JaTo, all those nifty quotes from Democrats prove just one thing: they were doing their best to demonstrate our resolve to contain Saddam. They show that Clinton administration officials and leading Democrats were fully aware of the potential danger posed by Saddam, and were not going to drop their guard even for a moment. They show that, in concert with other UN countries, the Democrats were positioning us well to make Saddam back down.
You seem to be trying to use those quotes for a very different purpose. You seem to be saying those quotes show that the Clinton-era Democrats were just as hawkish as the Bush-era neo-cons. That is a completely unwarranted assumption.
Just look at how different the context was when those quotes were made (mostly the 1990s). Those quotes were made in the context of a worldwide cooperative effort to force Saddam into compliance. The entire UN was threatening war against Saddam then, to force him back in his box. Those Democrats were speaking on behalf of almost every civilized person in the world when they threatened military action. By contrast, Bush's threats were not in cooperation with any sort of worldwide effort to force Saddam to back down. Quite the opposite. Bush's threats were just token warning of a long-planned, unprecedented, nearly unilateral, pre-emptive attack on a nation that had no significant ability to attack us.
Why do you pretend not to see the distinction between those Clinton-era Democrats' wise cooperation with virtually the entire UN, and Bush's reckless decision to blow off the UN and most of our allies and go to war almost entirely alone?
