This Week They Said

The people of the United States, and our friends and allies, will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the…

The people of the United States, and our friends and allies, will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder. We will meet that threat now, with our army, air force, navy, coastguard and marines, so that we do not have to meet it later with armies of firefighters and police and doctors on the streets of our cities. - President Bush.

We are all for jihad. Take the sword without any fear. Take out the sword: let them be witness to that. Take out the sword on the enemies against you. Your enemies will suffer humiliation and defeat. - Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

The outcome of this issue will now determine more than the fate of the Iraqi regime and more than the future of the Iraqi people, for so long brutalised by Saddam. It will determine the way Britain and the world confront the central security threat of the 21st century . . . It will determine the pattern of international politics for the next generation. - British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Britain is not a superpower. Our interests are best protected not by unilateralism, but by multilateralism.- Robin Cook, resigning as Leader of the Commons in protest at Britain's march to war.

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Soon, the US will have to reap the fruits of what they are doing now, and the fruits won't be sweet. - Vladimir Lukin, Russian MP and former ambassador to Washington.

We have a relationship with the US. I think we've had that understanding for a long way back. For us to withdraw something that's been there since 1955 was not something I was prepared to do. - Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, defending the use of Shannon by the US military.

Out of each six Iraqis there is one that lives in exile because of Saddam.

- Khalid Ibrahim, an Iraqi national living in Ireland.

I thought I was dealing with a drunk driver. - Garda Nicholas Rowe, who arrested Dr Blair Murray, a 71-year-old retired doctor in Bagenalstown, Co Carlow, last year. Dr Murray was suffering a stroke and died shortly afterwards.

People were laying carnations at the spot where Rachel was killed when a tank came and fired teargas right on them. - Peace activist Joe Smith, as Israeli soldiers disrupt a memorial service for campaigner Rachel Corrie, killed by an army bulldozer in Gaza last week.

The reason we are alarmed is because we do not know what is causing it. If this is a disease like a new influenza, it could spread rapidly throughout the world. - David Heymann, head of communicable diseases at the WHO, on the spread of the potentially fatal illness, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).

It is hard to comprehend that my daughter, who had a normal upbringing is living on an island and brushing her teeth with twigs. - Anne Rymell, whose daughter Joanne gave up her €66,000-a-year job to live in a hut with the son of a Fijian chief.

I am not pleased about it. Zimbabwe may cause serious problems.

- Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble, on the Special Olympics being held in Ireland this year and which Zimbabwe is attending

Alcohol levels in the samples . . . are only seen in those from one other source - the coroner's office.- Dr Mary Holohan, director of the Rotunda Hospital assault unit, says the number of women admitted who are too drunk to remember an alleged attack has increased fourfold since 1998.