Joe Biden in In My Time, by Vice President Dick Cheney

On War & Peace: 1998: only way to remove Saddam is massive military effort

In 1998 Saddam Hussein insisted that international weapons inspectors stop work and leave Iraq. In response, Congress passed and President Clinton signed into law the Iraq Liberation Act, making regime change in Iraq the policy of the United States government and approving nearly $100 million to fund Iraqi opposition groups working for Saddam's ouster.

There was bipartisan support for the operation. Sen. Joe Biden, writing in The Washington Post two months before the strikes, noted the limitation of any policy that left Saddam in power. "Ultimately, as long as Saddam Hussein is at the helm, no inspectors can guarantee that they have rooted out the entirety of Saddam Hussein's weapons program," he wrote, and he observed that "the only way to remove Saddam is a massive military effort, led by the United States."

Source: In My Time, by V.P. Dick Cheney, p.365-366 Aug 30, 2011

The above quotations are from In My Time A Personal and Political Memoir by Dick Cheney with Liz Cheney. Click here for other excerpts from In My Time A Personal and Political Memoir by Dick Cheney with Liz Cheney. Click here for other excerpts by Joe Biden. Click here for a profile of Joe Biden.
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Page last updated: Mar 30, 2012