For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office • Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov • Phone: (202) 512–1800 • Fax: (202) 512–2250 • Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20401 Foreword This volume brings together my speeches and papers from the first half of 2002a time of hard effort and achievement for our country. In the fall of 2001, I ordered our Armed Forces into battle in Afghanistan, with the mission of destroying terrorist training camps and removing the Taliban regime from power. Within 4 months after our Nation was attacked by terrorists, a coalition led by America had destroyed the training grounds of terror and liberated the Afghan people from the brutal rule of the Taliban. Working with a new interim government in Afghanistan, we began the work of building a democratic and peaceful nation. Military success in Afghanistan was one advance in America's broader war against terrorists and terror regimes. Across the world, from the Philippines to Africa, we continued to pursue the terrorists, to deny them funding, and to disrupt their operations. America made clear that the state sponsors of terror would be held to account-and I expressed our national determination to prevent terrorists from gaining weapons of mass destruction. In the first 6 months of 2002, America took unprecedented steps to defend our homeland and our people, changes that would soon lead to the establishment of the Department of Homeland Security. As we answered threats to our security, America took determined action to overcome the economic slowdown that had begun in 2000. My Administration worked with the Congress in extending unemployment benefits, to give extra help to citizens still looking for work. We passed tax relief, helping to create new jobs across the American economy. And we enacted serious reforms to stop the corporate abuses that had come to light in early 2002. One of the most significant domestic achievements recorded in this volume was the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. Passed with bipartisan support in the Congress, this legislation promised to reverse old trends by requiring testing, measuring the progress of every student, and reporting results to parents. This law also made sure that the parents of children in poorly performing schools would have choices, whether tutoring, a charter school, or a higher achieving public school. After years of debate, the crucial principles of high standards and accountability were now the law of the land. Our Government made progress on other important priorities. We continued to call for reform in America's welfare system, to give job training and new opportunities to Americans in need. I continued to advocate my Administration's faith-based initiatives to encourage the compassionate work of religious people in their communities. We pressed for passage of a comprehensive energy plan to encourage conservation, promote domestic energy exploration, and modernize our aging electricity grid. And we moved forward with policies to protect our national parks and to safeguard our forests from catastrophic wildfires. This period in our country's history brought many challenges, and we responded actively at home and abroad. We also continued to put in place strategies that would help America respond to future dangers. And we upheld our foremost duty to protect the American people from harm. As I said to the U.S. Military Academy class of 2002, "In the world we have entered, the only path to safety is the path of action. And this Nation will act." затве Be Preface This book contains the papers and speeches of the 43d President of the United States that were issued by the Office of the Press Secretary during the period January 1-June 30, 2002. The material has been compiled and published by the Office of the Federal Register, National Archives and Records Administration. The material is presented in chronological order, and the dates shown in the headings are the dates of the documents or events. In instances when the release date differs from the date of the document itself, that fact is shown in the textnote. Every effort has been made to ensure accuracy: Remarks are checked against a tape recording, and signed documents are checked against the original. Textnotes and cross references have been provided by the editors for purposes of identification or clarity. Speeches were delivered in Washington, DC, unless indicated. The times noted are local times. All materials that are printed full-text in the book have been indexed in the subject and name indexes, and listed in the document categories list. The Public Papers of the Presidents series was begun in 1957 in response to a recommendation of the National Historical Publications Commission. An extensive compilation of messages and papers of the Presidents covering the period 1789 to 1897 was assembled by James D. Richardson and published under congressional authority between 1896 and 1899. Since then, various private compilations have been issued, but there was no uniform publication comparable to the Congressional Record or the United States Supreme Court Reports. Many Presidential papers could be found only in the form of mimeographed White House releases or as reported in the press. The Commission therefore recommended the establishment of an official series in which Presidential writings, addresses, and remarks of a public nature could be made available. The Commission's recommendation was incorporated in regulations of the Administrative Committee of the Federal Register, issued under section 6 of the Federal Register Act (44 U.S.C. 1506), which may be found in title 1, part 10, of the Code of Federal Regulations. A companion publication to the Public Papers series, the Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, was begun in 1965 to provide a broader range of Presidential materials on a more timely basis to meet the needs of the contemporary reader. Beginning with the administration of Jimmy Carter, the Public Papers series expanded its coverage to include additional material as printed in the Weekly Compilation. That coverage provides a listing of the President's daily schedule and meetings, when announced, and other items of general interest issued by the Office of the Press Secretary. Also included are lists of the President's nominations submitted to the Senate, materials released by the Office of the Press Secretary that are not printed full-text in the book, and proclamations, Executive orders, and other Presidential documents released by the Office of the Press Secretary and published in the Federal Register. This information appears in the appendixes at the end of the book. Volumes covering the administrations of Presidents Herbert Hoover, Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald R. Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George Bush, and William J. Clinton are also included in the Public Papers series. The Public Papers of the Presidents publication program is under the direction of Frances D. McDonald, Managing Editor, Office of the Federal Register. The series is produced by the Presidential and Legislative Publications Unit, Gwendolyn J. Henderson, Chief. The Chief Editor of this book was Karen Howard Ashlin, assisted by Kathleen M. Fargey, Stephen J. Frattini, Christopher Gushman, Margaret A. Hemmig, Maxine Hill, Alfred Jones, Stacey A. Mulligan, Lydia C. Poon, Michael J. Sullivan, and Karen A. Thornton. The frontispiece and photographs used in the portfolio were supplied by the White House Photo Office. The typography and design of the book were developed by the Government Printing Office under the direction of Bruce R. James, Public Printer. Raymond A. Mosley Director of the Federal Register John W. Carlin Archivist of the United States |