And I’d just like to say this very strongly to the outside world: whatever people’s feelings or beliefs about the removal of Saddam Hussein and the wisdom of that, there surely is only one side to be on in what is now very clearly a battle between democracy and terror. On the one side you have people who desperately want to make the democratic process work, and want to have the same type of democratic freedoms other parts of the world enjoy, and on the other side people who are killing and intimidating and trying to destroy a better future for Iraq…
The reason people are dying is because of the terrorism and the intimidation and the people who are deliberately killing anyone trying to make this country better. Now what should our response be as an international community? Our response should be to stand alongside the democrats – the people who’ve got the courage to see this thing through – and help them see it through. I’ve got no doubt at all that that is the right thing for us to do…
The danger that people feel here is coming from terrorists and insurgents who are trying to destroy the possibility of this country becoming a democracy. Now where do we stand in that fight? We stand on the side of the democrats against the terrorists. And so when people say to me, ‘Well look at the difficulties, look at the challenges,’ I say, ‘Well, what’s the source of that challenge?’ The source of that challenge is a wicked, destructive attempt to stop this man, this lady, all these people from Iraq, who want to decide their own future in a democratic way, having that opportunity. And where should the rest of the world stand? To say, ‘Well, that’s your problem, go and look after it,’ or, ‘You’re better off with Saddam Hussein running the country’ – as if the only choice they should have in the world is a choice between a brutal dictator killing hundreds of thousands of people or terrorists and insurgents. There is another choice for Iraq – the choice is democracy, the choice is freedom – and our job is to help them get there because that’s what they want. Sometimes when I see some of the reporting of what’s happening in Iraq in the rest of the world, I just feel that people should understand how precious what has been created here is.