North Korea

To stop and roll back North Korea’s potentially deadly nuclear program, we’ll continue to implement the agreement we have reached with that nation.  It’s smart, it’s tough, it’s a deal based on continuing inspection with safeguards for our allies and ourselves.

This year, I’ll submit to Congress comprehensive legislation to strengthen our hand in combating terrorists, whether they strike at home or abroad.  As the cowards who bombed the World Trade Center found out, this country will hunt down terrorists and bring them to justice.

Middle East

Just this week, another horrendous terrorist act in Israel killed 19 and injured scores more.  On behalf of the American people and all of you, I send our deepest sympathy to the families of the victims.  I know that in the face of such evil, it is hard for the people in the Middle East to go forward.  But the terrorists represent the past, not the future.  We must and we will pursue a comprehensive peace between Israel and all her neighbors in the Middle East.

Accordingly, last night I signed an executive order that will block the assets in the United States of terrorist organizations that threaten to disrupt the peace process.  It prohibits financial transactions with these groups.

And tonight I call on all our allies in peace-loving nations throughout the world to join us with renewed fervor in a global effort to combat terrorism, we cannot permit the future to be marred by terror and fear and paralysis.

Defense

From the day I took the oath of office, I pledged that our nation would maintain the best-equipped, best-trained and best-prepared military on earth.  We have and they are.  They have managed the dramatic downsizing of our forces after the cold war with remarkable skill and spirit.  But to make sure our military is ready for action and to provide the pay and the quality of life the military and their families deserve, I’m asking the Congress to add $ 25 billion in defense spending over the next six years.

I have visited many bases at home and around the world since I became President.  Tonight I repeat that request with renewed conviction.  We ask a very great deal of our armed forces.  Now that they are smaller in number, we ask more of them.  They go out more often to more different places and stay longer.  They are called to service in many, many ways, and we must give them and their families what the times demand and what they have earned.

Just think about what our troops have done in the last year, showing America at its best, helping to save hundreds of thousands of people in Rwanda, moving with lightning speed to head off another threat to Kuwait, giving freedom and democracy back to the people of Haiti.

We have proudly supported peace and prosperity and freedom from South Africa to Northern Ireland, from Central and Eastern Europe to Asia, from Latin America to the Middle East.  All these endeavors are good in those places but they make our future more confident and more secure.