November 21, 2005
Remarks on Iraq and the War on Terrorism
Vice
President Dick Cheney
(This address was delivered at the American
Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C.)
Good morning, and thank you all very much.
And thank
you, Chris (ph). It's great to be back at AEI. Both Lynne and
I have a long history with the American Enterprise Institute.
We value the association, and even more, we value the friendships
that have come from our time here. And I want to thank all of
you for coming this morning and for your welcome.
My remarks
today concern national security, in particular the war on terror
and the Iraq front in that war.
Several days
ago, I commented briefly on some recent statements that have been
made by some members of Congress about Iraq. Within hours of my
speech, a report went out on the wires under the headline, quote,
"Cheney says War Critics Dishonest, Reprehensible,"
end quote.
One thing
I've learned in the last five years is that when you're vice president
you're lucky if your speeches get any attention at all. But I
have a quarrel with that headline, and it's important to make
this point at the outset.
I do not
believe it is wrong to criticize the war on terror or any aspect
thereof. Disagreement, argument and debate are the essence of
democracy, and none of us should want it any other way.
For my part,
I've spent a career in public service, run for office eight times,
six statewide offices and twice nationally. I served in the House
of Representatives for better than a decade, most of that time
as I member of the leadership of the minority party. To me, energetic
debate on issues facing our country is more than just a sign of
a healthy political system.
CHENEY: It's
also something I enjoy. It's one of the reasons I've stayed in
the business. And I believe the feeling is probably the same for
most of us in public life.
For those
of us who don't mind debating, there's plenty to keep us busy
these days and it's not likely to change any time soon.
On the question
of national security, feelings run especially strong. And there
are deeply held differences of opinion on how to best protect
the United States and our friends against the dangers of our time.
Recently
my friend and former colleague Jack Murtha called for a complete
withdrawal of American forces now serving in Iraq, with a drawdown
to begin at once.
I disagree
with Jack and believe his proposal would not serve the best interest
of this nation. But he's a good man, a Marine, a patriot, and
he's taking a clear stand in an entirely legitimate discussion.
Nor is there
any problem with debating whether the United States and our allies
should have liberated Iraq in the first place. Here, as well,
the differing views are very passionately and forcefully stated.
But nobody
is saying we should not be having this discussion or that you
cannot reexamine a decision made by the president and the Congress
some years ago.
To the contrary,
I believe it is critical that we continue to remind ourselves
why this nation took action and why Iraq is the central front
in the war on terror and why we have a duty to persevere.
What is not
legitimate and what I will again say is dishonest and reprehensible
is the suggestion by some U.S. senators that the president of
the United States or any member of his administration purposely
misled the American people on prewar intelligence.
Some of the
most irresponsible comments have come from politicians who actually
voted in favor of authorizing the use of force against Saddam
Hussein.
These are
elected officials who had access to the intelligence materials.
They are known to have a high opinion of their own analytical
capabilities.
(LAUGHTER)
And they
were free to reach their own judgments based upon the evidence.
They concluded,
as the president and I had concluded, and as the previous administration
had concluded, that Saddam Hussein was a threat.
Available
intelligence indicated that the dictator of Iraq had weapons of
mass destruction, and this judgment was shared by the intelligence
agencies of many other nations, according to the bipartisan Silberman-Robb
commission.
All of us
understood, as well, that for more than a decade, the U.N. Security
Council had demanded that Saddam Hussein make a full accounting
of his weapons programs.
The burden
of proof was entirely on the dictator of Iraq, not on the U.N.
or the United States or anyone else. And he repeatedly refused
to comply throughout the course of the decade.
Permit me
to burden you with a bit more history.
In August
of 1998, the U.S. passed a resolution urging President Clinton
to take appropriate action to compel Saddam to come into compliance
with his obligations to the Security Council. Not a single senator
vote no.
Two months
later in October of '98, again without a single dissenting vote
in the United States Senate, the Congress passed the Iraq Liberation
Act. It explicitly adopted as American policy supporting efforts
to remove Saddam Hussein's regime from power and promoting an
Iraqi democracy in its place.
And just
two months after signing the Iraq Liberation Law, President Clinton
ordered that Iraq be bombed in an effort to destroy facilities
that he believed were connected to Saddam's weapons of mass destruction
programs.
By the time
Congress voted to authorize force in late 2002, there was broad-based,
bipartisan agreement that the time had come to enforce the legitimate
demands of the international community. And our thinking was informed
by what had happened to our country on the morning of September
11th, 2001.
As the prime
target of terrorists who have shown an ability to hit America
and who wish to do so in spectacular fashion, we have a responsibility
to do everything we can to keep terrible weapons out of the hands
of these enemies.
And we must
hold to account regimes that could supply those weapons to terrorists
in defiance of the civilized world.
As the president
has said, terrorists and terror states do not reveal threats with
fair notice, in formal declarations. And responding to such enemies
only after they have struck first is not self-defense, it is suicide.
In a post-9/11
world, the president and Congress of the United States declined
to trust the word of a dictator who had a history of weapons of
mass destruction programs, who actually used weapons of mass destruction
against innocent civilians in his own country, who tried to assassinate
a former president of the United States, who was routinely shooting
at allied pilots trying to enforce no-fly zones, who had excluded
weapons inspectors, who had defied the demands of the international
community, whose regime had been designated an official state
sponsor of terror and who had committed mass murder.
Those are
the facts.
Although
our coalition has not found WMD stockpiles in Iraq, I repeat that
we never had the burden of proof; Saddam Hussein did. We operated
on the best available intelligence gathered over a period of years
and within a totalitarian society ruled by fear and secret police.
We also had
the experience of first Gulf War, when the intelligence community
had seriously underestimated the extent and progress Saddam had
made toward developing nuclear weapons.
Finally,
according to the Duelfer report, Saddam Hussein wanted to preserve
the capability to reconstitute his weapons of mass destruction
when sanctions were lifted. And we now know that the sanctions
regime had lost its effectiveness and been totally undermined
by Saddam Hussein's successful effort to corrupt the oil- for-food
program.
The flaws
in the intelligence are plain enough in hindsight. But any suggestion
that prewar information was distorted, hyped or fabricated by
the leader of the nation is utterly false.
Senator John
McCain put it best: "It is a lie to say that the president
lied to the American people."
American
soldiers and Marines serving in Iraq go out every day into some
of the most dangerous and unpredictable conditions.
Meanwhile,
back in the United States, a few politicians are suggesting these
brave Americans were sent into battle for a deliberate falsehood.
This is revisionism
of the most corrupt and shameless variety. It has no place anywhere
in American politics, much less in the United States Senate.
One might
also argue that untruthful charges against the commander in chief
have an insidious effect on the war effort itself. I'm unwilling
to say that only because I know the character of the United States
armed forces, men and women who are fighting the war on terror
in Iraq, Afghanistan and many other fronts.
They haven't
wavered in the slightest, and their conduct should make all Americans
proud. They are absolutely relentless in their duties and they
are carrying out their missions with all the skill and the honor
we expect of them.
I think of
the ones who put on heavy gear and work 12-hour shifts in the
desert heat. Every day they are striking the enemy, conducting
raids, training Iraqi forces, countering attacks, seizing weapons
and capturing killers.
Americans
appreciate our fellow citizens who go out on long deployments
and endure the hardship of separation from home and family. We
care about those who have returned with injuries and who face
the long, hard road of recovery. And our nation grieves for the
men and women whose lives have ended in freedom's cause.
The people
who serve in uniform and their families can be certain that their
cause is right and just and necessary, and we will stand behind
them with pride and without wavering until the day of victory.
The men and
women on duty in this war are serving the highest ideals of this
nation: our belief in freedom and justice, equality and the dignity
of the individual. And they are serving the vital security interests
of the United States.
There is
no denying that the work is difficult and there is much yet to
do. Yet we can harbor no illusions about the nature of this enemy
of the ambitions it seeks to achieve.
In the war
on terror we face a loose network of committed fanatics found
in many countries, operating under different commanders. Yet the
branches of this network share the same basic ideology and the
same dark vision for the world.
The terrorists
want to end American and Western influence in the Middle East.
Their goal
in that region is to gain control of a country so they have a
base from which to launch attacks and to wage war against governments
that do not meet their demands.
For a time,
the terrorists had such a base in Afghanistan under the backward
and violent rule of the Taliban. And the terrorists hope to overturn
Iraq's democratic government and return that country to the rule
of tyrants.
The terrorists
believe that by controlling an entire country, they will be able
to target and overthrow other governments in the region and to
establish a radical Islamic empire that encompasses a region from
Spain across North Africa through the Middle East and South Asia
all the way to Indonesia.
They have
made clear as well their ultimate ambitions: to arm themselves
with weapons of mass destruction, to destroy Israel, to intimidate
all Western countries and to cause mass death in the United States.
Some have
suggested that by liberating Iraq from Saddam Hussein we simply
stirred up a hornet's nest. They overlook a fundamental fact:
We were not in Iraq on September 11th, 2001, and the terrorists
hit us anyway.
The reality
is the terrorists were at war with our country long before the
liberation of Iraq and long before the attacks of 9/11. And for
many years, they were the ones on the offensive. They grew bolder
in the belief that if they killed Americans, they could change
American policy.
In Beirut
in 1983, terrorists killed 241 of our servicemen. Thereafter,
the United States withdrew from Beirut.
In Mogadishu
in 1993, terrorists killed 19 American soldiers. Thereafter, the
U.S. withdrew its forces from Somalia.
Over time
the terrorists concluded that they could strike America without
paying a price, because they did repeatedly: the bombing at the
World Trade Center in 1993, the murders at the Saudi National
Guard Training Center in Riyadh in 1995, the Khobar Towers in
1996, the simultaneous bombing of American embassies in Kenya
and Tanzania in 1998 and, of course, the bombing of the USS Cole
in 2000.
Believing
they could strike us with impunity and that they could change
U.S. policy, they attacked us on 9/11 here in the homeland, killing
3,000 people.
Now they're
making a stand in Iraq, testing our resolve, trying to intimidate
the United States into abandoning our friends and permitting the
overthrow of this new Middle Eastern democracy.
Recently,
we obtained a message from the number two man in Al Qaida, Mr.
Zawahiri, that he sent to his chief deputy in Iraq, the terrorist
Zarqawi. The letter makes clear that Iraq is part of a larger
plan of imposing Islamic radicalism across the broader Middle
East, making Iraq a terrorist haven and a staging ground for attacks
against other nations.
Zawahiri
also expresses the view that America can be made to run again.
In light
of the commitments our country has made, and given the stated
intentions of the enemy, those who advocate a sudden withdraw
from Iraq should answer a few simple questions: Would the United
States and other free nations be better off or worse off with
Zarqawi, bin Laden and Zawahiri in control of Iraq? Would we be
safer or less safe with Iraq ruled by men intent on the destruction
of our country?
It is a dangerous
illusion to suppose that another retreat by the civilized world
would satisfy the appetite of the terrorists and get them to leave
us alone.
In fact,
such a retreat would convince the terrorists that free nations
will change our policies, forsake our friends, abandon our interests
whenever we are confronted with murder and blackmail.
A precipitous
withdrawal from Iraq would be a victory for the terrorists, an
invitation to further violence against free nations and a terrible
blow to the future security of the United States of America.
So much self-defeating
pessimism about Iraq comes at a time of real progress in that
country.
Coalition
forces are making decisive strikes against terrorist strongholds
and more and more they are doing so with the Iraqi forces at their
side. There are more than 90 Iraqi army battalions fighting the
terrorists along with our forces.
On the political
side, every benchmark has been met successfully, starting with
the turnover of sovereignty more than a year ago, the national
elections last January, the drafting of the constitution and its
ratification by voters this last month and, a few weeks from now,
the election of a new government under that new constitution.
The political
leaders of Iraq are steady and courageous, and the citizens, police
and soldiers of that country have proudly stepped forward as active
participants and guardians in a new democracy: running for office
and speaking out, voting and sacrificing for their country.
Iraqi citizens
are doing all of this despite threats from terrorists who offer
no political agenda for Iraq's future and wage a campaign of mass
slaughter against the Iraqi people themselves, the vast majority
of whom are fellow Arabs and fellow Muslims.
Day after
day, Iraqis are proving their determination to live in freedom,
to chart their own destiny and to defend their own country. And
they can know that the United States will keep our commitment
to them.
We will continue
the work of reconstruction. Our forces will keep going after the
terrorists and continue training the Iraqi military so that Iraqis
can eventually take the lead in their country's security, and
our men and women can come home.
We will succeed
in this mission. And when it is concluded, we will be a safer
nation.
Wartime conditions
are in every case a test of military skill and national resolve,
but this is especially true in the war on terror.
Four years
ago, President Bush told Congress and the country that the path
ahead would be difficult, that we were heading into a long struggle
unlike any we have ever known.
All this
has come to pass. We have faced and are facing today enemies who
hate us, hate our country and hate the liberties for which we
stand. They dwell in the shadows, wear no uniform, have no regard
for the laws of warfare and feel unconstrained by any standard
of morality.
We've never
had a fight like this, and the Americans who go into the fight
are among the bravest citizens this nation has ever produced.
All who have
labored in this cause can be proud of their service for the rest
of their lives.
The terrorists
lack any capacity to inspire the hearts of good men and women,
and their only chance for victory is for us to walk away from
the fight.
They have
contempt for our values, they doubt our strength and they believe
that America will lose its nerve and let down our guard. But this
nation's made a decision: We will not retreat in the face of brutality
and we will never live at the mercy of tyrants or terrorists.
None of
us could know every turn that lies ahead for America in the fight
against terror. And because we are Americans, we are going to
keep discussing the conduct and the progress of this war and having
debates about strategy.
Yet the direction
of events is plain to see, and this period of struggle and testing
should also be seen as a time of promise.
The United
States of America is a good country, a decent country, and we
are making the world a better place by defending the innocent,
confronting the violent and bringing freedom to the oppressed.
We understand
the continuing dangers to civilization. And we have the resources,
the strength and the moral courage to overcome those dangers and
lay the foundations for a better world.
Thank you
very much.
