For Immediate Release
November 13, 2003

Global Message

From remarks by NSA Rice to regional reporters, 11/11/03

The United States is committed to helping create stable, prosperous and democratic conditions in Iraq.

The people who are attacking our forces are not just attacking us. For the most part, they are attacking Iraqis. They also attacked the United Nations and the International Red Cross. They are trying to sow fear and chaos so that we do not stay the course, but they will lose.

The Coalition is encountering remnants of the old regime. They are marrying up with some foreign terrorists that are coming into the country because they know the importance of Iraq to their mission of destabilizing the United States and its allies.

These are the same people who tortured, murdered and maimed Iraqi citizens for the almost 30 years of the Saddam Hussein regime.

Our strategy is -- first and foremost -- to increase the number of Iraqis involved in their own security and defense.

There are some 300,000 Iraqis involved every day in their own security and we are training more to defend their country. Those Iraqis will, in turn, bring us better intelligence and a better sense of the enemy.

The President is committed to getting this job done in Iraq. We went to war in Iraq because it was and is critical to American security.

Iraq is the central front now in this war on terrorism because with a stable and secure Iraq, a very hard blow will be dealt to the international terrorist movement that caused September 11th and intends to continue to pursue us.