In My Time - Dick Cheney [207]
The judgment that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear program was based in part on aluminum tubes the Iraqis had ordered. Most of the intelligence community believed they were intended for centrifuges to be used in uranium enrichment. There was a minority view in the NIE, which Director Tenet later emphasized, that the tubes were for another purpose, possibly the production of artillery rockets. But that was not the CIA’s position at the time, and in 2002 Tenet conducted briefings using one of the tubes. He would reach down on the floor, pick up an aluminum tube that was at least three feet long, and place it on the table. With this very impressive prop in place, he would explain with great confidence why the tubes were compelling evidence that Iraq was reconstituting a program to enrich uranium.
In the lead-up to the vote in Congress, various members explained their positions. Senator John Kerry said, “When I vote to give the president of the United States the authority to use force, if necessary, to disarm Saddam Hussein, it is because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a threat, and a grave threat, to our security.” Senator Hillary Clinton gave a speech on the floor of the Senate, parts of which I could have given myself. Among the reasons she would vote to give the president the authority to go to war, she declared, was that “Saddam Hussein is a tyrant who has tortured and killed his own people” and “used chemical weapons on Iraqi Kurds and Iranians, killing over 20,000 people.” Senator Clinton noted that since inspectors left Iraq in 1998, “Intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program.” She cited his connection to terrorism, noting that he “has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including al Qaeda members.” She argued that if Saddam Hussein were left unchecked, he would “continue to increase his capability to wage biological and chemical warfare” and “keep trying to develop nuclear weapons.”
One of the most eloquent statements of the necessity of removing Saddam came from Senator Jay Rockefeller, the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. He acknowledged the “unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons and will likely have nuclear weapons within the next five years.” He noted that “Saddam’s government has contact with many international terrorist organizations that likely have cells here in the United States,” and he talked about the lesson our country had learned in September 2001:
September 11 changed our world forever. We may not like it, but it is the world in which we live. When there is a grave threat to Americans’ lives, we have a responsibility to take action to prevent it.
A few months later in an appearance on CNN, Senator Rockefeller expanded on Saddam’s connection to terrorism: “The fact that Zarqawi certainly is related to the death of the USAID officer [Laurence Foley] and that he is very close to bin Laden puts to rest, in fairly dramatic terms,