Saddam's regime hides military equipment in or near mosques, hospitals, civilian homes and has a history of using innocent civilians as human shields. That is why, as [the President] said, our nation and the world must not allow a brutal dictator with a history of reckless aggression and ties to terrorism to dominate a vital region and threaten the United States. (Rumsfeld, Jan. 29, 2003)

As the President pointed out, the Iraqi regime has not accounted for some 38,000 liters of botulism toxin, 500 tons of Sarin, mustard gas, VX nerve agent, upwards of 30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical weapons, and a number of mobile biological labs designed to produce biological weapons while evading detection. His regime has the design for a nuclear weapon; it was working on several different methods of enriching uranium, and recently was discovered seeking significant quantities of uranium from Africa. The regime plays host to terrorists, including al Qaeda, as the President indicated. (Rumsfeld, 01/29/03)

Every day, every week, every month that goes by, let alone years, their programs are maturing, and their relationships exist, and they have intelligence agents around the world, they have relationships with terrorist networks, and they have opportunities to do things…[a]nd we know the lethal effect of an attack might not be 300 people or 3,000 people, but 30,000 people. How do we, how do you, how do all of us, how do the people in the world decide the imminence of something? And I would submit that the hurdle, the bar that one must go over, changes depending on the potential lethality of the act. (Rumsfeld, 01/29/03)

Baghdad declared to the U.N. inspectors that it had over 19,000 liters of botulinum toxin, enough to kill tens of millions; and 8,500 liters of anthrax, with the potential to kill hundreds of millions. And consider that the U.N. inspectors believe that much larger quantities of biological agents remained undeclared. Indeed, the inspectors think that Iraq has manufactured two to four times the amount of biological agents it has admitted to and has failed to explain the whereabouts of more than two metric tons of raw material for the growth of biological agents. Despite 11 years of inspections and sanctions, containment and military response, Baghdad retains chemical and biological weapons and is producing more. And Saddam's nuclear scientists are still hard at work. (Wolfowitz, 1/23/03)

Yes, there are real dangers in confronting a tyrant who has and uses weapons of mass terror and has links to terrorists. But those dangers will only grow. They are far greater now than they would have been five or 10 years ago, and they will be much greater still five or 10 years from now. President Bush has brought the world to an extraordinary consensus and focus on this problem; it is time to see it resolved, voluntarily or by force, but resolved one way or another. And time is running out. (Wolfowitz, 1/23/03)

For more than a decade, the international community has tried every possible means to dissuade Iraq from its weapons of mass destruction ambitions. Think of it: we have tried diplomacy; economic sanctions and embargoes; positive inducements, such as the “oil for food” program; inspections; and limited military efforts including the Northern and Southern No-Fly Zones. Each of these approaches has been unsuccessful. Now, in the case of Iraq, we are nearing the end of a long road, and with every other option exhausted. (Rumsfeld, 1/20/03)

Contrary to what Saddam Hussein told the Iraqi people, America is not the enemy. Our goal is peace, not war. We continue to hope that the Iraqi regime will change course and disarm peacefully and voluntarily. But the choice between war and peace will not be made in Washington, D.C. It will not even be made at the United Nations. It will be made in Baghdad by Saddam Hussein. Either he decides to cooperate or he decides to continue not cooperating. We hope he will choose wisely. (Rumsfeld, 1/22/03)

Starting today, the Department of Defense will be broadcasting the Pentagon weekly press briefing to the Iraqi people through Commando Solo radio broadcasts. We're doing so because the truth matters, and it's important, we believe, that the Iraqi people know the truth and hear the truth. (Rumsfeld, 1/22/03)

To all Iraqis who are listening today for the first time, I say that this is democracy in action; it is freedom in action. Every week, General Myers and I stand in the Pentagon in front of independent journalist professionals and answer their questions -- try to answer their questions. Some of the questions are tough, some of the questions -- many of the questions are insightful and all of them add to the information available to the American people and the people of the world. And when they leave, none of these journalists will worry at all about what will happen to them for what they said or what they asked. They know that they and their families will not be threatened and that no one will be beaten or punished. The truth is important; it matters; it is the foundation of justice. (Rumsfeld, 1/22/03)

By contrast, Saddam Hussein's regime is built on terror, intimidation and lies. A decade ago, Saddam Hussein promised to give up his weapons of mass destruction, weapons he has used to kill thousands of innocent Iraqis. At the end of the Gulf War, he agreed to disarm. Yet, for more than a decade, his regime has refused to live up to its promises. Instead, they have fed the world a steady diet of untruths and deception. (Rumsfeld, 1/22/03)

It's a strange situation. You know, in real life if someone in your community is caught lying over and over and over again, at some point that person develops a reputation for not telling the truth, and eventually, that person's no longer believed. And when someone says, "Well, Liar Joe just came around the corner but you can't believe him," people don't believe him. The same should be true in international affairs. The burden of proof is not on the United States or the United Nations to prove that Iraq has these weapons. We know they do. The United Nations put the burden of proof on Saddam Hussein's regime to prove that it is disarming and to show the inspectors where the weapons are. Thus far, he has not done so. (Rumsfeld, 1/22/03)

[I]f you think of this fact pattern, you have a country that had chemical and biological weapons and an active nuclear program, according to the U.N. inspectors who were in there, and according to information and documents that were found. You have a country that was asked by the United Nations in the 17th resolution to declare what they have -- after lengthy diplomacy, lengthy economic sanctions -- to declare what they have, bring it forward so that they can be disarmed. You have a country that agreed to do that. And then you have a country that declined to do it, by filing a declaration that was fraudulent, by taking steps to inhibit the inspectors from doing their work in a reasonable way, by behaving totally differently than South Africa or Ukraine or Kazakhstan, which invited inspectors in, showed the world what they had, had them dismantled and disarmed, totally opposite. They're telling their people to lie to the inspectors, they're telling their people to hide things. They are taking documentation and putting it in multiple locations. (Rumsfeld, 01/29/03)

For those who counsel more time for inspections, the President responded that we have given Saddam Hussein more than a decade to give up chemical, biological and his nuclear weapon program. Yet nothing to date has restrained him: Not economic sanctions, not diplomacy, not isolation from the civilized world, not even cruise missile strikes on his military facilities. He's now refusing to cooperate with the 17th U.N. Security Council resolution. As Mr. Blix's report pointed out, at what point do reasonable people conclude that we know his answer as to whether or not he intends to cooperate and voluntarily disarm? As the President made clear, the dictator of Iraq is not disarming; to the contrary, he is deceiving. His time to do so is running out. It's up to Iraq to prevent the use of force. And let's hope that they do so. (Rumsfeld, 1/29/03)