The Zealot Is Creating A "Crusade!"

Former President George Bush predicted in 1996 that if
the United States were to engage in another war with Iraq,
one aimed at overthrowing Saddam Hussein, the "entire
Arab world would turn against us" and the U.S. would
alienate its allies in the international community.

"To occupy Iraq would instantly shatter our coalition, turning
the whole Arab world against us, and make a broken tyrant
into a latter-day Arab hero," Bush said in an interview with
the BBC marking the five-year anniversary of the Gulf
War.

Moreover, Vice President Dick Cheney said at an energy
conference six years ago that hundreds of thousands of
United States soldiers and Iraqi civilians would die if a war
in Iraq were ever fought on the streets of Baghdad.

"To have brought the (Gulf) war into the populous Iraqi
capital of Baghdad where Hussein is based would have
involved a different type of military operation than in the
desert, and would have put large numbers of Iraqi civilians
and hundreds of thousands of our troops at risk of being
killed," he said.