The French had an obvious financial interest in Iraq. That's been documented. They were involved financially in Iraq and in some cases, I think with weapons of mass destruction.
It took the Gulf War to demonstrate that America did want more than one friend in the Mideast, and also was willing to take and make major risks to prevent a small Muslim country, Kuwait, from being overrun and in effect stolen by Iraq.
Everybody has a job to do. There are people in Iraq on both sides of this war who do what they do for religious reasons, and they feel with God on their side. Some people are good at annihilating people. Maybe that's their gift.
We must continue, however, to send a strong message of resolve to the people of Iraq, to our troops, to our coalition partners, and to the rest of the world that we, the United States of America, will stay the course and get the job done.
That was one of the great successes of removing Saddam Hussein, as we took Iraq out of the picture of having a sovereign nation from which the terrorists could operate. But this war has not gone perfectly.
If we pulled out of Iraq tomorrow, Islamic jihadism is on the rise. And they continue, as we see in Lebanon, to seek to destroy the State of Israel and seek to drive America back and bring us to our knees. We must stand tall and straight.
There aren't traditions of freedom in a place like Iraq. They're going to have to come to grips with a concept that they hadn't been allowed to conceive before.
If the president is going to use so much language of theology and the Bible, then let's use that language for a serious discussion about the war in Iraq. And that was never done.
Look at Iraq; look at Afghanistan, where at great personal physical risk people have gone to the polls and have rejected the appeal from Bin Laden and his allies to stay at home.
I am waiting for the decision, which is not depending of me, to know if the trial will be in Iraq, in the states, or in international court. Of course, the decision is not mine.
