Richard Haass

On the Iraq War

"What I communicated was the sense in Washington about the breadth and depth of the commitment to bringing about a change of regime in Iraq, the very strong sense that the current situation was unacceptable and could not be allowed to linger. We simply can't live with a situation where Saddam Hussein possesses certain weapons of mass destruction, in particular chemical and biological weapons, as well as a number of missiles that have a range beyond what he is allowed under the resolution which brought a ceasefire to the Gulf War, Security Council Resolution 687. In addition, there is a good deal of evidence of his efforts to acquire the components and elements of a nuclear weapons capability" (9/11/2002, The Irish Times).

Once Haass was no longer an advisor to Secretary of State Colin Powell in June of 2003, his views adjusted:

"I did not believe in the Iraq war. I thought the United States did have viable alterative policy options, and I feared by going to war, it would — to use the phrase that Colin Powell and I bandied about — 'Take the oxygen out of the room on American foreign policy.' So yes, on virtually every foreign policy issue, I found myself on a very different page from my colleagues" (5/13/2009, NPR).