Careful What You Say

...someone, somewhere, is keeping track.

Word around the Net has posted a little quiz which I am shamelessly posting below. Can you guess to whom each quote belongs?

1. "Every nation has to either be with us, or against us. Those who harbor terrorists, or who finance them, are going to pay a price.

2. "If we fail to respond today, Saddam and all those who would follow in his footsteps will be emboldened tomorrow by the knowledge that they can act with impunity, even in the face of a clear message from the United Nations Security Council and clear evidence of a weapons of mass destruction program."

3. "We stopped the fighting [in 1991] on an agreement that Iraq would take steps to assure the world that it would not engage in further aggression and that it would destroy its weapons of mass destruction. It has refused to take those steps. That refusal constitutes a breach of the armistice which renders it void and justifies resumption of the armed conflict."

4. "It is the duty of any president, in the final analysis, to defend this nation and dispel the security threat. Saddam Hussein has brought military action upon himself by refusing for 12 years to comply with the mandates of the United Nations. The brave and capable men and women of our armed forces and those who are with us will quickly, I know, remove him once and for all as a threat to his neighbors, to the world, and to his own people, and I support their doing so."

5. "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."

6. "There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein's regime is a serious danger, that he is a tyrant, and that his pursuit of lethal weapons of mass destruction cannot be tolerated. He must be disarmed."

7. "I don't [feel I was misled]. I asked very direct questions of the top people in the CIA and people who'd served in the Clinton administration. And they said they believed that Saddam Hussein either had weapons or had the components of weapons or the ability to quickly make weapons of mass destruction. What we're worried about is an A-bomb in a Ryder truck in New York, in Washington and St. Louis. It cannot happen. We have to prevent it from happening. And it was on that basis that I voted to do this."

8. "Iraq is a long way from Ohio, but what happens there matters a great deal here. For the risks 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."

9. "Imagine the consequences if Saddam fails to comply and we fail to act. Saddam will be emboldened, believing the international community has lost its will. He will rebuild his arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. And some day, some way, I am certain, he will use that arsenal again, as he has ten times since 1983."

10. "Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to completely deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power.We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country."

11. "As a member of the House Intelligence Committee, I am keenly aware that the proliferation of chemical and biological weapons is an issue of grave importance to all nations. Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process."

12. "The last UN weapons inspectors left Iraq in October of 1998. We are confident that Saddam Hussein retained some stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and that he has since embarked on a crash course to build up his chemical and biological warfare capability. Intelligence reports also indicate that he is seeking nuclear weapons, but has not yet achieved nuclear capability."

13. "Iraq appears not to have come to a genuine acceptance -- not even today -- of the disarmament, which was demanded of it and which it needs to carry out to win the confidence of the world and to live in peace."

14. "The global community -- in the form of the United Nations -- has declared repeatedly, through multiple resolutions, that the frightening prospect of a nuclear-armed Saddam cannot come to pass. But the U.N. has been unable to enforce those resolutions. We must eliminate that threat now, before it is too late.

15. We must combat an unholy axis of new threats from terrorists, international criminals, and drug traffickers. These 21st century predators feed on technology and the free flow of information... And they will be all the more lethal if weapons of mass destruction fall into their hands.Together, we must confront the new hazards of chemical and biological weapons and the outlaw states, terrorists, and organized criminals seeking to acquire them. Saddam Hussein has spent the better part of this decade and much of his nation's wealth not on providing for the Iraqi people but on developing nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons and the missiles to deliver them."

16. "Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late. Trusting in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein is not a strategy, and it is not an option."

Here are the answers:

1. Senator Hillary Clinton
2. President Bill Clinton
3. Senator Harry Reid
4. Senator John Kerry
5. Senator John Edwards
6. Senator Ted Kennedy
7. Senator Richard Gephardt
8. Secretary of State Madeline Albright
9. National Security Adviser Sandy Berger
10. Vice President Al Gore
11. Congressman Nancy Pelosi
12. Senator Robert Byrd
13. UN Weapons Inspector Hans Blix
14. Senator John D. Rockerfeller
15. President Bill Clinton
16. President George Bush the younger

Note that these are people who should have known what they were talking about and that many quotes are even from before President George W. Bush came to office. Who's lying now?

Word around the Net continues:

Freedom Agenda has an enormous section of quotes from leading Democrats and politicians - almost all of whom today pretend they never thought Hussein had WMD, that Bush lied, that the intelligence was withheld, that they always opposed the war. All of them are clearly cited, and quoted in context.

No, I'm not all that happy with the Republicans either. I told a representative of the Republican National Committee so just today. Nonetheless, people who lie through their teeth while labeling others liars appeal to me less.

Furthermore, despite claims that Bush lied, Iraqi documents--of which there are incredible quantities--have been translated, revealing:

• Sadaam Hussein did have ties to Al-Qaeda and its leader, Osama bin Laden
• there were terrorist training camps in Iraq
• the existence of WMDs
• that Iraqi scientists were very close to building their own atomic bomb.

Word around the Net has links to many sites which have been covering this issue.