Unedited transcript

On September 20, 2001, President Bush spoke before a joint session of the United States Congress. It had been nine days since the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington--a time when our nation displayed an extraordinary determination and strength. Americans understood the daunting task before us. We were a nation at war--and it would be a war, the President warned us, unlike any other we had fought before.

The President told us that this wasn’t a war that would end with a great battle or the fall of an enemy capital. It wasn’t another war to be won from 30,000 feet. And it wasn’t going to be quick or easy.

As a member of the United States Senate, I joined my colleagues in applauding the President’s blunt and honest outline of the battles ahead.

In the two and a half years since the President received a standing ovation from every member of the House and Senate, I have been flabbergasted at how quickly some have forgotten the words they applauded that day. Not only do these folks appear to have lost their spirit and determination, they have forgotten the spirit and determination of the American people.

The hand-wringing began early, just a few weeks after the September 11 attacks. When victory against the Taliban wasn’t immediately forthcoming, they were out there talking about the "quagmire" in Afghanistan. We were in for a years-long fight, just like the Soviets before us. Days later, the Taliban collapsed.

In March of last year it was déjà vu all over again: Operation Iraqi Freedom was barely a week old when bad weather roused the prophets of defeat. We all remember them on the TV: The march to Baghdad had become hopelessly bogged down, they insisted. The invasion was going to be a humanitarian catastrophe, they warned. There would be countless casualties, both American and Iraqi.

In every war, the prophets of doom reach for the same old phrase book: Every significant battle facing the United States has been, and I quote, "another Vietnam."

But just as these voices were wrong in 1991, wrong in 2001, wrong in 2003, so too are they wrong again today.

Let’s not minimize the challenges. Our nation faces a formidable enemy, in Iraq and elsewhere. Angry Baathists, fanatical Islamists and opportunistic terrorists from across the Middle East have perpetrated attacks against U.S. soldiers, U.S. allies, and against the Iraqi people themselves. Our resolve as a nation is being tested.

It’s obvious we can’t afford to cut and run. Even the most partisan critics admit as much. However, by invoking Vietnam, they are in effect predicting a U.S. defeat and pullout. Even as they give lip service to winning, they foment a sense of despair, instead of offering a strategy for victory.

Let’s be blunt here: For many of President’s critics there is a domestic constituency to be won from failure abroad. They are campaigning on defeat.

It’s tempting to dismiss all of this as just another case of political opportunism. Plenty of cynics have learned to recognize the hand-wringing from Congress and elsewhere as nothing more than Washington electioneering.

But let’s all step back a second and remember there’s a nation of Americans and a world out there watching us. And these predictions of defeat have profound consequences in the real world. In every war, military historians will tell you, there is a strategic "center of gravity"--a tipping point that determines what direction the larger conflict will go.

The strategic center of gravity for this war is American willpower.

Our enemies know this. They know that they cannot defeat us in any conventional military contest, so instead, their aim is to demoralize us, to shake our resolve. They know that their only hope is in gruesome, made-for-television atrocities to undermine the confidence of the American public. Their purpose is not to win, but to convince us that we can’t win, to break our will, to convince us to cut and run. Unfortunately, that strategy is not illogical. We have run before.

That and other past failures of will are among the main reasons we are under siege today.

Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990 because he believed that Americans couldn’t take casualties. He looked at Vietnam and Lebanon and concluded that the Americans didn’t have the guts for a really tough fight.

After the war, when we took a pass on pushing to Baghdad, he concluded that he had been right all along. America’s failure to confront Saddam during the 1990s, as he thwarted weapons inspectors and economic sanctions and corrupted the oil for food program, only spurred him further.

And unfortunately, Iraq wasn’t the only time America’s leaders have buckled under pressure.

In October 1983, the U.S. fled Lebanon after a suicide truck bombing killed 241 Marines in Beirut. We abandoned Somalia in 1993 after 18 U.S. soldiers were graphically murdered in a firefight with Islamic extremists, who, we later learned, were trained and funded by Osama Bin Laden’s terrorist network.

In each case, while we avoided temporary difficulties, we became more vulnerable and our enemies grew stronger. Bin Laden boasted that Somalia proved America was a "paper tiger." Saddam concluded he could continue to flout the will of the international community, and that there wouldn’t be any consequences. After the Clinton administration’s muted response to first World Trade Center bombing in 1993; the bombings of our African embassies in August 1998; our non-response to the thwarted plot against Los Angeles International Airport during the millennium; as well as the October 2000 attack on the U.S.S. Cole--Al Qaeda thought we could be beat.

Undoubtedly our enemies were surprised after 9/11 when we turned out to be so much stronger than our record might otherwise suggest. Saddam seems to have persisted in the belief that we would not fight until the very moment American tanks appeared on the horizon.

Now, after Afghanistan and Iraq, no one should doubt the will of the American people; but the struggle in Iraq has given our enemies a new opportunity to test our will. They have scored some successes among our allies already, driving the Spanish to cut and run. They are trying, and failing, to do the same to Italy, Japan, South Korea and Poland. But where they have failed abroad, they have succeeded on our own shores: Every politician that describes Iraq as another Vietnam gives our enemies hope for success.

If we make this is another Vietnam, if we cut and run, we can count on the outcome: It will be a breeding ground for terrorism. Countries like Syria and Iran will be emboldened, convinced that they can harbor terrorists without threat of serious consequences.

If America were to reenact Vietnam, there would be plenty of losers: Those in Iraq who had the courage to trust us will be cut down, just as they were in 1991. Those in Iraq who had the hope of finally living in freedom will be trampled, as will others in the Middle East eager to see a model of democracy in their region.

But the biggest loser of all would be the United States. We would be seen as an unsteady ally and a weak enemy. We would prove for once and for all that we don’t have the courage to fight for the things we believe in, or to protect the long term interests of this country. Our enemies would believe that if our intelligence isn’t 100 percent certain (and it never is); if we can’t win every battle (and we never will), then we will not fight.

The truth is, the American people are better than that. They’re stronger than that. The American people understand what’s at stake here. And it’s time that some of their leaders caught up with them.

The President’s critics cannot have it both ways. They cannot claim to be in favor of winning the war in Iraq but also oppose fighting it, funding it, and offering any coherent strategy for succeeding at it. They cannot credibly claim to be in favor of winning the war while decrying it as a "mistake" that cannot be won.

And a coherent strategy for victory does not mean suggesting we escape our responsibilities in Iraq by turning them over to the United Nations or unnamed international allies. Our enemies recognize that this is a call to cut and run. And they are heartened by it.

Sure, there’s a job to be done by the United Nations in Iraq, but that doesn’t lessen our own obligation to defeat the terrorists and insurgents. And incidentally, for those who argue that the United Nations can bestow "legitimacy" on the occupation that the United States lacks, and that this will quell the insurgency, let me to remind you that insurgents bombed the UN mission to Iraq--twice.

Likewise, for those who argue that "internationalizing" the security force will allow us to win the war, I would simply ask what foreign nation should be in Iraq that is not already there. Does anyone seriously believe that the only thing keeping us from military victory in Iraq is a couple of platoons of French soldiers and a NATO stamp of approval?

The challenge of winning this fight is real and it is daunting. We should not confuse symbolic gestures for genuine strategy. Our enemies can tell the difference, and so should we.

The purpose of terrorism is to undermine public opinion here at home, to weaken the strategic center of gravity for this war. I believe, however, that the American center will hold. And when the President’s political opponents run a campaign on defeat, it is they who will be defeated.

Contrary to the pronouncements of the prophets of defeat, Americans don’t walk away from a challenge. And we’re not going to run away from this fight. In September 2001 we became a nation filled with resolve; I believe we still are.

Fred Thompson is a visiting fellow at AEI.