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WASHINGTON, Jan. 22, 2005 – Two days after he was sworn in for a second term of office, President Bush promised to continue the fight against global terrorism.
America has proven "more than equal to the task" of combating terrorism since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, the president said during his weekly radio address today. "In response to attacks on our home soil," he observed, "we have captured or killed terrorists across the earth." The government also has "taken unprecedented steps to secure our homeland from future attacks," Bush pointed out, while U.S. troops "have liberated millions from oppression" as the result of operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. "We remain in a war," the president said, noting the U.S. military will continue combating overseas terrorists "so that we do not have to face them here at home." America will also "strive to keep the world's most dangerous weapons out of the hands of terrorists and tyrants," he stressed. Bush pledged continued support to the citizens of Afghanistan and Iraq "as they build free and democratic societies in their own lands, because when America gives its word, America must keep its word." Harking back to his Jan. 20 second inaugural address, Bush noted that America's homeland security "increasingly depends on the success of liberty abroad." Therefore, the president said, the United States will continue to promote freedom and democracy in the Middle East in efforts "to defeat the despair, hopelessness and resentments that feed terror."
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