August 26, 2002
Vice President Speaks at VFW 103rd National Convention
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On the nuclear question, many of you will recall that Saddam's nuclear ambitions suffered a severe setback in 1981 when the Israelis bombed the Osirak reactor. They suffered another major blow in Desert Storm and its aftermath.
February 3, 2003
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Is the President grateful that in 1981 this officer, as an F-16 pilot, helped demolish Saddam Hussein's nuclear plant at Osirak, near Baghdad?
MR. FLEISCHER: I think that many people expressed, after 1991, when the United States realized that, contrary to the intelligence information suggesting that Iraq was years away from the development of a nuclear weapon, they actually were only six months away. Had that mission not taken place at that time, the military mission in 1991 would have been made far, far more difficult. I just leave that as a statement of fact.
