Political Quotes

“This is not a challenge. It is an invitation. In any event, I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts for talking about the whole question of whether or not the connection exists between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, a connection that the Vice President has repeatedly invoked. At one point the President himself tried to straighten out the Vice President and said, wait a minute, there is no evidence that Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11. Yet the Vice President has continued to make this accusation, even in the face of the 9/11 Commission staff report that suggests that there was no working relationship, no collaborative relationship between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. There is no doubt that the inability of the coalition to secure Iraq is a tremendous impediment to everything that we are trying to achieve. I certainly share the goals of President Bush in establishing a peaceful and stable Iraq with a representative government, hopefully a flourishing democracy; but that fine goal and all the yardsticks leading up to it cannot be achieved without security.”