Bush Speech Aboard USS
Abraham Lincoln, 1 May 2003
This is the full transcript of President
Bush's speech aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln to mark
the end of major combat operations in Iraq.
Thank you. Thank you all very much.
Admiral Kelly, Captain Card (ph), officers and
sailors of the USS Abraham Lincoln, my fellow
Americans, major combat operations in Iraq have ended.
In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our
allies have prevailed.
(APPLAUSE)
And now our coalition is engaged in securing and
reconstructing that country.
In this battle, we have fought for the cause of
liberty and for the peace of the world. Our nation and
our coalition are proud of this accomplishment, yet it
is you, the members of the United States military, who
achieved it. Your courage, your willingness to face
danger for your country and for each other made this
day possible.
Because of you our nation is more secure. Because
of you the tyrant has fallen and Iraq is free.
Operation Iraqi Freedom was carried out with a
combination of precision and speed and boldness the
enemy did not expect and the world had not seen
before.
From distant bases or ships at sea, we sent planes
and missiles that could destroy an enemy division or
strike a single bunker. Marines and soldiers charged
to Baghdad across 350 miles of hostile ground in one
of the swiftest advances of heavy arms in history.
You have shown the world the skill and the might of
the American armed forces.
This nation thanks all of the members of our
coalition who joined in a noble cause. We thank the
armed forces of the United Kingdom, Australia and
Poland who shared in the hardships of war. We thank
all of the citizens of Iraq who welcomed our troops
and joined in the liberation of their own country.
And tonight, I have a special word for Secretary
Rumsfeld, for General Franks and for all the men and
women who wear the uniform of the United States:
America is grateful for a job well done.
(APPLAUSE)
The character of our military through history, the
daring of Normandy, the fierce courage of Iwo Jima,
the decency and idealism that turned enemies into
allies is fully present in this generation.
When Iraqi civilians looked into the faces of our
service men and women, they saw strength and kindness
and good will. When I look at the members of the
United States military, I see the best of our country
and I am honored to be your commander in chief.
the images of fallen statues we have witnessed the
arrival of a new era. For a hundred of years of war,
culminating in the nuclear age, military technology
was designed and deployed to inflict casualties on an
ever-growing scale.
In defeating Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan,
Allied forces destroyed entire cities, while enemy
leaders who started the conflict were safe until the
final days. Military power was used to end a regime by
breaking a nation.
Today we have the greater power to free a nation by
breaking a dangerous and aggressive regime.
With new tactics and precision weapons, we can
achieve military objectives without directing violence
against civilians.
No device of man can remove the tragedy from war,
yet it is a great advance when the guilty have far
more to fear from war than the innocent.
(APPLAUSE)
In the images of celebrating Iraqis we have also
seen the ageless appeal of human freedom. Decades of
lies and intimidation could not make the Iraqi people
love their oppressors or desire their own enslavement.
Men and women in every culture need liberty like
they need food and water and air. Everywhere that
freedom arrives, humanity rejoices and everywhere that
freedom stirs, let tyrants fear.
(APPLAUSE)
We have difficult work to do in Iraq. We're
bringing order to parts of that country that remain
dangerous. We're pursuing and finding leaders of the
old regime who will be held to account for their
crimes. We've begun the search for hidden chemical and
biological weapons, and already know of hundreds of
sites that will be investigated.
We are helping to rebuild Iraq where the dictator
built palaces for himself instead of hospitals and
schools.
And we will stand with the new leaders of Iraq as
they establish a government of, by and for the Iraqi
people.
(APPLAUSE)
The transition from dictatorship to democracy will
take time, but it is worth every effort. Our coalition
will stay until our work is done and then we will
leave and we will leave behind a free Iraq.
(APPLAUSE)
The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on
terror that began on September the 11th, 2001 and
still goes on.
That terrible morning, 19 evil men, the shock
troops of a hateful ideology, gave America and the
civilized world a glimpse of their ambitions. They
imagined, in the words of one terrorist, that
September the 11th would be the beginning of the end
of America.
By seeking to turn our cities into killing fields,
terrorists and their allies believed that they could
destroy this nation's resolve and force our retreat
from the world.
They have failed.
(APPLAUSE)
In the battle of Afghanistan, we destroyed the
Taliban, many terrorists and the camps where they
trained. We continue to help the Afghan people lay
roads, restore hospitals and educate all of their
children.
Yet we also have dangerous work to complete. As I
speak, a special operations task force lead by the
82nd Airborne is on the trail of the terrorists and
those who seek to undermine the free government of
Afghanistan.
(APPLAUSE)
From Pakistan to the Philippines to the Horn of
Africa, we are hunting down Al Qaida killers.
Nineteen months ago I pledged that the terrorists
would not escape the patient justice of the United
States. And as of tonight nearly one half of Al
Qaida's senior operatives have been captured or
killed.
(APPLAUSE)
The liberation of Iraq is a crucial advance in the
campaign against terror. We have removed an ally of Al
Qaida and cut off a source of terrorist funding.
And this much is certain: No terrorist network will
gain weapons of mass destruction from the Iraqi
regime, because the regime is no more.
(APPLAUSE)
In these 19 months that changed the world, our
actions have been focused and deliberate and
proportionate to the offense. We have not forgotten
the victims of September the 11th, the last phone
calls, the cold murder of children, the searches in
the rubble. With those attacks, the terrorists and
their supporters declared war on the United States,
and war is what they got.
(APPLAUSE)
Our war against terror is proceeding according to
the principles that I have made clear to all.
Any person involved in committing or planning
terrorist attacks against the American people becomes
an enemy of this country and a target of American
justice.
(APPLAUSE)
Any person, organization or government that
supports, protects or harbors terrorists is complicit
in the murder of the innocent and equally guilty of
terrorist crimes. Any outlaw regime that has ties to
terrorist groups and seeks or possesses weapons of
mass destruction is a grave danger to the civilized
world and will be confronted.
(APPLAUSE)
And anyone in the world, including the Arab world,
who works and sacrifices for freedom has a loyal
friend in the United States of America.
(APPLAUSE)
Our commitment to liberty is America's tradition,
declared at our founding, affirmed in Franklin
Roosevelt's Four Freedoms, asserted in the Truman
Doctrine and in Ronald Reagan's challenge to an evil
empire.
We are committed to freedom in Afghanistan, Iraq
and in a peaceful Palestine.
The advance of freedom is the surest strategy to
undermine the appeal of terror in the world. Where
freedom takes hold, hatred gives way to hope.
When freedom takes hold, men and women turn to the
peaceful pursuit of a better life.
American values and American interests lead in the
same direction. We stand for human liberty.
(APPLAUSE)
The United States upholds these principles of
security and freedom in many ways: with all of the
tools of diplomacy, law enforcement, intelligence and
finance.
We are working with a broad coalition of nations
that understand the threat and our shared
responsibility to meet it.
The use of force has been and remains our last
resort. Yet all can know, friend and foe alike, that
our nation has a mission: We will answer threats to
our security, and we will defend the peace.
(APPLAUSE)
Our mission continues. Al Qaida is wounded, not
destroyed. The scattered cells of the terrorist
network still operate in many nations and we know from
daily intelligence that they continue to plot against
free people. The proliferation of deadly weapons
remains a serious danger.
The enemies of freedom are not idle, and neither
are we. Our government has taken unprecedented
measures to defend the homeland and we will continue
to hunt down the enemy before he can strike.
(APPLAUSE)
The war on terror is not over, yet it is not
endless. We do not know the day of final victory, but
we have seen the turning of the tide.
No act of the terrorists will change our purpose,
or weaken our resolve, or alter their fate. Their
cause is lost; free nations will press on to victory.
(APPLAUSE)
Other nations in history have fought in foreign
lands and remained to occupy and exploit. Americans,
following a battle, want nothing more than to return
home. And that is your direction tonight.
(APPLAUSE)
After service in the Afghan and Iraqi theaters of
war, after 100,000 miles on the longest carrier
deployment in recent history, you are homeward bound.
(APPLAUSE)
Some of you will see new family members for the
first time; 150 babies were born while their fathers
were on the Lincoln. Your families are proud of you,
and your nation will welcome you.
(APPLAUSE)
We are mindful as well that some good men and women
are not making the journey home. One of those who
fell, Corporal Jason Mileo, spoke to his parents five
days before his death. Jason's father said, ``He
called us from the center of Baghdad, not to brag but
to tell us he loved us. Our son was a soldier.
Every name, every life is a loss to our military,
to our nation and to the loved ones who grieve. There
is no homecoming for these families. Yet we pray in
God's time their reunion will come.
Those we lost were last seen on duty.
Their final act on this Earth was to fight a great
evil and bring liberty to others.
All of you, all in this generation of our military,
have taken up the highest calling of history: You were
defending your country and protecting the innocent
from harm.
And wherever you go, you carry a message of hope, a
message that is ancient and ever new. In the words of
the prophet Isaiah, ``To the captives, come out; and
to those in darkness, be free.''
Thank you for serving our country and our cause.
May God bless you all. And may God continue to
bless America.
(APPLAUSE)