, even if that means going to war without further United Nations mandate. Yet more probably still lack conviction, the majority that Prime
Minister John Howard thinks have not yet made up their minds. Many probably never will, at least until hindsight kicks in, because the questions are so complex and the answers so uncertain.

And on the fundamental question -- can there be a just war? -- there is no right answer because it will depend on individual moral viewpoint. Most people, however, would probably say World War II was just
-- though would the Allies have gone to war if Hitler had confined his atrocities to within his borders? Most would probably say Vietnam was not.
Our Prime Minister, Mr Howard accepts the concept of the just war. Given that, he's right to say that the question is whether the concept applies to Iraq.
The next question is probably: Will the cost in human life and misery be greater without war? This cannot be answered with certainty because it requires
predictions, but that doesn't mean that honest and expert attempts should not be made.

In Iraq's case, George Bush, Tony Blair and John Howard say yes because Saddam Hussein has dreadful weapons which he may use on his neighbours or, worse, give to international terrorists -- a truly terrifying prospect. If we don't act now, they say, the cost of acting later will be much greater. There is, in this argument, a seductive parallel with World War II.

The world has been so deluged with information, and hefty doses of rhetoric, about Iraq's weapons. It is too much, too complex; it may sound compelling, but it is beyond most people's capacity to analyse with confidence.

What do we need? Some geopolitical equivalent of the criminal justice test of proof beyond reasonable doubt? It's possible we have something approaching that on the questions of weapons; almost certainly we do not on the second leg
of the argument, the danger of them falling into terrorists' hands. Evidence of Iraq-al-Qaeda links look tenuous.

There are secondary justifications for war. The main one -- which for political reasons gets a lot of
emphasis, though none of the main advocates claim to be a sufficient cause -- is the terrible things Saddam Hussein has done to his own people. Here the parallel with Rwanda, where the world shut its eyes and a million people were slaughtered, is compelling. But do you go to war over past sins, however heinous? And how sure are we that the death and misery from war will be less than
the Saddam's future atrocities? Or, how much faith have we in the smart technologies of death that are supposed to spare civilians?

The other important reason is the integrity and effectiveness of the United Nations as the world's main guardian of its security. Here the parallel is with the collapse of the League of Nations as the world slipped towards World War II. The argument this time goes beyond Iraq. As Mr Howard says, if
the UN can't deal with Iraq, what hope is there of its dealing with North Korea? But should ordinary Iraqis and the soldiers of many nations die for an institution, or because of a threat from the other side of the world?

The other worrying question is American motives.
Oil, though central to the first Gulf War, may be a red herring. But what of vengeance, post-September 11? Christians are told that vengeance is the province of the Lord. Yet there is, in the
American psyche, a religious fervour that overlaps with public policy and is a source of both strength and danger. Jihads, under other names, are not an Islamic monopoly.

In pondering all this, and no doubt much more, it's hardly surprising that there is much uncertainty -- or that, when there is uncertainty, the verdict is against war.

The leaders, of course, have no such luxury. They must make a decision and argue it, whatever private doubts they may have.

By Don Woolford AAP dw/sb/cd/ts
21.2.03