For Immediate Release
October 24, 2003

Global Message

From remarks by President Bush, Canberra, Australia, 10/22/03

The nature of the terrorist threat defines the strategy we are using to fight it. These committed killers will not be stopped by negotiations and they will not respond to reason. They must be found, fought and defeated.

The terrorists hope to gain chemical, biological or nuclear weapons -- the means to match their hatred. So, we are confronting outlaw regimes that aid terrorists, that pursue weapons of mass destruction, and that defy the demands of the world.

Since the liberation of Iraq, we have discovered Saddam Hussein's clandestine network of biological laboratories, the design work on prohibited long-range missiles, and his elaborate campaign to hide illegal weapons programs.

Saddam Hussein spent years frustrating UN inspections because he was violating UN demands. Rather than surrender his programs and abandon his lies, he chose defiance, and his own undoing.

Because we enforced Resolution 1441, and used force in Iraq as a last resort, there is one more free nation in the world -- and all free nations are more secure.

In the war on terror, the Australian and American people witnessed the methods of the enemy. We saw destruction and grief -- and we saw our duty. As free nations in peril, we must fight this enemy with all our strength.