Tom Cole: “I simply want to respond to a number of the points my good friend made. First, let me for the record go back and remind…”

“I simply want to respond to a number of the points my good friend made. First, let me for the record go back and remind people of all the statements that we could line up here of one American leader after another, of both political parties, who told us that Saddam Hussein had active weapons of mass destruction and was actively pursuing those programs. It was this Congress, under President Clinton, that passed legislation that made it the object of American policy in 1998 to remove him from power because we thought he was a very dangerous person. So I do not think you can say everybody knew that that wasn't the case. Quite the opposite, in my opinion, is true. Most people saw him as a danger. In my opinion, they were correct. They may not have had an exact count of what he had available, but I think given his record of having used chemical weapons against his own people, of having launched the wars, of having tried twice and come close twice, according to our people, in acquiring numeral weapons, they were right, particularly in light of 9/11, to be very skeptical and very concerned.”