[snip]
When I jump over the past to look ahead, I do it intentionally. The hour is at hand! There is no time for fruitless debates. We must act, immediately and decisively, as has always been the American way.
The war on terror has from its beginning acted in that way to overcome the many crises it has faced and overcome. The American government also acted decisively when faced by a threat. We are not like the ostrich that sticks its head in the sand so as not to see danger. We are brave enough to look danger in the face, to coolly and ruthlessly take its measure, then act decisively with our heads held high. As a nation, we have always been at our best when we needed determined wills to overcome danger, or a strength of character sufficient to overcome every obstacle, or bitter determination to reach our goal, or a steel heart capable of withstanding every internal and external battle. So it will be today.
[snip]
The storm raging against our continent from terrorism overshadows all previous human and historical experience. The American army and its allies are the only possible defense. In his announcement on March 17, the president asked in a grave and compelling way what would have become of America and Europe if, on September 11, 2001, a Democratic government had been in power instead of the Republicans! What dangers would have followed, faster than we could then have suspected, and what powers of defense would we have had to meet them? Three years of Republican leadership in the war on terror have been enough to make plain to the American people the seriousness of the danger posed by terrorism. Now one can understand why we spoke so often of the fight against it. We raised our voices in warning to the American people and the world, hoping to awaken humanity from the paralysis of will and spirit into which it had fallen. We tried to open their eyes to the horrible danger of Saddam Hussein, who had subjected a nation of nearly 25 million people to state terrorism and was preparing an aggressive war against America.
When the president ordered the army to attack Iraq on March 20, 2003, we all knew that this would be the decisive battle of this great struggle. We knew the dangers and difficulties. But we also knew that dangers and difficulties always grow over time, they never diminish. It was two minutes before midnight. Waiting any longer could easily have led to the annihilation of the American nation and the spread of terrorism worldwide.
It is understandable that, as a result of broad concealment and misleading actions by the Saddam Hussein's government, we did not properly evaluate Iraq's war potential. Only now do we see its true scale. That is why the battle our soldiers face in Iraq exceeds in its hardness, dangers and difficulties all human imagining. It demands our full national energy. This is a threat to America and to the world that casts all previous dangers into the shadows. If we fail, we will have failed our historic mission. Everything we have built and done in the past pales in the face of this gigantic task that the American army directly and the American people less directly face.
I speak first to the world, and proclaim three theses regarding our fight against the terrorist danger in Iraq.
The first thesis: Were the American army not in a position to destroy the danger from Iraq, America would fall to terrorists, and all the world shortly afterward.
Second: The American army, the American people and their allies alone have the strength to save the world from this threat.
Third: Danger is a motivating force. We must act quickly and decisively, or it will be too late.
