For Immediate Release
July 19, 2004

Global Message

From an Op-Ed in USA Today by NSA Rice, 7/14/04

In choosing a course of action in Iraq, President Bush had to answer questions such as:

• Could the international community continue to accept Saddam's 12-year defiance of its will?
• Would the world be safer if the word of the United Nations were seen to count and have consequences?
• Could the United States, in the post-9/11 world, continue to hope for the best from Saddam, or would America be safer with his removal?

President Bush and an international coalition concluded that Saddam had to go, and events since his removal have proved this judgment right. Iraq is no longer supporting terrorists, threatening the region or pursuing WMD.

Our efforts in Iraq have been critical to success in the global war on terror.

The following developments have made America and the world safer:

• Afghanistan today is an emerging democracy, and is no longer providing sanctuary to al-Qaeda.
• Libya's Moammar Gadhafi has surrendered his nuclear-weapons program.
• Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan's secret nuclear-proliferation network, which sold technology and know-how to some of the world's most dangerous regimes, has been exposed.
• The governments of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are U.S. allies in the fight to root out terrorism.