OpinionJournal - Our Coalition - by Condoleezza Rice

WASHINGTON--The coalition that is currently engaged in the hard, dangerous work to disarm Iraq is strong, broad and diverse.


Nearly 50 nations are committed to ridding Saddam Hussein's regime of all its deadly, destructive and illegal weapons. To put this in perspective, the combined population of coalition countries is approximately 1.23 billion people, with a combined gross domestic product of approximately $22 trillion. These countries are from every continent on the globe, representing every major race, religion, and ethnicity in the world.


Diverse as this coalition is, each member shares a common goal. We seek nothing less than safety for our people. Many members have suffered from terror themselves; all understand the awful price of terrorism and the potentially catastrophic danger from weapons of mass destruction.


But, vitally, all have the will to face the gravest threat of our time--the nexus between outlaw regimes, weapons of mass destruction, and terrorism. The world has seen what happens when countries that recognize emerging or present threats lack the will to meet them. Many times in the last century--and as recently as the last decade--the world failed to act in time to prevent a crisis or meet a threat. Some of the members of this current coalition had to live with the deadly and dreadful consequences of that failure for decades.


Some have only recently emerged from tyrannies imposed in no small part because of that failure. Months ago, the prime minister of Estonia told President Bush that he did not need an explanation of the need to confront Iraq. Because the great democracies failed to act in 1930s, his people lived in slavery for 50 years.


The members of this coalition have not failed to act. They are contributing different personnel, services and materials, according to their means and expertise. The British 1st Armored Division is engaging well-equipped Iraqi units in the southeast, and securing the southern oil field and the vital port city of Umm Qasr, through which tons of humanitarian aid will soon flow. The Australian navy is providing gunfire support to coalition troops in Southern Iraq, and clearing the port of Umm Qasr of mines. Polish special forces have secured a key Iraqi oil platform in the Gulf. A Danish submarine is monitoring Iraqi intelligence and providing early warning. Czech and Slovak special chemical and biological weapon response forces are in Kuwait, ready to react to a potential Iraqi WMD attack anywhere in the theater.[...]