Look at the world. There is no pure competitor to the United States of America.

90 percent of my time is spent on 10 percent of the world.

I don't think anyone would disagree with the conclusion that Saddam [Hussein] was a terrible dictator. He had gassed his own people and his neighbors. He had killed thousands of people, and he had started a couple of wars and destroyed his country.

I think all of the attention of the world, to include the attention of the Arab world, should be on Saddam Hussein and whether or not he is prepared to give up the weapons of mass destruction that he has used to terrorise the region.

Politics is different, because the mission is always to get the necessary votes. A good politician goes through everything in terms of mission and vision, and resourcing, but at the end of the day politicians have to make compromises in order to achieve consensus.

Thee are such horrible weapons. And so no sane leader would ever want to cross that line to using nuclear weapons. And, if you are not going to cross that line, then these things are basically useless.

The ties that bind us are stronger than the occasional stresses that separate us.