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"The [Bush] Administration did not hesitate to heighten and distort public fear of terrorism after September 11th, to create a political case for attacking Iraq." -- Former Vice President Al Gore, February 5, 2004The Clinton Administration's Public Case Against Saddam Hussein In June of 1997, Iraq officials had ratcheted up their obstruction of UNSCOM inspection efforts. They interfered with UNSCOM air operations and denied and delayed access of inspectors to sites. In September, they burned documents at sites while inspectors watched outside the front entrance. By mid-November, Saddam Hussein had demanded an end to U-2 surveillance flights over Iraq and...

Former US president Bill Clinton sharply criticised George W. Bush for the Iraq War and the handling of Hurricane Katrina, and voiced alarm at the swelling US budget deficit. Breaking with tradition under which US presidents mute criticisms of their successors, Clinton said the Bush administration had decided to invade Iraq "virtually alone and before UN inspections were completed, with no real urgency, no evidence that there were weapons of mass destruction." The Iraq war diverted US attention from the war on terrorism "and undermined the support that we might have had," Bush said in an interview with an ABC's...

Contradicting his previous statements on the Iraq war, ex-President Bill Clinton said Sunday that there was no basis to attack the rogue nation when President Bush began the Iraq war two years ago. "The administration . . . decided to launch this invasion virtually alone and before the U.N. inspections were completed - with no real urgency, no evidence that there was any weapons of mass destruction there," he complained to ABC's "This Week." "I didn't not favor what was done," Clinton said. "I thought that diverted our attention from [Afghanistan] and al Qaida and undermined the support that we...

How soon they forget! "One way or the other, we are determined to deny Iraq the capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction and the missiles to deliver them. That is our bottom line." - President Clinton, Feb. 4, 1998 "If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program." - President Clinton, Feb. 17, 1998 "Iraq is a long way from [here], but what happens there matters a great deal here. For the risks that the leaders of a rogue...

NASIRIYAH, Iraq -- Sheik Lami Abbas Ajali looked around at the small cell where he spent several bleak weeks of his life and recounted the torture: how he was hit, prodded, had his eyelids pulled back, had electric shocks applied to his temples and genitals, how his hands were cuffed behind him then raised until he was off the ground. He recalled Saturday how torturers stuffed 10 suspects into an 8-by-6-foot room so only two could sleep at any given time while the other eight were forced to stand

THE PRESIDENT mulls a strike against Iraq, which he calls an "outlaw nation" in league with an "unholy axis of terrorists, drug traffickers and organized international criminals." The talk among world leaders, however, focuses on diplomacy. France, Russia, China, and most Arab nations oppose military action. The Saudis balk at giving us overflight rights. U.N. secretary general Kofi Annan prepares a last-ditch attempt to convince Saddam Hussein to abide by the U.N. resolutions he agreed to at the end of the Gulf War. Administration rhetoric could hardly be stronger. The president asks the nation to consider this question: What if...