Al Gore Quotes

There's no question that Saddam Hussein is a threat to the United States and to our allies. If Saddam persists in thumbing his nose at the inspectors, then we're clearly going to have to do something about it.

How could any responsible leader have ignored the Iraqi threat? If we had not acted, Saddam Hussein and his sons would still be in power.

What I did warn about when I testified in front of Congress in 2002, I said if you want to worry about a state, it shouldn't be Iraq, it should be Iran. But this government, our administration, wanted to worry about Iraq, not Iran.

By linking these countries together in his 'axis of evil' speech, President Bush implied an identity between them not only in terms of their threat, but also in terms of the action necessary to deal with the threat. A lot of work will now need to be done to delink the three, and to show why military action against Iraq is so much more justified than against Iran and North Korea.

No terror state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people and the stability of the world than the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq.

I think it was the right decision to disarm Saddam Hussein. And when the president made the decision, I supported him, and I support the fact that we did disarm him.

I share the administration's goals in dealing with Iraq and its weapons of mass destruction.

What we're hearing from everyone is that they understand that Saddam Hussein is a threat. They understand that he's been a threat for a long time.

Note the three most important Cabinet positions. Rice said that it was better to find the weapons of mass destruction than to see a mushroom cloud.

So to recap: we may or may not be going to war with Iraq because Saddam may or may not have weapons of mass destruction, which he may or may not use, or pass to other terrorists groups with whom he may or may not have links.

The threat from Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass destruction - chemical, biological, potentially nuclear weapons capability - that threat is real.

I happen to believe that the preemption school is correct, that the risks of allowing Saddam Hussein to acquire his weapons will only grow with time.

We did not go to war in Afghanistan or in Iraq to, quote, 'impose democracy.' We went to war in both places because we saw those regimes as a threat to the United States.

The dictator of Iraq will fully disarm or the United States will lead a coalition and disarm him.

…The invasion of Iraq was the worst foreign policy mistake in American history. We invaded a country that was no threat to us…. We have lost so much of our world prestige and world leadership.

You go to war when there is a security threat, and Saddam Hussein was seen as a threat to our interests and our security.

And the problem is, I can apologise for the information that turned out to be wrong, but I can't, sincerely at least, apologise for removing Saddam.

I will be voting to give the President of the United States the authority to use force-- if necessary-- to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security.

Saddam was a threat, that the threat had to be dealt with.

Israeli government & the neocons want US to bomb Iran.

[Saddam Hussein] could have easily reconstituted a program. He was a threat to peace before we went in. He'd have been a threat to peace had we left him in power. Oftentimes history judges you on the decisions you make.

Few knew in 2000 that Bush was going to end up with neoconservatives all over the place. And once 9/11 happened, I think it's fair to say that eight or nine neocons have had an enormous influence. The whole solution to every problem was to go after Iraq. This had been a neoconservative mantra for ten years. There was no secret about it.

I think the idea of allowing a genocidal, theocratic, unstable dictatorship that is desperate to avoid being overthrown by its own people, to develop nuclear weapons is about the most dangerous and irresponsible thing that the world could ever allow. And if Israel were to stop that genocidal, theocratic, unstable government from acquiring nuclear weapons, it would be a gift by the Jewish state to humanity.

The problem here is that there will always be some uncertainty about how quickly Saddam can acquire nuclear weapons. But we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.

Any time you have a situation in which you are calling for more time rather than calling for Iraq to immediately comply, it plays into the hands of Saddam Hussein.