“I mean, we have three different countries that, while they all present serious problems for the United States – they’re dictatorships, they’re involved in the development and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction – you know, the most imminent, clear and present threat to our country is not the same from those three countries. I think Iraq is the most serious and imminent threat to our country.”
“And they do, in my judgment, present different threats. And I think Iraq and Saddam Hussein present the most serious and most imminent threat.”
A speech by President Bush? No.
These are the comments of Democratic Vice Presidential Candidate John Edwards, in a 2002 Larry King interview.
I much prefer the statements of Secretary of State Colin Powell, who announced in 2001 that Saddam Hussein posed no security threat to the United States, that Saddam’s military had been crippled by the first Gulf War, and that Saddam wasn’t even able to project a conventional threat to his nearest neighbors.
Condoleeza Rice also said the same thing, on the record, in 2001.
I think it would help if you could divide peoples’ statements into two separate time frames:
What they said before Team Bush lied to them, and what they said after Team Bush lied to them.
This statement from Edwards seems to come from the time period AFTER Bush lied about Iraq.
Since most people don’t expect the President of the United States to lie to Congress, you have to cut Congress some slack for believing what the administration told them, about Iraq being a threat.
Sure, John Edwards was stupid for listening to Bush, and trusting him. I’ll give you that…