The Speech - The President

The Speech - The President took back some of the momentum with last night's speech.

This part was key:

Second, we are committed to expanding international cooperation in the reconstruction and security of Iraq, just as we are in Afghanistan. Our military commanders in Iraq advise me that the current number of American troops ? nearly 130,000 ? is appropriate to their mission. They are joined by over 20,000 service members from 29 other countries. Two multinational divisions, led by the British and the Poles, are serving alongside our forces ? and in order to share the burden more broadly, our commanders have requested a third multinational division to serve in Iraq.

Some countries have requested an explicit authorization of the United Nations Security Council before committing troops to Iraq. I have directed Secretary of State Colin Powell to introduce a new Security Council resolution, which would authorize the creation of a multinational force in Iraq, led by America.

I recognize that not all of our friends agreed with our decision to enforce the Security Council resolutions and remove Saddam Hussein from power. Yet we cannot let past differences interfere with present duties. Terrorists in Iraq have attacked representatives of the civilized world, and opposing them must be the cause of the civilized world. Members of the United Nations now have an opportunity, and the responsibility, to assume a broader role in assuring that Iraq becomes a free and democratic nation.

Third, we are encouraging the orderly transfer of sovereignty and authority to the Iraqi people. Our coalition came to Iraq as liberators and we will depart as liberators.

As we come up on the second anniversary of the launching of the Third World War, it's worth remembering what brought us here.

And how we'll leave:

Fellow citizens: We have been tested these past 24 months, and the dangers have not passed. Yet Americans are responding with courage and confidence. We accept the duties of our generation. We are active and resolute in our own defense. We are serving in freedom's cause ? and that is the cause of all mankind.

Note to the Dems: It's going to take more than prescriptions and handouts to get the momentum.

Sullivan has a great piece - on the "State of the War" speech.

Money quote:

Critics will say that the Iraq-terror connection, brutally outlined in the Washington Post yesterday, is a result of the war and didn't exist beforehand. They're wrong. The links between Baathist remnants and al Qaeda are obviously stronger now than the links between al Qaeda and the Saddam regime a year ago - but they all always had a common goal: the prevention of the liberalization of the Arab world and the defeat of Western interests through terror, both state-sponsored and otherwise. We've flushed them out but we haven't yet destroyed them. Now we have a chance to go in for the kill. If Bush can successfully persuade people that violence in Iraq is a) unavoidable and b) an opportunity, then he will be far more persuasive in the coming months. And we all need him to be.

To deny the ideological link - as Josh Marshall seems to in the article I addressed yesterday - is the sort of Clintonion pseudological pointillism that may make legalists warm and fuzzy - but in the amorphous world of terrorism, makes no sense.

Posted by Mitch at September 8, 2003 12:52 AM