2004 State of the Union Address

The 2004 State of the Union Address was given by the 43rd President of the United States, George W. Bush, on Tuesday, January 20, 2004, at 9 p.m. EST, in the chamber of the United States House of Representatives to the 108th United States Congress. It was Bush's third State of the Union Address and his fourth speech to a joint session of the United States Congress. Presiding over this joint session was the House Speaker, Dennis Hastert, accompanied by Dick Cheney, the Vice President of the United States.

President Bush begins by saying that the greatest responsibility of the government is to protect all Americans from terroristic threats. He also highlighted that several years had passed since the terrorist attacks on September the 11th. While several years had passed "without an attack on American soil", it did not mean that all of the danger was in the past. After September 11, attacks continued around the world in Bali, Jerusalem, Baghdad, and other major regions of the world. The President also focuses on how enemies of the United States are constantly plotting attacks of some form or another. The Patriot Act was mentioned as a point of emphasis for giving the United States Department of Homeland Security all of the necessary resources to find criminals and locate possible attack scenarios. One of the recurring themes of the speech was that "America is on the offensive" and is constantly on the hunt for members of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. President Bush then proceeded to discuss how American allies helped to convince several countries to eliminate weapons of mass destruction.

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