The following was from a Correspondence to Deroy Murdock, American Outlook Contributor, from Jeff Riley, Manassas, Virginia
Thank you, Deroy Murdock, for a great article highlighting the long, bloody reach of Saddams terror (Saddam Hussein s Philanthropy of Terror, Fall 2003). Saddam Hussein may not have possessed traditional power projection, but the form he employed is still as deadly as conventional power projection.
I wanted to offer some other quotes Ive dug up over the last couple years. These show that a majority of those in power in the late 1990s in this country and abroad believed that Saddam posed a threat, both conventionally and as a state sponsor of terrorism:
- [W]e believe that [Hussein] retains an undetermined quantity of chemical and biological agents that he would certainly have the ability to deliver against adversaries by aircraft or artillery or by Scud missile systems.
John Deutch, CIA director
Testimony to Senate Intelligence Committee, September 19, 1996
Source: http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraq-20030608a.htm
- Recently, Hussein admitted that his Special Republican Guard, his security service, and his intelligence services are coordinating their efforts to hide prohibited weapons materialsand to hide the evidence that Iraq is secretly obtaining more.
CNN Report, 1997
Source: http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/1997/iraq/shell.game/
- We urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraq sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraqs refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs.
October 1998 letter to President Clinton from:
Senator Carl Levin (D-Michigan)
Senators Joseph Lieberman and Christopher Dodd (D-Connecticut)
Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-New Jersey)
Senator Robert Kerrey (D-Nebraska)
Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-California)
Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-Maryland)
Senators Tom Daschle and Tim Johnson (D-South Dakota)
Senators John Breaux and Mary Landrieu (D-Louisiana)
Senator Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii)
Senator Wendell Ford (D-Kentucky)
Source: http://www.iraqwatch.org/government/US/Letters,%20reports%20and%20statements/levin-10-9-98.html
- [O]ne way or the other, we are determined to deny Iraq the capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction. That is our bottom line.
President Clinton
February 4, 1998
Source: http://www.cnn.com/US/9802/04/us.un.iraq/
- We must stop Saddam from ever again jeopardizing the stability and security of his neighbors with weapons of mass destruction. . . . If diplomacy runs out, we have reserved the right to use force and if we do so it will be substantial.
Secretary of State Albright
February 1, 1998
Source: http://www.usembassy-israel.org.il/publish/press/visits/january98/013098c.html
- Saddam Hussein must get the message: Full and unfettered access is the only way out.
James Rubin, State Department Spokesman
News briefing, February 4, 1998
Source: http://www.hri.org/news/usa/std/1998/98-02-04.std.html
- There is no greater challenge to the regions stabilityand to Americas security in that regionthan Saddams reckless pursuit of weapons of mass destruction. As President Clinton has said, the spread of these weapons to outlaw states, and from them to terrorists and international criminals, is one of the most dangerous security threats our people will face over the next generation. Other countries have weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles. With Saddam Hussein, there is one big difference: he has used them. Not once, but repeatedly. Not only against combatants, but against civilians. Not only against a foreign adversary, but against his own people. And I have no doubt he will use them again if his capacity to rebuild his arsenal is left unchecked.
National Security Adviser Sandy Berger
Address to National Press Club, February 13, 1998
Source: http://clinton4.nara.gov/WH/EOP/NSC/html/speeches/19980213.html
- [Hussein] stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country.
Former Vice President Al Gore
September 2002
Source: http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraq-20030608a.htm
- The last UN weapons inspectors left Iraq in October of 1998. We are confident that Saddam Hussein retained some stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and that he has since embarked on a crash course to build up his chemical and biological warfare capability. Intelligence reports also indicate that he is seeking nuclear weapons, but has not yet achieved nuclear capability.
Senator Robert Byrd
Senate Floor, October 3, 2002
Source: http://www.narsil.org/war_on_iraq/byrd_oct_2_2002.html
- With respect to Saddam Hussein and the threat he presents, we must ask ourselves a simple question: Why? Why is Saddam Hussein pursuing weapons that most nations have agreed to limit or give up? Why is Saddam Hussein guilty of breaking his own cease-fire agreement with the international community? Why is Saddam Hussein attempting to develop nuclear weapons when most nations dont even try, and responsible nations that have them attempt to limit their potential for disaster? Why did Saddam Hussein threaten and provoke? Why does he develop missiles that exceed allowable limits? Why did Saddam Hussein lie and deceive the inspection teams previously? Why did Saddam Hussein not account for all of the weapons of mass destruction which UNSCOM identified? Why is he seeking to develop unmanned airborne vehicles for delivery of biological agents?
Does he do all of these things because he wants to live by international standards of behavior? Because he respects international law? Because he is a nice guy underneath it all and the world should trust him?
It would be naive to the point of grave danger not to believe that, left to his own devices, Saddam Hussein will provoke, misjudge, or stumble into a future, more dangerous confrontation with the civilized world. He has as much as promised it. He has already created a stunning track record of miscalculation. He miscalculated an eight-year war with Iran. He miscalculated the invasion of Kuwait. He miscalculated Americas responses to it. He miscalculated the result of setting oil rigs on fire. He miscalculated the impact of sending Scuds into Israel. He miscalculated his own military might. He miscalculated the Arab worlds response to his plight. He miscalculated in attempting an assassination of a former President of the United States. And he is miscalculating now Americas judgments about his miscalculations.
All those miscalculations are compounded by the rest of history. A brutal, oppressive dictator, guilty of personally murdering and condoning murder and torture, grotesque violence against women, execution of political opponents, a war criminal who used chemical weapons against another nation and, of course, as we know, against his own people, the Kurds. He has diverted funds from the Oil-for-Food program, intended by the international community to go to his own people. He has supported and harbored terrorist groups, particularly radical Palestinian groups such as Abu Nidal, and he has given money to families of suicide murderers in Israel.
I mention these not because they are a cause to go to war in and of themselves, as the President previously suggested, but because they tell a lot about the threat of the weapons of mass destruction and the nature of this man. We should not go to war because these things are in his past, but we should be prepared to go to war because of what they tell us about the future.
Senator John Kerry
Senate floor, October 9, 2002
Source: http://cns.miis.edu/cr/021014sc.htm
- It is likely that Iraq retains stockpiles of anthrax, botulinum toxin, and aflatoxin. . . . It is widely believed that significant quantities of chemical agents and precursors remain stored in secret depots . . . [and there are] thousands of possible chemical munitions still unaccounted for.
Chief Weapons Inspector Hans Blix
Report by delivered to the U.N. Security Council, January 27, 2003
Source: http://usinfo.state.gov/regional/nea/iraq/text2003/0123rpt.htm
- Are there other weapons of mass destruction [in Iraq]? Thats probable. We have to find and destroy them.
French president Jacques Chirac
Interview with Time magazine, February 2003
Source: http://www.time.com/time/europe/magazine/2003/0224/cover/interview.html
- I am absolutely convinced that there are weapons. . . . I saw evidence back in 1998 when we would see the inspectors being barred from gaining entry into a warehouse for three hours with trucks rolling up and then moving those trucks out.
William Cohen, former Secretary of Defense
April 2003
Source: http://www.ceip.org/files/Publications/2003-06-06-kaganpost.asp?p=11&from=pubdate
Jeff Riley
Manassas, VA