Political Quotes

“this is one of the confusing aspects of this debate. I find myself supporting this resolution but worried that supporting this resolution will get us into real trouble. We use Saddam, Hitler, and al-Qaida all in the same verbiage and language. Let me make the real distinction, as I see it, regarding preemption. If we knew that al-Qaida had particular weapons, knowing, as we did, what their stated objective was, and with the intelligence we had, we would be fully within our rights--not under any doctrine of preemption--because of the existence of a clear, present, and imminent danger to move against al-Qaida. Conversely, with Hitler in the 1930s, the rationale for moving against Hitler wasn't a doctrine of preemption because we knew he was a bad guy. It was because his country signed the Treaty of Versailles. He was violating the Treaty of Versailles. The Treaty of Versailles did not have an end date on it. It didn't say you cannot have forces for the first 2 or 3 years, or you cannot do the following things. We were fully within our rights as a world community to go after Hitler in 1934, 1935, 1936, or 1937. It was not based on the doctrine of preemption but a doctrine of enforcement of the Treaty of Versailles, and in a very limited time. What we have here, I argue, as the rationale for going after Saddam, is that he signed a cease-fire agreement.”