President Welcomes New NATO Members

President Welcomes New NATO Members. President Bush welcomed seven new NATO members at the White House on March 29. The President, accompanied by NATO secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, congratulated prime ministers from Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia, all countries that had once been part of or controlled by the former Soviet Union. The President told the crowd that "the people of these seven nations were captives to an empire. ... [They] endured bitter tyranny. They struggled for independence." The addition of the seven new countries brings the number of NATO members to 26.

Four days later, the countries were officially made part of NATO during a ceremony at the alliance's headquarters in Brussels, Belgium.