“For now, Mr. Hussein may not even be America’s most dangerous foe. Osama bin Laden, the Saudi-born extremist who is the FBI’s most wanted terrorist suspect, has in recent years struck with more deadly effect at American interests, orchestrating the August 1998 bombing of two American Embassies in East Africa, and is suspected of being behind the bombing last October [2000] of the destroyer Cole in Yemen. Saddam Hussein, in contrast, is confined within his country, visibly defiant, seemingly determined to preserve some modicum of Iraq’s programs for developing chemical, biological or nuclear weapons–and apparently interested in shooting down an American or British pilot.”
– Michael R. Gordon, “A Decade Beyond the Gulf War,” The New York Times, Feb. 18, 2001