For Immediate Release
October 17, 2003

Global Message

From remarks by President Bush, California, 10/16/03

Since the liberation of Iraq, our investigators have found evidence of a clandestine network of biological laboratories, advanced design work on prohibited, longer range missiles and an elaborate campaign to hide illegal programs.

There is still much to investigate, yet it is now undeniable that: -Saddam Hussein was in clear violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1441. -Saddam Hussein was a deceiver and a danger. -The Security Council was right to demand that Saddam disarm, and we were right to enforce that demand.

Who can possibly think that the world would be better off with Saddam Hussein still in power? -Surely not the dissidents who would be in his prisons, or end up in his mass graves. -Surely not the men and women who would fill Saddam's torture chambers and rape rooms. -Surely not the families of victims he murdered with poison gas. -Surely not anyone who cares about human rights and democracy and stability in the Middle East.

After all the action we have taken, and after all the progress we have made against terror, there is a temptation to think the danger has passed. But it has not. Since September 11, the terrorists have taken lives Casablanca, Mombasa, Jerusalem, Amman, Riyadh, Baghdad, Karachi, New Delhi, Bali, and Jakarta. The terrorists continue to plot and plan and we must not forget the lessons of September 11.