Richard Perle in the UK Telegraph

"For the critics, erring by pre-emption assumes things will go badly, either during the course of the fighting or afterwards. Opponents of pre-emption, like those who argued against liberating Kuwait in 1991, tend to overestimate Saddam's support in Iraq and the region, as well as the competence, morale and ultimate loyalty of his army.

Here, too, there can be no certainty. But the frequency with which he rotates, murders or surgically mutilates his own officers hardly reflects confidence. As for their competence, the Iraqi force today is a third of what it was in 1991, and it is the same third, 11 years closer to obsolescence."