We have to bring stability to Iraq, otherwise we will be faced with a future dilemma of sending our loved ones into harms way to stop a civil war or the rise of a new tyrant born from the instability that we created.

One of my problems, so to speak, is that, in America, we tend to think in relatively short-term. In the Middle East and Asia and other parts of the world, they think in terms of centuries or 500 years or 1,000 years.

There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons and will likely have nuclear weapons within the next five years, and he could have it earlier.

Saddam's existing biological and chemical weapons capabilities pose a very real threat to America, now. Saddam has used chemical weapons before, both against Iraq's enemies and against his own people. He is working to develop delivery systems like missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles that could bring these deadly weapons against U.S. forces and U.S. facilities in the Middle East.

Once you arrive at an interpretation which you are comfortable in giving, no matter how specious it might be, and you are comfortable doing it, you stay there, you just stay there, and the facts are not going to change you.

The Republicans, in the various arguments, repeat exactly the same phrases one after another, with no sense of embarrassment, no sense of shame, no sense of intellectual integrity.

We have to bring stability to Iraq, otherwise we will be faced with a future dilemma of sending our loved ones into harms way to stop a civil war or the rise of a new tyrant born from the instability that we created.