Brent Scowcroft, national security adviser to former President George H.W. Bush, made the case for containing, rather than routing the Iraqi dictator and his suspected stockpile of weapons of mass destruction.
Writing in the Wall Street Journal on Thursday, Scowcroft said, "(Saddam) is unlikely to risk his investment in weapons of mass destruction, much less his country, by handing such weapons to terrorists who would use them for their own purposes and leave Baghdad as the return address. While Saddam is thoroughly evil, he is above all a power-hungry survivor."
"I think Scowcroft has done us all a great favor by his article saying don't do it," former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger said Friday. "My own personal view is that basically Gen. Scowcroft is correct. Unless the president can make a very compelling case that Saddam Hussein has his finger on a weapon of mass destruction and is about ready to use it, I do not think that now is the time to go to war against Saddam Hussein."