PEACE & SECURITY | Creating a more stable world
19 March 2008
Bush Calls Success in Iraq a Strategic Victory Against Terror
United States stands with Iraqis to face challenges ahead, president says
Washington -- Five years ago the United States led an international coalition into Iraq to topple a brutal dictator and free 27 million people. Many challenges remain in building a new democracy, but the United States will stand with the Iraqi people because Iraq’s success will be a strategic victory against extremists, says President Bush.
“A free Iraq will be an example for others of the power of liberty to change the societies and to displace despair with hope,” said Bush. “By spreading the hope of liberty in the Middle East, we will help free societies take root -- and when they do, freedom will yield the peace that we all desire.”
Bush marked the anniversary of the coalition’s action in a March 19 speech at the Pentagon. The president acknowledged that the fight has been longer, more difficult and more costly than expected. “There is an understandable debate over whether the war was worth fighting, whether the fight is worth winning, and whether we can win it,” he said.
“The answers are clear to me,” he added. “Removing Saddam Hussein from power was the right decision -- and this is a fight America can and must win.”
Iraqis drafted and voted on a new constitution, Bush said, then returned to the polls to elect a new, democratic government, marking a dramatic turn from the lives they led under the old regime.
“Because we acted, Saddam Hussein no longer fills fields with the remains of innocent men, women and children. Because we acted, Saddam's torture chambers and rape rooms and children's prisons have been closed for good. Because we acted, Saddam's regime is no longer invading its neighbors or attacking them with chemical weapons and ballistic missiles. Because we acted, Saddam's regime is no longer paying the families of suicide bombers in the Holy Land,” Bush said.
As Iraqi and coalition forces work to improve lives through reconstruction and development projects across the country, they have faced numerous threats -- from former Saddam loyalists, from militants supported by neighboring Iran and from the foreign insurgents from al-Qaida in Iraq, whose campaign of suicide bombings targeting mosques and markets appeared calculated to provoke a wave of sectarian violence that threatened to tear apart the new Iraq.
The United States responded with its 2007 “surge strategy,” sending more than 20,000 additional troops to aid the Iraqi government, which has added more than 100,000 new soldiers and police officers, along with 90,000 Iraqi tribal members, who have formed “concerned local citizen” groups to take back their communities from extremists seeking safe haven.
The surge already has delivered results, Bush said. Violence has decreased, security has improved and U.S. troop reductions are under way.
“For the terrorists, Iraq was supposed to be the place where al-Qaida rallied Arab masses to drive America out. Instead, Iraq has become the place where Arabs joined with Americans to drive al-Qaida out,” Bush said. “The significance of this development cannot be overstated.”
But Iraq’s gains remain “fragile and reversible,” Bush warned, and military progress must be followed with improvements in the daily lives of Iraqis. Provincial reconstruction teams composed of diplomats, soldiers and civilian experts are another essential component of America’s long-term strategy to help Iraqis rebuild, promote new economic opportunities and strengthen local and national governance.
See the transcript of Bush’s remarks and a related fact sheet.
