America must always be the world's paramount military power. But we can magnify our power through alliances.

Under this [Bush] Administration, America's middle class has been abandoned -- its dreams denied, its Main Street interests ignored and its mainstream values scorned by a White House that puts privilege first.

It is the duty of any president, in the final analysis, to defend this nation and dispel the security threat. Saddam Hussein has brought military action upon himself by refusing for 12 years to comply with the mandates of the United Nations. The brave and capable men and women of our armed forces and those who are with us will quickly, I know, remove him once and for all as a threat to his neighbors, to the world, and to his own people, and I support their doing so.

We were sent to Vietnam to kill Communism. But we found instead that we were killing women and children.

I know that our country is strongest when we lead the world, when we lead strong alliances. And that's the way Eisenhower and Reagan and Kennedy and others did it.

I believe it is both unwise and even wrong to interfere in the affairs of other nations. Indeed, if we are honest, we will see that this is one of the reasons for 9-11.

An old American patriot described today’s situation very well. As America fought for its independence, Benjamin Franklin said, “we must all hang together, or assuredly, we shall all hang separately.”