Remarks in a discussion at Southridge High School in Beaverton, Oregon

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, August 23, 2004

So I said to the Taliban, "You're harboring these folks. Give it up." And they defied us, and we took action. We gave them a chance. The use of our military is the last option for a President--the last option. And they had their choice, and they refused to listen to America and our allies and friends, and we removed them from power. And as a result, Afghanistan is no longer a training base for Al Qaida. Remember, they had trained thousands of people there. They're an ally in the war on terror. It's hard to envision that after 4 short years, they're now heading to Presidential elections. That's an amazing thought, isn't it? The world is better off. America is safer because of the actions we took in Afghanistan. And equally as important, the people in that country are better off.

I was in Cleveland, Ohio, the other evening for the International Children's Games. And I was welcoming children from all around the world, and right in my vision--I'm talking front row--was the Afghan girls soccer team. And I can assure you their life has improved so dramatically from the days in which their mothers would be summarily whipped in public because they held a belief in stark contrast to the dim vision of those barbarians who were running Afghanistan.

The third lesson is that when we see a threat, we must take it seriously before it fully materializes. That's a lesson of September the 11th. And that is a vital lesson of September the 11th, and that is a lesson this country must never forget. See, you cannot hope for the best with these people. If we see a threat, we must deal with it, always first through diplomacy. And that helps explain some of the rationale for the decision I made on Saddam Hussein.

See, we saw a threat in Saddam Hussein. Now, remember his history. He had used weapons of mass destruction. That meant he was a threat, because one of the most dangerous parts of this new war is that there is an enemy who will chop somebody's head off, just like that, who would love to get ahold of weapons of mass destruction to inflict even greater damage than the deeds they did on September the 11th. That's the nature of these people.

And so we saw a threat. He was the guy who had used them. He was a sworn enemy of America. He had actually paid families of suicide bombers. That's the ultimate terrorist act, isn't it, to go kill innocent people as a suicider, and he was willing to subsidize their families. He had terrorist organizations inside his country. Make no mistake about it. A guy named Abu Nidal, a fierce terrorist who killed a guy named Leon Klinghoffer because he happened to be Jewish--his organization did--they were in and out of Baghdad. Zarqawi--he's the person who has ordered the beheading of innocent people in order to shake our will he was in and out of Baghdad. These are terrorist organizations. So we saw a threat.

But I recognized that it was important to bring the country together as best as possible on this issue. So I went to the United States Congress, and I said, "Look, we see a threat, and we see the lessons of September the 11th. What do you think?" And so the Congress looked at the intelligence, and they remembered the facts. Members of both political parties looked at the intelligence. My opponent looked at the very same intelligence and came to the same conclusion I had come to, that Saddam Hussein was a threat.