We believe, as the President has indicated, that this combination of a rogue state that possesses weapons of mass destruction and has known ties to terrorist organizations, is a grave threat to the people of the United States and to other countries around the world.

The agreement to place the binational planning group at our new Northern Command was also signed in December.

This war in Iraq is part of a larger effort to remove this terrorist threat from the planet.

We saw when those World Trade towers came down what these terrorists will do.

We are also looking to Canada as we continue to integrate the North American energy market.

We want to look at how we would respond because, as hard as we work to prevent terrorist attacks here North America, if we have a catastrophic terrorist attack, it is the military that is going to have to go in at the request of civilian authorities.

I do want to try to put things in perspective today relative to the U.S.-Canada relationship. I would like to start by talking about how important this relationship is to the people of the United States.