August 30, 2004
Former Mayor of the City of New York
Welcome to the
capital of the World.
New York was the first capital of our
great nation. It was here in 1789 in lower Manhattan that George
Washington took the oath of office as the first President of the United
States.
It was here in 2001 in lower Manhattan that President
George W. Bush stood amid the fallen towers of the World Trade Center
and said to the barbaric terrorists who attacked us, "They will hear
from us."
They have heard from us!
They heard from us in
Afghanistan and we removed the Taliban.
They heard from us in
Iraq and we ended Saddam Hussein's reign of terror.
They heard
from us in Libya and without firing a shot Qadhafi abandoned weapons of
mass destruction.
They are hearing from us in nations that are
now more reluctant to sponsor terrorists.
So long as George Bush
is President, is there any doubt they will continue to hear from us
until we defeat global terrorism.
We owe that much and more to
those loved ones and heroes we lost on September 11th.
The
families of some of those we lost on September 11th are here with us. To
them, and all those families affected by September 11th, we recognize
the sacrifices your loved ones and you have made. You are in our prayers
and we are in your debt.
This is the first Republican Convention ever
held in New York City.
It makes a statement that New York City
and America are open for business and stronger than ever.
We're
not going to let the threat of terrorism stop us from leading our lives.
From the first Republican President, Abraham Lincoln, to
President George W. Bush our party's great contribution is to expand
freedom in our own land and all over the world.
And our party is
at its best when it makes certain that we have a powerful national
defense in a still very dangerous world.
I don't believe we're
right about everything and Democrats are wrong about everything.
Neither party has a monopoly on virtue.
But I do believe
that there are times in our history when our ideas are more necessary
and important for what we are facing.
There are times when
leadership is the most important.
On September 11, this city and
our nation faced the worst attack in our history.
On that day,
we had to confront reality. For me, standing below the north tower and
looking up and seeing the flames of hell and then realizing that I was
actually seeing a man a human being jumping from the 101st or 102nd
floor drove home to me that we were facing something beyond anything we
had ever faced before.
We had to concentrate all of our energy,
faith and hope to get through those first hours and days.
And I
will always remember that moment as we escaped the building we were
trapped in at 75 Barclay Street and realized that things outside might
be even worse than they were inside the building.
We did the best
we could to communicate a message of calm and hope, as we stood on the
pavement seeing a massive cloud rushing through the cavernous streets of
lower Manhattan.
Our people were so brave in their
response.
At the time, we believed we would be attacked many more
times that day and in the days that followed. Spontaneously, I grabbed
the arm of then Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik and said to Bernie,
"Thank God George Bush is our President."
And I say it again
tonight, "Thank God George Bush is our President."
On September
11, George W. Bush had been President less than eight months. This new
President, Vice President, and new administration were faced with the
worst crisis in our history.
President Bush's response in keeping
us unified and in turning the ship of state around from being solely on
defense against terrorism to being on offense as well and for his
holding us together.
For that and then his determined effort to
defeat global terrorism, no matter what happens in this election,
President George W. Bush already has earned a place in our history as a
great American President.
But let's not wait for history to
present the correct view of our President. Let us write our own history.
We need George Bush now more than ever.
The horror, the
shock and the devastation of those attacks on the World Trade Center,
the Pentagon and over the skies of Pennsylvania lifted a cloud from our
eyes.
We stood face to face with those people and forces who
hijacked not just airplanes but a religion and turned it into a creed of
terrorism dedicated to eradicating us and our way of life.
Terrorism did not start on September 11, 2001. It had been
festering for many years.
And the world had created a response to
it that allowed it to succeed. The attack on the Israeli team at the
Munich Olympics was in 1972. And the pattern had already begun.
The three surviving terrorists were arrested and within two
months released by the German government.
Action like this
became the rule, not the exception.
Terrorists came to learn
they could attack and often not face consequences.
In 1985,
terrorists attacked the Achille Lauro and murdered an American citizen
who was in a wheelchair, Leon Klinghoffer.
They marked him for
murder solely because he was Jewish.
Some of those terrorist were
released and some of the remaining terrorists allowed to escape by the
Italian government because of fear of reprisals.
So terrorists
learned they could intimidate the world community and too often the
response, particularly in Europe, was "accommodation, appeasement and
compromise."
And worse the terrorists also learned that their
cause would be taken more seriously, almost in direct proportion to the
barbarity of the attack.
Terrorist acts became a ticket to the
international bargaining table.
How else to explain Yasser
Arafat winning the Nobel Peace Prize when he was supporting a terrorist
plague in the Middle East that undermined any chance of peace?
Before September 11, we were living with an unrealistic view of
the world much like our observing
Europe appease Hitler or trying
to accommodate ourselves to peaceful co-existence with the Soviet Union
through mutually assured destruction.
President Bush decided
that we could no longer be just on defense against global terrorism but
we must also be on offense.
On September 20, 2001, President
Bush stood before a joint session of Congress, a still grieving and
shocked nation and a confused world and he did change the direction of
our ship of state.
He dedicated America under his leadership to
destroying global terrorism.
The President announced the Bush
Doctrine when he said: "Our war on terror begins with Al Qaeda, but it
does not end there.
It will not end until every terrorist group
of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated.
"Either you
are with us or you are with the terrorists."
And since September
11th President Bush has remained rock solid.
It doesn't matter
how he is demonized.
It doesn't matter what the media does to
ridicule him or misinterpret him or defeat him.
They ridiculed
Winston Churchill. They belittled Ronald Reagan.
But like
President Bush, they were optimists; leaders must be optimists. Their
vision was beyond the present and set on a future of real peace and true
freedom.
Some call it stubbornness. I call it principled
leadership.
President Bush has the courage of his convictions.
In choosing a President, we really don't choose a Republican or
Democrat, a conservative or liberal.
We choose a
leader.
And in times of danger, as we are now in, Americans
should put leadership at the core of their decision.
There are
many qualities that make a great leader but having strong beliefs, being
able to stick with them through popular and unpopular times, is the most
important characteristic of a great leader.
Winston Churchill
saw the dangers of Hitler while his opponents characterized him as a
war-mongering gadfly.
Ronald Reagan saw and described the Soviet
Union as "the evil empire" while world opinion accepted it as inevitable
and belittled Ronald Reagan's intelligence.
President Bush sees
world terrorism for the evil that it is.
John Kerry has no such
clear, precise and consistent vision.
This is not a personal
criticism of John Kerry.
I respect him for his service to our
nation.
But it is important to see the contrast in approach
between the two men;
President Bush, a leader who is willing to
stick with difficult decisions even as public opinion shifts, and John
Kerry, whose record in elected office suggests a man who changes his
position often even on important issues.
When Saddam Hussein
invaded Kuwait in 1990, John Kerry voted against the Persian Gulf War.
Later he said he actually supported the war.
Then in 2002, as he
was calculating his run for President, he voted for the war in
Iraq.
And then just 9 months later, he voted against an $87
billion supplemental budget to fund the war and support our
troops.
He even, at one point, declared himself an anti-war
candidate. Now, he says he's pro-war. At this rate, with 64 days left,
he still has time to change his position at least three or four more
times.
My point about John Kerry being inconsistent is best
described in his own words when he said, "I actually did vote for the
$87 billion before I voted against it."
Maybe this explains John
Edwards' need for two Americas - - one where John Kerry can vote for
something and another where he can vote against the same
thing.
Yes, people in public office at times do change their
minds, I've done that, or they realize they are wrong or circumstances
change.
But John Kerry has made it the rule to change his
position, rather than the exception. In October, 2003, he told an
Arab-American Institute in Detroit that a security barrier separating
Israel from the Palestinian Territories was a "barrier to
peace."
A few months later, he took exactly the opposite
position. In an interview with the Jerusalem Post he said, "Israel's
security fence is a legitimate act of self defense."
The
contrasts are dramatic. They involve very different views of how to deal
with terrorism.
President Bush will make certain that we are
combatting terrorism at the source, beyond our shores, so we can reduce
the risk of having to confront it in the streets of New
York.
John Kerry's record of inconsistent positions on combatting
terrorism gives us no confidence he'll pursue such a determined
course.
President Bush will not allow countries that appear to
have ignored the lessons of history and failed for over thirty years to
stand up to terrorists, to dissuade us from what is necessary for our
defense.
He will not let them set our agenda. Under President
Bush, America will lead rather than follow.
John Kerry's claim
that certain foreign leaders who opposed our removal of Saddam Hussein
prefer him, raises the risk that he would accommodate his position to
their viewpoint.
It would hardly be the first time he changed his
position on matters of war and peace.
I remember the days
following September 11th when we were no longer Democrats or
Republicans, but Americans determined to do all we could to help the
victims, to rebuild our city and nation and to disable our enemies.
I remember President Bush coming here on September 14, 2001 and
lifting the morale of our rescue workers by talking with them and
embracing them and staying with them much longer than originally
planned.
In fact, if you promise to keep it just between us so I
don't get in trouble it was my opinion that the Secret Service was
concerned about the President remaining so long in that area.
With buildings still unstable, with fires raging below ground of
2000 degrees or more, there was good reason for concern.
Well
the President remained there and talked to everyone, the firefighters,
the police officers, the healthcare workers, the clergy, but the people
who spent the most time with him were our construction workers.
Now New York construction workers are very special people. I'm
sure this is true all over but I know the ones here the best. They were
real heroes along with many others that day, volunteering immediately.
And they're big, real big. Their arms are bigger than my legs and their
opinions are even bigger than their arms.
Now each one of them
would engage the President and I imagine like his cabinet give him
advice.
They were advising him in their own words on exactly
what he should do with the terrorists. Of course I can't repeat their
exact language.
But one of them really went into great detail and
upon conclusion of his remarks President Bush said in a rather loud
voice, "I agree."
At this point the guy just beamed and all his
buddies turned toward him in amazement.
The guy just lost
it.
So he reached over, embraced the President and began hugging
him enthusiastically.
A Secret Service agent standing next to me
looked at the President and the guy and instead of extracting the
President from this bear hug, he turned toward me and put his finger in
my face and said, "If this guy hurts the President, Giuliani you're
finished."
Meekly, and this is the moral of the story, I
responded, "but it would be out of love."
I also remember the
heart wrenching visit President Bush made to the families of our
firefighters and police officers at the Javits Center.
I
remember receiving all the help, assistance and support from the
President and even more than we asked.
For that I will be
eternally grateful to President Bush.
And I remember the support
being bi-partisan and actually standing hand in hand Republicans and
Democrats, here in New York and all over the nation.
During a
Boston Red Sox game there was a sign held up saying Boston loves New
York.
I saw a Chicago police officer sent here by Mayor Daley
directing traffic in Manhattan.
I'm not sure where he sent the
cars, they are probably still riding around the Bronx, but it was very
reassuring to know how much support we had.
And as we look
beyond this election and elections do accentuate differences let's make
sure we rekindle that spirit that we are one one America united to end
the threat of global terrorism.
Certainly President Bush will
keep us focused on that goal. When President Bush announced his
commitment to ending global terrorism, he understood - - I understood,
we all understood - - it was critical to remove the pillars of support
for the global terrorist movement.
In any plan to destroy global
terrorism, removing Saddam Hussein needed to be
accomplished.
Frankly, I believed then and I believe now that
Saddam Hussein, who supported global terrorism, slaughtered hundreds of
thousands of his own people, permitted horrific atrocities against
women, and used weapons of mass destruction, was himself a weapon of
mass destruction.
But the reasons for removing Saddam Hussein
were based on issues even broader than just the presence of weapons of
mass destruction.
To liberate people, give them a chance for
accountable, decent government and rid the world of a pillar of support
for global terrorism is something for which all those involved from
President Bush to the brave men and women of our armed forces should be
proud.
President Bush has also focused on the correct long-term
answer for the violence and hatred emerging from the Middle East. The
hatred and anger in the Middle East arises from the lack of accountable
governments.
Rather than trying to grant more freedom, create
more income, improve education and basic health care, these governments
deflect their own failures by pointing to America and Israel and other
external scapegoats.
But blaming these scapegoats does not
improve the life of a single person in the Arab world. It does not
relieve the plight of even one woman in Iran.
It does not give a
decent living to a single soul in Syria. It certainly does not stop the
slaughter of African Christians in the Sudan.
The changes
necessary in the Middle East involve encouraging accountable, lawful
governments that can be role models.
This has also been an
important part of the Bush Doctrine and the President's vision for the
future.
Have faith in the power of freedom.
People who
live in freedom always prevail over people who live in oppression.
That's the story of the Old Testament. That's the story of World War II
and the Cold War.
That's the story of the firefighters and police
officers and rescue workers who courageously saved thousands of lives on
September 11, 2001.
President Bush is the leader we need for the
next four years because he sees beyond today and tomorrow. He has a
vision of a peaceful Middle East and, therefore, a safer world. We will
see an end to global terrorism. I can see it. I believe it. I know it
will happen.
It may seem a long way off. It may even seem
idealistic.
But it may not be as far away and idealistic as it
seems.
Look how quickly the Berlin Wall was torn down, the Iron
Curtain ripped open and the Soviet Union disintegrated because of the
power of the pent-up demand for freedom.
When it catches hold
there is nothing more powerful than freedom. Give it some hope, and it
will overwhelm dictators, and even defeat terrorists. That is what we
have done and must continue to do in Iraq.
That is what the
Republican Party does best when we are at our best, we extend
freedom.
It's our mission. And it's the long-term answer to
ending global terrorism. Governments that are free and
accountable.
We have won many battles at home and abroad but as
President Bush told us on September 20, 2001 it will take a long-term
determined effort to prevail.
The war on terrorism will not be
won in a single battle. There will be no dramatic surrender. There will
be no crumbling of a massive wall.
But we will know it. We'll
know it as accountable governments continue to develop in countries like
Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq.
We'll know it as terrorist
attacks throughout the world decrease and then end.
And then, God
willing, we'll all be able on a future anniversary of September
11th.
To say to our fallen brothers and sisters. To our heroes of
the worst attack in our history and to our heroes who have sacrificed
their lives in the war on terror.
We will say to them we have
done all that we could with our lives that were spared to make your
sacrifices build a world of real peace and true freedom.
We will
make certain in the words of President Bush that they have heard from
us.
That they have heard from us a message of peace through
free, accountable, lawful and decent governments giving people hope for
a future for themselves and their children.
God bless each one
we have lost, here and abroad, and their families.
God bless all
those defending our freedom.
God bless America.
