Contents    Prev    Next    Last

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

Section[ PART I - Strategic Overview

Title[ VICTORY IN IRAQ IS A VITAL U.S. INTEREST

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

VICTORY IN IRAQ IS A VITAL U.S. INTEREST

-- The war on terrorism is the defining challenge of our generation, just as the struggle against

communism and fascism were challenges of the generations before.  As with those earlier

struggles, the United States is fully committed to meeting this challenge.  We will do everything

it takes to win.

-- Prevailing in Iraq will help us win the war on terror.

- The terrorists regard Iraq as the central front in their war against humanity. And we must

recognize Iraq as the central front in our war on terror.

-    Osama Bin Laden has declared that the "third world waris raging" in Iraq, and it will

end there, in "either victory and glory, or misery and humiliation."

-    Bin Laden's deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri has declared Iraq to be "the place for the greatest

battle," where he hopes to "expel the Americans" and then spread "the jihad wave to the

secular countries neighboring Iraq."

-    Al Qaida in Iraq, led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, has openly declared that "we fight

today in Iraq, and tomorrow in the Land of the Two Holy Places, and after there the

west."

> As the terrorists themselves recognize, the outcome in Iraq - success or failure - is

critical to the outcome in the broader war on terrorism.

- What happens in Iraq will influence the fate of the Middle East for generations to come, with

a profound impact on our own national security.

-    Ceding ground to terrorists in one of the world's most strategic regions will threaten the

world's economy and America's security, growth, and prosperity, for decades to come.

-    An emerging democracy in Iraq will change the regional status quo that for decades has

bred alienation and spawned the transnational terrorism that targets us today.

-    The terrorists' perverse ideology is countered by the advance of freedom and the

recognition that all people have the right to live under democracy and the rule of law, free

from oppression and fear, with hope and optimism for the future.

	Contents    Prev    Next    Last