Robert M. Gates, PhD Biography

There is no question that Saddam Hussein’s regime was a dangerous and disruptive force in the region. By the late 1990s, it was clear that his dictatorial regime needed to be removed from power. The Oil for Food program was a failure. Saddam’s continual defiance of the international community was unacceptable.

In 2002, I supported UN Resolution 1441, which called for immediate and complete disarmament of Iraq’s illegal weapons in order to give inspections another chance. Again, Saddam thumbed his nose at the international community. I believed that he possessed WMD or the capacity for building WMD, and that with the collapse of sanctions he would aggressively pursue an effort to increase his WMD capability."