A Quote by Mark Danner

What is evil? What is - where does the evil come from that lies behind someone like Saddam Hussein, or Radovan Karadzic, or General Claude Raymond in Haiti. As I say, I've tended to find these people - I mean, Saddam, I've never met or interviewed - but these other people to be rather disappointing. Their political goals were mundane. What they had working for them was opportunism, was very often cleverness and was ruthlessness.

Mark Danner

Quote Topics

Behind Cleverness Come Disappointing Does Evil Find General Goals Had Haiti Hussein Lies Like Mean Met Mundane Never Often Opportunism Other People Political Rather Raymond Ruthlessness Saddam Saddam Hussein Say Someone Them Very Were Working

Quote Author

Mark Danner
American - Writer
Born: November 10, 1958

CBS news anchor Dan Rather has interviewed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. When asked what it was like to talk to a crazy man, Saddam said, 'It's not so bad.'

Conan O'Brien

The war on terror involves Saddam Hussein because of the nature of Saddam Hussein, the history of Saddam Hussein, and his willingness to terrorize himself.

George W. Bush

German people are essentially pacifists. Many still remember the experience of World War II. And they may not have seen Saddam Hussein as evil a person as a lot of other people have.

George W. Bush

Just because we're rid of Saddam and the evil Batthists doesn't mean the occupation is a good thing. Our salvation from Saddam was only with the grace of God.

Muqtada al Sadr

I think it was a big revelation to me earlier in my life that people who appear to be evil are actually not. In other words, nobody wakes up in the morning and says, "Yuck, yuck, yuck, I'm gonna be evil." I think even like Saddam Hussein or Hitler would wake up and say, "I think it's going to be a good day. I'm gonna do some really important work." And given their definition of good, they went out and did horrible things.

George Saunders

In searching for a rationale to go to war, Bush settled on the notion of Saddam as an incarnation of evil, basically, and convinced himself that Saddam was fundamentally Adolf Hitler reborn. I think his feelings towards Saddam were in fact quite genuine and quite legitimately hostile. He was not play acting.

Rick Atkinson

Human rights groups around the world, certainly sees that Saddam Hussein makes Slobodan Milosevic, who is a war criminal, look like a street thug. I mean, Saddam Hussein wrote the book on Human rights violations.

Curt Weldon

You can make fun with Saddam Hussein jokes ... but you can't make fun of, say, the concentration camps. I think my target was not so much evil, but benign stupidity people doing stupid things without realising or, instead, thinking they were doing good.

Tom Lehrer

Even before September 11, there was a debate in the administration about whether or not military force should be used to oust Saddam Hussein. You're not going to find one person in the top echelons of the foreign policy and national security establishment in the U.S. government who's going to say that Saddam Hussein should not be out of power.

Elaine Sciolino

As Bush said, after detailing some of Saddam Hussein's charming practices: “If this is not evil, then evil has no meaning.” It's not as if anyone is worried that we're making a horrible miscalculation and could be removing the Iraqi Abraham Lincoln by mistake.

Ann Coulter

Saddam Hussein and people like him were very much involved in 9/11.

Robin Hayes

Colin Powell has said over the years that Saddam Hussein is like a toothache. It recurs from time to time, and you just have to live with it. At other times, he's compared Saddam Hussein to a kidney stone that will eventually pass. But he has never said, 'You have to operate and take out the kidney stone.'

Elaine Sciolino

Whether weapons exist in Iraq, Saddam Hussein or post-Saddam Hussein, it is a serious enough issue that require that we continue to go and make sure that Iraq does not have weapons.

Mohamed ElBaradei

Yesterday, Saddam Hussein got 100 percent of the vote. Well, that's according to Saddam's campaign manager, Jeb Hussein.

Jay Leno

I personally think that today, Iraq without Saddam Hussein is a truly better Iraq than with Saddam Hussein. But, naturally, I also feel uncomfortable due to the fact that we were misled with the information on weapons of mass destruction.