Why did President Clinton and the other prominent Democrats tell us there were WMDs in Iraq? Why did they get us into this war with Iraq (and shamelessly blame President Bush)? 1998:
President
Clinton calls Iraq an "outlaw nation" in league with an "
unholy axis of terrorists, drug traffickers and organized international criminals." What if Saddam Hussein "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."
Clinton, continued: "Just consider the facts, Iraq repeatedly made false declarations about the weapons that it had left in its possession after the Gulf War. When UNSCOM would then uncover evidence that gave the lie to those declarations, Iraq would simply amend the reports. For example, Iraq revised its nuclear declarations four times within just 14 months and it has submitted six different biological warfare declarations, each of which has been rejected by UNSCOM. In 1995, Hussein Kamal, Saddam's son-in-law, and chief organizer of Iraq's weapons-of-mass-destruction program, defected to Jordan.
He revealed that Iraq was continuing to conceal weapons and missiles and the capacity to build many more. Then and only then did
Iraq admit to developing numbers of weapons in significant quantities and weapon stocks. Previously, it had vehemently denied the very thing it just simply admitted once Saddam Hussein's son-in-law defected to Jordan and told the truth."
Clinton, continued: "Now listen to this: What did it admit?
It admitted, among other things, an offensive biological warfare capability--notably 5,000 gallons of botulinum, which causes botulism; 2,000 gallons of anthrax; 25 biological-filled Scud warheads; and 157 aerial bombs. And might I say, UNSCOM inspectors believe that Iraq has actually greatly understated its production. Next, throughout this entire process, Iraqi agents have undermined and undercut UNSCOM. They've harassed the inspectors, lied to them, disabled monitoring cameras, literally spirited evidence out of the back doors of suspect facilities as inspectors walked through the front door. And our people were there observing it and had the pictures to prove it. "
Clinton, continued: "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."
Democrats John
Kerry, Tom
Daschle, Bob Graham, Patrick Leahy, Christopher Dodd, and Republican Chuck Hagel co-sponsored a broad 1998 resolution: Congress "
urges the president to take all necessary and appropriate actions to respond to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs."
Kerry: "If there is not unfettered, unrestricted, unlimited access per the U.N. resolution for inspections, and UNSCOM cannot in our judgment appropriately perform its functions, then we obviously reserve the rights to press that case internationally and to do what we need to do as a nation in order to be able to enforce those rights.
Saddam Hussein has already used these weapons and has made it clear that he has the intent to continue to try, by virtue of his duplicity and secrecy, to continue to do so. That is a threat to the stability of the Middle East. It is a threat with respect to the potential of terrorist activities on a global basis. It is a threat even to regions near but not exactly in the Middle East."
Daschle: the resolution would "send as clear a message as possible
that we are going to force, one way or another, diplomatically or militarily, Iraq to comply with international law. Look, 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."