INTERVIEW WITH U.S. CONGRESSMAN HENRY J. HYDE

CNN Novak, Hunt & Shields

27 April 2002

Excerpts

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NOVAK: Mr. Chairman, you were last on this program about six months ago, in October, you thought it was not a good idea at the time for the United States to move into Iraq to remove Saddam Hussein from power. As you know, there's a lot of talk from the Pentagon about plans to do just that.

Do you think that would be a good idea now or in the foreseeable future?

HYDE: I think the answer to that, Bob, depends on what our intelligence shows, in terms of how far along Saddam Hussein is in developing weapons of mass destruction.

Any way you look at it, if he gets bombs that are nuclear, or if he gets bioterrorist missiles and the ability to deliver them, I don't doubt that he'll do that. And I don't think it's a good idea to let that happen. So we have to preempt that. On the other hand, we ought to try and avoid widening the conflagrations in the Middle East beyond Israel and the Palestinians right now, if we can. So we're, again, between the rock and the hard place.

But I do not think it would be responsible for us to let Saddam Hussein develop weapons of mass destruction, because he'll use them. Our job is to try and build coalitions over there, get the support of the other countries, so that we're not going to have to go it alone, unilaterally, against Iraq. Also, try to develop within Iraq elements of resistance.

But I don't want to march on Iraq tomorrow, but I want to do what I think our intelligence tells us is best for avoiding an all-out delivery of weapons of mass destruction.

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