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Skriven 2006-09-22 23:31:28 av Whitehouse Press (1:3634/12.0)
Ärende: Press Release (0609226) for Fri, 2006 Sep 22
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Vice President's Remarks at the Reception for Congressman Randy Kuhl
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For Immediate Release
Office of the Vice President
September 22, 2006

Vice President's Remarks at the Reception for Congressman Randy Kuhl
Rochester Riverside Convention Center
Rochester, New York



4:55 P.M. EDT

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Thank you. (Applause.) Thank you very much. At ease,
please. (Laughter.)

Well, thank you very much, Randy, for those kinds words and the invitation
to join you here today. It's true I was the congressman from Wyoming for 10
years. And as Randy pointed out, we only had one congressman. It was a
small delegation, but it was quality. (Laughter.) And I enjoyed my time in
the House very much, still have my heart in the House some people would
suggest, as it really was a formative experience in my career.

But I thought about it this week as I was coming up, because I turned on
the television -- I frequently watch C-SPAN in my office and had C-SPAN on
this week. And I noticed the man in the chair was Randy Kuhl presiding over
the House. And that's a privilege I never had because we were always in the
minority when I was there. And so I was envious, but also it helped bring
home how enormously important these elections are this year, because, in
fact, we're going to decide who gets to preside in the House of
Representatives, who chairs all those crucial committees. And that will be
determinative in terms of whether or not we're able to go forward with the
kinds of policies, for example, in the tax area and national security, the
economy that are so vital to the future of the nation. And so the President
and I have a vested interest you might say in doing everything we can to
make certain that a man like Randy Kuhl gets reelected to the U.S. House of
Representatives on November 7th. (Applause.)

We are deeply interested in the race here in the 29th district, obviously
because we know Randy. We've come to appreciate his judgment and his
enormous expertise that he brings to issues. We believe he has earned
another term in the U.S. Congress.

The President and I were proud to run on the same ticket with in 2004 with
Randy. We were impressed with the respect he's earned in a very short time
on Capitol Hill. He came to Congress, of course, with tremendous experience
as a state representative and a state senator. He has done exactly what you
would expect of your congressman in working hard, stands up for the
interests of the 29th district and the people of New York, and stays in
close touch with the people back home. He's an articulate voice for
economic growth, for lower taxes, for spending discipline, and for a
government that always answers to the people. Your Congressman has lived in
this part of the country all his life; he knows the territory. He's in tune
with the district. He speaks with conviction and with credibility of the
interests for the taxpayers, the farmers, and entrepreneurs. And like all
of you, Randy stands one hundred percent behind the men and women in the
United States military. (Applause.)

The President and I need Congressman Kuhl to help keep the economy growing
and keep generating new jobs for American workers. The economy has taken a
lot of hits over the last five-and-a-half years -- from recession, to the
effects of 9/11, to corporate scandals. But we've held to policies that are
pro-growth and pro-jobs. And as a result, the nation's economy is healthy
and strong and vigorous. And last year, growth in America outpaced that of
every other major industrialized nation. Since August of '03 at the
national level, we've added more than 5.7 million new jobs. The national
unemployment rate is 4.7 percent -- of course, lower than the average rate
of the '70s, the '80s and the '90s. Productivity is strong. Household net
worth is at an all-time high.

The current expansion is also translating into much higher than projected
federal revenues. Recently the President announced that a projected deficit
of $423 billion has dropped to $296 billion, in less than a year. The good
news confirms the lessons of history. Over the last several generations,
we've had 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,
more jobs, and greater wealth creation across the country. The evidence is
in -- the best tax policy for America is the kind of tax policy that leaves
more money in the hands of the people so they can spend it, save it, and
invest it, generates the kind of economic activity and growth that leads to
an expansion of federal revenues.

Even as revenue grows, we have a responsibility to keep the lid on federal
spending. Your Congressman understands that duty very well. If you want
spending discipline in the federal government, it's important that we keep
electing men like Randy Kuhl to the United States Congress.

More than anything else, we're going to remember that the first order of
business in Washington is to protect the American people, and to support
the men and women who have been defending us in a time of war. There's
still hard work ahead in the global war on terror. And we harbor no
illusions about the kinds of enemies we face.

Our country has never before had to confront adversaries like these. They
have no standing armies or navies. They wear no uniform. They recognize no
conventions of war, nor any rules of morality. Though they plot and plan
and operate by stealth, the terrorists make no secret of their objectives.
They want to seize control of a country in the Middle East, so they have a
base from which to launch attacks against the United States and to wage war
against anyone who doesn't meet their demands. They believe that by
controlling one country, they will be able to target and overthrow other
governments in the region, eventually to establish a totalitarian empire
that encompasses that part of the globe from Spain, across North Africa,
through the Middle East and South Asia, all the way around to Indonesia.
They have declared, as well, their ultimate aim: to arm themselves with
chemical, biological and even nuclear weapons, to destroy Israel, to
intimidate all Western countries and to cause mass death here in the United
States.

The terrorists regard the entire world as a battlefield. That's why al
Qaeda has operatives in Iraq right now. They want to frighten and
intimidate America into a policy of retreat -- and bin Laden himself calls
this conflict the "third world war." Americans are fighting there, and in
Afghanistan, because our security demands it. Having liberated those
countries from tyranny, we will not permit new dictatorships to seize power
and give terrorists a base from which to strike the United States and other
free nations.

As the President has said, "The terrorists will continue to have the
coward's power to plant roadside bombs and to recruit suicide bombers. And
you will continue to see the grim results on the evening news. This proves
that the war is difficult -- it does not mean that we are losing." And even
though it's tough, our cause is right and the effort is worth it.

In Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai leads the first democratically-elected
government in the 5,000-year history of that country. In Iraq, the people
have ratified a constitution with the broadest democratic mandate in the
Arab world, and despite assassins and car-bombers, Iraqis come out to vote
in record numbers and at a turnout rate much higher than we see here in the
United States. The Iraqi security forces, trained by the Americans, are now
about 300,000 strong and determined to defend their own country and to make
it a source of stability in a troubled region. When it comes to our own
troop levels, President Bush will make that call, he'll do it based on what
our military commanders say is needed for victory. He'll make the decision
that best serves the national interest, without regard to poll numbers,
armchair generals, or artificial timelines set by politicians in
Washington, D.C. (Applause.)

One of those who has been calling for withdrawal from Iraq is Congressman
Jack Murtha. Jack is an old friend of mine. When I was Secretary of
Defense, he was the chairman of the Defense Appropriations Sub-committee.
We did a lot of business together, but on this issue, Jack's wrong. In
making that proposal he's 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.

That proposal is contrary to the national interest -- and it draws exactly
the wrong lessons from the examples of Beirut and Somalia. If you look back
at the years before 9/11, you'll see case after case of terrorists hitting
America or American interests -- and America failing to hit back hard
enough.

In Beirut, terrorists killed 241 of our servicemen with a truck bomb in
1983. In Somalia, we lost 19 Americans in Mogadishu in 1993. In both cases,
the U.S. responded to those attacks by withdrawing our forces. But by doing
so, we simply invited more danger, because 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 the homeland, as
well as interest overseas.

We had the bombing at the World Trade Center in New York in 1993; the
murders at the Saudi National Guard training facility in Riyadh in 1995;
the attack on Khobar Towers in 1996; the simultaneous attack on two of our
embassies in East Africa in 1998; or the attack on the USS Cole in 2000. Of
course, ultimately, all of this led up to the attacks on 9/11.

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

If we have learned anything from modern experience, it is that we have to
stay on the offensive until the danger to civilization is removed. And this
requires moving forward on many fronts simultaneously -- from using
financial tools, to diplomatic pressure, to sustained, multilateral effort
to fight weapons proliferation, and, yes, when necessary the use of
military force.

We also place the highest priority on intelligence. The best source of
information, obviously, is the terrorists themselves. We've obtained
extraordinarily valuable information through the detainee program,
including from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the man who masterminded 9/11. The
President has made clear that the detainee program is vital to national
security. And yesterday, we got an agreement on Capitol Hill that should
ensure that the program will go forward. The pending legislation will allow
us to capture terrorists, to question terrorists, to bring terrorists to
trial, and that's exactly what the American people expect us to do.
(Applause.)

We've also gained critical information from the terrorist surveillance
program, which the President authorized in the days immediately after 9/11.
On occasion you'll hear this called a domestic surveillance or an
eavesdropping program. That is more than a misnomer; it is a flat-out
falsehood. We are talking about international communications, one end of
which we have reason to believe is related to al Qaeda or terrorist
networks. It's hard to think of any category of information that could be
more important to the United States and our safety than communications from
inside the United States to outside to al Qaeda.

Like the detainee program, the terrorist surveillance program was set up in
a manner that is fully consistent with the Constitution and with the
responsibilities and the legal authority of the President and with adequate
safeguards for the civil liberties of the American citizens. The activities
conducted under this authorization have helped to detect and prevent
possible terrorist attacks against the American people. The recent ruling
by a federal judge ordering an end to this program is just plain wrong.
We're confident it will be reversed on appeal.

If you recall, the 9/11 Commission focused criticism on the nation's
inability to uncover links between terrorists at home and terrorists
overseas. The term that's used is "connecting the dots" -- and the fact is
that one small piece of data might very well make it possible to save
thousands of lives. The very important question today is whether, on five
years' reflection, we have yet learned all the lessons from 9/11.

In the decade prior to those attacks, our country spent more than two
trillion dollars on national security. Yet we lost nearly 3,000 Americans
that morning at the hands of 19 men armed with box cutters and airline
tickets. Since 9/11 terrorists have successfully carried out attacks in
Casablanca, Jakarta, Mombassa, Bali, Riyadh, Baghdad, Istanbul, Madrid,
London, Sharm al-Sheikh, Bombay, and elsewhere. Here in the U.S., we have
not had another 9/11. No one can guarantee that we won't get hit again. But
to have come this far without another attack is not an accident. A lot of
things can go wrong in a war. But I'm happy to relate that many things have
gone right. We've been protected by sensible policy decisions by the
President, by decisive action at home and abroad, and by round-the-clock
efforts on the part of people in the armed services, and law enforcement,
intelligence, and homeland security. Now, ladies and gentlemen, I want you
to know that we are not going to let down our guard. (Applause.)

As we make our case to the voters in this election season, it's vital to
keep issues of national security at the top of the national agenda. The
President and I welcome the discussion, because every voter in America
needs to know where we stand, as well as how the leaders of the Democratic
Party view the war on terror. Their floor leader in the Senate, Harry Reid,
boasted publicly of his efforts to kill the Patriot Act. Senator Jay
Rockefeller -- who would take over as chairman of the Intelligence
Committee if his party took power -- believes the world would be better off
if Saddam Hussein still ruled Iraq. And the chairman of the Democratic
Party, Howard Dean, has said the capture of Saddam didn't make America
safer. Now Mr. Dean's party has turned its back on Senator Joe Lieberman.

Senator Lieberman was my opponent in 2000 -- Al Gore's running mate, a
longtime senator, and one of the most loyal and distinguished Democrats of
the generation. Joe is also an unapologetic supporter of the global war on
terror. He voted to support military action in Iraq when most other
senators in both parties did the same -- and he's had the courage to stick
by that vote even when the going gets tough. And now, for that reason
alone, because he supported the President in the global war on terror, the
Dean Democrats have purged Joe Lieberman from the ranks of the Democratic
Party in Connecticut. Their choice, instead, is a candidate whose explicit
goal is to give up the fight against the terrorists in Iraq -- never mind
that Iraq is a fellow democracy; never mind that the Iraqi people and their
elected leaders are counting on us. What the Democrats are pushing now is
the very kind of retreat that has been tried and failed in the past. We
should have learned with 9/11 that it's no longer possible for us to
retreat behind our oceans and feel safe and secure here at home.

It would be reckless and inconsistent with our values to withdraw. It would
betray our friends, and only heighten the danger to the United States
because it would once again validate the terrorists' belief that if they
kill enough Americans they change our policy. So the choice before the
American people is becoming clearer every day. For the sake of our
security, the 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. 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 W. Bush leading this nation, we are
serious, and we will prevail. (Applause.)

Ladies and gentlemen, it will be said of us that we lived in a period of
serious testing for our country. And yet with each test, the American
people have displayed the true character of our nation. We have built for
ourselves an economy and a standard of living that are the envy of the
world. We have faced dangers with resolve. And we have been defended by
some of the bravest men and women this nation has ever produced.
(Applause.)

For the last two years, we've appreciated having the friendship and the
support of Randy Kuhl. His re-election would be great for the 29th
district, and for the country. President Bush and I look forward to working
with him in the years to come.

Thank you very much.

END 5:15 P.M. EDT

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