James M. Talent: “I wanted to address briefly the incidence and pattern of behavior with regard to our reaction to Saddam Hussein's latest…”

“I wanted to address briefly the incidence and pattern of behavior with regard to our reaction to Saddam Hussein's latest actions in Iraq, and I want to preface it by saying that I have defended the President's decisions in Missouri with my constituents. I think it is important, given the history we have had with Saddam Hussein, to show him that the action we clearly regard as aggressive and the world regards as aggressive not be something he can get away with easily. This is the kind of person who keeps pushing and keeps pushing until he is stopped. it is better to try to stop him, to stop him at the early stages, rather than to wait until you have some kind of a general conflagration. I felt the President was right in responding. I did not want to second-guess the particular tactics that he chose. However, I think it is also important to be sensitive now to the kinds of concerns that my friend, the gentleman from Pennsylvania raised with regard to the fact that we are no longer dealing with a single response to a single incident. We are now dealing with a chain of responses, an ongoing pattern of behavior, and a policy that is being developed, a policy that involves ongoing and perhaps intermittent but ongoing military strikes.”