Saddam Hussein had nerve gas and used it against his own people, he had used chemical weapons against the Iranians and he almost had a nuclear bomb in 1981 and in 1991. And he had been caught with anthrax in 1995 by the UN inspections after denying that he had it.

Paul Wolfowitz

Categorized in : People Nerves Nuclear

There's a lot of money to pay for this ... the oil revenues of that country could bring between $50 and $100 billion over the course of the next two or three years...We're dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon.

Paul Wolfowitz

war two country

We are already seeing a degree of instability in the world because Obama seems to have consciously wanted to step back. Donald Trump is going to be "Obama squared," a more extreme version of the same thing.

Paul Wolfowitz

degrees steps world

China, in the future, is going to have even more nuclear capability than it has had in the past. I don't believe that they have anything to fear from the United States, and I frankly don't believe they do fear the United States.

Paul Wolfowitz

united-states believe past

People change their habits. I know Americans who don't go to Paris because they think it is too dangerous.

Paul Wolfowitz

paris people thinking

We did not go to war in Afghanistan or in Iraq to, quote, 'impose democracy.' We went to war in both places because we saw those regimes as a threat to the United States.

Paul Wolfowitz

iraq democracy war

For the private sector to flourish, special privilege must give way to equal opportunity and equal risk for all.

Paul Wolfowitz

risk opportunity giving

It's hard to conceive that it would take more forces to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq than it would take to conduct the war itself and secure the surrender of Saddam's security forces and his army. Hard to imagine.

Paul Wolfowitz

iraq army war

Donald Trump seems to be unconcerned about the Russian aggression in Ukraine. By doing this he tells them that they can go ahead and do what they are doing. That is dangerous.

Paul Wolfowitz

ukraine trump dangerous

Iraq has no history of ethnic conflict.

Paul Wolfowitz

ethnic-conflict conflict iraq

I wish there were somebody I could be comfortable voting for. I might have to vote for Hillary Clinton, even though I have big reservations about her.

Paul Wolfowitz

voting wish might

Our security depends on having good relationships with our allies. Donald Trump mainly shows contempt for them.

Paul Wolfowitz

good-relationship trump allies

It would be a huge mistake to abandon democracy promotion. Peaceful political change has been enormously successful in the past years in Eastern European countries as well as in countries like South Korea, South Africa, Chile and Indonesia. However, if possible, the use of force is something to avoid except in cases where genocide is threatened, like Bosnia or Libya or with regimes that threaten our security, like the Taliban and Saddam Hussein.

Paul Wolfowitz

successful mistake country

The use of force to liberate people is very different from the use of force to suppress or control them, or even to defeat them.

Paul Wolfowitz

different use people

NATO is still the most remarkable alliance in history. It stuck together through 40 years of Cold War, and it then joined together to fight in Afghanistan. In the 1980s, I would not have thought this was going to be possible.

Paul Wolfowitz

fighting war years

The only way you can be comfortable about Donald Trump's foreign policy, is to think he doesn't really mean anything he says.

Paul Wolfowitz

mean way thinking

That sense of what happened in Europe in World War II has shaped a lot of my views.

Paul Wolfowitz

views europe war

Sometimes corruption is slowed by shedding light into what was previously shadowed.

Paul Wolfowitz

corruption light sometimes

The Bernie Sanders phenomenon shows that it's not confined to Republicans. There is a general sentiment that America is on the wrong track.

Paul Wolfowitz

republican track america

I certainly think it's important to speak up and say how unacceptable Donald Trump is. I'm always more than willing to do that.

Paul Wolfowitz

important speak thinking

People seem to forget that Saddam was the only leader in the world who praised the attacks of 9/11 as a good thing.

Paul Wolfowitz

leader people world