“If we know Saddam has weapons of mass destruction — and we do — does it make any sense for the world to wait to confront him?” “It (Iraq regime) possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons . . . we know that the regime has produced thousands of tons of chemical agents, including mustard gas, sarin nerve gas, and VX gas”
- George Bush, October 7, 2002
“His (Saddam Hussein’s) regime has large, unaccounted-for stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and he has an active programme to acquire and develop nuclear weapons”
- Donald Rumsfeld, January 20, 2003
“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.
“In fact, they (Iraqi regime) 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, 30,000 empty munitions, and enough precursors to increase his stockpile to as much as 500 tons of chemical agents. If we consider just one category of missing weaponry, 6,500 bombs from the Iran-Iraq war. …Our conservative estimate is that Iraq today has a stockpile of between 100 and 500 tonnes of chemical-weapons agent. Even the low end of 100 tonnes 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”
- Colin Powell, address to the UN Security Council, February 5, 2003
"We were not lying," said one official. "But it was just a matter of emphasis."
Let's put that on the headstones of all the soldiers killed in Iraq. I'm sure it will make their families feel better.
