Wolfowitz speech at Georgetown - part two
In Saddam's own hometown of Tikrit we saw the progress being made on buildings, that Iraqi Civil Defense Corps that I mentioned earlier. I believe Iraqi security forces are going to be central to Iraq's ability to govern itself. And despite the limitations that you could see in their training and their equipment, they’re still forced, by the way, though hopefully now with this new supplemental this is a problem we can fix, they’re still forced to wear the uniform of the old Iraqi army with a patch that says Iraqi Civil Defense Corps pasted over it.
Down in the south, in one of the towns near Hilla this proved to be so disruptive there was a near riot among the Civil Defense Corps people, so they somehow scraped around and found some kind of new uniform. Up in Tikrit they were still wearing the old ones and resentful about it. We'll fix that.
They only get about three weeks of training before they're put into units, but most of these young men have been trained before in the old Iraqi army. And despite their limitations in training and equipment, these Iraqi forces have some advantages that our brave soldiers with the best training and equipment in the world will never have. These Iraqis speak the language. They know the neighborhoods. They can read the culture. They gather intelligence just by walking down the street. If it becomes necessary to enter a sensitive site like a mosque, as has happened within the last few weeks in the Al Rashid district of Baghdad, and then later in Karbala, it's been Iraqi forces that have done it. That, as I'm sure all of you can understand, is a huge advantage.
This training program, I believe, is a model for future Iraqi security forces. The numbers keep growing. At least 90,000 people are now in those various elements -- the police, the Civil Defense Corps, Facilities Protection Service, the new Iraqi army, and the border guard. They are fighting. They are sometimes dying. In fact as many Iraqis -- not as many, but more than 80 Iraqis have died fighting for their country since the first of June, which makes them not only in their numbers but also in their casualties by far the second largest member of the coalition. And they're making a difference.
We visited the police station, I think it's called the Judidah Police Station in southern Baghdad on Sunday, and met with this remarkable man who I had met in July when he was the head of the Police Academy. He's now the Deputy Superintendent of Police in Baghdad. He's very proud of the work he's doing and he has every reason to be proud, because the following day when a Yemeni suicide bomber carrying a Syrian passport attempted to attack that police station Iraqis stood and fought, and they stopped the attack, and they captured the bomber.
All of these important local developments are taking place against the backdrop of important international developments. Even though the terrorists have done their best to distract the world the Donors Conference in Madrid last week made international headlines as it should have.
The international consensus seen at Madrid was consistent not only with the unanimous adoption of Resolution 1441 last year, but also with Resolution 1483 which lifted sanctions on Iraq back in May, and earlier this month of Resolution 1511.
President Bush and Secretary of State Powell had placed a high priority on reaching that third post-war resolution, which spelled out an international consensus for how to move forward in Iraq, and to establish a multinational force in Iraq under UN command.
In addition to those resolutions, 90 countries have contributed troops, treasure, and other materiel support. The truth is, this government, our government, has pursued a consistent policy of working with allies and partners in a way that I like to call intelligent multilateralism. It certainly doesn't make sense to talk about unilateralism any time, and certainly not now. Not just because of the consensus reached at Madrid and the United Nations, but also because our enemies have clearly defined this as a war with the international community. With everything that represents the rule of law, whether it be multinational forces, Iraqi civilians, the U.N. headquarters of the International Red Cross. This is a great venture, which the international community will one day be able to look back at with pride, and that is what we all want to see.
I think the question about multilateralism always has to be multilateralism for what? We turned to multilateral means to achieve goals that are common to the international community, and you need to look no further than the U.N. Security Council Resolutions on Iraq to know what those goals are. Those goals are totally consistent with America's policies and security needs, which are so often mischaracterized.
We do need to do a better job of explaining our policies abroad because that is part of winning the war on terrorism, the battle of ideas.
Some try to say that there is a war on Islam. There is certainly no war between the West and Islam. There is a battle against the Muslim mainstream, against such underlying values as the rule of law, but this battle is being waged by the same vicious extremists that are waging war against what they believe we stand for. It is a false distinction. Whether we're talking about the Koran, the Bible, or the Geneva Convention, there is a common universal regard for human life. There are fundamental moral protections for human rights and the lives of the innocent.
These extremists kill without reservation. They corrupt the hopeless with false promises, that suicide and murder are the paths to heaven. And they use holy places, and orphanages and hospitals as military platforms. But they are only a small minority of the more than one billion Muslims in the world.
They have not only declared war against Islam, but against the civilized world. We saw that on September 11, 2001 when hundreds of Muslims were among the innocent thousands who died that day.
I saw it first-hand on Sunday, when they attacked people sleeping in their beds in a hotel. We saw it in the attacks against the International Red Cross and the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad. We saw it when they exploded a bomb outside one of the holiest shrines of Shia Islam, killing one of Iraq's most important potential leaders.
These factors and more make moderate Muslims and the rest of the civilized world natural and necessary allies. That puts us on the same side as the majority of the world's Muslims.
Clearly we face a struggle over modernity and secularism, pluralism and democracy, real economic development. Those ideas scare extremists because their success, the success of those ideas, would mean the lessening of the terrorists' iron grip on the people they seek to control and oppress. That is exactly why the terrorists are fighting along with the remnants of the Saddam regime in Iraq today. They fear what success in Iraq will mean for them.
Given the scope of the evil of the terrorism we now oppose, this fight for a just and peaceful world is not one to be waged only by the United States, or only by the countries of the West. It is a fight that is being fought -- and must be fought -- by all who aspire for peace and freedom. That aspiration is what the terrorists seek to destroy. And it is a fight that must be fought most emphatically in the Muslim world and by Muslims themselves.
So part of our outreach must go beyond governments -- good ones as well as bad. We must reach out to individuals because they are the real focal point of liberal democracy, and of the rule of justice under law. They are the true engines of change.
We must become, I think, more attentive to moderate voices in the Muslim world, for the better we can be at encouraging and amplifying those voices, the more effective we will be in leading the world, as the President said, toward those values that will bring lasting peace.
I would point out that Americans aren't the only ones who suffer from vicious mischaracterization in the battle of ideas. Recall the bombing in Najaf that took the life of Mohammed Bakar al Hakim. Some speculated, many here in the United States, that that horrendous act would lead to attacks of Shia on Sunni, but instead of violence, hundreds of thousands of people turned out to mourn and to witness the funeral procession of Ayatollah Hakim as it passed by, and they behaved in a manner like their behavior back in April at the remarkable reinauguration of the Al Brahim pilgrimage. They behaved with remarkable calm and restraint.
I know from my own experiences that there are serious discussions going on among Muslims throughout the world who want to move their community into modernity. Unfortunately, we so often see that the shrill rhetoric of extremism many times drowns out the more moderate voices.
In reaching out to the Muslim world it is essential that we all carry our share of the burden. Like the Cold War, the global war on terrorism is a war of ideas and it promises, as President Kennedy said a long time ago, to be a "long, twilight struggle". This country will do its part and finish the job that has begun in Afghanistan and Iraq, and we'll find more ways to support moderate Muslims the world over.
But this is a fight that cannot be won by the West alone. In fact the fight against the killers who pervert and exploit a great world religion is most effectively fought by Muslims themselves. It is more appropriate for Muslims to refute the extremists' false arguments -- that Islam condones terrorism and suicide bombing, or the killing of innocent men, women and children.
Muslim voices are the ones that will be most effective in calling for the reform of Madrasas that deny Muslim children any opportunity to cope and excel in the modern world.
Muslims are the only ones who can dispute theologically the extremist teachings that are distributed free to millions.
And many good decent Muslims have spoken out against those who have tried to hijack their religion. Unfortunately, all too often, they have to do so in the face of threats and intimidation from well-funded extremists.
We should do everything we can to support those moderate voices and assist their courage in speaking out. That is just one of many reasons why it is so important for us not only to succeed in Iraq, but also to achieve a peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Because when those two goals are attained, moderates throughout the Muslim world will be able to stand taller and stronger because they will have two important successes that will greatly strengthen their hand.
My own experiences throughout the years have taught me that when we appeal to and support those who advocate the values of human dignity, free speech, equal justice, respect for women, and religious tolerance, that President Bush spoke of in his State of the Union address last year -- all the things that Americans stand for -- things can and do change.
In my second tour of the Department of Defense in the aftermath of the first Gulf War, we witnessed a striking change in one part of Iraq in the Kurdish-controlled north. We saw an example of the kind of self-government that Muslims can achieve, giving a lie to those who say that Islam and democracy are incompatible. They were beyond the reach of Saddam's regime but unfortunately still under the same U.N. sanctions. People enjoyed, and enjoy today a level of prosperity that far surpassed the rest of the country.
I know that here at Georgetown you have a keen interest in these things and you understand that ideas like pluralism and tolerance and self-government evolve with time, with persistence, and with hard work. It was that way in our country, it’s taken us more than two centuries to get to where we are now, and we're certainly not perfect.
Based on my own experiences with Muslims, not only during my three years as U.S. Ambassador to Indonesia, but with Arabs and Turks and Bosnians and Pakistanis and Malaysians and many others, my own outlook is prudently optimistic despite the many obstacles. I believe there are hundreds of millions of moderate and tolerant people in the Muslim world who aspire to enjoy the blessings of freedom and democracy and free enterprise and equal justice under law. We must speak to them, and there are many of you in this room who can help to do that.
Clearly, one huge factor in our relations with the Muslim world, as well as one of the greatest obstacles to peace in that region, is the continuing conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. It is clear that the solution of this conflict can only come through political means.
President Bush has made it clear the importance that we attach to Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. As the President said, the outline of a solution has been clear for some time and it's based on two fundamental elements. The acknowledgement of Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state within secure and recognized boundaries, and the creation of a Palestinian state that brings an end to Israeli occupation and provides a better life for its citizens and security for its neighbors.
There are thousands of Israelis and Palestinians who feel the same way. How do I know? Right now there is a significant grassroots movement that has already gotten some 90,000 Israeli signatures and some 60,000 Palestinian signatures in support of principles that look very much like the roadmap favoring a two-state solution.
I had the privilege last week of meeting with the two organizers of that petition, Sari Nusseibeh, a Palestinian, and Amit Ayalon, an Israeli. One of the keys to achieving peace is to somehow mobilize majorities on both sides so that the extremists who oppose it can be isolated.
As Americans we know there are times when great changes can spring from the grassroots. There are also times when great leaders can point the way to breakthroughs. In one of those latter moments, Anwar Sadat addressed the Israeli Knesset in 1977 and he said, "Any life that is lost in war is a human life, be it that of an Arab or an Israeli. Innocent children who are deprived of the care and compassion of their parents are ours – They are ours,” the President of Egypt said, whether they live in Arab lands or in Isreal.”
And then he made a point that bears reflecting upon today. “There are moments in the lives of nations and peoples,” he said, “when those who shoulder great responsibilities must have the courage to make decisions that fit the magnitude of the situation, and never to forget that infallibility belongs to God alone."
Most of what progress has been made in the Arab-Israeli peace process over the years is owed to the courage and statesmanship of some brave leaders -- both Arabs and Israelis. Anwar Sadat and Yitzhak Rabin, King Hussein of Jordan, and Shimon Peres of Israel. But as we know here in the United States, great change can sometimes be mobilized from the bottom up. In either case, the cause of peace in the Middle East will be enormously advanced if Israelis and Palestinians can demonstrate overwhelming numbers in support of compromise and in opposition to terrorism.
Achieving the President's vision of two states living side by side in peace will be difficult. As the scenes of suffering and carnage that we witness so often in the Middle East clearly attest, one of the greatest obstacles to achieving that vision is terrorism.
Twenty years have passed since 241 U.S. Marines, stationed in Beirut as peacekeepers, were killed as they slept when a truck loaded with explosives slammed into their barracks. Even more than that deadly attack, the withdrawal of the Marines told the world -- and told the terrorists -- that terrorism succeeds.
Twenty years later we will send them the opposite message. And if it's to be "a long, hard slog" as Secretary Rumsfeld has said to send terrorists that message, we as a country are up to it. We can't afford to do anything less. We can't afford to quit on the battlefield and we can't afford to quit in the battle of ideas. We can't and we won't.
Now is the time for boldness and action. We are fortunate to have a President who is willing to make decisions that do fit the magnitude of the situation we face. And we are extremely fortunate to have brave men and women who have volunteered to serve this nation both in uniform, and as public servants, here at home and throughout the world, risking their lives so that the rest of us can live more safely.
I'd like to close with one more story from my diplomatic years, if you'll indulge me. I think some of you know -- Tom, Mark probably went through this experience. When George Schultz was Secretary of State every new ambassador heading out to their post would go to his office for a picture that you could hang proudly in your office and show all your foreign friends on what close terms you were with your boss. And each time a new ambassador would come in George would take them to this enormous globe that stood on the floor some three or four feet tall, and he's casually say, just for this picture turn the globe to your country. The new diplomat would eagerly spin the globe around to France or Mali or Germany, at which point the Secretary of State would say, "No, let me explain something." And he would slowly turn that giant globe back to the United States of America.
I have to confess by the time I went to Indonesia, I'd already heard the story so fortunately I passed that exam, but I think his exercise illustrates two important things. First, the security of this country is legitimately first and foremost in our minds. And second, that people around the world look to the United States for leadership. Not just military leadership, but as an example of justice and representative government in opposition to terrorism, the greatest evil of our time.
When we guard our own interest, when we protect the things that make America what it is, we help shape a secure and peaceful world. That is the goal of our foreign policy, and that should be a goal for all of you entering the field of foreign service.
I firmly believe that the future does not belong to those who seek to tear down and destroy, whether it be buildings or religions or opportunities for others to advance. The future belongs to those who work to build a world based on justice and freedom and peace. This room I know is full of potential builders.
I challenge you to take up this battle of ideas. We need you. Our country needs you. The world needs you.
Thank you.
[Applause]
END OF PART TWO |
