Why isn Iran a candidate for preemption, like Iraq?
I don’t think Iraq was preemption. I think preemption actually would have been to go after Afghanistan prior to September 11. Iraq was a universe of one. Saddam Hussein had invaded his neighbors twice. He’d used weapons of mass destruction before. That puts him in a class by himself. He had a massive effort to build weapons of mass destruction and then to conceal what he had been doing. We were in a state of suspended hostilities, and he was paying $25,000 to suicide bombers. And he was under international sanctions, which either needed to be removed so that the Iraqi people could live — because they were really hurting the Iraqis — or you had to deal with him. The Iranians may eventually get themselves to international outlaw status, but they haven’t quite gotten there yet. So different circumstances, different means. Do you see any Administration failures? We thought the Iraqi military would stand and fight. They didn’t. They melted. That led to the insurgency. And transfering sove
