Senator Ernest "Fritz" Hollings is a native of Charleston, who represented South Carolina in the U.S. Senate from 1966 to 2004. A Democrat, he served as governor of South Carolina from 1959-1963. He is a graduate of The Citadel and the University of South Carolina School of Law.

"With Iraq no threat, why invade a sovereign country? The answer: President Bush's policy to secure Israel. Led by Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz and Charles Krauthammer, for years there had been a domino school of thought that the way to guarantee Israel's security is to spread democracy in the area." "First Lebanon would be bombed, then Syria invaded on the pretext of weapons of mass destruction. Afterward, Saddam Hussein was to be removed in Iraq and replaced with a Hashemite ruler favorable to Israel."

"Bush felt tax cuts would hold his crowd together and spreading democracy in the Mideast to secure Israel would take the Jewish vote from the Democrats. You don't come to town and announce your Israel policy is to invade Iraq."

With few exceptions, members of Congress uncritically support Israel and its policies due to "the pressures that we get politically," he said. The pro-Israel lobby knows "how to make you tuck tail and run."

Hollings cited the role of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the most important pro-Israel lobby group in Washington, in determining US policy in the Middle East. "You can't have an Israel policy other than what AIPAC gives you around here. I have followed them mostly in the main, but I have also resisted signing certain letters from time to time, to give the poor President a chance."

Bush's motive in going to war for Israeli interests, Hollings charged, was to "take the Jewish vote from the Democrats. Is there anything wrong with referring to the Jewish vote? Good gosh, every 1 of us of the 100, with pollsters and all, refer to the Jewish vote. That is not anti-Semitic. It is appreciating them. We campaigned for it. I just read about President Bush¹s appearance before the AIPAC. He confirmed his support of the Jewish vote, referring to adopting Ariel Sharon¹s policy, and the dickens with the 1967 borders, the heck with negotiating the return of refugees, the heck with the settlements he had objected to originally. They had those borders, Resolution No. 242 ‹ no, no, President Bush said: I am going along with Sharon, and he was going to get that and he got the wonderful reception he got with the Jewish vote."

"That is not a conspiracy. That is the policy. I didn't like to keep it a secret, maybe; but I can tell you now, I will challenge any one of the other 99 Senators to tell us why we are in Iraq, other than what this policy is here. It is an adopted policy, a domino theory of The Project For The New American Century. Everybody knows it [is] because we want to secure our friend, Israel..."

"With President Bush¹s domino policy in the Mideast gone awry, he can¹t keep shouting 'Terrorism war'. Terrorism is a method, not a war. We don¹t call the Crimean war, with the charge of the light brigade, the cavalry war, or World War II the blitzkrieg war. There is terrorism in Northern Ireland, there is terrorism in India, and in Pakistan. In the Mideast, terrorism is a separate problem, to be defeated by diplomacy and negotiation, not militarily. Here, might does not make right. Right makes might. Acting militarily we have created more terrorism than we have eliminated."

"Let's realize we are in real trouble. Saudi Arabia is in trouble. Israel is in trouble. The United States is in trouble. I am going to state what I believe to be the fact. In fact, I believe it very strongly. They just are whistling by on account of the pressures that we get politically. Nobody is willing to stand up and say what is going on."