Kent Conrad: “I say to the Senator, I have not said anything for weeks on this issue, but with each passing day I become more…”

“I say to the Senator, I have not said anything for weeks on this issue, but with each passing day I become more concerned about the credibility of our Nation. When a policy is announced of preemptive strike, something we have never done before in our country's history--I remember going to grade school and being taught that America never attacked first, but if somebody attacked us, we countered and we always won. That was what we were taught growing up. I was proud of it. I was proud that America never attacked first. Now the world has changed. I would be the first to acknowledge the world has changed. I can see a role for preemptive strike in a world where weapons of mass destruction do exist in order to prevent catastrophic loss to this country. But we better be very certain before we launch an attack on another nation that that attack is justified and that, in fact, that nation represents an imminent threat because, if we start attacking nations and we cannot prove our assertions, very quickly the rest of the world is going to doubt our word, our credibility, and our basic goodness as a nation. Now, that is serious business. The fact is, this administration told the world Iraq had weapons of mass destruction; that they were trying to develop nuclear capability; that there was a connection to al-Qaida. Each and every one of those claims now is in question. It is not just 16 words in the State of the Union. It is far more serious than that.…”