Saluting the White Flag

From the time we're in grammar school, all the way through our adult lives we've been taught to take responsibility for our actions and not place blame on others for something we did. It's one of the essential elements of integrity. There was a time in our history when we could at least hope to look up to our elected officials and view them as statesmen, because they represented character traits we admired. Those traits and the courage to take a stand against evil would make us proud to follow them into battle. But today, we see many of them behaving like duplicitous children, pointing fingers at classmates and lying to the teacher about who threw the spitball. One of the most obnoxious traits is the willingness to conveniently forget what they supported in the past in order to gain political advantage in the present.

"Iraq is a long way from here, but what happens there matters a great deal here. For, the risk that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest security threat we face and it is a threat against which we must and will stand firm."

"do we take some ambiguous route to give Saddam more opportunities to develop this program of weapons of mass destruction and continue to ignore the solemn commitments that he made?"

"There are such things as international outlaws. I'm not sure China is, but I'm quite sure Iran and Iraq are."

"Someday,  he will surely rebuild his arsenal of weapons of mass destruction and I‘m certain he will use them as he has before."

"Saddam Hussein certainly has chemical and biological weapons. There's no question about that."

"There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons."

"We know he continues to attempt to gain access to additional capability, including nuclear capability."

"Saddam Hussein has, in effect, thumbed his nose at the world community and I think the president (Bush) is approaching this in the right fashion."

"Do you think we could have disarmament (in Iraq) without regime change?"

"I doubt it! I can support the president (Bush), I can support an action (war) against Saddam Hussein because I think it's in the long term interests of our national security."

"Serving on the Intelligence Committee and seeing day after day and week after week the briefings on Saddam's weapons of mass destruction and his plans on using those weapons; he can not be allowed to have those weapons. It‘s just that simple!"

"Bill, I support the president's efforts to disarm Saddam Hussein. I think he (Bush) was right on in the speech he gave. The lessons we learned following September 11 were that we can't wait to be attacked again. Saddam has not done the right thing, so we're left with no alternative but to take action."

"When I made the decision to remove Saddam Hussein from power, Congress approved it with strong, bi-partisan support. While it's perfectly legitimate to criticize my decision or the conduct of the war, it is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how that war began. As our troops fight a ruthless enemy, determined to destroy our way of life, they deserve to know that their elected leaders who voted to send them to war, continue to stand behind them."