Mr. KLEIN: All you have to do is look at a--a picture of Abraham Lincoln's face, a photo of Abraham Lincoln's face, during the Civil War or Franklin Roosevelt's face during World War II, the dark circles under his eyes, or, you know, those photos of John Kennedy silhouetted against the--you know, the--the Oval Office windows during the Cuban Missile Crisis. I mean, we haven't gone to war with Iraq yet, but we have been involved in a clear, you know, cut confrontation since September 11th. And what you get from this president publicly are these very, you know, occasionally--often elegant public speeches, and then he kind of lapses into, you know, this tough macho talk.
I was watching him at the--at the Jacksonville Naval Station, and he was kind of leaning an elbow on the podium and kind of squinting sideways at the camera and dropping his G's and saying, 'We're smokin"em out. We're gonna get 'em.' And I just think that that kind of attitude, you wonder how that squares with the humility of his religious faith. You know, I'm not questioning his faith. I think it's real, and I think it's--it--it's a--it's an enormous comfort and enormous strength for him. But I do wonder about the absence of doubt. One of his top aides said to me, 'There's been no hand-wringing about this. There's been no existential anguish.' Well, some anguish is called for. This is a really tough decision. War may well be the right decision at this point. In fact, I think it--it's--it--it probably is.
RUSSERT: Now that's twice you've said that: 'It's the right war.' You believe it's the wrong time. Why do you think it's the right war?
Mr. KLEIN: Because sooner or later, this guy has to be taken out. Saddam has--Saddam Hussein has to be taken out.
RUSSERT: Why?
Mr. KLEIN: He has been defying the world for 12 years. It is very clear--I mean, I--I--I haven't found anybody who doesn't believe that he's hiding stuff there. And if there's going to be a civilized world order, the--the world has to be able to act on its--you know, on--on--on its agreements. And--and there have been now 17 UN resolutions calling on this guy to disarm, a--something that he agreed to do, and at certain--at a certain point, you have to enforce it.
Now you can quibble with the fact, you can argue with the fact that the Bush administration forced this judgment at this time in this way, but I think--and--but I--but I do believe that it was Bill Clinton's moral responsibility and responsibility as leader of the country to do it in 1998, as we--as we were saying before. And--and I think that now that we've reached this point, where the inspectors are in and it has become absolutely manifestly clear that he's not going to abide by this--you know, just look at his behavior in the days since the peace protests. All of a sudden, you know, he's--he's--you know, he's defiant again.
So I think that, you know, the--the message has to be sent because if it isn't sent now, if we don't do this now, it empowers every would-be Saddam out there and every would-be terrorist out there.
RUSSERT: So you expect war?
Mr. KLEIN: I do expect war. And, in fact, I think the only way to avoid war now is a unified--absolutely unified show of force on the part of the civilized world.
There you go.