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Skriven 2006-09-28 23:32:16 av Whitehouse Press (1:3634/12.0)
Ärende: Press Release (0609288) for Thu, 2006 Sep 28
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Remarks by the President at Bob Riley for Governor Luncheon
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For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
September 28, 2006

Remarks by the President at Bob Riley for Governor Luncheon
Birmingham Jefferson Convention Complex
Birmingham, Alabama



1:34 P.M. CDT

THE PRESIDENT: Thanks for coming. It is a joy to be back in Alabama. And I
appreciate your warm welcome. I am proud to stand with one of the nation's
finest governors, and ask for your help in reelecting Bob Riley as Governor
of Alabama. (Applause.)

He deserves to be reelected because he's got a record he can run on. He has
made you proud. He listens to the people. He shares your values for the
good of Alabama and for the good of all citizens, regardless of their
political party. Bob Riley needs to be reelected as your governor.
(Applause.)

I'm proud to be here with Patsy, First Lady of the great state of Alabama.
Riley and I married well. (Applause.) And we're both wise enough to listen
to our wives. (Laughter.) So Laura said, when you get down to Alabama, say
hello to our friends on her behalf, and so I do. I bring greetings from
Laura Bush, a wonderful mother, a fantastic wife, and a great First Lady
for the United States of America. (Applause.) And Patsy, thank you for
being here. Thank you for serving your state with dignity, just like Riley
is serving the state with dignity.

I'm also proud to recognize the candidate for the Lieutenant Governor, a
man who will stand tall for the state of Alabama -- (laughter) -- my
friend, Luther Strange. (Applause.) I have gotten to know your State
Attorney General, Troy King. He is an accomplished attorney, who brings
great credit to the office he holds. (Applause.) I can say without a doubt,
he's the right candidate to serve as the State Attorney for this great
state of Alabama. Troy, thanks for serving. It was an honor to meet your
wife, Paige. I want to thank the State Auditor, Beth Chapman, who is with
us here today. (Applause.) I thank Twinkle Cavanaugh, who is the Chairman
of the Alabama Republican Party, and I want to thank all the grass roots
activists who have joined us here today.

This is a fantastic fundraiser. The next thing that needs to be done is a
fantastic grass roots effort to turn out the vote. (Applause.) For those of
you who are stuffing the envelopes and putting up the signs and getting on
the telephones, and turning people out to vote, I want to thank you in
advance for what you're going to do for this excellent governor.

You win campaigns by having somebody who has got a vision and can carry the
message, and you also win campaigns by finding your voters and turning them
out. For all the grass roots activists here today, thanks for coming, and
thanks for what you do. (Applause.)

I want to thank the state and local officials who are here. Thanks for
serving. I appreciate your willingness to be a public servant. I want to
thank the Selma High School Choir. I appreciate you lending your beautiful
voices to this important occasion. (Applause.)

One of the most important jobs of a governor is to set a tone for a state.
Bob Riley and I share a philosophy about the role of government when it
comes to the economy. The role of government is not to create wealth; the
role of government is to create an environment in which the entrepreneurial
spirit can flourish, in which small business grow to be big businesses, an
environment in which people are able to find work.

I was noticing that the unemployment rate in the great state of Alabama is
3.5 percent, which says Riley knows what he's doing when it comes time to
this economy. (Applause.) When you have people working, it makes sense to
put the man in charge of setting the tone for the state back in office.

You know, one of the things Bob and I understand is that one way to grow
the economy is to let people keep more of their own taxes. You see, we
believe that when you've got more of your own money in your pocket to save,
spend, or invest, the economy grows.

He told me that he's running on cutting taxes, another reason to put him
back in office as the governor of Alabama. (Applause.) And I'm telling you,
cutting taxes works.

You might remember what this economy of ours has been through. We've been
through a recession, and corporate scandals, a terrorist attack, a war,
hurricanes, and high gasoline prices. Yet we're growing, and we intend to
keep growing. And the best way to keep growing is to keep the people's
taxes low.

The tax cuts -- the tax cuts we passed are working, and it's a campaign
issue as far as I'm concerned. There's no doubt in my mind that if the
national Democrats had control of the House or the Senate, they'd raise
your taxes. And there's no doubt in my mind raising your taxes will hurt
this economy. The best way to keep the people in Alabama working, and the
best way to keep the people across this country working is to make the tax
cuts we passed permanent. (Applause.)

When I was the governor of Texas, I used to tell people education is to a
state what national defense is -- is to the federal government. The single
most important priority of a state is to make sure the people get educated.
(Applause.) And Bob Riley has made the school system of Alabama his top
priority. But he's made the school system in Alabama a priority in a
different kind of way. See, he refuses to accept the status quo when he
finds mediocrity or failure.

You know, I was talking to Margaret Spellings. She's my buddy from the
state of Texas who is now the Secretary of Education. And Margaret
Spellings, if she were here, would tell you that Alabama has some of the
most innovative programs in the United States of America when it comes to
making sure every single child gets an education. You got a governor who is
an education governor and needs to be returned to your state capitol.
(Applause.)

He is spending money on schools, and that's important. But he also
understands money alone won't bring excellence to the classrooms. And
that's why he has set high standards. And that's why he insists upon strong
accountability measures. The best way to achieve educational excellence for
every child in your state is to measure, is to determine whether a child is
learning how to read, write and add and subtract, and if not, correct
problems early before it's too late.

I'm proud of the standards your governor has set. I'm proud to call my
friend an educational innovator. I'm proud that he has made reading a top
priority. I'm proud he's challenging the soft bigotry of low expectations.
I'm proud he's working hard to make sure no child is left behind in the
state of Alabama. (Applause.)

Riley and I just went over to -- excuse me -- Governor Riley -- (laughter)
-- and I went over to Hoover, Alabama today, the home of the mighty Bucs,
the number one high school football team in the United States. (Applause.)
That's kind of hard for a Texan to say. (Laughter.) But we went over for a
different reason, because we both understand that in order for America to
remain competitive in the 21st century, in order for Alabama to remain
competitive in the 21st century, we must diversify away from foreign
sources of oil.

And so we went to a E85 ethanol distribution place. See, what happened is,
is that the fine mayor of Hoover and its city council decided that they
were going to use ethanol as the primary fuel for their police automobiles.
That's called innovation. It's called thinking ahead.

I found it to be really interesting to talk to the officers who drive the
vehicles that are run on fuel that is 85 percent ethanol -- in other words,
fuel made from corn. So I said to the guy, do you -- see, he has a choice,
he can either use gasoline or ethanol. I said, which one do you use? He
says, I like the ethanol. I said, why? He said, it's got a lot of get up
and go to it. In other words, it works well.

What we're beginning to see is a change in how we fuel our automobiles.
We're spending a lot of money at the federal level, your money, to try to
advance new technologies to make us less dependent on oil. It's in the
national interests that we become less dependent on oil from overseas.
After all, a lot of the oil we get is from parts of the world that don't
particularly care for us right now. (Applause.)

I look forward to the day when more and more of you have flex-fuel vehicles
and you can go and make the decision as to whether or not you want to use
ethanol as the primary source of energy in your automobile or gasoline. I
look forward to the day when I can say to the American people, because
we've got more corn growing, we're less dependent on foreign sources of
oil. I look forward to the day when you can use wood chips from Alabama
trees as the feedstock for ethanol. I look forward to the day when we have
these great breakthroughs of research and technology done right here in
Auburn University to say to the American people, the research we're doing
today means your children are going to be less dependent on oil in the
future. (Applause.)

And Bob Riley is a partner in encouraging diversification away from
hydrocarbons that we import from overseas. And I appreciate his stance. I
appreciate his vision. He's got a vision for the people of Alabama, and
he's got the skill and capability of implementing that vision. He's done an
excellent job for the people. And I want to thank you for supporting him to
put him back in office. It's good for this state that Bob Riley is the
governor. I want to talk about -- (applause.)

I want to spend a little time on what else occupies my mind, other than
making sure our economy grows. And it's this: My most solemn responsibility
and the most solemn duty of the federal government, as a matter of fact
governments at all levels, is to protect the American people. (Applause.)

We are a nation at war. I wish I could report differently, but you need to
have a President who sees the world the way it is, not the way somebody
would hope it would be. In order to protect this people, we must understand
the nature of the threats we face. We face an enemy that is brutal, an
enemy that is determined, and enemy that has a set of beliefs that is the
opposite of our beliefs.

I'll never forget the lessons of September the 11th, 2001, and I will
continue to use, as I vowed then to the American people, every element of
national power to defeat the terrorists and to defend the freedom of the
United States of America. (Applause.)

And that starts with making sure those responsible for defending you have
all the tools necessary to do so. As the Commander-in-Chief of the finest
group of men and women produced in this country, I'll make you this pledge:
Our troops will have whatever it takes to do the job we have asked them to
do. (Applause.)

And we have got to make sure that our intelligence officers have the tools
they need to protect you, and our law-enforcement officers have the tools
they need to protect you. So working with the Congress, we passed what was
called the Patriot Act, an act that broke down barriers and walls that
prevented the intelligence community from sharing information with the
law-enforcement community.

You see, we recognize that in order to protect you, all elements of
national government must be able to communicate freely to defeat this
enemy. If somebody that we think is al Qaeda or an al Qaeda affiliate gets
on the telephone and is making a phone call into the United States, we want
to know why, in order to protect the American people. (Applause.)

In order to make sure we get the information necessary to protect you --
see, this is a different kind of war. We cannot measure the enemy's
progress based upon the movement of tanks or airplanes. These people hide
in remote regions of the world and then strike with lethality, as we
learned firsthand in our country.

And therefore we must find kernels of information that then will enable us
to track them down and bring them to justice before they hurt Americans.
And that's why it's essential that I created a program with the
professionals in the Central Intelligence Agency to detain and question key
terrorist leaders and operatives that were captured on the battlefield. As
a result of this program, we have -- we've learned information that enabled
us to save American lives. (Applause.)

I also believed it was important to set up military commissions that will
enable us to bring to justice the people that ordered the attacks on the
United States of America. (Applause.) The Supreme Court said, you must work
with the legislature to achieve these objectives, and we're doing just
that.

Last night -- yesterday afternoon, the House of Representatives voted on
the legislation we put forward to create military commissions and to
continue that vital program of questioning detainees. The bill passed, but
I want to remind you about the vote. The bill passed over the objections of
160 House Democrats, including the entire Democrat leadership.

We must give our professionals the tools necessary to protect the American
people in this war on terror, and those in the House of Representatives
were wrong to vote against this bill. (Applause.)

Ours is an important job to protect you. We have to be right 100 percent of
the time, and the enemy only has to be right once. And that's why it's
important that we do the -- pass the laws that we've asked the Senate and
the House to pass. And that's also why it's important that we must defeat
the enemy overseas so we do not have to face them here at home. (Applause.)

And there's a lot of debate in Washington about this war on terror. And
perhaps you heard something about what's called a National Intelligence
Estimate. The National Intelligence Estimate is a classified document that,
in this case, analyzed the threat we faced from terrorists and extremists.

As you know, parts of that classified document were recently leaked to the
press, a sure sign that elections are right around the corner. Some in the
other party have been quoting selectively from the document for partisan
political gain, and so I felt that it was important for people to actually
see what was in the document, and so I declassified it.

And I'd like to share some thoughts about what was in the NIE with you
today. It offers a frank assessment of where we are in the war on terror.
It confirms that we face a determined and capable enemy. It lists four
underlying factors that are fueling the extremist movement: longstanding
grievances such as corruption and injustice, or fear of Western domination;
the second such factor was the "jihad" in the Iraq; the third was the slow
pace of reform in Muslim nations; and the fourth factor that the leaders of
this extremist movement were using to recruit was anti-Americanism.

It concludes that the terrorists are exploiting all these factors to
enhance their movement. The debate over this document raises really an
important question about the war on terror: should we be on the offense or
not? Some in Washington -- some decent people, patriotic people, feel like
we should not be on the offensive in this war on terror. Here's what a
senior Democrat in Congress put it when she was discussing Iraq. She said,
"The President says that fighting them there makes it less likely we'll
have to fight them here. The opposite is true," she went on to say.
"Because we are fighting them there, it may become more likely that we'll
have to fight them here."

History tells us that logic is false. We didn't create terrorism by
fighting terrorism. Iraq is not the reason why the terrorists are at war
against us. Our troops were not in Iraq when the terrorists first attacked
the World Trade Center. They were not in Iraq when they blew up our
embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. They were not in Iraq when they bombed the
USS Cole. And we were not in Iraq when the extremists killed nearly 3,000
of our people on September the 11th, 2001. (Applause.)

Five years after the 9/11 attacks, some in Washington, D.C. still don't
understand the nature of the enemy. The only way to protect our citizens at
home is to keep the pressure on the enemy across the world. When terrorists
spend their days working to avoid capture, they are less able to plot and
plan and execute new attacks. We will stay on the offense. We will fight
them across the world. And we will stay in this fight until the fight is
won. (Applause.)

In order to win this war, we need to understand that the terrorists and
extremists are opportunists. They will grab onto any cause to incite hatred
and to justify the killing of innocent men, women and children. If we
weren't in Iraq, they would be using our relationship and friendship with
Israel as a reason to recruit, or the Crusades, or cartoons as a reason to
commit murder. They recruit based upon lies and excuses. And they murder
because of their raw desire for power. They hope to impose their dominion
over the broader Middle East and establish a radical Islamic empire where
millions are ruled according to their hateful ideology. We know this
because al Qaeda has told us.

The terrorist Zawahiri, number two man in the al Qaeda team -- al Qaeda
network, he said, we'll proceed with several incremental goals. The first
stage is to expel the Americans from Iraq; the second stage is to establish
an Islamic authority, then develop it and support it until it achieves the
level of caliphate; the third stage, extend the jihad wave to secular
countries neighboring Iraq; and the fourth stage, the clash with Israel.

This is the words of the enemy. The President of the United States and the
Congress must listen carefully to what the enemy says in order to be able
to protect you. It makes sense for us to take their words seriously if our
most important job is the security of the United States. Mr. Zawahiri has
laid out their plan. That's why they attacked us on September the 11th.
That's why they fight us in Iraq today. And that is why they must be
defeated. (Applause.)

Some Democrats in Congress say that we should not be fighting the
terrorists in Iraq; it was a mistake to go into Iraq in the first place. I
believe these Democrats need to answer a simple question: Do they really
believe that we would be better off if Saddam Hussein were still in power?
In a recent interview, the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee was
asked this very question. And his answer was, yes, yes, and, yes.

If this is what the Democrats think, they need to make this case to the
American people: They need to make the case that the world would be better
off it Saddam Hussein were still in power. If Saddam Hussein were still in
power, he would still be sponsoring terror and paying families of suicide
bombers. If he were still in power, he would still be pursuing weapons of
mass destruction. He would still be killing his own people. He would still
be firing at our pilots. He would still be defying the United Nations. He
would still be bilking the oil for food program and using one of the
largest oil reserves in the world to threaten Western economies and to fuel
his ambitions.

After the attacks of September the 11th, it became clear that the United
States of America must confront threats before they come and hurt us.
Saddam Hussein's regime was a serious threat, a risk the world could not
afford to take. America, Iraqis, and the world are safer because Saddam
Hussein is not in power. (Applause.)

In a recent series of speeches, I made it clear that we're in the early
hours of a long struggle for civilization. I have made it clear that we're
in the ideological struggle of the 21st century. I've also made it clear
that the safety of the American people depends on the outcome of the battle
in the streets of Baghdad.

I strongly believe that Iraq is a central front in the war on terror. The
Democrats may not think so, but Osama bin Laden does. Here are the words of
bin Laden, "I now address... the whole... Islamic nation: Listen and
understand... The most... serious issue today for the whole world is this
Third World War... [that] is raging in [Iraq]." He calls it "a war of
destiny between infidelity and Islam." He says, "The whole world is
watching this war," and that it will end in "victory and glory or misery
and humiliation."

For al Qaeda, Iraq is not a distraction from their war on America, it is a
central battlefield where there's -- outcome of the struggle will be
decided.

The NIE I quoted earlier says this about Iraq. It said, "Perceived jihadist
success there," in Iraq, "would inspire more fighters to continue the
struggle elsewhere. It also says that "Should jihadists leaving Iraq
perceive themselves, and be perceived, to have failed, we judge fewer
fighters will be inspired to carry on the fight."

Democrats in Washington have been quoting the NIE a lot in recent days, but
you don't hear them quoting that part of the document. The Democrats can't
have it both ways. Either they believe that Iraq is a distraction from the
war on terror or they agree with the intelligence community and the
terrorists themselves that the outcome of Iraq is important in the war on
terror. Truth is, the Democrats are using the NIE to mislead the American
people and justify their policy of withdrawal from Iraq.

The American people need to know what withdrawal from Iraq would mean. By
withdrawing from Iraq before the job is done, we would be doing exactly
what the extremists and terrorists want.

The terrorists' entire strategy is based on the belief that America is weak
and does not have the stomach for the long fight. Bin Laden has called
American withdrawals from places like Beirut and Somalia as proof that if
the terrorists are patient America will lose her nerve and withdraw in
disgrace.

The greatest danger is not that America's presence in Iraq is drawing new
recruits to the terrorist cause. The greatest danger is that an American
withdrawal from Iraq would embolden the terrorists and help them find new
recruits to carry out even more destructive attacks on the American
homeland. And that is why the United States of America will stand with the
brave Iraqis and defeat the terrorists in Iraq. (Applause.)

The stakes are high in this war. It's really important that the United
States of America understands the nature of this enemy and understands what
it would mean to leave Iraq before the job is done. If we were to abandon
this young democracy to the extremists, imagine what other reformers and
people of moderation would think about the United States of America. If we
were to abandon our mission in Iraq where many have sacrificed, imagine
what the enemy would think about the United States of America and our will.

If we were to abandon Iraq and create a vacuum in that country, and that
country were then taken over by the extremists, make no mistake about it,
they would have mighty assets to use in order to inflict economic pain on
the United States of America. We're not going to let this happen. America
is a nation that keeps its commitments to those who long for liberty and
want to live in peace. America is a nation that will keep its commitment to
make sure that you're secure. America is a nation that does not retreat in
the face of thugs and assassins. (Applause.)

We're going to help the Iraqi people. Remember, 12 million of them voted in
elections last December. That probably seems like a decade ago to you, but
when the history is finally written, it will be just a comma. Twelve
million people stood up in the face of assassins and car bombers and said,
we want to be free.

I'm not surprised. I was pleased. I'm not surprised because I believe in
this principle, a principle which should be a guiding light of American
foreign policy: There is an Almighty, and a gift of that Almighty to every
man, woman and child on the face of the Earth is freedom. (Applause.) I
believe deep in the soul of every person is the desire to live in liberty,
and I know that liberty will yield the peace we want for generations to
come.

From the beginning of the struggle, I've made it clear that we will defend
this country by giving people the tools needed, that we'll defend America
by staying on the offense, that we will find the terrorists and bring them
to justice so they can't hurt us here at home. But I've also made it clear
that defeating the terrorists in the long run requires defeating their
hateful ideology.

The NIE explicitly states, the National Intelligence Estimate, that I have
been discussing and has been widely discussed in the newspapers states
this, that the terrorists greatest vulnerability is that their ideology is
"unpopular with the vast majority of Muslims." People want to be free.
People want to be able to express themselves freely. Mothers in the Muslim
world share the same thing as mothers here, they want their children to
grow up in a peaceful world.

And that's why it's essential that the United States of America stand with
moderates and reformers and peaceful people, millions of men and women in
the Muslim world who want a normal life and a more hopeful future for their
children and their grandchildren. And as this powerful majority gains
control over the destiny -- over their destiny through the democratic
progress, they will marginalize the radicals and extremists and their
hateful vision of the world.

The transition from tyranny to democracy is tough work, but it's necessary
work. It's the calling of history. It's the challenge to our generation to
defend America and to lay the foundation of peace for generations to come.
The extremists and the radicals will exploit these difficulties in every
way they can. They will try to shake our will. They will use the murder of
innocent men and women and children in order to convince America that the
fight isn't worth it. Yet in the long run, America -- if we keep our faith
in our principles -- will prevail.

Encouraging the rise of free societies across the broader Middle East is
the only way to overcome the threat of terrorism and to protect the
American people in the long run. We owe it to a generation of children to
come to do the hard work now. Imagine a Middle East where there's competing
factions of extremism. Imagine a Middle East where the radicals control
oil. Imagine a Middle East where there's an armed theocracy with a nuclear
weapon. Fifty years from now, people will say, couldn't they see it; why
couldn't they see the threat?

Now is the time for the United States of America to lay the foundation of
peace, to confront the challenges we have square on, to protect our
country, to do our duty so that generations will look back and say, thank
God this generation of Americans was willing to serve and serve strong.
(Applause.)

The stakes in this war are high, and so are the stakes this November.
Americans face the choice between two parties with two different attitudes
on this war on terror. Five years after 9/11, the worst attack on American
homeland in our history, the Democrats offer nothing but criticism and
obstruction, and endless second-guessing. The party of FDR and the party of
Harry Truman has become the party of cut-and-run. (Applause.)

Our party's record is clear. We see the stakes. We understand the nature of
the enemy. We know that the enemy wants to attack us again. We will not
wait to respond to the enemy. We're not going to wait for them to attack us
in order to respond. We will fight them wherever they make a stand. We will
settle for nothing less than victory.

Thanks for coming. God bless. (Applause.)

END 2:15 P.M. CDT

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