The 2003 State of the Union Address was given by the 43rd

president of the United States The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the Federal government of the United States#Executive branch, executive branch of the Federal gove ...

, George W. Bush, on January 28, 2003, at 9:00 p.m. EST, in the chamber of the

United States House of Representatives The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the Senate being the upper chamber. Together they ...

to the

108th United States Congress The 108th United States Congress was a meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, composed of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives from January 3, 2003 to January 3, 2005, during ...

. It was Bush's second

State of the Union Address The State of the Union Address (sometimes abbreviated to SOTU) is an annual message delivered by the president of the United States to a joint session of the United States Congress near the beginning of each calendar year on the current conditi ...

and his third speech to a

joint session of the United States Congress A joint session of the United States Congress is a gathering of members of the two chambers of the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States: the Senate and the House of Representatives. Joint sessions can be held on a ...

. Presiding over this joint session was the House speaker,

Dennis Hastert John Dennis Hastert (; born January 2, 1942) is an American former politician and convicted felon who represented from 1987 to 2007 and served as the 51st speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 1999 to 2007. The longest-se ...

, accompanied by

Dick Cheney Richard Bruce Cheney ( ; born January 30, 1941) is an American politician and businessman who served as the 46th vice president of the United States from 2001 to 2009 under President George W. Bush. He is currently the oldest living former ...

, the

vice president A vice president, also director in British English, is an officer in government or business who is below the president (chief executive officer) in rank. It can also refer to executive vice presidents, signifying that the vice president is on ...

, in his capacity as the

president of the Senate President of the Senate is a title often given to the presiding officer of a senate. It corresponds to the speaker in some other assemblies. The senate president often ranks high in a jurisdiction's succession for its top executive office: for ex ...

. It outlined justifications for the

2003 invasion of Iraq The 2003 invasion of Iraq was a United States-led invasion of the Republic of Iraq and the first stage of the Iraq War. The invasion phase began on 19 March 2003 (air) and 20 March 2003 (ground) and lasted just over one month, including ...

. It began his discussion of the "

war on terror The war on terror, officially the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT), is an ongoing international counterterrorism military campaign initiated by the United States following the September 11 attacks. The main targets of the campaign are militant ...

" by asserting, as he had after September 11, 2001 and in his previous State of the Union, that "the gravest danger facing America and the world, is outlaw regimes that seek and possess nuclear, chemical and biological weapons." In 2002, Bush had laid out the "

Axis of Evil The phrase "axis of evil" was first used by U.S. President George W. Bush and originally referred to Iran, Iraq, and North Korea. It was used in Bush's State of the Union address on January 29, 2002, less than five months after the 9/11 attac ...

", touching on

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and

North Korea North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korean Peninsula and shares borders with China and Russia to the north, at the Yalu (Amnok) and T ...

before elaborating on

Iraq Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...

. The 2003 speech would focus entirely on Iraq, in parallel with an ongoing campaign in the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoni ...

for support on an Iraq intervention. Bush said that

Saddam Hussein Saddam Hussein ( ; ar, صدام حسين, Ṣaddām Ḥusayn; 28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was an Iraqi politician who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003. A leading member of the revolutio ...

, "a brutal dictator, with a history of reckless aggression, with ties to terrorism, with great potential wealth, will not be permitted to dominate a vital region and threaten the United States." In this context, Bush also said, "The

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

government has learned that

recently sought significant quantities of

uranium Uranium is a chemical element with the symbol U and atomic number 92. It is a silvery-grey metal in the actinide series of the periodic table. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons. Uranium is weak ...

from

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," a line which became a source of contention in the later

Plame affair The Plame affair (also known as the CIA leak scandal and Plamegate) was a political scandal that revolved around journalist Robert Novak's public identification of Valerie Plame as a covert Central Intelligence Agency officer in 2003. In 2002, ...

. The domestic brutality of Hussein and the benefits of liberty and freedom for the Iraqi people were briefly noted near the end of the speech. He began with, "In all these days of promise and days of reckoning, we can be confident. In a

whirlwind A whirlwind is a weather phenomenon in which a vortex of wind (a vertically oriented rotating column of air) forms due to instabilities and turbulence created by heating and flow (current) gradients. Whirlwinds occur all over the world and i ...

of change and hope and peril, our faith is sure, our resolve is firm, and our union is strong." In the middle of the speech, he said, "In Afghanistan, we helped liberate an oppressed people. And we will continue helping them secure their country, rebuild their society, and educate all their children — boys and girls." He ended with, "Americans are a free people, who know that freedom is the right of every person and the future of every nation. The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world, it is God's gift to humanity." He spoke to the

. Just before the President addressed Iraq in the speech, he spent five paragraphs addressing his initiative to fight AIDS in Africa.
Give Us The Money
' (documentary film),

Bosse Lindquist Bosse Lindquist (born 1954) is a Swedish radio and TV producer and writer. Since 2012, he directs investigative documentaries for Swedish Television's documentary department. From 2007 to 2009, Lindquist was head of the national radio broadcaste ...

, director; ITVS, premiered November 26, 2012 on Global Voices, PBS. Viewed 2013-04-07 via

MPBN The Maine Public Broadcasting Network (abbreviated MPBN and branded as Maine Public) is a state network of public television and radio stations located in the U.S. state of Maine. It is operated by the Maine Public Broadcasting Corporation, whic ...

. The Democratic response was given by then

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...

Governor A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, ranking under the head of state and in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of state's official representative. Depending on the type of political ...

Gary Locke Gary Faye Locke (born January 21, 1950) is an American politician and diplomat serving as the interim president of Bellevue College, the largest of the institutions that make up the Washington Community and Technical Colleges system. Locke se ...

, who was appointed to be United States Ambassador to China in 2011.

References

UC Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Barbara, California with 23,196 undergraduates and 2,983 graduate students enrolled in 2021–2022. It is part of the U ...

Audio of Bush's Second State of the Union Address
{{George W. Bush State of the Union Address 2003

Presidency of George W. Bush State of the Union Address 2003

2003 File:2003 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The crew of STS-107 perished when the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated during reentry into Earth's atmosphere; SARS became an epidemic in China, and was a precursor to SARS-CoV-2; A ...

War on terror Causes and prelude of the Iraq War

See also

References

External links