I do agree with what you’ve written – I know how overwhelming the effect will be if it occurs and there’s nothing that can be done politically to prevent it. I need not amplify my feelings on the matter – except to stress my dismay. Personally, I doubt if we’ll see an attitude change in the short-term. It goes deeper than what you have written. What the Israelis are doing is delaying the inevitable. The whole future of the Middle East is in jeopardy and the Israelis have to make their decision soon. I believe they have ceased to look at the world as independent observers. They have, in a sense, become obsessed with themselves. It has to do with blood and roots, and elemental loyalty. The Israelis are a people who have been under siege, scorned, rejected and hemmed in with hate for generations. Hatred is like a noose, it can hang your enemy but in the end it will strangle you also. It may be necessary to show the Israelis how deep a pit persecution and prejudice can lead. They need reminding of something they’d rather forget – their conscience. If they lose the power of forgiveness they will lose the beat of their hearts. If they cannot find the spirit of forgiveness then what I have seen will come about. The soil will not prosper but turn to dust. There is no wall, no table, and no people. Only desolation.

Will they sink into the grey, endless twilight as I’ve seen? Will they go down fighting, hurling missiles that will reshape the Middle East anew; will it give them a new morning to walk into, fearless and happy, a new world before them? What death such conflict would cause! The Middle East shattered, people and trees twisted alike for years to come. A great threat hangs over the region. I know what I’ve seen; the pictures will be seared in my memory until the final moment of my life. It is the threat of destruction on a terrible, unprecedented scale of which few will survive. There is still hope but it grows less each day and only knowing the full extent of the threat they face will it be defeated. Although there is a chance that the destruction I fear may never take place the very fact that the threat is there may be enough to doom them. They have to prevent not only the execution of the threat, but also the possibility of it ever happening.

What can we do? I’ve asked this question over and over again. It seems logical to believe that the threat is real because of what has already eventuated. Yet, I find it hard to believe that such a weapon will come out of the Middle East and that it can produce the annihilation I’ve seen. I look through the eye of time. All I know is that the answer lays within the Israelis themselves. It is they who create the threat; it is they who can stop its execution. There are none so blind as those who refuse to see but I believe there is still hope. The future doesn’t have to belong to the path I’ve seen. That’s what I keep telling myself but it doesn’t help much.

I’m not a pacifist. I have some understanding of the logic of deterrence. Yes, perhaps I have lost sight of how personal war can be. I don’t truly understand the hatred involved. On the other hand what are my convictions worth if I don’t know what war really is? Without setting foot on a battlefield, I can understand the fear and raw intensity of human beings killing one another. All I know is that it is a hell on earth but I guess that doesn’t matter. War is supposed to be hell. Civilian deaths are seen as being regrettable but irrelevant. They have no direct relation to the prosecution or outcome of war. I’ve asked myself – what lies behind it? What does it truly accomplish? Why are men such bloody-minded creatures and why is it that I believe there must be a better way to solve problems?

Perhaps I have a too muddle-headed perspective of war. The pictures change my fundamental belief – I see the futility of violence and war. They also reveal to me something worse than war – or perhaps a new kind of war – a war of mankind upon itself. A self-consuming madness that can only end in complete annihilation! All I know is that a wise man should love peace better than war and a wise man should choose his battles if he can.

Yes, I believe in reason, in the essential goodness of man but I don’t believe we’ll ever conquer evil or that this world will ever live in peace. Perhaps I’ve come to know too much about the true nature of humanity through the pictures. We’ve made wrong into right and right into wrong so many times who is able to tell good from evil any more? Biological and chemical weapons are silent, invisible, and deadly; they are weapons with the power to destroy not merely cities but whole societies. I’ve read the words thoughtful men have spoken about their futility but compared to the pictures portrayals, such words mean nothing. They are merely aggregates of letters, symbols of the futility of language in the face of deeds. I keep telling myself that even in the crucible of human depravity commonsense will prevail and that some measure of hope of human integrity survives and such weapons will remain unutilised but sometimes I don’t know what to believe any more. All I know is that we seem to be headed hell bent for leather towards the frightening world foreseen.

How do you play it? Resistance? Retreat? Acquiescence? Conflict? None of them really work or have been seen to work previously have they? Thousands of years have passed and men seem to have learned little in the interim, seem doomed to repeat ancient mistakes. We once again mass arms, material and troops. What’s war about but killing and dying. Wars are not fought with guts or even with weapons. In the end they are struggles of consciousness. Whatever happens it is a choice that has to be made, made out of a certain consciousness. I ask myself, how do we know if the choice is right or wrong? I tell myself that peace can’t grow out of violence yet it did in Japan after they dropped the atomic bomb. They forced peace on the Japanese by clearing away the underbrush to make space and light but was it morally right?

Sometimes it seems to me that we go over the same arguments. Violence or non-violence, how to struggle, where to draw the lines. Debate after debate, while around us violence continues to rage unchecked. War is a great waster, much in the preparation as in waging it. The end never justifies the means. I’ve come to understand that the means shape the ends. Force seems so clear, so simple, so direct. But meeting force with force produces nothing but what is already known and planned for and expected. It’s what’s already been done over and over before. We become what we do. If we do this, how do we become something better? How can we make them build something together through the force of arms? Will it change things for the future? Or will not the same problems exist?

Little by little the dark threads of the familiar appear again. I’ve seen the wall. Its foundations are cracking, breaking apart. The table was absent, no people, just emptiness. I found myself standing on a hill overlooking a vast emptiness. The landscape was a desert under sullen skies of numbing desolation and greyness - Failure, futility and sheer black despair swept through me. I felt empty, cold and grey inside. My eyes perceived a land of stone and ashes and its continuity scared me. The land held a drowning depth of stillness and the silence was oppressive. A cry of words “The Fathers have eaten a sour grape and the childrens’ teeth are set on edge” seemed to echo a lament in my mind and I had the feeling that all that once was will be lost. I felt a chill wind of despondency blow over me and I was washed by poignant grief. The sadness of it all, in its way, was worse than the numbing desolation. Now, on reflection, I begin to wonder if it is Jewish fate to struggle this far only to spiral into lasting darkness. And I ask myself why?

The following is the prepared text of President Bush's State of the Union address released by the White House:

Mr. Speaker, Vice President Cheney, Members of Congress, distinguished guests, fellow citizens:

Every year, by law and by custom, we meet here to consider the state of the union. This year, we gather in this chamber deeply aware of decisive days that lie ahead.

You and I serve our country in a time of great consequence. During this session of Congress, we have the duty to reform domestic programs vital to our country and we have the opportunity to save millions of lives abroad from a terrible disease. We will work for a prosperity that is broadly shared and we will answer every danger and every enemy that threatens the American people.

In all these days of promise and days of reckoning, we can be confident. In a whirlwind of change, and hope, and peril, our faith is sure, our resolve is firm, and our union is strong.

This country has many challenges. We will not deny, we will not ignore, we will not pass along our problems to other Congresses, other presidents, and other generations. We will confront them with focus, and clarity, and courage.

During the last two years, we have seen what can be accomplished when we work together. To lift the standards of our public schools, we achieved historic education reform which must now be carried out in every school, and every classroom, so that every child in America can read, and learn, and succeed in life. To protect our country, we reorganized our government and created the Department of Homeland Security which is mobilizing against the threats of a new era. To bring our economy out of recession, we delivered the largest tax relief in a generation. To insist on integrity in American business, we passed tough reforms, and we are holding corporate criminals to account.

Some might call this a good record. I call it a good start. Tonight I ask the House and Senate to join me in the next bold steps to serve our fellow citizens.

Our first goal is clear: We must have an economy that grows fast enough to employ every man and woman who seeks a job.

After recession, terrorist attacks, corporate scandals, and stock market declines, our economy is recovering yet it is not growing fast enough, or strongly enough. With unemployment rising, our Nation needs more small businesses to open, more companies to invest and expand, more employers to put up the sign that says, Help Wanted.

Jobs are created when the economy grows; the economy grows when Americans have more money to spend and invest; and the best, fairest way to make sure Americans have that money is not to tax it away in the first place.

I am proposing that all the income tax reductions set for 2004 and 2006 be made permanent and effective this year. And under my plan, as soon as I have signed the bill, this extra money will start showing up in workers paychecks. Instead of gradually reducing the marriage penalty, we should do it now. Instead of slowly raising the child credit to a thousand dollars, we should send the checks to American families now.

This tax relief is for everyone who pays income taxes and it will help our economy immediately. Ninety-two million Americans will keep this year an average of almost 1,100 dollars more of their own money. A family of four with an income of 40,000 dollars would see their federal income taxes fall from 1,178 dollars to 45 dollars per year. And our plan will improve the bottom line for more than 23 million small businesses.

You, the Congress, have already passed all these reductions, and promised them for future years. If this tax relief is good for Americans three, or five, or seven years from now, it is even better for Americans today.

We also strengthen the economy by treating investors equally in our tax laws. It is fair to tax a company's profits. It is not fair to again tax the shareholder on the same profits. To boost investor confidence, and to help the nearly 10 million seniors who receive dividend income, I ask you to end the unfair double taxation of dividends.

Lower taxes and greater investment will help this economy expand. More jobs mean more taxpayers and higher revenues to our government. The best way to address the deficit and move toward a balanced budget is to encourage economic growth and to show some spending discipline in Washington, D.C. We must work together to fund only our most important priorities. I will send you a budget that increases discretionary spending by four percent next year about as much as the average family s income is expected to grow. And that is a good benchmark for us: Federal spending should not rise any faster than the paychecks of American families.

A growing economy, and a focus on essential priorities, will also be crucial to the future of Social Security. As we continue to work together to keep Social Security sound and reliable, we must offer younger workers a chance to invest in retirement accounts that they will control and they will own.

Our second goal is high quality, affordable health care for all Americans.

The American system of medicine is a model of skill and innovation with a pace of discovery that is adding good years to our lives. Yet for many people, medical care costs too much and many have no coverage at all. These problems will not be solved with a nationalized health care system that dictates coverage and rations care. Instead, we must work toward a system in which all Americans have a good insurance policy ; choose their own doctors, and seniors and low-income Americans receive the help they need. Instead of bureaucrats, and trial lawyers, and HMOs, we must put doctors, and nurses, and patients back in charge of American medicine.

Health care reform must begin with Medicare, because Medicare is the binding commitment of a caring society. We must renew that commitment by giving seniors access to the preventive medicine and new drugs that are transforming health care in America.

Seniors happy with the current Medicare system should be able to keep their coverage just the way it is. And just like you, the members of Congress, members of your staffs, and other federal employees, all seniors should have the choice of a health care plan that provides prescription drugs. My budget will commit an additional 400 billion dollars over the next decade to reform and strengthen Medicare. Leaders of both political parties have talked for years about strengthening Medicare I urge the members of this new Congress to act this year.

To improve our health care system, we must address one of the prime causes of higher costs the constant threat that physicians and hospitals will be unfairly sued. Because of excessive litigation, everybody pays more for health care and many parts of America are losing fine doctors. No one has ever been healed by a frivolous lawsuit and I urge the Congress to pass medical liability reform.

Our third goal is to promote energy independence for our country, while dramatically improving the environment.

I have sent you a comprehensive energy plan to promote energy efficiency and conservation, to develop cleaner technology, and to produce more energy at home. I have sent you Clear Skies legislation that mandates a 70 percent cut in air pollution from power plants over the next 15 years. I have sent you a Healthy Forests Initiative, to help prevent the catastrophic fires that devastate communities, kill wildlife, and burn away millions of acres of treasured forest.

I urge you to pass these measures, for the good of both our environment and our economy. Even more, I ask you to take a crucial step, and protect our environment in ways that generations before us could not have imagined. In this century, the greatest environmental progress will come about, not through endless lawsuits or command and control regulations, but through technology and innovation. Tonight I am proposing 1.2 billion dollars in research funding so that America can lead the world in developing clean, hydrogen-powered automobiles.

A simple chemical reaction between hydrogen and oxygen generates energy, which can be used to power a car producing only water, not exhaust fumes. With a new national commitment, our scientists and engineers will overcome obstacles to taking these cars from laboratory to showroom so that the first car driven by a child born today could be powered by hydrogen, and pollution-free. Join me in this important innovation to make our air significantly cleaner, and our country much less dependent on foreign sources of energy.

Our fourth goal is to apply the compassion of America to the deepest problems of America. For so many in our country the homeless, the fatherless, the addicted the need is great. Yet there is power wonder-working power in the goodness, and idealism, and faith of the American people.

Americans are doing the work of compassion every day visiting prisoners, providing shelter to battered women, bringing companionship to lonely seniors. These good works deserve our praise they deserve our personal support and, when appropriate, they deserve the assistance of our government. I urge you to pass both my faith-based initiative and the Citizen Service Act to encourage acts of compassion that can transform America, one heart and one soul at a time.

Last year, I called on my fellow citizens to participate in USA Freedom Corps, which is enlisting tens of thousands of new volunteers across America. Tonight I ask Congress and the American people to focus the spirit of service and the resources of government on the needs of some of our most vulnerable citizens boys and girls trying to grow up without guidance and attention and children who have to go through a prison gate to be hugged by their mom or dad. I propose a 450 million dollar initiative to bring mentors to more than a million disadvantaged junior high students and children of prisoners. Government will support the training and recruiting of mentors, yet it is the men and women of America who will fill the need. One mentor, one person, can change a life forever and I urge you to be that one person.

Another cause of hopelessness is addiction to drugs. Addiction crowds out friendship, ambition, moral conviction, and reduces all the richness of life to a single destructive desire. As a government, we are fighting illegal drugs by cutting off supplies, and reducing demand through anti-drug education programs. Yet for those already addicted, the fight against drugs is a fight for their own lives.

Too many Americans in search of treatment cannot get it. So tonight I propose a new 600 million dollar program to help an additional 300,000 Americans receive treatment over the next three years.

Our Nation is blessed with recovery programs that do amazing work. One of them is found at the Healing Place Church in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. A man in the program said, God does miracles in people s lives, and you never think it could be you. Tonight, let us bring to all Americans who struggle with drug addiction this message of hope: The miracle of recovery is possible, and it could be you.

By caring for children who need mentors, and for addicted men and women who need treatment, we are building a more welcoming society a culture that values every life. And in this work we must not overlook the weakest among us. I ask you to protect infants at the very hour of birth, and end the practice of partial-birth abortion. And because no human life should be started or ended as the object of an experiment, I ask you to set a high standard for humanity and pass a law against all human cloning.

The qualities of courage and compassion that we strive for in America also determine our conduct abroad. The American flag stands for more than our power and our interests. Our Founders dedicated this country to the cause of human dignity the rights of every person and the possibilities of every life. This conviction leads us into the world to help the afflicted, and defend the peace, and confound the designs of evil men. In Afghanistan, we helped to liberate an oppressed people and we will continue helping them secure their country, rebuild their society, and educate all their children boys and girls. In the Middle East, we will continue to seek peace between a secure Israel and a democratic Palestine. Across the earth, America is feeding the hungry; more than 60 percent of international food aid comes as a gift from the people of the United States.

As our Nation moves troops and builds alliances to make our world safer, we must also remember our calling, as a blessed country, to make this world better. Today, on the continent of Africa, nearly 30 million people have the AIDS virus including three million children under the age of 15. There are whole countries in Africa where more than one-third of the adult population carries the infection. More than four million require immediate drug treatment. Yet across that continent, only 50,000 AIDS victims only 50,000 are receiving the medicine they need.

Because the AIDS diagnosis is considered a death sentence, many do not seek treatment. Almost all who do are turned away. A doctor in rural South Africa describes his frustration. He says, We have no medicines many hospitals tell [people], You ve got AIDS. We can't help you. Go home and die.

In an age of miraculous medicines, no person should have to hear those words. AIDS can be prevented. Anti-retroviral drugs can extend life for many years. And the cost of those drugs has dropped from 12,000 dollars a year to under 300 dollars a year which places a tremendous possibility within our grasp.

Ladies and gentlemen, seldom has history offered a greater opportunity to do so much for so many. We have confronted, and will continue to confront, HIV/AIDS in our own country. And to meet a severe and urgent crisis abroad, tonight I propose the Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief a work of mercy beyond all current international efforts to help the people of Africa. This comprehensive plan will prevent seven million new AIDS infections treat at least two million people with life-extending drugs and provide humane care for millions of people suffering from AIDS, and for children orphaned by AIDS. I ask the Congress to commit 15 billion dollars over the next five years, including nearly ten billion dollars in new money, to turn the tide against AIDS in the most afflicted nations of Africa and the Caribbean.

This Nation can lead the world in sparing innocent people from a plague of nature. And this Nation is leading the world in confronting and defeating the man-made evil of international terrorism.

There are days when the American people do not hear news about the war on terror. There is never a day when I do not learn of another threat, or receive reports of operations in progress, or give an order in this global war against a scattered network of killers. The war goes on, and we are winning.

To date we have arrested, or otherwise dealt with, many key commanders of al-Qaida. They include a man who directed logistics and funding for the September 11th attacks the chief of al-Qaida operations in the Persian Gulf who planned the bombings of our embassies in East Africa and the USS Cole an al-Qaida operations chief from Southeast Asia a former director of al-Qaida s training camps in Afghanistan a key al-Qaida operative in Europe and a major al-Qaida leader in Yemen. All told, more than 3,000 suspected terrorists have been arrested in many countries. And many others have met a different fate. They are no longer a problem for the United States and our friends and allies.

We are working closely with other nations to prevent further attacks. America and coalition countries have uncovered and stopped terrorist conspiracies targeting the American embassy in Yemen the American embassy in Singapore a Saudi military base and ships in the straits of Hormuz, and the straits of Gibraltar. We have broken al-Qaida cells in Hamburg, and Milan, and Madrid, and London, and Paris as well as Buffalo, New York.

We have the terrorists on the run, and we are keeping them on the run. One by one, the terrorists are learning the meaning of American justice.

As we fight this war, we will remember where it began here, in our own country. This government is taking unprecedented measures to protect our people and defend our homeland. We have intensified security at the borders and ports of entry posted more than 50,000 newly trained federal screeners in airports begun inoculating troops and first responders against smallpox and are deploying the Nation s first early warning network of sensors to detect biological attack. And this year, for the first time, we are beginning to field a defense to protect this Nation against ballistic missiles.

I thank the Congress for supporting these measures. I ask you tonight to add to our future security with a major research and production effort to guard our people against bio-terrorism, called Project Bioshield. The budget I send you will propose almost six billion dollars to quickly make available effective vaccines and treatments against agents like anthrax, botulinum toxin, Ebola, and plague. We must assume that our enemies would use these diseases as weapons, and we must act before the dangers are upon us.

Since September 11th, our intelligence and law enforcement agencies have worked more closely than ever to track and disrupt the terrorists. The FBI is improving its ability to analyze intelligence, and transforming itself to meet new threats. And tonight, I am instructing the leaders of the FBI, Central Intelligence, Homeland Security, and the Department of Defense to develop a Terrorist Threat Integration Center, to merge and analyze all threat information in a single location. Our government must have the very best information possible, and we will use it to make sure the right people are in the right places to protect our citizens. Our war against terror is a contest of will, in which perseverance is power. In the ruins of two towers, at the western wall of the Pentagon, on a field in Pennsylvania, this Nation made a pledge, and we renew that pledge tonight: Whatever the duration of this struggle, and whatever the difficulties, we will not permit the triumph of violence in the affairs of men free people will set the course of history.

Today, the gravest danger in the war on terror the gravest danger facing America and the world is outlaw regimes that seek and possess nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. These regimes could use such weapons for blackmail, terror, and mass murder. They could also give or sell those weapons to their terrorist allies, who would use them without the least hesitation.

This threat is new; America s duty is familiar. Throughout the 20th century, small groups of men seized control of great nations built armies and arsenals and set out to dominate the weak and intimidate the world. In each case, their ambitions of cruelty and murder had no limit. In each case, the ambitions of Hitlerism, militarism, and communism were defeated by the will of free peoples, by the strength of great alliances, and by the might of the United States of America. Now, in this century, the ideology of power and domination has appeared again, and seeks to gain the ultimate weapons of terror. Once again, this Nation and our friends are all that stand between a world at peace, and a world of chaos and constant alarm. Once again, we are called to defend the safety of our people, and the hopes of all mankind. And we accept this responsibility.

America is making a broad and determined effort to confront these dangers. We have called on the United Nations to fulfill its charter, and stand by its demand that Iraq disarm. We are strongly supporting the International Atomic Energy Agency in its mission to track and control nuclear materials around the world. We are working with other governments to secure nuclear materials in the former Soviet Union, and to strengthen global treaties banning the production and shipment of missile technologies and weapons of mass destruction.

In all of these efforts, however, America s purpose is more than to follow a process it is to achieve a result: the end of terrible threats to the civilized world. All free nations have a stake in preventing sudden and catastrophic attack. We are asking them to join us, and many are doing so. Yet the course of this Nation does not depend on the decisions of others. Whatever action is required, whenever action is necessary, I will defend the freedom and security of the American people.

Different threats require different strategies. In Iran, we continue to see a government that represses its people, pursues weapons of mass destruction, and supports terror. We also see Iranian citizens risking intimidation and death as they speak out for liberty, human rights, and democracy. Iranians, like all people, have a right to choose their own government, and determine their own destiny and the United States supports their aspirations to live in freedom.

On the Korean peninsula, an oppressive regime rules a people living in fear and starvation. Throughout the 1990s, the United States relied on a negotiated framework to keep North Korea from gaining nuclear weapons. We now know that the regime was deceiving the world, and developing those weapons all along. And today the North Korean regime is using its nuclear program to incite fear and seek concessions. America and the world will not be blackmailed. America is working with the countries of the region South Korea, Japan, China, and Russia to find a peaceful solution, and to show the North Korean government that nuclear weapons will bring only isolation, economic stagnation, and continued hardship. The North Korean regime will find respect in the world, and revival for its people, only when it turns away from its nuclear ambitions.

Our Nation and the world must learn the lessons of the Korean peninsula, and not allow an even greater threat to rise up in Iraq. A brutal dictator, with a history of reckless aggression with ties to terrorism with great potential wealth will not be permitted to dominate a vital region and threaten the United States.

Twelve years ago, Saddam Hussein faced the prospect of being the last casualty in a war he had started and lost. To spare himself, he agreed to disarm of all weapons of mass destruction. For the next 12 years, he systematically violated that agreement. He pursued chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons even while inspectors were in his country. Nothing to date has restrained him from his pursuit of these weapons not economic sanctions, not isolation from the civilized world, not even cruise missile strikes on his military facilities. Almost three months ago, the United Nations Security Council gave Saddam Hussein his final chance to disarm. He has shown instead his utter contempt for the United Nations, and for the opinion of the world.

The 108 UN weapons inspectors were not sent to conduct a scavenger hunt for hidden materials across a country the size of California. The job of the inspectors is to verify that Iraq s regime is disarming. It is up to Iraq to show exactly where it is hiding its banned weapons lay those weapons out for the world to see and destroy them as directed. Nothing like this has happened.

The United Nations concluded in 1999 that Saddam Hussein had biological weapons materials sufficient to produce over 25,000 liters of anthrax enough doses to kill several million people. He has not accounted for that material. He has given no evidence that he has destroyed it.

The United Nations concluded that Saddam Hussein had materials sufficient to produce more than 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin enough to subject millions of people to death by respiratory failure. He has not accounted for that material. He has given no evidence that he has destroyed it.

Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard, and VX nerve agent. In such quantities, these chemical agents also could kill untold thousands. He has not accounted for these materials. He has given no evidence that he has destroyed them.

U.S. intelligence indicates that Saddam Hussein had upwards of 30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical agents. Inspectors recently turned up 16 of them, despite Iraq s recent declaration denying their existence. Saddam Hussein has not accounted for the remaining 29,984 of these prohibited munitions. He has given no evidence that he has destroyed them.

From three Iraqi defectors we know that Iraq, in the late 1990s, had several mobile biological weapons labs. These are designed to produce germ warfare agents, and can be moved from place to place to evade inspectors. Saddam Hussein has not disclosed these facilities. He has given no evidence that he has destroyed them.

The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed in the 1990s that Saddam Hussein had an advanced nuclear weapons development program, had a design for a nuclear weapon, and was working on five different methods of enriching uranium for a bomb. The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production. Saddam Hussein has not credibly explained these activities. He clearly has much to hide.

The dictator of Iraq is not disarming. To the contrary, he is deceiving. From intelligence sources, we know, for instance, that thousands of Iraqi security personnel are at work hiding documents and materials from the UN inspectors sanitizing inspection sites, and monitoring the inspectors themselves. Iraqi officials accompany the inspectors in order to intimidate witnesses. Iraq is blocking U-2 surveillance flights requested by the United Nations. Iraqi intelligence officers are posing as the scientists inspectors are supposed to interview. Real scientists have been coached by Iraqi officials on what to say. And intelligence sources indicate that Saddam Hussein has ordered that scientists who cooperate with UN inspectors in disarming Iraq will be killed, along with their families.

Year after year, Saddam Hussein has gone to elaborate lengths, spent enormous sums, taken great risks, to build and keep weapons of mass destruction but why? The only possible explanation, the only possible use he could have for those weapons, is to dominate, intimidate, or attack. With nuclear arms or a full arsenal of chemical and biological weapons, Saddam Hussein could resume his ambitions of conquest in the Middle East, and create deadly havoc in the region. And this Congress and the American people must recognize another threat. Evidence from intelligence sources, secret communications, and statements by people now in custody, reveal that Saddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists, including members of al-Qaida. Secretly, and without fingerprints, he could provide one of his hidden weapons to terrorists, or help them develop their own.

Before September 11, 2001, many in the world believed that Saddam Hussein could be contained. But chemical agents and lethal viruses and shadowy terrorist networks are not easily contained. Imagine those 19 hijackers with other weapons, and other plans this time armed by Saddam Hussein. It would take just one vial, one canister, one crate slipped into this country to bring a day of horror like none we have ever known. We will do everything in our power to make sure that day never comes.

Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late. Trusting in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein is not a strategy, and it is not an option.

This dictator, who is assembling the world s most dangerous weapons, has already used them on whole villages leaving thousands of his own citizens dead, blind, or disfigured. Iraqi refugees tell us how forced confessions are obtained by torturing children while their parents are made to watch. International human rights groups have catalogued other methods used in the torture chambers of Iraq: electric shock, burning with hot irons, dripping acid on the skin, mutilation with electric drills, cutting out tongues, and rape.

If this is not evil, then evil has no meaning. And tonight I have a message for the brave and oppressed people of Iraq: Your enemy is not surrounding your country your enemy is ruling your country. And the day he and his regime are removed from power will be the day of your liberation.

The world has waited 12 years for Iraq to disarm. America will not accept a serious and mounting threat to our country, our friends, and our allies. The United States will ask the UN Security Council to convene on February 5th to consider the facts of Iraq s ongoing defiance of the world. Secretary of State Powell will present information and intelligence about Iraq s illegal weapons programs; its attempts to hide those weapons from inspectors; and its links to terrorist groups. We will consult, but let there be no misunderstanding: If Saddam Hussein does not fully disarm, for the safety of our people, and for the peace of the world, we will lead a coalition to disarm him.

Tonight I also have a message for the men and women who will keep the peace, members of the American Armed Forces: Many of you are assembling in and near the Middle East, and some crucial hours may lie ahead. In those hours, the success of our cause will depend on you. Your training has prepared you. Your honor will guide you. You believe in America, and America believes in you.

Sending Americans into battle is the most profound decision a president can make. The technologies of war have changed. The risks and suffering of war have not. For the brave Americans who bear the risk, no victory is free from sorrow. This Nation fights reluctantly, because we know the cost, and we dread the days of mourning that always come.

We seek peace. We strive for peace. And sometimes peace must be defended. A future lived at the mercy of terrible threats is no peace at all. If war is forced upon us, we will fight in a just cause and by just means sparing, in every way we can, the innocent. And if war is forced upon us, we will fight with the full force and might of the United States military and we will prevail. And as we and our coalition partners are doing in Afghanistan, we will bring to the Iraqi people food, and medicines, and supplies and freedom.

Many challenges, abroad and at home, have arrived in a single season. In two years, America has gone from a sense of invulnerability to an awareness of peril from bitter division in small matters to calm unity in great causes. And we go forward with confidence, because this call of history has come to the right country

Americans are a resolute people, who have risen to every test of our time. Adversity has revealed the character of our country, to the world, and to ourselves.

America is a strong Nation, and honorable in the use of our strength. We exercise power without conquest, and sacrifice for the liberty of strangers.

Americans are a free people, who know that freedom is the right of every person and the future of every nation. The liberty we prize is not America s gift to the world, it is God s gift to humanity.

We Americans have faith in ourselves but not in ourselves alone. We do not claim to know all the ways of Providence, yet we can trust in them, placing our confidence in the loving God behind all of life, and all of history.

May He guide us now, and may God continue to bless the United States of America.

I understand why America is concerned regarding Iran. Iran remains the most serious threat to stability in the Middle East. It has a thriving conventional, nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programme and continues to invest money in developing these areas. The tentacles of Iran's power are long and diverse and circle the globe; criss-crossing boundaries, transcending political ideologies, snaking and intertwining, plotting and manipulating, operating a monstrous self-serving, self-perpetuating clandestine organisation, controlling and directing the affairs of Islamic fundamentalists. It has become a huge web of intrigue and provides Iran with a powerful springboard for further influence not only in North Africa and the Middle East but world-wide. Iran seeks to establish the rule of Islam. Their aims may not be realised is their lifetime, but that does not deter them. What has started has been preordained and cannot be stopped. Iran has provided the unquenchable spark in countries throughout the world and the flames will spread and destroy the old so that a new will be built.

The same scenarios are appearing across the Middle East. Everyone is worried about the instability. The truth is we do not want further Islamic Governments in the Middle East. I have seen and understood many things, it's just hard to comprehend what's happening. Yes, these are strange and dangerous time we live in; the Gulf States have little choice. Events can move quicker than we realise. Hard-core Islamic fundamentalists are more interested in unsurping power than in sharing it. There is no doubt that the Islamic fundamentalists have cells formed in major towns and cities in the Gulf and that the Iranians create unity out of factional conflicts. There are dozens or more organisations involved, who previously squabble amongst themselves, but the Iranians are beginning to pull them together and are effectively gaining control. Iran's only interest is the re-establishment of the dominion of Islam. Can the problems be contained and overcome? The uneasy neighbourhood of the Persian Gulf still holds many fears. The spectre of a pact between Syria and Iran is still a distinct possibility. There are those who still wish to rid the Gulf of remaining Kingdoms. Saudi, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman and the UAE attempts the erase the painful possibility by getting into bed with the Americans.

Yes, we have to have courage and stamina in this chaotic changing world. How can we elevate reason above ignorance, myth, bigotry and hate? It's all so wrong, the brutality, the lust for power, the stark injustices inflicted upon the innocent. So much is soured by resentment and loathing. It's such a sad terrible thing, isn't it? Because the consequences of it go on and the finality ... echoes. I have no answer to monstrous and calculated evil. Human life can call forth such horror. The world has become steadily a more, not less, violent place. Must every page in history be written in blood? Passions grow swiftly when doused in a rich rain of blood in the furnace of war.

What thoughts have I? Oh, God! Elusiveness becomes clogged by the stupidity of human nature. If we teeter on the brink long enough, eventually we're bound to fall in. History accumulates disasters and how quickly we forget. I suspect you are writing of the irrelevance of the world, where men squabble and boast and tyrannise. I was intrigued by the world view behind your comments. I am not myself exactly complacent about our modern industrial civilisation. We practice excess, excess in everything. It is a hard world as you say, but will it ever become less hard? The awful indulgences of society change from era to era. If mankind was indestructively good, the world would be a better place. We have only a vague conception of the horror and devastation of war. Emotions boil up which can so easily wreck a city, a country, a world and I am haunted by what is happening today. I think it is easy to forget how violently mankind can react. No one can live on hatred alone. Love and hate walk hand in hand. I doubt whether we can fully experience the one without knowing the other or that one flaring brightly, will not engender its counterpart as inevitably as the sun casts shadows.

The world continues to fall apart, its social fabric is in tatters, its eco-system near collapse. I have come to know and fear so much through the pictures. I wish every person could experience one day and night of the pictures. They would open unseeing and uncaring eyes and tightly closed minds. Nothing is permanent, everything changes. The world beyond is specious and temporary. Anyone with their eyes open can see the dangers that lie ahead. Critics abstain from saying or writing what would make an enemy or wreck a sacred scheme? We are forced into ambiguity, or, in pursuit of some collective advantage, silence. Look at what is happening in the USA today. McCarthyism has returned and people are being hounded.

You tell me it's no good being pure and agnostic and that you doubt an enemy would drop his arms and embrace our way of thinking. You also write of justice. All justice is partial. One knows the rules, one applies the rules, but one applies them according to secret bias. You draw an insidious parallel. For my part, I long ago became content to live along with my feelings and judgements, but I recognise that life shifts as desires are contained and released and that situations do not remain stable. You have written of faith, but faith is something through which justice prevails and evil perishes and from which miracles might be expected.