Vice President Dick Cheney on August 26 outlined the Bush administration's case for a preemptive US invasion of Iraq. Speaking in Nasheville, Cheney said that there is "no doubt" that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussin has weapons of mass destruction and is willing to use them. 

Iraq was reportedly only months away from developing nuclear capability when the Gulf War ended in 1991. Subsequent international inspections found chemical and biological weapons, before inspectors were ejected in 1998. Cheney cautioned that renewed inspections were not the answer, however. Defectors, including Hussein's son-in-law, have pointed out hidden reserves that had eluded inspectors while they were there.

"What he wants is time," Cheney said of Hussein, "and more time to husband his resources to invest in his ongoing chemical and biological weapons program, and to gain possession of nuclear weapons. Armed with an arsenal of these weapons of terror and a seat atop 10 percent of the world's oil reserves, Saddam Hussein could then be expected to seek domination of the entire Middle East, take control of a great portion of the world's energy supplies, directly threaten America's friends throughout the region, and subject the United States or any other nation to nuclear blackmail."

White House aides at Bush's ranch in Crawford Texas said the president shares Cheney's views. The following day State Department spokesman Richard Boucher cautioned that the president has not yet decided how to remove Hussein, but he echoed Cheney's remarks on inspections, saying that Iraq had agreed to open the country up to inspections on nine different occasions since the end of the Gulf War, and had violated each of those commitments.

- 8/26/02

Links

• U.S. Department of State - Iraq Update