Doing The Time Warp With Edward Peck

All of the following quotes were made by Edward Peck on October 8, 2001. Edward Peck is former US Ambassador to Iraq and former deputy director of President Reagan's terrorism task force.

From Former US Ambassador to Iraq Calls US War Plan "Dumb":

…nobody in this world -- with the possible exception of Tony Blair -- gives us the right to decide who rules Iraq. That is not part of our charter. It is not part of our mandate. Now, they can't stop us, because we are who we are. But when you take out Saddam Hussein, the key question you have to ask then is, what happens after that? And we don't have a clue. Nobody knows, but it's probably going to be bad. And a lot of people are going to be very upset about that, because that really is not written into our role in this world is to decide who rules Iraq.

Just like the colonel here, I'm a veteran of the armed forces. I have had two tours of active duty in the Army. And I don't take a back seat to anybody in terms of patriotism. This is the greatest nation that ever was and may be the greatest nation that ever will be. But that's my view, and it is not universally shared. So we have come out with 21 pages of proof that Osama bin Laden was involved. I have read that material. That's allegations. That's not proof. It's an entirely different thing. Proof of what it means to us. So, yes, he's not a nice guy, Saddam Hussein. But I think that the costs to our nation and its interests of taking him out are probably vastly exceeding anything we would gain by doing it.

Saddam Hussein is not all that powerful. And we have been -- I have no -- I have an affection for that country because I lived there, but my job has been all these years to learn to understand these other countries so I could tell my country about them. Do not confuse, please, the message with the messenger. And the message is that we have been bombing Iraq whenever we feel like it for the last 10 years. Nobody likes that, least of all the Iraqis, and but lot of other people besides.

We have been responsible -- pardon, I'll take it back. We have accepted responsibility for the death of 500,000 Iraqi children on American television, a position taken by the then-ambassador to the United Nations. A lot of people don't want to excuse you for that. So if Saddam Hussein believes, in the words of Dr. Mylroie that he's still at war with the United States, could it be the daily bombings? Could it be the $94 million that Congress appropriated to finance his overthrow. Sir, that's an act of war. Whether you want to accept it as such, we are going to finance people to overthrow his government? That is -- that is called a hostile act, you see? So if he's upset with us, there may be a reason for it.

You cannot enforce democracy. You don't stuff it down people's throat.

So we will mercilessly, viciously, effectively attack and destroy all kinds of symptoms. When the rubble has settled and the dust is gone, the disease is still going to be out there untouched. Because we don't want to look at why, why it is that all of these people hate us. It's not because of freedom. It's not because Brittney Spears has a belly button or because we export hamburgers. They hate us because of things they see us doing to their part of the world that they definitely do not like.