State of the Union Address

STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS

Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, I congratulate my good friend from Utah on his evaluation of the President's outstanding State of the Union speech last night. I was just thinking that this probably is the 20th State of the Union I have had the privilege to witness and observe in the Chamber of the House of Representatives. None have been finer. Indeed, the moment that captured the evening was, of course, the embrace between Janet Norwood, mother of the marine who was killed in Fallujah, and the Iraqi woman whose father was killed by Saddam Hussein. The junior Senator from Utah has it exactly right: There was not a dry eye in the House. I watched a lot of really tough customers shedding tears on the floor of the House during that moment. But it summed it up, what this has all been about.

Of course, we went to war in Iraq to make ourselves safer, but there was another sort of collateral purpose. The President believes deeply--and I think the American people are beginning to get it--that when democracy takes root, the world is a safer place. And just look at the sweep of democracy in the last few months in the most unlikely places.

I had the opportunity to go back to Afghanistan a couple weeks ago. It was my second trip there. On my first trip driving from the airport to meet with President Karzai in downtown Kabul, the streets were largely silent--not many people out, almost no commerce visible. But 15 months later, in January of 2005, there are little stores springing up everywhere, traffic jams in Kabul. And people are clearly on an emotional high as a result of the extraordinary election they had last October 9 which included a virtual 80-percent turnout, including 82 percent of women in Afghanistan, of all places, where little girls were not even allowed to be in school a few years ago, a huge success story in one of the most backward and devastated countries in the world.

On the heels of an election in Georgia, which has had its problems getting started in the wake of the end of the Soviet Union, and the literal uprising in Ukraine, when there was an attempt to steal the election, to deny the will of the people, the Ukrainians rose up and even a supreme court in Ukraine, obviously beholden to the President who was in cahoots with those who were trying to steal the election, ruled against those trying to steal the election and said: We are going to have another election, which they did the day after Christmas. The forces of democracy rose up and took control of Ukraine for the first time since its freedom from the Soviet Union.

And the Palestinian territory--Palestinians used to Saddam-type elections, where there was a 99-percent turnout and no choice--had a real choice of who to lead the Palestinian Authority in the wake of Arafat's death. A man got elected who appears to be a reasonable leader, working hard with Prime Minister Sharon to try to achieve a lasting peace.

We wish Secretary of State Rice well as she departs today to go to the Middle East to meet with Sharon and Abu Mazen to see if they can finally get the roadmap back on track at a meeting with Abu Mazen and Ariel Sharon, not to mention last Sunday's inspirational election in Iraq. Many Members of the House of Representatives last night had inkstained index fingers themselves to sort of symbolize our enormous admiration for the extraordinary courage that it took to go out and vote in Iraq last Sunday.

The critics and naysayers will say the turnout was not what it should have been in the Sunni area. But the overall turnout was about what we had last year in this country. I am fairly confident almost nobody in America thought they might get shot if they went to the polls. So there was extraordinary courage, literally under fire, dancing in the streets, the waving of those inkstained index fingers all over the country. The Sunni turnout was not what it will be later, but the people building a democratic Iraq understand and will include an adequate number of Sunnis by appointment in the interim government.

And remember, there are going to be two more elections in Iraq this year. A constitution will be submitted to the voters of Iraq in October. It will not be ratified if only 3 provinces disapprove out of 18. At least four provinces are Sunni majority. That constitution will have to be crafted in such a way that the Sunni population of Iraq is comfortable with it, or it will not be ratified. The leaders of the emerging democracy in Iraq are all acutely aware of the need to respect the rights of minorities and to have proper balance in Iraq in order to have a governing democracy.

If we had any doubts they would make it, we don't have any now. Our friends and colleagues on the other side who have said the signal from the election is to leave have it exactly wrong. The President made it clear last night, and he was absolutely correct, that you never announce to your enemy when you are going to leave. We will leave Iraq one day, even though we are still in Germany and still in Japan some 60 years later; and we are nowhere in the world where we are not wanted. We will leave Iraq some day, when the Iraqi democracy has taken hold and when the Iraqi military and Iraqi police can provide for their own security--and not a day before that.

I had a chance to be in Iraq 2 weeks ago, too, for the second time. There was some nervousness, candidly, about this election. Nobody knew for sure how successful it would be. Carlos Valenzuela, from the U.N., an elections expert, was there and he said: ``This election is going to pass international standards, I am absolutely certain of it.'' This is a man who has been involved in conducting elections 14 times in difficult places around the world. He was totally confident 2 weeks before the election. He was right and the naysayers were wrong.

Even those who originally were between skeptical and hostile to the Iraq war we had an opportunity to sit down with on that same trip a couple weeks ago. We went back to Brussels with the NATO Ambassadors and a European representative. I think it is not an exaggeration to say that even the Ambassadors from France and Germany to NATO believe at this point that it is in everybody's interest for Iraq to be a success.

Who benefits by a failure in Iraq? No one but the terrorists. I think the President will find on his upcoming trip to Europe more interest in cooperating, in helping to move Iraq further down the road toward democracy.

So last night was indeed a celebration of the march of democratic forces in some of the most unusual places in the world over the last 4 months. The President went a step further, challenging our allies, the Saudis, to begin the march down the democratic path. Even our staunch ally, Egypt--he challenged them to begin a march in the democratic direction. The President deeply believes--and we are increasingly inclined to believe he is correct on a bipartisan basis--that the spread of democracy will make the world indeed safer.

Now, the President was, of course, criticized initially on Iraq for not being very multilateral, in spite of the fact that a majority of NATO countries supported the war and helped us. Nevertheless, he was criticized by some who, I guess, only feel that France and Germany are Europe and no one else counts, saying he was not multilateral enough. The President laid out last night a completely multilateral strategy related to the two most obvious rogue states left in the world, Iran and North Korea. The Germans, the French, and the British are leading the talks with the Iranians; and working with the North Koreans, we have the Russians, the Chinese, the South Koreans, the Japanese, and ourselves. That is the definition of a multilateral approach.

So the President develops his approaches depending upon the situation, and every situation is not exactly the same. He knows, and the new Secretary of State knows, we need significant international cooperation in order to achieve our goals in North Korea and in Iran. North Korea and Iran can take a look at Libya and see the rewards for going nonnuclear. To be welcomed into the community of responsible countries means trade benefits, it means an opportunity for interaction with the rest of the world, and a chance to improve the lives of the citizens through trade. There are a lot of advantages that I hope the leaders of North Korea and Iran will observe that Libya is going to begin to benefit from as a result of making the decision that maybe the Libyan people would be better off being engaged with the rest of the world, rather than having some weapons of mass destruction sitting there. For what purpose?

So enormous progress has been made in the last 4 years. The low point was 9/11. We all remember it well. But extraordinary progress toward a safer world and toward the spread of democracy has occurred under the extraordinary leadership of our President. We had a chance last night to celebrate that and to commend him for a job well done in last night's State of the Union.

I yield the floor.

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