February 27, 2001: Wolfowitz Testifies in Support of Overthrowing Saddam Hussein

Neoconservative and incoming Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, testifying before the Senate in his nomination hearings, tells the assembled senators that he supports overthrowing the Iraqi government. [Unger, 2007, pp. 206] Wolfowitz also criticizes the policy of turning a blind eye to Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program pursued by the Carter, Reagan, and, initially, first Bush administration. “I specifically sensed that people thought we could somehow construct a policy on a house of cards that the Congress wouldn’t know what the Pakistanis were doing,” he says. [Levy and Scott-Clark, 2007, pp. 300, 518]