Bush claimed that the war in Iraq was started because of the immanent
danager
of Saddam
Not true. Bush said we can't wait that long.
If you believe that it's going to come to war, you don't give the other
guy more time to prepare for it.
-------------------
"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.
(Applause.)
The 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. (Applause.)
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. (Applause.) And the day he and his regime are
removed from power will be the day of your liberation. (Applause.)
The world has waited 12 years for Iraq to disarm. America will not
accept a serious and mounting threat to our country, and our friends
and our allies. The United States will ask the U.N. Security Council to
convene on February the 5th to consider the facts of Iraq's ongoing
defiance of the world. Secretary of State Powell will present
information and intelligence about Iraqi's legal -- Iraq's illegal
weapons programs, its attempt 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. (Applause.)
Tonight I 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 or
near the Middle East, and some crucial hours may lay 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. (Applause.)
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. (Applause.)
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. (Applause.)
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 we 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.
(Applause.)
We Americans have faith in ourselves, but not in ourselves alone. We do
not know -- 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. (Applause.)"
President George W. Bush
January 28, 2003
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...030128-19.html