June 22, 2004: US Should Have Assassinated Hussein, Televangelist Asserts

Televangelist Pat Robertson says the US should have merely assassinated Saddam Hussein instead of relying on a large and costly invasion to take out the Iraqi dictator. On CNN, Robertson answers a question about his previous warning that God thought the war could be a disaster. Robertson says: “Well, I don’t think God’s opposed to the war, necessarily, but it was a danger sign. I felt very uneasy about it from the very get-go. Whenever I heard about it, I knew it was going to be trouble. I warned the president.… I said, ‘You better prepare the American people for some serious casualties.’ And he said, ‘Oh, no, our troops are, you know, so well protected, we don’t have to worry about that.’ But it has been messy. And I think we’re going to come out of it, though. I think we’ll have a free Iraq. But it certainly has been a mess so far.… Our forces are going to war, and we support them. But if I had been doing it, I think I would have much preferred the assassination route. I think we could have gotten Saddam Hussein a lot easier than this.” [MSNBC, 6/22/2004] In 1999, Robertson advocated the assassination of the leaders of countries such as Serbia, Iraq, and North Korea, as well as Islamic militant leader Osama bin Laden (see August 9, 1999).