Part Two
I heard Donald Rumsfeld say: "Some have argued that the nuclear threat from Iraq is not imminent. I would not be so certain."
I heard the President say: "America must not ignore the threat gathering against us. Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof-the smoking gun-that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud."
I heard Condoleezza Rice say: "We don't want the 'smoking gun' to be a mushroom cloud."
I heard the American Ambassador to the European Union tell the Europeans: "You had Hitler in Europe and no one really did anything about him. The same type of person is in Baghdad."
I heard Colin Powell at the United Nations say: "They can produce enough dry biological agent in a single month to kill thousands upon thousands of people. Saddam Hussein has never accounted for vast amounts of chemical weaponry: 550 artillery shells with mustard gas, 30,000 empty munitions, and enough precursors to increase his stockpile to as much as 500 tons of chemical agents. Our conservative estimate is that Iraq today has a stockpile of between 100 and 500 tons of chemical-weapons agent. Even the low end of 100 tons of agent would enable Saddam Hussein to cause mass casualties across more than 100 square miles of territory, an area nearly five times the size of Manhattan."
I heard him say: "Every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions. What we're giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence."
I heard the President say that "Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons across broad areas." I heard him say that Iraq "could launch a biological or chemical attack in as little as forty-five minutes after the order is given." I heard Tony Blair say: "We are asked to accept Saddam decided to destroy those weapons. I say that such a claim is palpably absurd."
I heard the President say: "We know that Iraq and al-Qaeda have had high-level contacts that go back a decade. We've learned that Iraq has trained al-Qaeda members in bombmaking and poisons and deadly gases. Alliance with terrorists could allow the Iraq regime to attack America without leaving any fingerprints."
I heard the Vice President say: "There's overwhelming evidence there was a connection between al-Qaeda and the Iraqi government. I am very confident there was an established relationship there."
I heard Colin Powell say: "Iraqi officials deny accusations of ties with al-Qaeda. These denials are simply not credible."
I heard Condoleezza Rice say: "There clearly are contacts between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein that can be documented." I heard the President say: "You can't distinguish between al- Qaeda and Saddam."
I heard Donald Rumsfeld say: "Imagine a September eleventh with weapons of mass destruction. It's not three thousand- it's tens of thousands of innocent men, women, and children."
I heard Colin Powell tell the Senate that "a moment of truth is coming": "This is not just an academic exercise or the United States being in a fit of pique. We're talking about real weapons. We're talking about anthrax. We're talking about botulinum toxin. We're talking about nuclear weapons programs."
I heard Donald Rumsfeld say: "No terrorist state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people."
I heard the President, "bristling with irritation," say: "This business about time, how much time do we need to see clearly that he's not disarming? He is delaying. He is deceiving. He is asking for time. He's playing hide-and-seek with inspectors. One thing for sure is, he's not disarming. Surely our friends have learned lessons from the past. This looks like a rerun of a bad movie and I'm not interested in watching it."
I heard that, a few days before authorizing the invasion of Iraq, the Senate was told, in a classified briefing by the Pentagon, that Iraq could launch anthrax and other biological and chemical weapons against the Eastern seaboard of the United States using unmanned aerial "drones."
I heard Donald Rumsfeld say he would present no specific evidence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction because it might jeopardize the military mission by revealing to Baghdad what the United States knows. |
