Speaking before the World Economic Forum on January 26, 2003, Secretary of State Colin Powell said that though Iraq was given a final opportunity to disarm, “Iraq had ‘failed the test.’ …Powell asked, ‘Where are the mobile vans that are nothing more than biological weapons laboratories on wheels? Why is Iraq still trying to procure uranium and the special equipment needed to transform it into material for nuclear weapons? These questions are not academic. They are not trivial. They are questions of life and death, and they must be answered.’ The longer they waited, he warned, ‘the more chance there is for this dictator [Saddam] with clear ties to terrorist groups, including al Qaeda, to pass a weapon, share a technology or to use these weapons again.’ The evidence was there, he insisted, and the United States would reveal it to the world ‘in the days and weeks ahead.’ ”
– Karen DeYoung, Soldier: The Life of Colin Powell, Pages 437-438