Another argument holds that opposing Saddam Hussein would cause even greater troubles in that part of the world, and interfere with the larger war against terror. I believe the opposite is true.

The Iraqi forces are conducting the Mother of all Retreats.

Once we got hit by - on 9/11 and lost 3,000 people that day, we recognized, and it was one of the key decisions President Bush made, that this is not a law enforcement problem, it is a strategic threat to the United States. It's a war. And based on that, we then adopted a whole set of policies that flowed out of that proposition.

The issue is that [Saddam] has chemical weapons.

I think the key that happened on 9/11 is we went from considering terrorist attacks as a law enforcement problem to considering terrorist attacks, especially on the scale we have on 9/11, as being an act of war.

We have no intention of ignoring or appeasing history's latest gang of fanatics trying to murder their way to power.

I've worked for four presidents and watched two others up close, and I know that there's no such thing as a routine day in the Oval Office.