Quotes of the Morning: Thank You Sir, May I Have Another

“Denouncing Iran's successful enrichment of uranium as unacceptable to the international community, Secretary of State Conodoleezza Rice said Wednesday the U.N. Security Council must consider ‘strong steps’ to induce Tehran to change course.”
-Associated Press, April 12, 2006

“So it should be obvious by now that the Administration is gearing up to attack Iran. We will need to follow through with our ‘doctrine of preemption’ because of Iran’s seeking nuclear weapons. Silly Iran, nuclear weapons can’t solve anything..”
-Skippy

“One of the military’s initial option plans, as presented to the White House by the Pentagon this winter, calls for the use of a bunker-buster tactical nuclear weapon, such as the B61-11, against underground nuclear sites. One target is Iran’s main centrifuge plant, at Natanz, nearly two hundred miles south of Tehran.”
-New Yorker, April 17 Issue

“… except when we use them. It would seem though that the immediate threat of Iran may be slightly overstated..”
-Skippy

“A major U.S. intelligence review has projected that Iran is about a decade away from manufacturing the key ingredient for a nuclear weapon, roughly doubling the previous estimate of five years, according to government sources with firsthand knowledge of the new analysis.
The carefully hedged assessments, which represent consensus among U.S. intelligence agencies, contrast with forceful public statements by the White House. Administration officials have asserted, but have not offered proof, that Tehran is moving determinedly toward a nuclear arsenal. The new estimate could provide more time for diplomacy with Iran over its nuclear ambitions. President Bush has said that he wants the crisis resolved diplomatically but that ‘all options are on the table.’"
-Washington Post, August 2, 2005

“As we recall from the last disastrous war we caused, ‘all options are on the table’ is code for ‘we will attack as soon as we can’. You can understand the concern though. We were forced into the war with Iraq. We had to invade. Remember all of that stuff that Saddam had that Colin Powell warned us about?”
-Skippy

“Every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions. What we’re giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence.
In fact, they [the Iraqi regime] can produce enough dry biological agent in a single month to kill thousands upon thousands of people. ..Saddam Hussein has never accounted for vast amounts of chemical weaponry: 550 artillery shells with mustard, 30,000 empty munitions, and enough precursors to increase his stockpile to as much as 500 tons of chemical agents. If we consider just one category of missing weaponry, 6,500 bombs from the Iran-Iraq war. . . Our conservative estimate is that Iraq today has a stockpile of between 100 and 500 tonnes of chemical-weapons agent. Even the low end of 100 tonnes of agent would enable Saddam Hussein to cause mass casualties across more than 100 square miles of territory, an area nearly five times the size of Manhattan”
-Colin Powell, address to the UN Security Council, February 5, 2003

“Well he stands by that to this day.. What? He doesn’t?”
-Skippy

“On Monday, former Secretary of State Colin Powell told me that he and his department's top experts never believed that Iraq posed an imminent nuclear threat, but that the President followed the misleading advice of Vice President Dick Cheney and the CIA in making the claim.”
-Robert Scheer, The Nation, April 12, 2006

“Well Powell may have had the facts wrong, but we can still trust Fearless Leader to set us right.”
-Skippy

''Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised.''
-George ‘Dubya’ Bush, March 17, 2003

''The Iraqi regime ... possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons.”
-George ‘Dubya’ Bush, October 7, 2003

''We know that the regime has produced thousands of tons of chemical agents, including mustard gas, sarin nerve gas, VX nerve gas ... And surveillance photos reveal that the regime is rebuilding facilities that it had used to produce chemical and biological weapons.''
-George ‘Dubya’ Bush, October 7, 2003

“[Iraq has enough material] to produce over 25,000 liters of anthrax -- enough doses to kill several million people ... more than 38,000 liters of botulism toxin -- enough to subject millions of people to death by respiratory failure ... as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent.''
-George ‘Dubya’ Bush, January, 2003

“Except of course that we never, ever, found even one biological weapon plant. And the ‘mobile’ versions that Dubya kept pushing?..”
-Skippy

“The Washington Post reported that a Pentagon-sponsored team of experts determined in May 2003 that two small trailers were not used to make biological weapons. Yet two days after the team sent its findings to Washington in a classified report, Bush declared just the opposite.
‘We have found the weapons of mass destruction,’ Bush said in an interview with a Polish TV station. ‘We found biological laboratories.’"
-Associated Press, April 12, 2006

“This time though… This time we’ll get it right. Good lord, we keep going back to this guy like a battered wife. ‘Oh, he’s changed. He wouldn’t do that to me again.’ Sigh..”
-Skippy

“Asked whether they would support military action if Iran continued to produce material that could be used to develop nuclear weapons, 48 percent of the poll's respondents said yes; 40 percent said no.”
-LA Times, April 13, 2006