THE GREATEST YEAR FOR FREEDOM

EVEN if terrorists attack our homeland before the stroke of midnight, 2003 will still have been a year of remarkable progress on every front in the global War on Terror - and the greatest year for freedom since the Soviet Union's collapse.

A decisive government in Washington, backed by the courage and common sense of the American people, worked with allies around the world to carry the fight to the terrorists' home ground. We continued to seize the strategic initiative from the most implacable enemies America has ever faced.

Unless we choose to defeat ourselves, there is no chance of a final terrorist victory...

Consider just a few of our achievements:

* We deposed and captured one of the world's worst tyrants, liberating 25 million people and demonstrating the inherent weakness of dictatorships.

In doing so, we destroyed a regime that had terrorized its own people and the region. We drew an unmistakable line between America's reinvigorated support for the liberation of the oppressed and "old Europe's" cynical defense of the status quo.