President Bush will speak to the nation tonight at 8 p.m. at Carlisle Barracks, Pa. Here’s some of what we’d like him to say:

My fellow Americans, you can see from the scratches on my nose that I’m a little banged up tonight. Took a spill on the 16th mile of a 17-mile ride at the ranch in Texas. Secret Service offered me a lift back to the house, but I got back in the saddle and rode home. Any long ride is bound to have spills, but the way we Americans have always handled them is to get back in the saddle.

We’ve had a few setbacks lately in the war on terror. The abuses at Abu Ghraib prison that were committed by American soldiers were a setback to our goal of a peaceful Iraq in which every person is treated with human dignity and respect. Last week, a suicide bomber killed the president of the Iraqi governing council, Izzadine Saleem.

Also last week, I had to sever ties to the Free Iraqi movement led by Ahmad Chalabi, while we review evidence in an intelligence matter. Mr. Chalabi, as our spokesman has said, is not a target of this investigation. He has not been charged with a crime. I don’t mind saying he is an Iraqi patriot.

It was he who put so inspiringly to Congress the importance of regime change in Iraq. He nursed the cause of Iraqi freedom for decades while he was in exile. He has offered to appear before Congress to explain his actions with the Iranians, and I believe the Congress should hear him out. I will be paying attention.

When you have a setback, you dust yourself off and move on. That’s what we’re going to do in Iraq.

So tonight, I’m announcing some changes to our personnel and policy that will help Iraqis move toward freedom and democracy. I thank Jerry Bremer, Lakhdar Brahimi, and Robert Blackwill for their service to our cause in Iraq, but I’ve told all three of them that after June 30, their services are no longer required.

We are going to go ahead and turn over sovereignty to the Iraqis on schedule June 30 and it will be to the Iraqi Governing Council — including Mr. Chalabi — that has already made important strides in passing Iraq’s tax code and transitional administrative law, in restoring and expanding phone service and electric power. Even while under attack from rebel groups still loyal to Saddam Hussein and from foreign terrorists eager to defeat this transfer, Iraq has made enormous strides. Its oil production is up to nearly pre-war levels. Americans are helping rebuild schools and medical clinics. Two hundred newspapers are publishing. A nightlife is flourishing, and commerce is booming.

Together with the Iraqis, we have documented Saddam’s crimes — from the mass graves of tens of thousands, to the deadly Sarin shell and other prohibited weapons. After June 30, I expect this progress to continue. The Iraqis will have full control over their billions of dollars in oil revenue and of the assets of Saddam’s government, including his former palaces and his bank accounts.

And we are turning over Saddam himself, and the others of his henchmen that we have captured, to the Iraqis for trial. America stands ready to provide the Iraqis whatever assistance they need between now and the January 2005 elections. That includes helping to train their military and their police, and helping to monitor the elections. And helping them fight this war. We’ll keep or send what troops securing our victory will require.

This is a juncture at which I would caution critics against the kind of defeatism that led us to retreat from Vietnam, when the anti-war camp said our GIs were war criminals and murderers, and tried to pin the blame for the crimes of a few all the way up through a highly idealistic chain of command. We now know that very, very few American GIs committed misdeeds in Vietnam, and I am certain the same will be found as we sort out the matter of our handling of detainees in Iraq. Let no one fool you twice about the quality of our GIs.

Nor is there any similarity between Iraq and our retreats in Lebanon and Somalia. Unlike those cases, we are leaving behind a free and sovereign Iraq on the road to democracy. To any terrorist who may rejoice in our departure, let me caution them — the Battle of Iraq will not be over until our victory, and that of a free Iraqi government, is secure. It is but one battle in the war on terror. The lessons we learned in this battle will only make us a more formidable foe in the next battle, whether that battle is in Iran, in North Korea, in Saudi Arabia, in Syria, or in Egypt.

Until September 11, 2001, our approach to this war was a passive one. But on that day, just a couple hours drive west of here, inside United Flight 93, Americans like Todd Beamer and Tom Burnett decided to fight back against terrorists committing their savagery in the name of a perverted version of Islam. We are less than three years into what will be a long war. We lost 3,000 on September 11, another 120 in the Battle of Afghanistan, another 800 in the Battle of Iraq.

Our Union lost more than 350,000 men during the four years of the Civil War. Thousands died a short drive from here, in Gettysburg. We lost another 400,000 in the nearly four years of World War II. This war, too, will require sacrifices, and it will not be over immediately. In this war as in those, we fight for freedom, and for our own safety and security, and for ideals that all good men and women share. Not all the battles in this war will be military ones. Some battles will be fought not by our troops but by our allies. But we will win this war as we won the others, because of the strength and determination of our people and of the worldwide appeal of freedom.