Quotes About WMDs

February 5, 2003, before the conflict began, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell told the UN he had absolute proof that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) that were an immediate threat to world security. He declared: "My colleagues, every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions. What we are giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence . . . .

Al Qaeda operates by launching surprise attacks on civilian targets with the goal of massive casualties. Our only means for preventing future attacks, which could use WMDs, is by acquiring information that allows for pre-emptive action.

Nuclear proliferation - the proliferation of WMDs altogether - is one of the greatest dangers of our time.

Without command of the seas ensured by the Navy, it will become more difficult to project American power where necessary to defeat terrorists, interdict WMDs and illegal arms trading and deter nations, including the new super power China, that might do America and its allies harm.

In 2005, the Iraq war was entering its third year and no one believed that we were going to find WMDs any more. The prewar claims of their certain existence were becoming an embarrassing joke, a big present we'd been offered that was getting ever later in showing up.

This was the closest anybody in Iraq came to finding WMDs. Even though it was obvious to me and my staff that there was no way the vans could have produced biological weapons, a month after we got the photos, the CIA published a twenty-eight-page pamphlet insisting that was what they were for. …I was bewildered - Colin Powell

Election Day, 2016 was a historic blow to American journalism. It was as if we'd invaded Iraq and discovered there were no WMDs in the same few hours.