Memorial service for Ayatollah Muhammed Baqir Al-Hakim - Speeches - Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz - Transcript

US Department of Defense Speeches, Sept 27, 2003

Of course, for too many Iraqis, liberation came too late. What can we do for them? What can we do for our own soldiers who died for the liberation of Iraq? What we can do for them and Said Muhammed Baqir Al-Hakim is to honor their memory.

And it is useful on this day to think back to another day in this country just about 140 years ago, when the leaders of the United States came together to remember the sacrifices of thousands of Americans on a battlefield just 100 miles north of here in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. In 1863, during our terrible Civil War, during July of that year, Union and Confederate armies fought for three days in what was the decisive battle of the war, although the war went on for another two years longer. More than 50,000 Americans were killed and wounded in those three days. And when President Lincoln went to dedicate the battlefield at Gettysburg, what he said has echoed through the years--words I still go frequently to the Lincoln Memorial to read engraved in stone in that great building.

Among those famous words Lincoln said: "[W]e cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it far beyond our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us," Lincoln said, "it is for us the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced...."--words I might say that apply today to the hero that we honor--"that this nation under God"--and he was speaking out of my own country--"shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth."

I believe that Lincoln's words are a precise guide for how we can best remember those who died in Iraq and those who continue to risk their lives in Iraq, including Said Baqir Al-Hakim and the many others who died in Najaf. We can honor their memory by completing the task of building a free, democratic, independent Iraq, a country with a government that is of the Iraqi people, by the Iraqi people, and for the Iraqi people.

The late Ayatollah Muhammed Baqir Al-Hakim said--I read--"We don't want an Islamic state. What we want is a democratic state that respects religion." And he said, unlike Iran, Iraq must have an inclusive multi-ethnic and democratic government. He is an Iraqi, but those are sentiments shared by all Americans.

As President Bush said, "A free, democratic, peaceful Iraq will not threaten America or our friends with weapons. A free Iraq will not be a training ground for terrorists or funnel money to terrorists or provide weapons to terrorists who would willingly use them to strike our country. A free Iraq will not destabilize the Middle East. A free Iraq can set a hopeful example," the President said, "to the entire region and lead other nations to choose freedom."

It is a noble goal, a goal of historic importance. And like most such objectives, it will take time. It will require patience. But I have seen with my own eyes that the Iraqi people share this vision. And so do our troops and the British troops and those of our other Coalition partners. They understand that the battle for Iraq is now the principal battle in the struggle to rid the world of terrorism. It is part of a global struggle to build a world in which decent people--Muslims and Christians and Jews and people of all religions--can live and work and raise their families without fear, free to study and to worship God, the Father and Creator of us all.