Leave it to Rummy..
Defense Department Briefing with Secretary Rumsfeld Tuesday, September 7, 2004 2:06 p.m. EDT
SEC. RUMSFELD: Good afternoon. Last week, the people of Russia, and indeed, the people of the entire world once again saw vividly the extremes to which terrorists are prepared to go to achieve their ends. Those who choose violence and terror obviously think nothing of taking the lives of even the most innocent among us. The whole world watched as Russian children were taken hostage on their first day of school, and hundreds were killed, hundreds were wounded, and there are still open questions on a great many more.
Civilized people everywhere can only express sympathy and solidarity with the Russian people. Extremists seek to terrorize innocent men, women and children whoever they are and wherever they may live. There are really no free passes in this struggle, this war; there are no free passes for countries; there are really no free passes for individuals. And for that reason, the civilized world has to stay on the offensive, and that's exactly what the coalition is doing.
Taking the offense, however, of course has its cost, just as staying on defense has its cost. And soon the American forces are likely to suffer the one-thousandth casualty at the hands of terrorists and extremists in Iraq. When combined with U.S. losses in other theaters in the global war on terror, we have lost well more than a thousand already. And we certainly honor the courage and sacrifice of every man and woman in uniform who has served in Iraq and who is currently serving there. And needless to say, we mourn with the families of those lost.
It should be noted that the civilized world passed the thousandth casualty mark a long time ago. Hundreds were killed in Russia last week to be sure. And this week, of course, on September 11th, 2004, we remember the 3,000 citizens of dozens of countries who were killed on September 11th in 2001. And September 11th, 2001 was not the beginning of terrorism, and the war in Iraq has not created terrorism. International terrorists declared war on the civilized nations of the world some time back, and over the decades, they have killed many thousands of Americans and citizens of other countries as well.
And as we commemorate the third anniversary of the attacks of September 11th, it's appropriate to honor the fallen and to reflect on how far we have come and to determine what more might be done.
Consider, three years ago Osama bin Laden was the co-conspirator of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. Three years later, the Taliban regime is gone and UBL is clearly on the run. Three years ago, Saddam Hussein and his regime were making a mockery of the United Nations, ignoring numerous U.N. resolutions and calling on Iraq to report -- which was the resolutions calling on Iraq to report honestly on its weapons program. The international consensus for sanctions was weakening.
The president faced a choice between confronting Saddam then or facing an even graver threat in the future. Three years later, Saddam is in jail, soon to be on trial, I'm told, the sons are dead, and the people of Iraq are forming a representative government that will not threaten their people or their region or the world.
In the past three years, the United States and the U.K. have shut down the A.Q. Khan clandestine network that had provided nuclear technologies to Libya, Iran, North Korea and possibly other nations. Libya's Qadhafi has given up his nuclear weapons program. And Pakistan, which once supported the Taliban, is today our strong ally against terrorists.
The progress in Iraq and Afghanistan has prompted a backlash, in effect, from those who hope that at some point we might conclude that the pain and the cost of this fight isn't worth it. Well, our enemies have underestimated our country, our coalition. They have failed to understand the character of our people. And they certainly misread our commander in chief.