The best case scenario is a rapid attack by precision-guided weapons, striking Saddam's communications in the first hours and preventing his deranged orders from being obeyed. Then a massive landing will bring food, medicine and laptop computers to a surging crowd of thankful and relieved Iraqis and Kurds. This could, in theory, all happen.

But if Saddam had been in a position credibly to threaten America or any of its allies – or the coalition's forces – with attack by missiles with nuclear warheads, would we have gone to the Gulf at all?

I think that the proposition of going to Baghdad is also fallacious. I think if we we're going to remove Saddam Hussein we would have had to go all the way to Baghdad, we would have to commit a lot of force because I do not believe he would wait in the Presidential Palace for us to arrive. I think we'd have had to hunt him down. And once we'd done that and we'd gotten rid of Saddam Hussein and his government, then we'd have had to put another government in its place. What kind of government? Should it be a Sunni government or Shi'i government or a Kurdish government or Ba'athist regime? Or maybe we want to bring in some of the Islamic fundamentalists? How long would we have had to stay in Baghdad to keep that government in place? What would happen to the government once U.S. forces withdrew? How many casualties should the United States accept in that effort to try to create clarity and stability in a situation that is inherently unstable? I think it is vitally important for a President to know when to use military force. I think it is also very important for him to know when not to commit U.S. military force. And it's my view that the President got it right both times, that it would have been a mistake for us to get bogged down in the quagmire inside Iraq.

“You know, I don't know about this doctrine of assassination, but if [President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela] thinks we’re trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it. It’s a whole lot cheaper than starting a war. And I don’t think any oil shipments will stop. [...] We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability. We don't need another $200 billion war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator. It's a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with.” — 22 August 2005, in a broadcast of his Christian Broadcasting Network's program, The 700 Club

The fact is, I see no compelling reason why we should not unilaterally get rid of our nuclear weapons. To maintain them is costly and adds nothing to our security. I can think of no circumstances under which it would be wise for the United States to use nuclear weapons, even in retaliation for their prior use against us. What, for example, would our targets be? It is impossible to conceive of a target that could be hit without large-scale destruction of many innocent people. The technology of our conventional weapons is such that we can achieve accuracies of less than three feet from the expected point of impact. The modern equivalent of a stick of dynamite exploded within three feet of an object on or near the earth's surface is more than enough to destroy the target.

We also tried to do that to Saddam Hussein. When he didn’t come around, the economic hit men tried to bring him around. We tried to assassinate him. But that was an interesting point, because he had pretty loyal security forces, and in addition he had a lot of look-alike doubles, and what you don’t want to be is a bodyguard to a look-alike double and you think it’s the president and you accept a lot of money to assassinate him and you assassinate the look-alike, because if you do that, afterwards your life and your family’s isn’t worth very much, so we were unable to get through to Saddam Hussein, and that’s why we sent the military in...

I can send several dozen small fishing boats loaded with explosives" to destroy the U.S. Zumwalt stealth destroyers and [North Korea has] two million elite special forces. . . will the U.S. and South Korean air forces be able to attack them one by one?

With luck we will be able to repulse the invaders before they land. At any rate, I can say that we will be able to destroy the major part of an invading force. That is, we will be able to inflict extremely heavy damage on the enemy.

We have also worked to avoid war by miscalculation. There may be little time for decision between our first warning and our need to reply. If our weapons could be easily destroyed, we would have to make the final decision in a matter of minutes. By protecting our power against surprise attack, we give ourselves more time to confirm that war has actually begun. Thus, we have placed missiles in protected, underground sites. We have placed missiles beneath the seas. And we have provided constant and secure communication between strategic forces and the Commander in Chief, the President of the United States.

I was told by a senior officer that before the Seoul Olympics we would take down a South Korean airliner. He said it would create chaos and confusion in South Korea. The mission would strike a severe blow for the revolution.

We have no other choice, we have no power to stop the [U.S.] planes, if we could, if I could … we would stop them and bring them down, ... If we had a chelak, we would throw it and stop the American aircraft. We have no radar to stop them in the sky, we have no planes, ... I wish I could intercept the planes that are going to bomb Afghan villages, but that’s not in my hands.

(as Tony Blair): "Look we believe Saddam has weapons of mass destruction. Now if we don't attack him, then he might not use them, and in that case we'll never know whether he's got them or not. And you know, that's not a risk I'm prepared to take. Besides if we do conquer Iraq, and remove Saddam Hussein, there's a chance we could win the Nobel Peace Prize, and you know, frankly, isn't that something worth going to war for?"

If you catch him, just give me four seconds with Saddam Hussein.

Why don't they ask [Saddam's intelligence chief, Tahir Jalil Habbush] to give us something we can use to help us make our case [to prove he had WMD]?