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Edward’s foreign policy speech: (12/15/2003)

Sen. John Edwards in Cedar Rapids offered his own foreign policy address on the same day that Howard Dean is to make his foreign policy address in California. Here is the text of the speech:

It has been nothing short of an extraordinary 48 hours. On Sunday, Americans and people all over the world awoke to the good news that Saddam Hussein is no longer free. But no people were happier to learn of his capture than the Iraqi people who endured his torture and oppression for decades. They have been waiting to hear of his arrest and we are all grateful that they finally received this welcomed news. And we are all so proud of our military serving for their efforts, not just today, but every day as they work tirelessly to bring stability to Iraq.

This is an historic opportunity: an opportunity to bring tolerance and freedom to the Middle East and to change course in Iraq. We must look forward and look for common sense steps we can take today to ensure that freedom triumphs for the Iraqi people.

First, we must ensure that Saddam Hussein cooperates with us fully by telling us where his loyalists and remaining fighters are hiding so we can improve security in Iraq. And he must give us the complete status of his weapons of mass destruction program.

Second, the way Saddam Hussein is prosecuted will either cement, or fatally undermine, confidence in the rule of law in Iraq. It will either prove once and for all to people in the Arab world that Saddam was a monster, or reinforce mistrust of our policies and our judgments about Saddam's regime. Any tribunal that prosecutes Saddam Hussein will therefore have to meet world-class standards of fairness and be seen as legitimate by both the Iraqi people and the international community. I do not believe that the Bush administration's plans to turn the entire process of justice over to the Iraqi Governing Council will meet that standard.

Prosecuting Saddam is not like restoring electricity or picking up the garbage -- it is one of the most politically sensitive and complex tasks facing a post-Saddam Iraq. Giving that task in its entirety to a Council that is neither elected nor sovereign, whose members were handpicked by the United States, diminishes the likelihood that trials will be seen as legitimate. Yes, Iraqis should take the lead in coming to terms with their own past. But they should do so with the assistance and the involvement of the international community, including the United Nations.

And finally, as Secretary Baker travels through Europe to encourage our allies to forgive Iraq's debts, the Bush administration needs to overturn the recent order excluding countries from participating in Iraq's reconstruction.

The events of the last two days show us just how fast the landscape abroad and here at home can change. While I know that capturing Saddam Hussein does not end the danger in Iraq, I believe that it has kicked the door wide-open for all of us to hope that sooner and not later-democracy will thrive for the Iraqi people.

And I can think of no better place to talk about this hope for the future and our mission than with you. It is an honor to be here with students and teachers from the Des Moines' public schools, and other friends to talk about these historic challenges for our nation.

It was during the 1960 presidential campaign when then candidate John F. Kennedy stood at the rear of his campaign train and delivered one of his major foreign policy speeches, "Pathways to Peace." He did not stand at a think tank in Washington D.C. He did not address a policy group in a bigger city, and he did not travel thousands of miles away to another country to tell the American people how he planned to make us safer and stronger. He went west and spoke directly to the people of Fresno, California.

This is how we should speak about America's role in the world-in personal settings with young people and old; schoolteachers and students; businessmen and nurses. For your lives are the ones affected the most by the decisions and direction a president takes our great nation. Many of the books that surround us in this library, teach us invaluable lessons. When we face challenges alone, more often than not we fail. When we shut out most of the world, our challenges are twice as hard. And when we discard our common sense, we lose sight of the future.

There are a lot of grand theories about how best to conduct our foreign policy. But it seems to me that much of foreign policy-like much of life-boils down to good judgment, common sense, and common decency. We use them in our daily lives and we should use them in America's common defense as well. That is why it is critical in these challenging times that people like me talk to you, directly. That we get out of the typical settings and trappings of Washington and do more than continue an ongoing dialogue between the so-called best and the brightest in our nation's capital and in capitals around the world-we talk with the American people about our vision for the country.

Foreign policy, just like domestic policy, is about improving people's lives. It is about expanding opportunity. The opportunity to make America stronger, safer, and more secure. And the opportunity to stand for values like tolerance, freedom, and democracy around the world.

How our leaders meet these challenges has a profound connection to your lives. Here in Iowa, I know that for many our new war on terrorism has taken its toll. Hundreds of families are without their loved ones at this hour, and many have had to say one final good bye. And I know that more than 1,000 people turned out in Tipton, Iowa to say good-bye to Aaron Sissel from the Iowa National Guard's 2133rd Transportation Company. He was the ninth Iowan to die in Iraq. While we miss them all, we are so grateful for their service.

No matter our differences when it comes to Iraq, we all share great pride for our men and women in uniform who serve their country with such honor. And our thoughts and prayers are with them and their families, especially those serving in the Iowa's National Guard.

When President Kennedy gave that speech in California, he said something that is worth repeating again as we debate and discuss our challenges. I am sure some of you have already seen the ads by the Republican National Committee. Well, that is just a taste of what they plan to offer in 2004. They intend to use the old stereotypes that divide us and say that questioning this president's foreign policy is unpatriotic.

We will counter their divisive ways with better ideas and a forward-looking agenda. As President Kennedy said, "There is no one "party of peace" in this country-just as there is no "war party" or "party of appeasement." The sooner we get these artificial labels out of the way, the sooner we can get down to discussing the real issues. For, while both parties talk about peace, peace is not going to be won merely talking by about it. It requires action-and the Democratic Party believes in action."

The time has come for us to offer more than just our anger and criticism; we must offer the American people a better way. Every candidate running for president, and every critic of this administration agrees that their unilateralist, arrogant, and shortsighted approach to foreign policy has led us in the wrong direction. They have tarnished our image, disrespected our allies, and squandered a sense of goodwill for no purpose. I will show the American people-especially our young people-that ideas and actions, not anger and arrogance, will once again lead America back on the path toward peace, security, and strength.

As I travel around our country, I know that you are worried about the threats posed by terrorists who have attacked us on our own soil and threaten to do so again. You are concerned about the possibility that our enemies will gain access to weapons of mass murder and use them. You are upset that American policies are opposed and resented in many parts of the world even among longtime friends. You want to know how we can restore respect for America overseas; and how we can persuade others to stand with us to meet the most fundamental challenges we face.

As your president, I will bolster our effort to defeat terror. I will work with the world to transform the underlying conditions of tyranny that nourish the strength of our enemies and crush the hopes of friends, and I will take real action to keep the world's most dangerous weapons from falling into the wrong hands.

And that is what I want to talk to you about today. One of our most pressing challenges is to diminish the threat posed by the spread of weapons of mass destruction, especially nuclear weapons.

During the Cold War, these weapons were primarily a problem for the major military powers, to handle through maintaining deterrence; arms control negotiations and superpower summits. But today, we face a terrorist movement that has no interest in bargaining, only in killing. If Al Qaeda had possessed a nuclear, chemical or biological weapon on September 11th, there is no doubt in my mind they would have tried to use it. That is why to win the global war on terror, America does not need a new doctrine of pre-emption; we need a new strategy of prevention.

We face an increased threat from hostile governments in countries like North Korea and Iran. Time and technology have enabled both to take steps toward the development of nuclear arms; and North Korea may already have succeeded. These states and others also have the capacity to produce and sell dangerous technologies to terrorists intent on doing us harm. At the same time, the source materials for producing weapons of mass destruction have become vulnerable to theft or black-market sale, particularly in the former Soviet Union.

Meanwhile, the international rules and institutions we rely on to stymie and isolate wrong-doers are riddled with loopholes and gaps. The Bush administration has responded by pretending that these rules and institutions do not matter. I say they do matter, and that the right policy is not to ignore them, but to fix them.

But has this administration taken any common sense steps to secure these weapons? Have we provided adequate funding for programs to stop their spread ? Have we worked every angle to stop North Korea's and Iran's nuclear programs? Have we put our weight behind strengthening the Biological Weapons Convention? Did we support the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty? The answer to each question is no.

This administration's approach to protecting America from weapons of mass destruction can be summed up simply: wait until our enemies gather strength, and then use force to stop them. We should be exercising every option we have to stop the spread of deadly weapons before war becomes our only option.

As president, here is the strategy I would pursue:

First, rather than run from international efforts to halt the spread of dangerous weapons, I will lead in modernizing and strengthening those efforts - beginning with one of the most important - the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. For more than three decades, the NPT has served as the cornerstone of our global strategy to limit the spread of nuclear arms. But the world has changed considerably in three decades, and the NPT needs to be reinforced.

Right now it is too easy for a country to cheat or use a legal civilian power program as the jumping off point for an illegal military one; by withdrawing from the Treaty on short notice and having a weapons capability within months. We cannot accept the false choice between the administration's dangerous doctrine of preemption and a multilateral regime that isn't up to the current challenge.

That is why I will create a Global Nuclear Compact to reinforce the NPT. The Compact will close the loophole that allows civilian nuclear programs to go military. We must reinforce the NPT by creating a Global Nuclear Compact to meet the needs of our times-keeping the capabilities and materials required to make the world's worst weapons out of the wrong hands.

Within six months of taking office, I will convene a summit of leading nations to develop a new Global Nuclear Compact.

I envision a plan that will: increase the international community's role in providing access to fuel for peaceful nuclear programs and for reacquiring and storing the dangerous wastes produced by them; limit the capabilities of states to make such materials; increase security for existing stocks of dangerous nuclear materials; enforce strict monitoring to ensure that materials are not being diverted and facilities not being misused; give international experts the authority to inspect without notice, and make clear that any country that joins the NPT, and then opts out, or that violates the rules of the Global Compact, will be subject to strong, immediate and multilateral penalties aimed specifically at its military capabilities.

Second, I will use the full range of national security tools-and develop new ones-to prevent states like North Korea from developing or acquiring nuclear weapons. While this administration argued about what to do, North Korea ejected international inspectors, and unsealed 8000 fuel rods for the express purpose of reprocessing plutonium to build nuclear arms.

This administration does not have a coherent strategy for North Korea. All they are trying to do is persuade China to put pressure on North Korea. This is not a serious strategy to protect America.

As president I will work with our closest allies like South Korea and Japan, to develop a serious plan for ending their destabilizing weapons programs and exports-a plan that includes carrots and sticks. We will verify that North Korea is complying and there will be real consequences if they do not. And I will also work with them to develop long-term strategy for the political and economic transformation of North Korea toward democracy and freedom.

I will also develop new tools to deal with proliferation threats like North Korea. Almost one year ago, the United States intercepted a North Korean freighter carrying missiles to the Middle East and then let it go because the shipment did not violate international law. What it did violate was common sense. Countries like North Korea that don't play by international rules shouldn't be allowed to profit from them.

I will work through the UN Security Council and other mechanisms to establish the principle in international law that countries that sponsor terrorism or willfully violate non-proliferation treaties like the NPT should be treated like the criminals they are.

That means the loss of certain rights, including the right to sell or transfer deadly weapons or related materials to other nations or groups. To enforce this principle, law-abiding nations would have the right to search ships, aircraft and land vehicles originating in these lawless countries.

Third, I will end the danger posed by loose nukes in the former Soviet Union and around the world.

More than a decade has elapsed since the fall of the Berlin Wall, and yet still, 20,000 nuclear warheads and enough other material to produce more than 60,000 Hiroshima-size bombs remain at risk in Russia. Weapons facilities and labs are poorly protected and nuclear scientists are out of work, their services up for sale to the highest bidder. A recent study concluded that 60 percent of Russia's nuclear materials have not been secured, making Russia the Home Depot for terrorists.

Instead of living with this danger for the next three decades or more, I will eliminate it before another decade has passed by simply making it a priority. Not just in rhetoric, but by tripling the amount of money we spend each year. Even with this increase, that will be less than 1 percent of what we spend annually on our entire defense budget.

We pay for this long-term solution to our safety by canceling the Bush administration's plan to create a whole new generation of "bunker-busting" nuclear weapons we don't need, and reducing the more than $9 billion we are spending each year to build a missile defense system that so far has succeeded in shooting down only one thing - the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.

While we need to maintain deterrence and keep a strong defense, it doesn't make sense to spend nine times as much on one program that might work some day than we spend on all the other programs that do work today to protect our citizens from weapons of mass destruction.

I also believe that securing Russia's weapons is not a burden the United States should carry alone. As president, I will work with our friends and allies around the globe to get them to pay their fair share of this burden, including by fully implementing the G-8 agreement reached last year on a Global Partnership against the Spread of Weapons of Mass Destruction. We should also work to expand these threat reduction programs beyond the former Soviet Union - to places like India and Pakistan. Our goals should be a global clean-out, eliminating nuclear materials from vulnerable sites.

Fourth, I will lead in improving our nation's capacity to understand and respond to WMD threats. The September 11 attacks and the intelligence fiasco in Iraq are evidence of the challenges we face and of the urgency of reform. Real questions have been raised about the accuracy and ability of our intelligence community to understand the threats before us, especially concerning terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. Our intelligence community is suffering not just from a crisis of confidence - in many ways it is suffering a crisis of competence.

Some want to pin all the blame for our problems on the intelligence community. But accountability resides in the Oval Office. Rather than try to understand how our intelligence should be improved, this administration initially opposed an independent inquiry into the events leading to 9/11.

It opposed an investigation into the intelligence failure in Iraq. And its officials have apparently leaked classified information to discredit critics and spin its own highly inventive notions of the truth. Intelligence information is not something a president uses for propaganda or to score political points. It is a precious tool for keeping our citizens safe and sustaining our credibility abroad.

As a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, I have spent years studying our intelligence community, and I understand its strengths and weaknesses. That is why I want to shift the authority for tracking down terrorists here at home from the FBI to a new agency. That agency should have a mandate, the mission and the institutional culture needed to assault terror without assaulting the constitution of the United States.

I will also upgrade our capacity to understand and analyze information related to the unique threats posed by these weapons. I will order the hiring of more analysts with the right kind of scientific and technological training and backgrounds and language skills. And I will institute reforms to improve both our technical and human intelligence concerning these weapons.

And finally, I will make sure that, as president, I have the best advice possible to deal with these threats. I will appoint a high-level "Non-Proliferation Director" who will bring focus and energy to our non-proliferation efforts. We have one person in charge of homeland security, one person who leads our fight against drugs and a single administrator in Iraq, but no one person or office in charge of dealing with the challenge of non-proliferation.. As president, I will make sure that we have someone who wakes up every morning thinking about how to keep WMD out of the hands of terrorists and others who wish us harm.

These five concrete steps are where I would begin to protect America from the threat posed by weapons of mass destruction. But I would also support other measures that this administration has rejected, including the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and efforts to strengthen the Biological Weapons Convention.

The threat we face is obvious. The need for such a comprehensive strategy has long been self-evident. It requires action on multiple fronts in dozens of countries. It demands that we use every tool in our national security arsenal - deploying foreign aid, engaging multilateral institutions, conducting diplomacy, applying sanctions, threatening and sometimes using force.

It requires sustained, consistent leadership-leadership that we have not had from this administration. And it will require a lot more than simply getting rid of one Middle Eastern dictator. It was great news for the Iraqi people, the world, and the United States that Saddam Hussein was captured. But that alone is no substitute for a comprehensive strategy to deal with the world's most dangerous weapons, no matter how welcome the news.

A one-dimensional foreign policy for a three-dimensional world will not secure our nation. And without our long-standing allies by our side, we cannot stop proliferation at the source. We need them to shut down smuggling networks, enforce international rules, support economic sanctions, and with us should force become necessary. We need more than coalitions of the willing; we need coalitions of the able.

I will always lead in away that brings others to us so that we can protect America from the threat of weapons of mass destruction. So we can succeed in Iraq and Afghanistan. So we can win the war against terrorism. And so we can help foster democracy and freedom and human rights throughout the Middle East and the world.

However, as President Bush said in his recent speech at that the National Endowment for Democracy, we can never defeat violent terror so long as hundreds of millions of people in the Muslim world are denied the right to express themselves peacefully and democratically. This is the right message, but he is the wrong messenger.

Because you can't promote freedom without the support of free countries around the world. You can't promote freedom if you're not respected by the dissidents and democrats who are struggling to be free. Right now democrats in the Arab world simply do not see the U.S. as a credible champion of their cause. They know the Bush administration itself has set a miserable example on civil liberties and human rights here at home; they have seen us abandon America's traditional as a peacemaker in the Middle East.

That is why I would go far beyond the policy President Bush hinted at in his speech. I would increase funding for democracy assistance programs in the Middle East, Central, South and Southeast Asia. I would make clear to authoritarian governments in the Middle East that the benefits they have long enjoyed from the United States, including foreign aid and trade agreements, will no longer be provided unconditionally.

But I would also approach this challenge with a sense of realism and seriousness. I know that meeting it will require the personal leadership and engagement of the president, who must be willing to travel, to speak directly to the people of the Muslim world, to express America's purpose in terms that show respect for their history, understanding of their cultures, and sensitivity to their grievances. It will require new ideas, innovative collaboration with our allies, and bipartisan support here at home. Most of all, we will need to understand that success ultimately depends not on what we dictate but on what the people of this vastly diverse region decide.

We can employ our influence but we cannot impose our vision. And to employ our influence, we need to restore respect for America in the Middle East and around the world; we need to regain our capacity for leadership. There is no question that America is a military power this world has never seen. And I will keep our military strong - with the resources to do its job - and treat America's military men and women with the support and respect they've earned.

But leadership isn't just military power and strength. It's about convincing others that fighting terrorism and defending freedom is right. That fighting poverty and preventing the spread of HIV/AIDS are efforts the world should undertake together. This does not mean that the international institutions and alliances that served America's interests so well for decades are perfect. They're not. But rather than disregard or undermine them, we should lead the effort to make our alliances better and relevant for the threats we now face.

President Clinton realized this when he transformed NATO into an alliance of the 21st Century with new members and new missions. NATO is now in command of the security force in Afghanistan -- and I believe that we should turn to NATO for help in Iraq.

We also need a bold new approach toward the United Nations - an institution that, for all its flaws, remains indispensable to protecting America's interests abroad. American leadership created the UN, and it will take American leadership to transform it. I will work to redefine not just America's role in the UN, but the organization itself. This includes working with the superb Secretary General, Kofi Annan, to implement many of the reforms he has proposed, as well as proposals to help make the UN more reflective of world realities and more effective in handling 21st century challenges like terrorism.

To meet these global challenges, it will take hard work, sacrifice, and courage. All of these steps I will begin as your president. I plan to accomplish as much as I can, but this common cause will continue for years to come. And the young people here today will carry on our efforts. They will do so with humility, not arrogance, with intelligence, not ideology, and with their energy to enrich the quality of life in our country and around the world.

I do not promise that success will be easy or quick. The keys to the White House do not come with a magic wand. I do not pledge that we won't face difficult choices, like the one we have confronted over Iraq. Nor do I promise our friends and allies around the world that America will ask less of them. The fact is that the less we have been willing to share responsibility with our allies, the easier it has become for some of those allies to evade responsibility, to avoid having to contribute money and troops and ideas to common endeavors.

But I do promise to offer my own faith in the power of American ideals and the strength of good people acting together, doing what is right to secure our future.

As president, I will summon the best from every country to link their strengths with ours, so that together we may defeat the destructive purposes of our adversaries and prevail in our purpose of building a freer and more just future for ourselves and for all people.

And that effort starts today in this library here in Iowa. I have come to share my ideas with you and ask for your support to do these very things for our country and our world. These ideas and policies aren't abstract or foreign at all. But common sense measures we can take together to change our country and secure a lasting peace around the world. Thank you very much.

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