http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/06/AR2005120600766.html?nav=rss_politics/administrationTranscript: Vice President Cheney's Speech at Ft. Drum, N.Y.
Courtesy FDCH/e-Media
Tuesday, December 6, 2005; 1:07 PM
SPEAKER: RICHARD B. CHENEY, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
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Some have suggested that by liberating Iraq from Saddam Hussein we simply stirred up a hornet's nest. They overlook a fundamental fact: We were not in Iraq on September 11th, 2001, and the terrorist hit us anyway.
The reality is that terrorists were at war with our country long before the liberation of Iraq and long before the attacks of 9/11. And for many years, they were the ones on the offensive. They grew bolder in their belief that if they killed enough Americans, they could change American policy.
In Beirut, in 1983, terrorists killed 241 of our servicemen. Thereafter, U.S. forces withdrew from there.
In Mogadishu, in 1993, terrorists killed 19 American soldiers. Thereafter, United States forces withdrew from Somalia.
Over time, the terrorists concluded that they could strike America without paying a price because they did, repeatedly.
They bombed the World Trade Center in 1993; murders at the Saudi national guard training facility in Riyadh in 1995; the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia in 1996; simultaneous bombing of two of our embassies in East Africa in 1998; and the USS Cole in 2000.
Believing they could strike us with impunity and that they could change U.S. policy, they attacked us on 9/11 here in the homeland and killed 3,000 Americans.
Now they're making a stand in Iraq, testing our resolve, trying to intimidate the United States into abandoning our friends and permitting the overthrow of a new Middle Eastern democracy.***