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Skriven 2006-06-30 23:34:04 av Whitehouse Press (1:3634/12.0)
Ärende: Press Release (0606307) for Fri, 2006 Jun 30
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Vice President's Remarks at a Luncheon for Congressman Scott Garrett
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For Immediate Release
Office of the Vice President
June 30, 2006

Vice President's Remarks at a Luncheon for Congressman Scott Garrett
Waldorf Astoria New York, New York



12:18 P.M. EDT

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Thank you all very much. I'm delighted to be here with
you today. And I appreciate the kind words, Scott. I also wanted to
recognize Tom Wilson, the New Jersey Republican Party Chairman, who is with
us today. And we also have David Norcross with us, who is an old friend.
(Applause.)

And I want to thank all of you for coming, first and foremost, to give our
support to a great member of Congress, Scott Garrett. I'm proud to stand
with you and I bring good wishes to all of you from the President, George
W. Bush. (Applause.)

This morning I began -- as we do every morning in the Oval Office at 8:00
a.m. for our morning intelligence brief with the President -- and then I
came to New York to have lunch with Scott and all of you, and the President
got on the plane and flew to Memphis to go to Graceland with Prime Minister
Koizumi. (Laughter.) I must say the Prime Minister was very excited about
the prospect. We had lunch with him yesterday. But this line of work takes
you in all kinds of interesting directions, and today the President is at
Graceland.

But it's always good to be back in New York, where the President and I were
nominated for our second terms two years ago. It was a great convention,
and we still have very fond memories of those hours -- an extraordinary
concentration of talent in this city, and the President and I are very
happy that one of New York's great business leaders has agreed to serve now
as Secretary of the Treasury -- Hank Paulson of Goldman Sachs. We look
forward to Hank's swearing-in, and to his years of service as Secretary of
the Treasury.

It's been almost four years now since I first campaigned with Scott Garrett
in his race for the House in New Jersey's fifth district. I knew early on
that we had a fine, outstanding candidate -- a hard worker, an experienced
public servant, and somebody who knew the issues cold. Scott won that
election, and for the last three-and-a-half years he has been an
outstanding member of Congress. On the Budget Committee, on the Financial
Services Committee, and on the House floor, colleagues know Congressman
Garrett as a sensible, forward-looking leader who is absolutely solid on
all the things that matter to his constituents -- economic growth, job
creation, homeland security, and a healthy environment. He speaks with
conviction, and he works with colleagues equally well on both sides of the
aisle in a bipartisan spirit that reflects well on him and on his district.
He's earned the respect of all of us, and he's earned another term in the
United States Congress. (Applause.)

It's important that we keep proven leaders like Scott because these are
times of incredible consequence for the nation. In the last five-and-a-half
years we have seen a series of unprecedented challenges. We've experienced
war, national emergency, economic recession, corporate scandals, and
historic natural disasters. Yet we've faced up to those challenges. We've
shown our strengths as a people. And America is a stronger and a better
nation thanks to the leadership of our President.

When the President and I came to office, we inherited an economy that was
heading into recession. But we took bold action to turn it around -- and
because we acted, the nation's economy today is strong and healthy and
vigorous -- and in 2005 grew faster than that of any other major
industrialized nation in the world. Since August 2003, America has created
over 5.3 million new jobs. The national unemployment rate is 4.6 percent --
lower than the average rate of the 1970s, the 1980s and the 1990s.
Productivity is strong. Household net worth is at an all-time high.

The current expansion is also translating into higher than projected
revenues, as we knew would happen. There is no mystery to this. Over the
last several generations, there have been three major tax cuts in this
country -- in the 1960s under President Kennedy, in the 1980s under
President Reagan, and now under President Bush. All three were followed by
periods of sustained growth, new jobs, increased federal tax revenue and
new wealth across the country. The evidence is in -- and the best tax
policy for America is found in the wisdom of Kennedy, Reagan, and Bush.

Yet even as revenue grows, we have a responsibility to be good stewards of
the taxpayer's dollar. Wise stewardship means taking a second look at the
way business is done in the Nation's Capital. Scott understands this very
well. He's a strong voice for spending discipline. He supports earmark
reform and voted for the line-item veto. He's known as a friend of the
taxpayer, and we need more people like him in Washington, D.C.

We have a full agenda for 2006 and beyond, and President Bush understands
that every decision he makes will affect the lives of millions of Americans
for many years to come. He's going to lead the effort on comprehensive
immigration reform, make the system rational and make sure we've got
control of our borders. And he will continue to appoint solid judges like
John Roberts and Sam Alito to the federal bench.

Above all else, President Bush never loses sight of his most fundamental
duty -- to defend the nation and to protect our people. (Applause.)

There's still hard work ahead in the war on terror, because we are dealing
with enemies who have declared an intention to bring great harm to any
nation that opposes their aims. And their prime targets are the United
States and the American people.

In the face of such enemies, we have to consider a few basic questions:
first, whether to confront them on their terms, or on our terms; second,
whether to face them on their territory, or on our territory; and third,
whether to wage war on the offense or on defense. America and the civilized
world have made our decision: Wherever terrorists operate, we will find
them where they dwell, stop them in their planning, bring them to justice,
and stay in the fight until the fight is won. (Applause.)

We remain on the offensive in Iraq, with a clear plan for victory. We can
expect further acts of violence and destruction by the enemies of freedom.
But progress has been steady -- and there should be no discounting the
hopeful signs in that part of the world. Two years ago this week the Iraqi
people regained their sovereignty. Since then they have voted for a
transitional government; drafted a progressive, democratic constitution in
the heart of the Arab world; and then approved that document in a national
referendum and then elected a new government under the provisions of that
new constitution. Iraq now has a unity government that is committed to a
future of freedom and progress for all Iraqis. They've made a strong stand
on behalf of their own liberty, and the U.S. is proud to stand with them.

Our coalition is also helping to build an Iraqi security force that is well
trained and well equipped. As that force grows in strength and the
political process continues to advance, we'll be able to decrease troop
levels without losing our capacity to defeat the terrorists.

There's a vigorous debate taking place right now about the way forward in
Iraq. It's always good to have such a discussion, because it directly
involves the security of the nation -- the very issue that's of prime
importance for all of us. We've reached the point where a number of well
known Democrats, including their most recent presidential nominee, talk
about setting a firm deadline for withdrawal in Iraq. You might recall that
Senator Kerry was for the war before he was against it.

But seriously, following Senator Kerry's prescription -- giving up and
setting a hard deadline -- is a terrible idea, and the Senate did the right
thing in rejecting it last week. It got exactly 13 votes. Americans and our
Iraqi allies need to know that decisions about troop levels will be driven
by conditions on the ground and the judgments of our military commanders --
not by artificial timelines set by politicians in Washington, D.C.
(Applause.)

Another prominent Democrat, Congressman Jack Murtha, a friend of mine, has
been on TV recently with his own plan for withdrawal. Jack said we can deal
with the Iraqi situation by redeploying our forces to Okinawa. The Pacific
Ocean is a long way from the Persian Gulf. The most troubling aspect of
Jack's proposal is this: He cited two previous instances of American
military withdrawal and suggested they would be good models for us to
follow in Iraq. The first was America's exit from Beirut in 1983, and the
second, our withdrawal from Somalia in 1993.

I've known Jack a long time. When I was Secretary of Defense, he was
Chairman on the House Subcommittee on Defense Appropriations, and we did a
lot of business together. I have great respect for him, but he's dead wrong
on his proposal with respect to Iraq. He draws exactly the wrong lessons
from those earlier examples in Beirut and Somalia. If you look back at the
years before 9/11, you will see case after case of terrorists hitting
America -- and America failing to hit back hard enough.

In Beirut in 1983, terrorists killed 241 Marines. In Somalia in 1993, we
lost 19 Americans in the battle in Mogadishu. In both cases, the United
States responded to those attacks by withdrawing our forces. But by doing
so, we simply invited more danger. The terrorists concluded that if they
killed enough Americans, they could change American policy -- because they
had. And so they continued to wage attacks against America and American
interests around the globe.

We had the bombing at the World Trade Center here in New York in 1993; the
murders at the Saudi National Guard Training Center in Riyadh in 1995; the
attack on Khobar Towers in 1996; the simultaneous bombing of our embassies
in Tanzania and Kenya in 1998; and the attack on the USS Cole in 2000.
Obviously, all of this ultimately led to the attacks here in New York and
Washington on 9/11.

If we follow Congressman Murtha's advice and withdraw from Iraq the same
way we withdrew from Beirut in 1983 and Somalia in 1993, we will simply
validate the al Qaeda strategy and invite more terrorist attacks in the
future.

In the decade prior to 9/11, we spent more than $2 trillion dollars on
national security. Yet we lost nearly 3,000 Americans on 9/11 at the hands
of 19 men armed with box cutters and airline tickets. In the case of al
Qaeda we are not dealing with large armies that we can track, or uniforms
that we can see, or men with territory of their own to defend. Their
preferred tactic, which they boldly proclaim, is to slip into countries,
blend in among the innocent, and kill without mercy and without restraint.
They have intelligence and counterintelligence operations of their own.
They are using the most sophisticated communications technology they can
get their hands on.

In pursuit of their objectives, they have carried out a number of attacks
since 9/11 -- in Casablanca, Jakarta, Mombassa, Bali, Riyadh, Baghdad,
Istanbul, Madrid, London, Sharm al Sheikh, and elsewhere. Here in the U.S.,
we have not had another 9/11. Obviously, no one can guarantee that we won't
be hit again. But the relative safety of these past five years did not come
about by accident. We've been protected by sensible policy decisions made
by the President, by decisive action at home and abroad, and by
round-the-clock efforts on the part of people in our armed forces, law
enforcement, intelligence, and homeland security.

Some in the press, in particular The New York Times, have made it harder to
defend America against attack by insisting on publishing detailed
information about vital national security programs.

First they reported the terrorist surveillance program, which monitors
international communications when one end is outside the United States and
one end is connected with or associated with al Qaeda. Now the Times has
disclosed the terrorist financial tracking program. On both occasions, the
Times had been asked not to publish those stories by senior administration
officials. They went ahead anyway. The leaks to The New York Times and the
publishing of those leaks is very damaging to our national security. The
ability to intercept al Qaeda communications and to track their sources of
financing are essential if we're going to successfully prosecute the global
war on terror. Our capabilities in these areas help explain why we have
been so successful in preventing further attacks like 9/11. And putting
this information on the front page makes it more difficult for us to
prevent future attacks. Publishing this highly classified information about
our sources and methods for collecting intelligence will enable the
terrorists to look for ways to defeat our efforts. These kinds of stories
also adversely affect our relationships with people who work with us
against the terrorists. In the future, they will be less likely to
cooperate if they think the United States is incapable of keeping secrets.

Ladies and gentlemen, after this conflict began nearly five years ago, with
a merciless attack on this very city, President Bush told Congress and the
country that we were in a different kind of struggle. He said we "should
not expect one battle, but rather a lengthy campaign, unlike any other
we've ever seen." This war may, he said, "include dramatic strikes, visible
on television and covert operations, secret even in success."

All this has come to pass. And there is more work to be done, because we
face ruthless and determined enemies. We are dealing with small groups of
highly motivated extremists, operating in the shadows, determined to carry
out missions of murder of increasing size and audacity. They came into our
country to murder thousands of our fellow citizens. They continue
attempting to evade our strengths, to search for our weaknesses, in order
to find ways to strike again.

That's why we are doing everything we can to prevent attacks -- working
with other countries to break up terror cells, to track down terrorist
operatives, to put heavy pressure on their ability to organize and plan
attacks. We're determined to deny safe haven to the terrorists, to keep
weapons of mass destruction out of the hands of killers, and to keep the
terrorists from gaining control of any nation as a home base or staging
ground for attacks on others.

So it's critically important to remember that this nation is fighting a
war. And as we make our case to the voters in this election year, it's
vital to keep issues of national security at the top of the agenda. The
President and I welcome the discussion, because every voter in America
needs to know where the President and I stand, as well as where the leaders
of the Democratic Party stand, and how they view the global war on terror.

Their leader in the Senate, Harry Reid, boasted publicly of his efforts to
kill the Patriot Act. The chairman of the Democratic Party is Howard Dean,
who said the capture of Saddam Hussein would not make America safer. And
those prominent Democrats who now advocate a sudden withdrawal from Iraq
are counseling the very kind of retreat that has been tried in the past and
would only heighten the danger to the United States. For the sake of our
security, this nation must reject any strategy of resignation and defeatism
in the face of determined enemies.

We have to face the simple truth. The enemies that struck America are
weakened and fractured, but they are still lethal, still desperately trying
to hit us again. They hate us, they hate our country, and they hate the
liberties for which we stand. They have contempt for our values. They doubt
our strength. We have a duty to act against them as swiftly and as
effectively as we possibly can. Either we are serious about fighting this
war or we are not. And with George Bush leading this nation, we are
serious, and we will not let down our guard. (Applause.)

Ladies and gentlemen, in these five-and-a-half years we've been through a
great deal as a nation. Yet with each test, the American people have
displayed the true character of our country. We've built for ourselves an
economy and a standard of living that are the envy of the world. We've
faced dangers with resolve. And we've been defended by some of the bravest
men and women this nation has ever produced. When future generations look
back on our time, they will know that we met our moment with courage and
clear thinking. And they'll know that America became a better nation --
stronger, more prosperous, and more secure -- under the leadership of
President George W. Bush. (Applause.)

We'll continue making progress for the American people -- and it's vital
that we have strong partners like Scott Garrett in the Congress of the
United States. He's made a name for himself as a thoughtful, common-sense,
conscientious legislator. He's the kind of person who belongs in the House
of Representatives, and the President and I are proud to join all of you in
supporting his reelection.

Thank you very much. (Applause.)

END 12:39 P.M. EDT

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