[Rhodes22-list] Politics

[pdgrand at nospam.wmis.net]

Remarks by the Vice President at Westminster College 
Westminster College Historic Gymnasium
Fulton, Missouri 



11:35 A.M. CDT 

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Thank you. (Applause.) That's a nice Missouri welcome. 
I'm delighted to be back, back here in Fulton, with the distinguished 
members of the Missouri congressional delegation here today -- and, of 
course, back in a county known by one of the grandest names in America -- 
the Kingdom of Callaway -- I'm told. (Applause.) 

And it's a special privilege to be back here at Westminster. I want to 
thank Dr. Lamkin not only for his fine introduction today, but also for his 
outstanding years of service to the nation. 

I bring greetings to one and all from our President, George W. Bush. 
(Applause.) As it happens, I visited this school as a candidate for Vice 
President, of course, in the fall of 2000. As I recall, it was in the 
middle of October. At that point, we had just a few weeks left in the 
presidential campaign, or so we thought. (Laughter.) It worked out all 
right in the end. 

In 2000, we had support all across the state of Missouri, and a great 
turnout for the Bush-Cheney ticket on Election Day, and this year, with 
your support, I'm confident we'll carry Missouri once again for the Bush-
Cheney ticket. (Applause.) 

It's an honor to stand in the place where President Truman and Winston 
Churchill stood together in the spring of 1946. I was interested to learn 
that Truman and Churchill traveled here from Washington on the presidential 
railroad car. The evening before they arrived, Churchill had five scotches 
before dinner -- (laughter) -- and then joined Truman, members of the White 
House staff, and probably a few reporters for an all-night poker game. 
Well, that was a different era. (Laughter.) And I can tell you that we had 
a lot quieter time this morning on Air Force Two. 

But in this hall, Churchill delivered what he called the most important 
speech of his career, applying the wisdom gained over a lifetime to the 
greatest challenge of the age. He warned of a grave and growing danger, and 
of the duty of free nations to unite against the ambitions of the communist 
empire. He defined the struggle for what it was -- not merely a rivalry of 
interests, but a conflict between those who served an aggressive, power-
hungry ideology and those who believed in human liberty, freedom of 
conscience, and the dignity of every life. 

In his understanding of that conflict, and in his determination to see it 
through to victory, Churchill found a capable and discerning partner in the 
man from Missouri, Harry S. Truman. Like his friend, the former prime 
minister, President Truman recognized that imperial communism demanded a 
comprehensive, long-term response on many fronts. And he made absolutely 
clear to the world that American policy would confront the danger squarely. 
In a short time, our government created the architecture of national 
security that we know today: the Department of Defense, the Central 
Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Council. To defend ourselves 
and other free peoples, the United States, joined by Britain, helped to 
found NATO, and the President announced the Truman Doctrine to help free 
nations resist communist subversion. To build and strengthen our new 
democracies, our government led in the reconstruction of Japan, and devoted 
billions to European assistance through the Marshall Plan. And when 
aggression occurred on the Korean Peninsula, it was President Truman's 
decision and America's sacrifice that saved South Korea. 

All those early commitments were absolutely essential to victory in the 
Cold War, and they helped to produce unprecedented success for the cause of 
freedom. And to look back on the pivotal decisions of the 1940s and '50s is 
to be reminded that certain moments come along in history when the gravest 
of threats reveal themselves. And in those moments our response must be 
swift, it must be confident, and it must be right. 

Ladies and gentlemen, you and I are living in such a time. In this new 
century, facing new dangers, the commitments we make will also be decisive. 
The struggle we face today is different from the one Churchill spoke of 58 
years ago. Our enemy no longer takes the form of a vast empire, but rather 
a shadowy network of killers, which, joined by outlaw regimes, would seek 
to impose its will on free nations by terror and intimidation. And instead 
of massive armies, we face deadly technologies that must be kept out of the 
hands of terrorists and outlaw regimes. Yet, in Truman and Churchill, we 
find models for the kind of leadership required to defend freedom in our 
time. 

Leaders must speak out and act against threats as they gather, even when 
it's difficult. Dangers cannot be wished away. Leaders must be willing to 
work with international institutions. As Churchill said here, leaders must 
make sure that the United Nations is "a force for action, and not merely a 
frothing of words." Leaders must also maintain military strength capable of 
operating in different theaters of action with decisive force -- and be 
willing to use that power when necessary. American policy must be clear and 
consistent in its purposes. And above all, our leaders must be confident in 
our nation's cause, and unwavering until the threat to our people is fully 
and finally removed. And today we have such a leader in President George W. 
Bush. (Applause.) 

The attacks of September 11, 2001 signaled the arrival of an entirely 
different era. We suffered massive civilian casualties on our own soil. We 
awakened to dangers even more lethal -- the possibility that terrorists 
could gain chemical, biological, or even nuclear weapons from outlaw 
regimes, and turn those weapons against the United States. We came to 
understand that for all the destruction and grief we saw that day, 
September 11th gave only the merest glimpse of the threat that 
international terrorism poses to this and other nations. If terrorists ever 
do acquire weapons of mass destruction -- on their own or with help from a 
terror regime -- they will use those weapons without the slightest 
constraint of reason or morality. Instead of losing thousands of lives, we 
might lose tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of lives in a 
single day of horror. Remembering what we saw on the morning of 9/11, and 
knowing the nature of our enemies, we have as clear a responsibility as 
could ever fall to government: We must do everything in our power to 
protect our people from terrorist attack, and to keep terrorists from ever 
acquiring weapons of mass destruction. 

This great and urgent responsibility has required a shift in national 
security strategy. For many years prior to 9/11, terror attacks against 
Americans were treated as isolated incidents, and answered -- if at all -- 
on an ad hoc basis, and rarely in a systematic way. Even after an attack 
inside our own country, the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center in New 
York, there was a tendency to treat terrorist attacks as individual 
criminal acts, to be handled primarily through law enforcement. 

Ramsi Yousef, the main perpetrator of that 1993 attack in New York was 
tracked down, arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced to a 240-year 
sentence. Yet behind that one man was a growing network of operatives 
inside and outside the United States, waging war against our country. 

For us, that war started on 9/11. For them, it started years ago. After the 
World Trade Center attack in 1993 came the murders at the Saudi Arabian 
National Guard Training Center in Riyadh, in 1995; the simultaneous 
bombings of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, in 1998; and the 
attack on the USS Cole, in 2000. 

In 1996, Khalid Shaykh Mohammad, the mastermind of 9/11, first proposed to 
bin Laden that they use hijacked airliners to attack targets in the U.S. In 
1996, and again in 1998, Osama bin Laden declared war on the United States. 
During this period, thousands of terrorists were trained at al Qaeda camps 
in Afghanistan. And we have seen the work of terrorists in many attacks 
since 9/11 -- in Riyadh, Casablanca, Istanbul, Karbalah, Mombasa, Bali, 
Jakarta, Najaf, Baghdad, and Madrid. Against this kind of determined, 
organized, ruthless enemy, it is not enough merely to prosecute a series of 
crimes. We have a responsibility to conduct a global campaign against the 
terrorist network. (Applause.) 

President Bush has recognized this from the beginning. And by the strategy 
he has set for our government, we will overcome the threats to our 
security, and advance the cause of freedom. 

To make our country safer from terrorist attacks, we have created the 
Department of Homeland Security -- the largest reorganization of the 
federal government since the Truman years. We have brought together 22 
agencies and 180,000 federal employees in one department, with one focus -- 
to protect America. We also passed the Patriot Act, to give law enforcement 
the tools to catch terrorists inside the United States. All of these 
changes are essential. More than two-and-a-half years have passed now since 
9/11, yet it would be a grave mistake to assume the threat to our country 
and the world has gone away. As we saw in Madrid just weeks ago, terrorists 
are determined to intimidate free countries, and even to try to influence 
elections. We have to assume they will make further attempts inside the 
United States, especially in an election year. And every American can be 
certain: This government is doing everything we can to prevent another 
terrorist attack on America. 

Our national security strategy also recognizes the doctrines of deterrence 
and containment, which served us well during the Cold War, are not 
sufficient to meet the threat of terrorism. It's hard to deter an enemy 
that has no territory to defend, no standing army to counter, no real 
assets to destroy in order to discourage them from attacking us. 
Containment is meaningless in the case of al Qaeda. And neither containment 
nor deterrence offers protection against rogue regimes that develop weapons 
of mass destruction and are willing to pass along those weapons secretly to 
a terrorist on a suicide mission. 

Given these realities, there can be no waiting until the danger has fully 
materialized. By then it would be too late. And so we are waging this war 
in the only way it can be won, by taking the fight directly to the enemy. 
(Applause.) 

Over the last two-and-a-half years, we -- and our friends and allies in 
many countries -- have inflicted heavy losses on al Qaeda's leadership and 
foot soldiers, tracking them down and finding them in hiding places from 
Pakistan to Indonesia. Those not yet captured or killed live in fear, and 
their fears are well founded. We are also working with governments around 
the globe to take down the financial networks that support terror -- the 
hidden bank accounts, front groups, and phony charities that have helped 
them to function. 

America is working closely with intelligence services all over the globe. 
The best intelligence is necessary -- not just to win the war on terror, 
but also to stop the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. So we 
have enhanced our ability to trace dangerous sources of proliferation, 
including black-market operations. 

The world recently learned of the network led by Mr. A.Q. Khan, the former 
head of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program. Khan and his associates sold 
nuclear technology and know-how to regimes around the world, including 
Libya, Iran and North Korea. Thanks to the tireless work of intelligence 
officers from the United States, the United Kingdom, Pakistan, and other 
nations, the Khan network is now being dismantled piece by piece. 
(Applause.) 

Since the day our country was attacked, we have also applied the Bush 
Doctrine: Any person or government that supports, protects, or harbors 
terrorists is complicit in the murder of the innocent, and will be held to 
account. (Applause.) 

The first to see this doctrine in action were the Taliban, who ruled 
Afghanistan by violence while turning that country into a giant training 
camp for terrorists. America and our coalition took down the regime in a 
matter of weeks because of our superior technology, and the unmatched skill 
of our armed forces, and, above all, because we came not as conquerors but 
as liberators. The Taliban are gone from the scene. The terrorist camps are 
closed, and the Afghan people are building a nation that is secure, 
independent, and free. 

In Iraq, the United States and our allies rid the Iraqi people of a 
murderous dictator, and rid the world of a menace to our future peace and 
security. Saddam Hussein had a lengthy history of reckless and sudden 
aggression. His regime cultivated ties to terror and had built, possessed, 
and used weapons of mass destruction. Last spring, Saddam was the all-
powerful dictator of Iraq, controlling the lives and the future of almost 
25 million people. Today, he sits in a prison cell. (Applause.) The people 
of Iraq know that the dictator and his sons will never torment them again. 
And we can be certain that they will never again threaten Iraq's neighbors 
or the United States of America. 

>From the beginning, America has sought -- and received -- international 
support for our operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. In the war on terror, 
we will always seek cooperation from allies around the world. But as the 
President has made very clear, there is a difference between leading a 
coalition of many nations and submitting to the objections of a few. The 
United States will never seek a permission slip to defend the security of 
our country. (Applause.) 

We and our coalition partners still face serious challenges in Afghanistan 
and Iraq, but our progress has been significant. In Afghanistan, there is a 
new constitution. Free elections will be held later this year. In Iraq, we 
and the other nations of our coalition are working closely with the United 
Nations, and with Iraqis, to determine the exact form of an interim 
government that will receive sovereignty June 30th. The U.N. election 
supervision team is in Iraq developing plans for elections. We're working 
with the U.N. Secretary General and our coalition partners to return U.N. 
teams to Iraq to play an important role there in the months ahead. 

In recent weeks, those who fear freedom in Iraq have stepped up their 
attempts to create chaos and instability. Groups of radicals, former regime 
supporters and foreign terrorists have used car bombs to murder Iraqi 
policemen and civilians, including schoolchildren. They have kidnapped the 
citizens of many countries who have come to Iraq to aid in its 
reconstruction. And they have launched fresh attacks on our forces. The 
goal of these killers is clear -- to prevent a successful transition to 
self-government, and to drive out the United States and our partners, and 
to impose some new form of tyranny on the Iraqi people. This campaign of 
terror will fail. (Applause.) 

As the President has said, the United States will keep its word to the 
people of Iraq. Iraq will be a free and independent country, and America 
and the Middle East will be safer because of it. Our coalition has the 
means and the will to prevail. We are standing for freedom and security, 
and that is a cause we are proud to serve. 

Our steady course has not escaped the attention of leaders of other 
countries. Three months ago, after initiating talks with America and 
Britain -- and five days after the capture of Saddam Hussein -- the leader 
of Libya voluntarily committed to disclose and dismantle all of his weapons 
of mass destruction programs. And the dismantling of those programs is 
underway. All elements of the Libyan nuclear program have been turned over 
to the United States. (Applause.) 

I do not believe that Colonel Ghadafi just happened to make this wise 
decision. (Laughter.) Rather, he was responding to the new realities of the 
world. Leaders elsewhere are learning that weapons of mass destruction do 
not bring influence, or prestige, or security -- they only invite 
isolation, and carry other costs. In the post-9/11 world, the United States 
and our allies are determined: We will not live at the mercy of terrorists 
or regimes that could arm them with chemical, biological, or nuclear 
weapons. By whatever means are necessary, whether diplomatic or military, 
we will act to protect the liberty and lives of our people. (Applause.) 

These past three years, as our country experienced war and national 
emergency, I have watched our Commander-in-Chief make the decisions and set 
the strategy. I have seen a man who is calm and deliberate, comfortable 
with responsibility, consistent in his objectives, and resolute in his 
actions. These times have tested the character of our nation, and they have 
tested the character of our nation's leader. When he makes a commitment, 
there is no doubt he will follow through. As a result, America's friends 
know they can trust -- and America's enemies know they can fear -- the 
decisive leadership of the President of the United States, and I am honored 
to be part of his team. (Applause.) 

The President's conduct in leading America through a time of unprecedented 
danger -- his ability to make decisions and to stand by them -- is a 
measure that must be applied to the candidate who now opposes him in the 
election of 2004, the Junior Senator from Massachusetts. 

In one of Senator Kerry's recent observations about foreign policy, he 
claimed that his ideas have gained strong support, at least among unnamed 
foreigners he's been spending time with. (Laughter.) Senator Kerry said 
that he has met with foreign leaders, and I quote, "who can't go out and 
say this publicly, but, boy, they look at you and say, 'You've got to win 
this, you've got to beat this guy, we need a new policy,' things like 
that." End quote. 

A week later, a voter in Pennsylvania asked Senator Kerry directly who 
these foreign leaders are. He replied, "That's none of your business." But 
recently the Senator did drop a hint. The other day on "Meet the Press," he 
told Tim Russert, quote, "I mean, you can go to New York City and you can 
be in a restaurant and you can meet a foreign leader." (Laughter.) Maybe 
next time he'll narrow it down for us a little more. Maybe the name of the 
restaurant, or the leader. (Laughter.) In any case, come November, the 
outcome of the election will be determined by the voters of the United 
States, not by unnamed foreign leaders. (Applause.) 

Senator Kerry's record on national security raises some important questions 
all by itself. To give you some history, let's begin with the matter of how 
Iraq and Saddam Hussein would have been dealt with. Senator Kerry was in 
the minority of senators who voted against the Persian Gulf War in 1991, in 
which we liberated Kuwait after a brutal invasion and occupation. And at 
the time, the Senator expressed the view that our international coalition 
consisted of "shadowy battlefield allies who barely carry a burden." Yet 
last year, as we prepared to liberate Iraq, he recalled the Persian Gulf 
coalition a little differently. He said then it was a, quote, "strong 
coalition." Just eight days ago, Senator Kerry said former President George 
Bush had done, quote, "a brilliant job" of building the alliance. Having 
served as Secretary of Defense under former President Bush, I appreciate 
Senator Kerry's comment. But I find it odd that Senator Kerry is now 
commending an alliance he didn't want to build for a purpose he didn't 
support. 

Six years after the Gulf War, in 1997, Saddam Hussein was still defying the 
terms of the cease-fire. And as President Bill Clinton considered military 
action against Iraq, he found a true believer in John Kerry. The Senator 
from Massachusetts said, quote, "Should the resolve of our allies wane, the 
United States must not lose its resolve to take action." He further warned 
that if Saddam Hussein were not held to account for his violation of U.N. 
resolutions, some future conflict would have "greater consequence." In 
1998, Senator Kerry indicated his support for regime change in Iraq, with 
ground troops if necessary. 

Four years later, in the fall of 2002, Senator Kerry wrote in an op-ed 
piece that, before America took any action against Iraq, President Bush 
should first go to the Congress for support, then go to the U.N. Security 
Council to seek enforcement of the resolutions, and then give an ultimatum 
to Saddam Hussein. President Bush, of course, did all of those things. And 
in the congressional vote, Senator Kerry was among those who favored 
military action if Saddam Hussein refused to comply with U.N. demands. 

A neutral observer, looking at these examples from Senator Kerry's record, 
would assume that the Senator actually supported military action against 
Saddam Hussein. The Senator himself now tells us otherwise. In January this 
year, he was asked on TV if he was "one of the anti-war candidates." He 
replied, "I am." He now says he was voting in October, 2002 only to, 
quote, "threaten the use of force," not actually to use force. 

Even if we set aside these inconsistencies and changing rationales, at 
least this much is clear: Had the decision belonged to Senator Kerry, 
Saddam Hussein would still be in power, today, in Iraq. In fact, Saddam 
Hussein would almost certainly still be in control of Kuwait, as well. 

Beyond his struggle to maintain a position on Iraq, Senator Kerry's record 
raises serious doubts about his understanding of the broader struggle 
against terror, of which Iraq is only one front. Less than two weeks ago, 
within hours of Osama bin Laden issuing a tape promising further attacks on 
America, Senator Kerry suggested that the President is exaggerating the 
terrorist threat. As the Senator put it, "Home base for George Bush, as we 
saw to the 'nth' degree in the press conference, is terror. Ask him a 
question, he's going to terror." End quote. 

Given that comment, it is not surprising that Senator Kerry has yet to 
outline any serious plan for winning the war on terror. Instead, he has 
questioned whether the war on terror is actually a war at all. Recently he 
said, quote, "I don't want to use that terminology." In his view, the war 
on terror is, again I quote, "not primarily a military operation. It's an 
intelligence-gathering, law enforcement, public diplomacy effort." End 
quote. As we have seen, however, that approach was tried before, and proved 
entirely inadequate to protecting the American people from terrorists who 
are quite certain they are at war with us and are comfortable using that 
terminology. (Applause.) 

Even if we accept Senator Kerry's assertion that law enforcement and 
intelligence should be the primary tools in combating terror, his voting 
record over the past decade indicates a different set of priorities. In 
1994 -- less than a year after terrorists first struck the World Trade 
Center -- Senator Kerry twice proposed cutting a billion dollars from 
intelligence funding. When the matter came to the Senate floor for a vote, 
it was rejected overwhelmingly by a vote of 75 to 20. The following year, 
Senator Kerry proposed cutting $1.5 billion from the intelligence budget 
over five years. The Senator said his goal was to eliminate intelligence 
programs that he considered to be, "pointless, wasteful, antiquated, or 
just plain silly." Senator Kerry's proposed cuts were so deeply 
irresponsible that he couldn't find a single co-sponsor for his bill in the 
Senate. 

To his credit, the Senator did vote for the Patriot Act, along with 97 of 
his fellow senators. Now, however, he supports weakening that law. 

Senator Kerry's record on defense measures is a bit more consistent. From 
the beginning of his career in the U.S. Senate 20 years ago, Senator Kerry 
has repeatedly called for major reductions or outright cancellations of 
many of our most important weapons systems. In 1984, the middle of the Cold 
War, while we were confronted with an aggressive, well armed Soviet Union, 
the Senator issued a white paper on the defense budget during his first 
campaign for the Senate. He called for cutting up to $53 billion from the 
Reagan defense budget. And these cuts included the following: The MX 
missile, cancel; the B-1 bomber, cancel; anti-satellite system, cancel; 
strategic defense initiative, cancel; the AH-64 Apache helicopter, 
canceled; the Patriot air defense missile system, cancel; the F-15, cancel; 
the F-14A and F-14B, cancel; the Phoenix air-to-air missile, cancel; the 
Sparrow air-to-air missile, cancel. 

At the same time, he proposed reductions in funding for the Tomahawk cruise 
missile and the Bradley Fighting Vehicle. And at numerous times, Senator 
Kerry has voted against funding weapons systems vital to fighting and 
winning the war on terror, such as the Blackhawk helicopter and the 
Predator drone. 

And last September, when the President proposed an $87 billion-dollar 
supplemental appropriation for troops fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, 
Senator Kerry was asked whether he would support the President's request. 
He said, quote, "I don't think any United States senator is going to 
abandon our troops. That's irresponsible." End quote. The legislation 
provided funding for body armor and other vital equipment, hazard pay, 
health benefits, ammunition, fuel, and spare parts for our military. The 
legislation passed overwhelmingly, with a vote in the Senate of 87 to 12. 
Senator Kerry voted "no." 

As a way to clarify the matter, Senator Kerry recently said, quote, "I 
actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it." 
(Laughter.) End quote. The Senator is, obviously, free to vote as he 
wishes, but he should be held to his own standard. It is irresponsible to 
vote against vital support for the United States military. (Applause.) 

When Senator Kerry speaks about the direction of the war on terror, he 
often returns to a single theme -- the need for international cooperation. 
He has vowed to usher in a golden age of American diplomacy. He is fond of 
mentioning that some countries did not support America's actions in Iraq. 
Yet to the many nations that have joined our coalition, Senator Kerry 
offers only condescension. More than 30 nations have contributed and 
sacrificed for the freedom of the Iraqi people, including Great Britain, 
Australia, Italy, Poland, South Korea, and Japan. Senator Kerry calls these 
countries, quote, "window dressing." They are, in his words, "a coalition 
of the coerced and the bribed." 

I am aware of no other instance in which a presumptive nominee for 
President of the United States has spoken with such disdain of active, 
fighting allies of the United States in a time of war. Senator Kerry's 
contempt for our good allies is ungrateful to nations that have withstood 
danger, hardship, and insult for standing with America in the cause of 
freedom. 

In his years in Washington, Senator Kerry has been one vote of a hundred in 
the United States Senate -- and fortunately on matters of national 
security, he was usually in the minority. But the presidency is an entirely 
different proposition. The President always casts the deciding vote. And 
the Senator from Massachusetts has given us ample grounds to doubt the 
judgment and the attitude he brings to bear on vital issues of national 
security. 

The contrast between the candidates this November will be sharper than it 
has been in many years. In more than three years as President, George W. 
Bush has built a national security record of his own. America came to know 
the President after one of the worst days in our history. He saw America 
through tragedy. He has taken the fight to the enemy. And under his 
leadership, our country has once again led the armies of liberation -- 
freeing 50 million souls from tyranny, and making our nation and the world 
more secure. (Applause.) 

All Americans, regardless of political party, can be proud of what our 
nation has achieved in an historic time, when so many depended on us, and 
all the world was watching. And I have been very proud to work with a 
President who -- like other Presidents we have known -- has shown in his 
own conduct, the optimism, and strength, and decency of the great nation he 
serves. 

Thank you very much. 

END 12:12 P.M. CDT