Tom Cole: “Frankly, the administration, this government, never claimed we went to Iraq because of 9/11. We claim we went there…”

“Frankly, the administration, this government, never claimed we went to Iraq because of 9/11. We claim we went there because they repeatedly violated U.N. resolutions and they were pursuing activities, as indeed they were, to get themselves out of sanctions, and they expelled weapons inspectors from their country. Every intelligence agency in the world believed they were pursuing weapons of mass destruction; and, indeed, the reality is we probably simply caught them early in the process, rather than later in the process. I think my friend's comments are based on the unstated but very real premise that this war is somehow better off if Saddam Hussein was still in Baghdad. That is simply an assertion or an opinion that I reject. I have been to Iraq six times, as many of my colleagues frankly on both sides of the issues have been numerous times, and I simply remind my friends what Saddam Hussein and Baghdad meant: two regional wars that more than 1 million people died in; twice close to nuclear weapons, once in 1981, once in 1991; 270-odd mass graves in Iraq. I have been to Iraq. Nobody in Iraq wants Saddam Hussein back.”