19 November 2003: Independent
President George Bush today declared that the British and American peoples were united in an "alliance of values".
In his keynote address in London's Banqueting House, Mr Bush said that the alliance remained "very strong".
"More than an alliance of security and commerce, the British and American peoples have an alliance of values. And today this old and tested alliance is very strong," he said.
Recent attacks across the world, including in Baghdad and Istanbul, were "part of a global campaign by terrorist networks to intimidate and demoralise all who oppose them".
He went on: "These terrorists target the innocent and kill by the thousands. And they would, if they gain the weapons they seek, kill by the millions and not be finished.
"The greatest threat of our age is nuclear, chemical or biological weapons in the hands of terrorists and the dictators who aid them."
President Bush declared: "The evil is in plain sight. The danger only increases with denial.
"Great responsibilities have fallen once again to the great democracies. We will face these threats with open eyes and we will defeat them," he said
President Bush said the global threat of terrorism had to be met by a global response.
But he warned the credibility of the United Nations depended on its willingness to keep its word and act when required.
America and Great Britain would do everything they could to prevent the UN "solemnly choosing its own irrelevance and inviting the fate of the League of Nations".
The President said it was not enough to meet the dangers of the world with resolutions.
"We must meet those dangers with resolve," he said.
President Bush insisted that the US would not pull out of Iraq or Afghanistan until democracy was entrenched in those countries.
He said: "We will meet our responsibilities in Afghanistan and Iraq, by finishing the work of democracy we have begun."
He added: "Whatever has come before, we now have only two options: to keep our word or to break our word.
"The failure of democracy in Iraq would throw its people back into misery and turn that country over to terrorists who wish to destroy us.
"Yet democracy will succeed in Iraq. Because our will is firm, our word is good and the Iraqi people will not surrender their freedom."
President Bush said it was time for the West to take a more critical attitude towards regimes in the Middle East.
"We must shake off decades of failed policy in the Middle East. Your nation and mine in the past have been willing to make a bargain, to tolerate oppression for the sake of stability.
"This bargain did not bring stability or make us safe. It merely bought time while problems festered and ideologies of violence took hold.
"As recent history has shown we cannot turn a blind eye to oppression just because the oppression is not in our own backyard. No longer should we think tyranny is benign because it is temporarily convenient.
"Tyranny is never benign to its victims and our great democracies should oppose tyranny wherever it is found."
Mr Bush strongly defended the record of military intervention in the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq.
"The inhabitants of Iraq's Baathist hell, with its lavish palaces and its torture chambers, with its massive statues and its mass graves, do not miss their fugitive dictator. They rejoice in his fall," he said.
"Who will say that Iraq was better off when Saddam Hussein was strutting and killing or that the world was safer when he held power?"
Mr Bush reminded European leaders that while they were now able to settle their differences peacefully, the same was not true of much of the rest of the world.
"Because European countries now resolve differences through negotiation and consensus there is sometimes an assumption that the entire world functions in the same way," he said.
"But let us never forget how Europe's unity was achieved: by Allied armies of liberation and Nato armies of defence.
Mr Bush called for a "democratic revolution" in the Middle East.
He said: "The stakes in that region could not be higher.
"If the Middle East remains a place where freedom doesn't flourish, it will remain a place of stagnation and anger and violence for export.
"As we saw in the ruins of two towers, no distance on the map will protect our lives and our way of life.
"If the greater Middle East joins the democratic revolution that has reached much of the world, the lives of millions in that region will be better and a trend of conflict and fear will be ended at its source."
Mr Bush acknowledged that the movement of Middle Eastern countries towards democracy would not be achieved overnight.
Democracy had taken centuries to develop in the West, said Mr Bush, adding: "We must be patient with others, and the Middle East countries have some distance to travel."
In the Middle East, he said: "We will consistently challenge the enemies of reform and confront the allies of terror. We will expect a higher standard from our friends in the region."
"We did not charge hundreds of miles into the heart of Iraq and pay a bitter cost of causalities and liberate 25 million people only to retreat before a band of thugs and assassins."
The President also addressed the Arab-Israeli conflict. He said the aim must be a viable independent state for Palestinians who had been betrayed by others for too long.
But there must also be security and peace for Israel, which had "lived in the shadow of random death" for too long.
Mr Bush said they were worthy goals in themselves. But achieving them would also remove an excuse for hatred and violence across the Middle East.
He said peace would not be achieved by Palestinian leaders who intimidated opposition, tolerated corruption and maintained ties with terrorist groups.
The long-suffering Palestinians deserved true leaders capable of creating and governing a Palestinian state.
He said Israel must stop the construction of settlements, dismantle unauthorised outposts and end the humiliation of the Palestinians.
He also told Arab states to end incitement in their own media, cut of funding for terrorist groups and re-establish normal relations with Israel.
