“Echoing [U.K. Prime Minister Tony] Blair, [President] Bush said [on February 22, 2001], ‘A change in sanctions should not in any way, shape, or form, embolden Saddam Hussein. He has got to understand that we are going to watch him carefully and, if we catch him developing weapons of mass destruction, we’ll take the appropriate action.’ Saddam was viewed more as a ‘problem’ to deal with than a ‘grave and gathering danger’ in the early days. Talk centered on if he was developing WMD, not that he was developing them.”
– Scott McClellan, What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception, Page 94