Verbatim

2 minute read
TIME

“Your government failed you. Those entrusted with protecting you failed you. And I failed you.”
RICHARD CLARKE, former U.S. counterterrorism chief for Presidents Clinton and Bush, apologizing to the families of Sept. 11 victims in testimony before a commission investigating the attacks

“Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be here somewhere… Nope, no weapons over there. Maybe under here …”
GEORGE W. BUSH, U.S. President, while showing slides of himself looking under furniture in the White House, during a dinner for radio and TV correspondents. The joke drew protests from families of U.S. soldiers in Iraq

“You are looking good. You are still young.”
MUAMMAR GADDAFI, Libyan leader, to British Prime Minister Tony Blair at a meeting in Tripoli at which Libya agreed to assist in the war on terrorism

“Everyone is in our sights. There is no immunity to anyone. And that means anyone to the last person.”
TZACHI HANEGBI, Israeli Public Security Minister, on a new policy of targeting top Palestinian militants after Hamas leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin was killed in an Israeli rocket attack

“If it’s cardiac arrest or an Apache [helicopter], I prefer to be killed by an Apache.”
ABDEL AZIZ RANTISI, interim Hamas leader in Gaza, responding to Israel’s new hard-line policy

“If you plan to launch a space shuttle and the weather is not fine, you can easily delay it a day or two … For the Games, this is not possible.”
JACQUES ROGGE, president of the International Olympic Committee, stressing that Athens must finish its preparations for the 2004 Olympic Games on time. Only 15 of 35 venues are ready, and a planned roof for the main swimming pool has been canceled

“If it gets to the point, period, where you can’t cuss on TV, I’m moving to a different country.”
JONATHAN DAVIS, front man of American rock band Korn, commenting on the Federal Communications Commission’s crackdown on indecency following February’s Super Bowl halftime show, during which one of Janet Jackson’s breasts was exposed

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