Sam Brownback: “I have served on the Middle East subcommittee since I have been in the Senate. I have chaired it for a good portion of…”

“I have served on the Middle East subcommittee since I have been in the Senate. I have chaired it for a good portion of the time. I have worked on the issue of Iraq since 1996. I have worked with the Iraqi opposition. I have held hearings on this topic. We have had meetings with the then UNSCOM inspectors. We have really worked the full gamut of what is taking place in Iraq. My colleagues on the other side want to wait longer. We have waited 12 years. How much longer do we need to wait? They want to allow the weapons inspectors to work longer. We had them in there for a number of years and then Saddam Hussein threw them out. They have only been back for a short period of time. I remind my colleagues that we were not finding anything when the weapons inspectors were there prior to 1998. We did not find anything until we had some high level defections on the part of the Iraqis. That is when we started finding things. Iraq is a country the size of California. It has a dedicated leader who is seeking to thwart the will of the international community to disarm.”