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Condoleezza: Saddam Was a Threat

'With or without mature weapons of mass destruction'

By Matt Cantor,  Newser Staff

Posted May 6, 2011 6:30 AM CDT

(Newser) – Saddam Hussein “was a threat” to the US, Condoleezza Rice told Lawrence O’Donnell on MSNBC last night. While O’Donnell held that “Iraq had nothing to do with September 11th,” The former secretary of state argued that “after September 11th, of course you look at threats differently. Your country has just been attacked; you know that you cannot allow threats to materialize.” Saddam, she said, had been a threat “since he invaded Iran in the late 1980s,” reports the Huffington Post.

“With or without mature weapons of mass destruction, he was a threat,” Rice said. Among his crimes were “shooting at our aircraft in the no-fly zone” and “trying to reconstitute his weapons of mass destruction.” But, O’Donnell asked, could the Iraqi people have risen against Saddam as in the recent Middle East protests? “It's simply ill-informed and ahistorical to suggest that a dictator as brutal as Saddam Hussein would have allowed an Arab uprising in his country,” Rice said. Click through for more from the Condoleezza Rice interview.

A screen grab from the interview.
A screen grab from the interview.   (MSNBC)
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A clip from the interview.   (MSNBC)

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COMMENTS
Showing 3 of 51 comments
TheRealTruth
May 6, 2011 11:36 PM CDT
The conservatives look for any opening to be irrational. Despite significant transparency - much more than should have been with an operation of this sensitive nature - the conservatives hung on, eg, Palin and Tea Partiers, insisted there must be a conspiracy unless the Bin Ladin death pictures are made public. Now that Al-Qaeda themselves have acknowledged his death, I wonder if they will suggest that Al-Qaeda is in on the conspiracy. Total nonsense!!!!
TheRealTruth
May 6, 2011 11:18 PM CDT
"The conservative obsession with immigrants is weird." Not only is it weird, its as SILLY as their obsession with Obama's birth certificate!
Count-Spatula
May 6, 2011 5:51 PM CDT
All the fucking Bush nitwits are coming out of the woodwork to insist their unrelated crimes are now validated. Saddam Hussein had SHIT to do with 9-11. Go buy some shoes you whore.
Politics • US • World

 
Saddam Hussein • Condoleezza Rice • Iraq war • interview • 9/11 attacks • Lawrence O'Donnell

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