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For Immediate Release
April 11, 2003

Global Message

The regime of Saddam Hussein is being removed from power, and a long era of fear and cruelty is ending. Coalition forces are now operating inside Baghdad - and we will not stop until Saddam's corrupt gang is gone. The government of Iraq, and the future of your country, will soon belong to you.

The goals of our Coalition are clear and limited. Coalition forces will help maintain law and order. We will respect your great religious traditions, whose principles of equality and compassion are essential to Iraq's future. We will help you build a peaceful and representative government that protects the rights of all citizens. And then our military forces will leave. Iraq will go forward as a unified and sovereign nation that has regained a respected place in the world.

The United States and its Coalition partners respect the people of Iraq. We are taking unprecedented measures to spare the lives of innocent Iraqis, and are beginning to deliver food, water and medicine to those in need. Our only enemy is Saddam's brutal regime.

In the new era that is coming to Iraq, you will be free to build a better life, and all the people who make up your country - Kurds, Shi'a, Turkomans, Sunnis, and others - will be free of the terrible persecution so many have endured.

Iraqis are a good and gifted people - the heirs of a great civilization that contributes to all humanity. You deserve better than tyranny and corruption and torture chambers. You deserve to live as free people.