Joe Lieberman: “what weapons, exactly, does Saddam Hussein have, and what could he do with them? When we are talking about this…”

“what weapons, exactly, does Saddam Hussein have, and what could he do with them? When we are talking about this dangerous dictator, that is not a hypothetical question. We can see what he has done already with the chemicals he has developed. We don't have to imagine; we need only extrapolate. Saddam Hussein not only has large and growing stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons. He alone among the dictators of the world has shown a willingness to use them. In the 1980s Iran-Iraq War, Iraqi troops repeatedly used poison gas, including mustard gas and the nerve agent sarin, against Iranian soldiers. And Saddam has repeatedly attacked Kurds in the north with chemical weapons, namely nerve agents and mustard gas, the most horrifying single attack coming in Halabja in 1988. It is one thing to see nations accumulate dangerous weapons for purely deterrent and defensive purposes. It is another entirely to see a dictator develop such weapons and deploy them to murder opponents of his regime and wage offensive war against a neighbor. That is why we must look with special scrutiny on Saddam's stockpiles.”