We Didn't Dare Wait

We Didn't Dare Wait

By William Raspberry
Washington Post - Monday, April 19, 2004

What follows is the speech the president didn't make at his news conference last week. He can use it now, with no further permission from me.


Before I take your questions, I would like to speak plainly for a moment to the American people.

We're having some tough times in Iraq, and many Americans are wondering how we came to be in such a tough spot. Some are asking: Isn't it time to just get out?

These are tough questions, but the people deserve some answers. From your president's point of view, the answers start with Sept. 11. That was the day the world changed. That was the day America changed. And that was the day, my fellow Americans, when your president changed. Up to that nightmarish day, the policy of the United States was to remain strong in the face of a foreign threat but to strike only if that threat became action. It was a policy that guided our nation for most of its history. Don't start anything with anybody, but crush anybody who starts anything with us. We were like the sheriff of the old Western movies, poised and ready, but waiting for the other guy to draw first.

My friends, Sept. 11 changed all that. Suddenly, waiting for the other guy to shoot first no longer made sense. That policy might have worked when the bad guys were armed with swords or six-shooters, when even the bad guys played by certain rules. It does not work in the face of evil that accepts no limits, that will not hesitate to destroy anything or anyone -- even fellow countrymen -- to achieve its objectives.

That is the evil we have faced since Sept. 11. We believed we were facing an enemy that had weapons of mass destruction ready, or almost ready, to use against us. That may still turn out to be the case. But the point you need to understand is that we didn't dare wait for the final proof. Because the final proof might have been another Sept. 11 -- or a whole series of terrorist attacks against America and American interests. This is not the Old West. When six-shooters become commercial jetliners capable of demolishing skyscrapers, when greed drives men not just to rob stagecoaches but to destroy the underpinnings of civilized society, we can't wait for them to shoot first. If we truly believe that they intend us harm and are capable of delivering that harm, prudence demands that we take action while their guns are still holstered.

That's what we believed, and that's what we did.

If I had it to do over again, would I wait another day or two for more convincing proof? Maybe so. Would I have given the weapons inspectors another week or so? Perhaps. If the failure to wait a little longer turns out to have been a mistake, it is a mistake I will admit without shame. The alternative would have been just too grim to think about.

We can argue another day about whether we should have predicted the violence now being instigated by a few power-hungry fanatics.

But for now, those are not the important questions. We are where we are, and the question is: What do we do now?

I do not believe the American people want us to abandon the Iraqis to the chaos that would surely be the result if we cut and run right now, before there is some reasonable chance at stability there. But our people are also worried over the intensifying violence against the coalition forces and even civilians in Iraq, and they want some assurance that it will soon end.

My fellow Americans: It will end when it ends, not because we have been intimidated into fleeing, but because we will have completed our work to the best of our ability. That work is to leave a country that Iraqis can run for themselves. But that doesn't mean we have to choose their leadership. Indeed, I am now convinced that it is better if we don't choose their leadership. Americans and other members of the coalition have become too obvious a target for the fanatics there.

Accordingly, we must move as quickly as possible to turn over to the international community both the "keys" to Iraq and the decision of who to hand them to in due course. If my critics have a better idea, I'd like to hear it.

And now for your questions.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A22847-2004Apr18.html