The World and Everything in It: March 20, 2023

PREROLL: The World and Everything in It is made possible by listeners like me. Hi, my name is Kate Rhea. I’m a 2005 World Journalism Institute graduate working as a radio producer here in Columbia, South Carolina. The deadline to apply to this year's fully funded WJI college course is March 31st. So if you want to learn the tools of the trade, go to WJI.world, and start your application. I hope you enjoy today’s program.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning! Today on the Legal Docket, now that we’re all caught up with court business, we’ll use the time to introduce you to an advocate, a profile of the founder of a religious liberty law firm.

RANDALL WENGER: If government can force somebody to violate their most deeply held convictions, how do you protect freedom of speech? 

NICK EICHER, HOST: Also today the Monday Moneybeat, we’ll talk about a financial contagion and government efforts to stop the spread, so to speak.

And the WORLD History Book:  20 years ago today, the start of the Iraq war.

GEORGE BUSH: Now that conflict has come, the only way to limit its duration is to apply decisive force.

REICHARD: It’s Monday, March 20th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

EICHER: And I’m Nick Eicher. Good morning!

REICHARD: Up next, Anna Johansen Brown with today’s news.

ANNA JOHANSEN BROWN, NEWS ANCHOR: I'm Anna Johansen Brown.

Putin to Mariupol » 

AUDIO: [PUTIN INTERACTING WITH PEOPLE]

Russian President Vladimir Putin toured an occupied Ukrainian city even as the International Criminal Court has a warrant out for his arrest.

The Russian leader visited Mariupol, where besieged Ukrainians held out in a steel mill for three months at the start of the war.

Russia expert Mark Voyger says Putin is trying to send two messages at once with this visit:

MARK VOYGER: Pretty much he's showing that he's unapologetic and he, you know, effectively he wants to show that he's above those legal developments. And also to his people, he's showing that he's in control.

The ICC on Friday accused Putin of war crimes in Ukraine and issued a warrant for his arrest.

Neither Russia nor the United States recognizes the authority of the ICC. But U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen says the arrest warrant will have an effect.

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN: This is a signal that the rest of the international community, the ICC, recognizes that war crimes have been committed. And so it Yes, it will further isolate Putin.

Xi to Russia preview » Meantime, Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected to visit Russia this week.

The U-S doesn’t want China to hear about the war in Ukraine from only Russia. White House National Security spokesman John Kirby.

JOHN KIRBY: We hope, and we've said this before that Mr. President Xi will call and talk to President Zelenskyy because we believe the Chinese need to get the Ukrainian perspective.

The U.S. has claimed that China is considering sending weapons to Russia. China and Russia have publicly claimed that they have a “no limits” partnership.

UBS buys Credit Suisse » Swiss bank UBS is buying its rival Credit Suisse.

Swiss banking regulators orchestrated the $3 billion deal in an effort to avoid further market turmoil.

Last week, the Swiss central bank had offered Credit Suisse a $54 billion bailout.

UBS Chairman Colm Kelleher:

COLM KELLEHER - UBS' strength and our familiarity with Credit Suisse's business put us in a unique position to execute this integration efficiently and effectively with Swiss and international clients' best interests in mind.

Two U-S banks have failed this month, and a third almost followed in their footsteps last week. Several other American banks pulled together roughly $30 billion to bail out First Republic Bank.

Trump prepares for possible arrest » 

DONALD TRUMP: This is the greatest witch hunt in the history of our country [FADE UNDER AND OUT]

Former President Donald Trump is predicting he’ll soon be arrested … in what he calls a politically motivated prosecution.

On Saturday, Trump posted on social media … that his arrest could come Tuesday. He called on his supporters to protest.

Over the weekend, Republicans echoed Trump’s criticism of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

Here’s Former Vice President Mike Pence:

MIKE PENCE: At a time when there’s a crime wave in New York City, the fact that the Manhattan DA thinks that indicting president Trump is his top priority just tells you everything you need to know about the radical left in this country.

But Pence also urged potential protesters to remain calm.

PENCE: I believe that people understand that if they give voice to this, if this occurs on Tuesday, that they need to do so peacefully and in a lawful manner.

It’s unclear exactly when the grand jury will complete its work. D.A. Bragg said in a memo Saturday that he would not tolerate attempts to intimidate his office or threaten the rule of law in New York.

Wyoming abortion pill law » Wyoming has a new, first-of-its-kind pro-life law. WORLD’s Josh Schumacher has more.

JOSH SCHUMACHER: Governor Mark Gordon on Friday signed a bill that protects unborn babies from so-called medication abortions.

Wyoming is the first state to criminalize prescribing or distributing the abortion pill.

Violators could face misdemeanor charges.

The law does not penalize women who take the pills. It also allows use of the drug if needed to save a woman’s life.

A federal judge in Texas is expected to rule soon in a case seeking to overturn U.S. approval of drugs for abortion.

For WORLD, I’m Josh Schumacher.

Ecuador earthquake » At least 15 people are dead in Ecuador and Peru after an earthquake struck the two countries.

The 6.8 magnitude earthquake injured hundreds. And buried even more under debris and rubble.

AUDIO: [Spanish]

One grieving woman saying here she doesn’t blame anyone but nature for the damage and the lives lost.

GUILLERMO LASSO: Spanish

Ecuadorian President Guillermo Lasso expressed solidarity over the weekend with the families affected by the earthquake.

France protests » Government offices in France are in shambles today after demonstrators vandalized many of them over the weekend.

AUDIO: [French Protests from Saturday]

Protesters in the streets of Paris this weekend clashed with police.

French President Emmanuel Macron wants to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64. Last week he ordered Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne to skirt a vote in the lower house of the French parliament to ensure passage of the bill.

The move sparked mass protests. French opposition lawmakers responded by filing no-confidence motions. 

Gas Prices » AAA says gas prices remain relatively stable at roughly $3.46 cents per gallon for regular unleaded. That’s down just one cent from last week.

California has the highest gas prices in the U-S at roughly $4.85 cents per gallon, and Mississippi has the lowest, at roughly $2.99 cents per gallon.

I’m Anna Johansen Brown.

Straight ahead: the founder of a Christian law firm who is going to the Supreme Court.

Plus, the Monday Moneybeat.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Monday morning, March 20th, 2023, and you’re listening to The World and Everything in It from WORLD Radio. Good morning! I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. It’s time for Legal Docket.

Article III of the U.S. Constitution governs the appointments of justices to the Supreme Court and judges to the federal courts. President Joe Biden continues to send a steady stream of judicial nominees to fill the vacancies in federal courts. So far, Biden has appointed 117 Article III judges. He’s on pace for about 150, but it’ll depend, of course, on vacancies. By contrast, in President Trump’s one term, he made 245 appointments.

The Senate confirmed the most recent one last week: civil rights lawyer Jessica Clarke. She’ll become a U.S. District Court judge in Manhattan.

REICHARD: Twenty nominees currently await Senate floor votes. One in particular who caught my attention: Julie Rikelman, nominated for the Boston-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. Rikelman is a litigator for the Center for Reproductive Rights. Last year, she represented the abortion clinic, the losing side,  in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. The decision that overturned Roe v. Wade.

EICHER: Well, let’s go ahead and jump to an update on oral arguments at the Supreme Court. Believe it or not, we are all caught up. We’ve touched on every oral argument the court has heard this term. No opinions to report this week either. But we expect more will be announced soon.

REICHARD: One case the court will hear next month is Groff v. DeJoy. Gerald Groff is a former U.S. postal worker. He’s also a Christian who is represented by attorney Randall Wenger.

RANDALL WENGER: It's a Sabbath accommodation case, and it deals with the larger issue of religious liberty in the workplace.

So we've got a postal worker with a strong conviction against working on Sundays who didn't have to work on Sundays when he first started with the post office.

REICHARD: But when the post office added Sunday Amazon deliveries, that changed. And the post office stopped giving Groff Sundays off.

WENGER: The law, the Civil Rights Act, says that employees are supposed to reasonably accommodate employees' religious beliefs unless it creates an undue hardship for employers. And the issue in that case is what is an undue hardship?

EICHER: Wenger is chief counsel of the Independence Law Center in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. He concentrates on religious liberty cases. So how does one become a religious liberty attorney? Today, we’ll hear about Wenger’s path to this specialized area of law. Legal correspondent Jenny Rough brings us the story.

ROUGH: Lawyer Randall Wenger has deep roots in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.

WENGER: ​​So I grew up Mennonite. I am ninth generation Lancaster County.

ROUGH: The Mennonite church traditionally shapes its beliefs around being a good neighbor rather than trying to solve problems through government. Even so, Wenger remembers his dad often expressed gratitude for America and its freedoms. Wenger recalls a day his dad watched a sports game on T.V., something the family usually didn’t do.

WENGER: The national anthem was playing, and I was trying to talk to my dad during it, and he said, “You know what? You need to wait until this is done. We honor our country and we need to treat this with a level of respect.”

ROUGH: When Wenger’s dad heard somebody complaining about the country, he’d say, “Don’t complain. Fix it!”

WENGER: He'd ask on a daily basis: “So what have you done today to make your life significant?” So there is always this sense that you're not just supposed to float through life. You're supposed to make an impact in the things that you do. And that was something that really stuck with me. That became part of my DNA.

ROUGH: These ongoing conversations with his dad piqued Wenger’s interest in public policy. But as he got older, he wasn’t sure what career path to take. Until the day he heard a radio show cover religious liberty issues.

WENGER: And suddenly thought, “Oh, I could affect policy through the law. That sounds interesting.

ROUGH: So, he went to law school.

WENGER: My favorite class was our church and state class at the University of Pennsylvania.

ROUGH: But after graduation, he knew of only a handful of firms involved in religious liberty work. None in Pennsylvania. So he settled on small firm litigation instead.

WENGER: But it was not for me. And my wife said, “Well, why don't you pray? You felt God leading you to do this, to go to law school. You really just ought to pray. And I think she probably had more faith than I did at that point, but I prayed anyway with a friend of mine.

ROUGH: Another litigator at his firm. The two men prayed regularly.

WENGER: And lo and behold, the cases started coming in where we had all kinds of First Amendment cases dealing with religious liberty or pro-life issues and speech, and assembly outside, and signs. I loved it. And it was just a picture of God's faithfulness.

ROUGH: Eventually, Wenger teamed up with the head of the Pennsylvania Family Institute and founded the Independence Law Center. That was 17 years ago. Today, the center has a team of four lawyers. They start each morning in prayer. And then spend their day trying to solve all sorts of problems. Like school bathrooms.

WENGER: And so we've had cases, too many, where we've represented students and their families whose bodily privacy has been violated in a school locker room or in a school bathroom.

ROUGH: This issue is popping up all over the country. And Wenger says schools are having a tough time.

WENGER: Situations where schools would say, “Oh, you identify with that sex now, you can go use that sex’s facilities.” And the downside of that is we're now co-mingling students of both sexes in the same setting where they're getting undressed, where they're using showers. And we've separated those spaces for a reason. We separate those spaces not because of group affiliation. We separate those spaces because of the real anatomical differences.

ROUGH: But Wenger doesn’t only represent student plaintiffs suing the schools. He also represents schools. Fourteen-year-old kids or younger are often left alone to navigate situations where they’re being told they should be okay with being in a state of undress in front of someone of the opposite sex.

WENGER: And how are these kids supposed to figure it out? Well, the way to figure it out is by having the adults be adults and come up with good policies.

ROUGH: So he meets with school boards.

WENGER: How can we address these issues in a way that's going to help parents, help our students, allow us simply to be able to focus on education and be able to steer around these issues that are so problematic.

ROUGH: Wenger’s work as a religious liberties attorney covers a range, local cases  to national ones. In 2014, the Supreme Court heard a case against Hobby Lobby Stores, owned by the Green family. The Affordable Care Act has an abortifacient mandate and the business wanted a religious exemption. Well, that case was consolidated with another case, one brought by Wenger’s clients—a Pennsylvania Mennonite family who ran a cabinet-making business. They also objected to providing employees drugs that would result in abortions.

WENGER: And for the Supreme Court nerds out there, Justice Alito, in giving us the win, wrote first about the Hahn family in Conestoga Wood before he wrote about the Greens. I, you know, we should have called this the Conestoga Wood case not the Hobby Lobby case.

ROUGH: Wenger says the case is important. It affirms all individual rights.

WENGER: Our rights tend to go hand. If government can force somebody to violate their most deeply held convictions, how do you protect freedom of speech? How do you protect freedom of assembly at that point? Our rights walk together. And if we're going to protect any of them, we need to protect all of them.

ROUGH: The reality of Wenger’s line of work requires taking individuals and corporations to court. So how does his faith affect that?

WENGER: We live in this amazing system we've got freedom because of the kind of government that God has given us. Sometimes we think about the courts only in terms of a caricature of one person hating another person, and so they’re going to go to court and they’re going to try to stick it to them. But when we're dealing with civil rights issues, one of the best ways that we can deal with civil rights issues is through the law. And it doesn't mean that we need to file the lawsuit immediately.

ROUGH: That’s the last resort. Wenger tries to have the parties come to a consensus first. But when the parties reach an impasse, courts are the umpire.

Sometimes even just a conference with a judge can resolve things amicably. That happened once when Wenger represented a school Bible club. The students wanted to give Bibles to other students who walked up to their table. The school wanted to prohibit that. By the end of the court conference, the parties had worked out an agreement

WENGER: So it's not what people see on T.V. of a really adversarial relationship. We do our best to try to work together and get the simplest solutions that we can, but other times it requires you to go all the way to the Supreme Court.

ROUGH: Like in the Groff case. The former postal worker who wants to work, just not on Sundays. We’ll cover that in more detail next month.

WENGER: So stay tuned.

ROUGH: That’s this week’s Legal Docket.

I’m Jenny Rough.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Next up on The World and Everything in It, the Monday Moneybeat.

NICK EICHER, HOST: It’s time to talk business, markets, and the economy with financial analyst and adviser David Bahnsen. He’s head of the wealth management firm The Bahnsen Group and he’s here now.

David, good morning!

DAVID BAHNSEN, GUEST: Well, good morning, Nick, good to be with you.

EICHER: It’s been quite the week and probably some consequential days still to come with the banking crisis we face. But here we are a week into it. How do you assess?

BAHNSEN: Well, it's a very complicated deal, because I think that the crisis was very limited. But by nature of what fractional reserve banking is, financial contagion can become very, very hard to limit. It will be easy for it to not stay limited, which was sort of the point of what the government was doing. So there is a lot I think, of mislabeling of what happened. And yet that's not to say that there aren't policy mistakes. To call what happened a bailout is a little deceiving in the sense that the people who own Silicon Valley Bank were very rich, and they're not now. They were blown out, all the equity is worth the zero, and none of the value of that bank was bailed out, the owners have an asset currently worth $0. And even the debt holders, the people who lent money to the bank, what we would call unsecured bondholders, they are getting back zero cents on the dollar. And that's very different than past situations that we would have called bailouts where there was some form of recovery for the either creditors or owners of the entity. But what we're referring to here are the customers of the entity, the depositors who had money on deposit with the bank, over $250,000, the insurance limit, and it is certainly true that they probably would have taken some hair cut, meaning they would have got back something less, I think it's about 2% less than the amount they had on deposit. But there are some estimates that it could have been as much as 5%. So they could have got back somewhere between 95 and 98 cents on the dollar. And it would have taken a while. They wouldn't have gotten it back right away. And so certain companies wouldn't have met payroll, and even the very few Mom and Pop type customers they had may not have been able to get access to all their cash. So in that sense, it can look like there's a bailout. And it's definitely a very dangerous precedent of suggesting that an understood and congressionally passed mandate can be discarded this way, it creates a moral hazard. And it obviously creates a whole lot of political optics. But why did they really do it? Because ultimately, a whole lot of people were withdrawing money from other banks that did not have the same level of problems that Silicon Valley and Signature Bank did. And then if they withdraw a lot of money, it creates those problems at other banks. No bank has on hand all the money that its depositors have given it. And we all know that, and people can agree with it or disagree with it. But we've had a fractional reserve banking system for 100ish years. And the fact of the matter is that contagion is a very hard thing to contain once it starts. And I have no doubt that's what policymakers were really afraid of. But Nick, it gets very complicated, because this bank was so poorly managed. There's a lot of questions as to why the regulators missed it. I believe that the Fed is incredibly culpable here, both in the bubble they helped create that funded these crypto and venture capital and other type things. But then also in the way that they helped burst the bubble by, I think, excessively tightening monetary policy the other way, which is really what hurt the value of this bank's bond portfolio, in other words, their own capital. So you have the Fed, you have regulators, you have a poorly managed bank. And then questions about why we have FDIC coverage at all, if they're going to just get rid of it whenever they deem it systemic risk.

EICHER: We better hold off on listener questions again this week … and if you’re one who’s sent something … not to worry, we’ll get to it. We’ve fallen behind a bit in the past, but we do read and consider everything and we do always catch up. But the reason I say that is I think it’s important … you covered the waterfront, David, maybe we zoom in on one key question … so how about tackling the question, where are we now with federal deposit insurance … the effective end to F-D-I-C limits … but only if you’re in the category of “too big to fail”? So talk about that.

BAHNSEN: Yeah, I would say that the issue of FDIC limits is probably the most widely practical. With Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, if people were to say right now the assumption is that there's unlimited FDIC insurance at every bank, because how could they have bailed out the depositors there and not elsewhere? I wouldn't disagree. I think that optically and politically, it would be absolute bloodbath if there was a bank that were to fail now in Iowa, or in Texas that they didn't do the same thing for. And yet, my problem from a policy standpoint is that there is still a $250,000 limit. And so they can either make explicit that nope, there's unlimited depositor protection in our country, we will not let a bank depositor lose money just because a bank fails. And if they want to do that, which by the way, I'd be fine with, but they got to pay for it. And how do you pay for that kind of protection? You have to raise the premiums on the insurance that the banks pay for. And of course, banks don't really pay for it, bank customers pay for it. So it'd be a lower interest rate paid on deposits, it'd be a higher mortgage rate charged on mortgages. There's a number of things like that, that would really be the source of paying for it. To those who say, Oh, come on, how can they protect every dollar unlimiteddepositor protection? Well, again, we're talking about very rare bank failures. And there are incredibly tight constraints that even when a bank does fail, people have to remember that these banks have to have certain capital that they keep on hand. And so that's why I say Silicon Valley Bank was as poorly run as things could be. But they're still we're talking about 2% to 3% haircuts depositors would take, so we wouldn't be putting the entire banking system at risk, we would be putting the spread of bad banks at risk, and they would pay for it through higher banking cost. Now, I'm not suggesting they do that. But what I am suggesting is that if we're going to have FDIC limits go away, let's say so. Let's not do an implicit guarantee, like we did with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and then end up having it become an explicit guarantee when there's a crisis, which is what happened this week. It was legal, they have the right under exigent circumstances where they believe there to be systemic risks, but politically, in a country that is already so susceptible to divisive things, if some tiny community bank in Mississippi went under, and they didn't deem it systemic, which it probably wouldn't be, then what is the message? That they cared about Silicon Valley venture capital depositors who donated to the Hillary campaign, and they don't care about a small depositer in Mississippi? Even though that isn't true, which it very well may be. But even if it weren't, the objects are so bad, it's an unhealthy way to run and protect our country's banking system. So there needs to be either an elimination of moral hazard where people do feel pain, or there needs to be an explicit policy. But people have to understand when they say, I wish those depositors had gotten what was coming to them, That they had over $250,000 coverage, that it was a bad bank, the law is the law, people have to understand that all of that is true, and sounds very good, but then your bank was next, or maybe not, but someone else's bank was next. You know what I mean? That's really the problem is a banking contagion is very hard to stop the spread on. And so as we sit here three years ago, for you know, the anniversary of when we were talking about stop the spread. Here we are again, worrying about stopping a spread. This time it was a banking contagion.

EICHER: Three years, hard to believe!

Well, as I say, we are going to get to listener questions, I promise. The email address is feedback@worldandeverything.com.

Thanks to David Bahnsen is founder, managing partner, and chief investment officer of The Bahnsen Group. bahnsen.com is a good place to go to read deeper.

David, imagine we have big days ahead.

BAHNSEN: Well, it's going to be an adventurous week this week. So we'll look forward to talking again next week. Thanks so much, Nick.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Monday, March 20th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Next up, the WORLD History Book. Today the 20th anniversary of the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Plus, the first woman to win the Iditarod dog-sled race. But let’s start things off with the surprising life of a famous French actor. Here’s Paul Butler.

PAUL BUTLER, REPORTER: We begin today in the city of Strasbourg, France—100 years ago. Charles Mangel owns a small kosher butcher shop. On March 22nd, 1923, he and his wife welcome a son. They name him Marcel. He is a natural actor—even at a young age.

At five years old he begins mimicking the physical humor of Charlie Chaplin to the delight of his family and friends. Marcel dreams of becoming a silent movie star.

At age 17, the Nazis invade France and the acting student goes into hiding. His Jewish family flees from town to town, trying to stay ahead of the advancing German army. During this time, Marcel and his brother join the French resistance. To hide his Jewish identity, he changes his last name from Mangel to Marceau—after a famous French general.

Marcel Marceau begins as a forger—creating false identity cards for resistance members. But he soon graduates to a more dangerous task—escorting Jewish children to safe houses for evacuation.

On one occasion he dresses up as a Boy Scout leader and takes two dozen Jewish kids disguised as scouts to the forest for a supposed “day trip” near the Swiss border. He then hands them off to another handler who escorts them into Switzerland.

During his time with the resistance Marceau refines his acting craft. His mime routines sometimes quietly distract the children from nearby danger. At other times, he uses it to communicate directions to escape detection. He saves more than 70 children from German deportation.

In 2001 the University of Michigan awarded its Wallenberg Medal to the 78-year old Marcel Marceau—honoring him for acting selflessly in the face of danger.

MARCEL MARCEAU: It is true that I saved children bringing them over the border in Switzerland. I forged identity cards with my brother when it was very dangerous…[but] I don't like to speak about myself because what I did humbly during the war was only a small part about what happened to heroes who died.

Marcel Marceau died (quietly) on September 22nd, 2007 at age 84.

MUSIC: [FRENCH MUSIC OUT]

Next, 38 years ago today

SOUND: [IDITAROD AMBI]

Libby Riddles crosses the finish line of the 11-hundred mile Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race after 18 days, 20 minutes, and 17 seconds. The Wisconsin native becomes the first woman to win the grueling race.

When asked what she was going to do with the $50,000 prize money:

LIBBY RIDDLES: The money? I don’t know, maybe Hawaii. That’s what I keep talking about. A box of dog biscuits for every dog on the team. I don’t know. I can’t even believe it yet.

Riddles laughs with spectators and poses with her lead dogs. She sports a visible gash across the bridge of her nose, as during the race she struck a low hanging branch—losing her headlamp in the process.

Two weeks into the race, a blizzard made visibility nearly impossible. Riddles took a risky step deciding to brave the storm while everyone else hunkered down.

RIDDLES: I made an agreement with myself before I left that if I took off, I wasn’t going to come back. Even if it’s crummy.

White-out conditions eventually forced Riddles to stop. She spent the night in her sled bag to wait out the worst of the storm alone in the wilderness. But when the storm cleared she had a commanding 6-hour lead over the nearest teams.

In 2007, her Iditarod victory was inducted as a “Hall of Fame Moment” into the Alaska Sports Hall of Fame.

RIDDLES: What I loved about the Iditarod, was that it got me out into the real part of Alaska, and out into the villages. I hope that there are always dog teams running around this state. And I hope we never forget our traditions and our heritage, and thank you so much for this. [APPLAUSE]

This year’s Iditarod came to an end Friday, as the last dog team and musher crossed the finish line after only 12 days on the trail.

MUSIC: [IDITAROD TRAIL SONG BY ALASKAS HOBO JIM]

And finally, 20 years ago this week, the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom. US President George W. Bush:

GEORGE W. BUSH: My fellow citizens. At this hour, American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger.

Bush promises that the operation will only target military assets—intended to “undermine Saddam Hussein’s ability to wage war.” He assures Americans that the US is not doing this alone.

BUSH: More than 35 countries are giving crucial support from the use of naval and air bases to help with intelligence and logistics to deployment of combat units.

Before the attack began, US intelligence discovered that Hussein embedded Iraqi forces and equipment in civilian areas attempting to use civilians as human shields.

BUSH: I want Americans and all the world to know that coalition forces will make every effort to spare innocent civilians from harm. We come to Iraq with respect for its citizens, for their great civilization and for the religious faiths they practice. We have no ambition in Iraq except to remove a threat and restore control of that country to its own people.

President Bush soberly assures Americans that the US and its allies enter this conflict reluctantly.

BUSH: Now that conflict has come, the only way to limit its duration is to apply decisive force and I assure you this will not be a campaign of half measures and we will accept no outcome but victory.

My fellow citizens, the dangers to our country and the world will be overcome. We will pass through this time of peril and carry on the work of peace. We will defend our freedom. We will bring freedom to others and we will prevail.

May God bless our country and all who defend her.

Less than two months later, President Bush declares an end to major combat operations—saying the mission had been “accomplished.” But it takes more than seven more years before the United States officially ends its combat mission in Iraq.

That’s this week’s WORLD History Book, I’m Paul Butler.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: reflections on the Iraq war from a journalist who covered the conflict as an embedded reporter.

Plus, we’ll meet a few North Korean defectors—and hear what life is like for them today.

And, we’ll hear the amazing testimony of a former smuggler of Bibles

That and more tomorrow.  I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

The World and Everything in It comes to you from WORLD Radio.

WORLD’s mission is biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires.

Jesus said: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. John chapter 15, verses 1 and 2.

Go now in grace and peace.

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.