I can think of a lot of words to describe Senator Kerry's position on Iraq; "consistent" is not one of them.

[Saddam Hussein is aggressively seeking nuclear and biological weapons and ] the United States may well become the target.

We must be prepared to face our responsibilities and be willing to use force if necessary.

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

I have not suggested there's a connection between Iraq and 9/11, but there's clearly an established Iraqi track record with terror.

The biggest threat we face is the possibility of terrorist groups like al Qaeda equipped with weapons of mass destruction, with nukes, bugs or gas. That was the threat after 9/11 and when we took down Saddam Hussein we eliminated Iraq as a potential source of that.

...And while everybody was tremendously impressed with the low cost of the conflict, for the 146 Americans who were killed in action and for their families, it wasn't a cheap war. And the question in my mind is how many additional American casualties is Saddam worth? And the answer is not very damned many.