The regime in Tehran also continues to defy the world with its nuclear ambitions. The United States is keeping all options on the table in addressing the irresponsible condut of the regime. And we join other nations in sending that regime a clear message: We will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon.
Consider where we were five years ago, when President Bush and I took office. The secret planning for the attacks of 9/11 was already well underway. Hijackers had been recruited; funds raised; training had taken place. Some of the hijackers were already in the United States. In Afghanistan, the Taliban were in power. Al Qaeda was operating training camps that in the late ’90s turned out thousands of terrorists. In Iraq, Saddam Hussein was in power, overseeing, along with his two malevolent sons, one of the bloodiest regimes of the 20th century.
Five years ago, there was a serious problem with proliferation, especially in the nuclear area. A.Q. Khan, the man who helped put Pakistan’s nuclear program in place, had established a network that was providing nuclear weapons technology to rogue states including North Korea and Iran. And Moammar Khaddafi of Libya, one of the A.Q. Khan network’s biggest customers, was spending millions to acquire nuclear weapons.
Today the picture is very different. The Taliban regime is now history, and 25 million Afghans are free. We have captured or killed hundreds of Al Qaeda; put its leaders on the run; and closed the camps that had trained the killers. Saddam Hussein wakes up every day in a jail cell, his sons are dead. Iraqis by the millions have embraced democracy, and no dictator is taking their money and giving it to the families of suicide bombers.
Only days after Saddam was captured, the leader of Libya announced he would turn over all of his weapons of mass destruction materials. A short time later, Libya’s uranium and centrifuges were sent to a U.S. facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. And the A.Q. Khan proliferation network has been shut down.
We cannot know every turn that lies ahead in the fight against terror, and tyranny, and proliferation. Yet at every point, we will be patient and resolute – because the supporters of democracy will need our help, and the enemies of democracy will test our will. And we will be confident, because events are moving in the direction of human liberty. Freedom’s cause is the right cause, and every action we take in support of it makes this world better and safer for our children.
This article is adapted from the vice president’s remarks to the America Israel Public Affairs Committee 2006 Policy Conference on March 7 at the Washington D.C. Convention Center.
