Vice President Dick “Cheney made the argument in a 26 August 2002 address to the Veterans of Foreign Wars. ‘Some concede that Saddam is evil, power-hungry, and a menace–but that, until he crosses the threshold of actually possessing nuclear weapons, we should rule out preemptive action. That logic seems to me to be deeply flawed. The argument comes down to this: yes, Saddam is as dangerous as we say he is, we just need to let him get stronger before we do anything about it. Yet if we did wait until that moment, Saddam would simply be emboldened, and it would become even harder for us to gather friends and allies to oppose him.’ ”
– Michael R. Gordon and Bernard E. Trainor, Cobra II, Page 617