<"[If Saddam] fails to comply, and we fail to act, or we take some ambiguous third route which gives him yet more opportunities to develop his program of weapons of mass destruction and continue to press for the release of the sanctions and continue to ignore the solemn commitments that he made? Well, he will conclude that the international
community has lost its will. He will then conclude that he can go right on and do more to rebuild an arsenal of
devastating destruction.

"...If we fail to respond today, Saddam and all those who would follow in his footsteps will be emboldened tomorrow."

"...Some day, some way, I guarantee you, he'll use the arsenal.

"...We have to defend our future from these predators of the 21st century. They will be all the more lethal if we allow them to build arsenals of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons and the missiles to deliver them. We simply cannot allow that to happen. There is no more clear example of this threat than Saddam Hussein."

--William Jefferson Clinton, 1998

"...we have exhausted virtually our diplomatic effort to get the Iraqis to comply with their own agreements and with international law. Given that, what other option is there but to force them to do so? That's what they're saying. This is the key question. And the answer is we don't have another option. We have got to force them to comply, and we are doing so militarily."

--Tom Daschle, 1998



From the Weekly Standard.