“On October 2, 2002, as the Bush administration prepared for the invasion [of Iraq], the young Illinois Senator [Barack Obama (D)] described it as a ‘dumb war’ in a speech at the Federal Plaza in Chicago. Saddam Hussein was a ‘brutal man’ but posed ‘no imminent and direct threat to the United States.’ ‘In concert with the international community,’ Obama said, ‘he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history.’ ”
– Deepak Tripathi, Overcoming the Bush Legacy in Iraq and Afghanistan, Page 124