THE DECISION TO GO TO WAR
Quotes Handout

• Author, former war correspondent, and New York Times columnist Chris Hedges in a 12/26/02 interview by Terence Smith:
  "[War] gives us a sense of purpose, it ennobles us as a people, it allows us to jettison individual consciousness for a goal, a noble goal, and it . . . it allows us to suspend questioning, to stop questioning for the great enterprise in front of us. And unfortunately, that's why war at its inception is often met with such exhilaration."

• President Bush in his 3/6/03 prime time press conference:
  "I hope we don't have to go to war. But if we go to war we will disarm Iraq. And if we go to war there will be regime change. And replacing the cancer inside Iraq will be a government that represents the rights of all the people, a government which represents the voices of the Shia and the Sunni and the Kurds."

• Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich in a 3/9/03 Washington Post article:
  "I think history will record that a remarkably strong president happened to be in office at a juncture where weapons of mass destruction and terrorism rewrote all the rules of engagement in international relations," Gingrich said. "It will record that the president moved beyond old institutions and developed a new set of alliances."

• National Security Adviser to President Carter Zbigniew Brzezinski in 3/7/03 NewsHour debate:
  "If there was an imminent threat, I would say yes, go to war on the 17th, go to war tomorrow even. We don't face an imminent threat. The president repeatedly has said it's a grave and gathering threat. And how we deal with it is absolutely critical to the kind of leadership we'll be able to exercise over the next decade, to the kind of precedents we set for dealing with North Korea, and other problems of proliferation of terrorism. We don't want to be dealing with these problems alone, because we will not be able to deal with them effectively on our own."

• French Foreign Minister Dominique De Villepin in his 3/7/03 response to U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix's report to the U.N. Security Council:
  "To those who believe that war would be the quickest way of disarming Iraq, I can reply that it will drive wedges and create wounds that will be long in healing. And how many victims will it cause? How many families will grieve?"

• Secretary of State Colin Powell in his 3/7/03 response to U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix's report to the U.N. Security Council:
  "Nobody wants war, but it is clear that the limited progress we have seen, the process changes we have seen, the slight substantive changes we have seen come from the presence of a large military force, nations who are willing to put their young men and women in harm's way in order to rid the world of these dangerous weapons. It doesn't come simply from resolutions; it doesn't come simply from inspectors; it comes from the will of this council, the unified political will of this council and the willingness to use force if it comes to that to make sure that we achieve the disarmament of Iraq."