"Supposing I came along in August 2001 and said...that there was an al-Qaeda terrorist network; no one would have heard of it. Suppose I said that we would have to invade Afghanistan in order to deal with it; no one would have believed that that was necessary. Yet, my goodness, a few weeks later, thousands of people were killed on the streets of New York. ...The threat (from Iraq) is real, and if we do not deal with it the consequences of our weakness will haunt future generations." --British Prime Minister Tony Blair