Bush explains "strategy for victory in Iraq" to CFR gathering.

In 1998, President Bill Clinton became the first sitting U.S. president to address the Council on Foreign Relations, although five previous presidents had spoken to the group before or after their White House terms of office. On December 7--Pearl Harbor Day--President Bush became the seventh president and the second sitting president to address the CFR, known to savvy political observers as "America's ruling class," "the international Power Elite," "America's secret shadow government," and other similar appellations.

"The Council is one of America's oldest and most admired foreign policy organizations, and I appreciate the chance to come and talk about foreign policy," Bush told the CFR crowd at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C., before launching into a defense of his Iraq War strategy.

"By fighting the terrorists in Iraq," President Bush said, "we are confronting a direct threat to the American people--and we will accept nothing less than complete victory.... Victory will be achieved when the terrorists and Saddamists can no longer threaten Iraq's democracy, when the Iraqi security forces can provide for the safety of their own citizens, and when Iraq is not a safe haven for terrorists to plot new attacks against our nation."