← Netanyahu on Camera
Netanyahu Before Congress, September 12, 2002: "I Guarantee You"
Evidence rating: CONFIRMED. The testimony is in the official hearing record on govinfo.gov, was quoted by the New York Times in 2015, and survives as video in C-SPAN user clips.
Before Americans were sent to fight in Iraq, an Israeli politician came to the U.S. Congress and promised them it would work. His name was Benjamin Netanyahu. He was between terms as Israel's prime minister and testified as a private citizen. The hearing, held by the House Committee on Government Reform, was titled "Conflict with Iraq: An Israeli Perspective." It is the clearest video on record of an Israeli leader asking the United States to fight a ground war in the region, and in it he named Iran as the next target.
What he said about Iraq
"I think the choice of Iraq is a good choice, it's the right choice."
"If you take out Saddam, Saddam's regime, I guarantee you that it will have enormous positive reverberations on the region. And I think that people sitting right next door in Iran, young people, and many others, will say the time of such regimes, of such despots is gone."
(official hearing record; New York Times, February 26, 2015)
What he said about Iran
"It's not a question of whether Iraq's regime should be taken out but when should it be taken out; it's not a question of whether you'd like to see a regime change in Iran but how to achieve it."
The record also shows him warning that "Iran, by the way is also outpacing Iraq in the development of ballistic missile systems," and saying Iran "has a large population that is--that might bring down the regime just as it brought down the Shah's regime." As the New York Times recounted, he told the committee he had advised the CIA that regime change in Iran did not require cloak-and-dagger methods, only beaming American television shows such as "Melrose Place" into Tehran.
What happened next
The United States invaded Iraq in March 2003. About 4,400 American troops died there. The "enormous positive reverberations" did not come. In 2015, Secretary of State John Kerry reminded Congress: "The prime minister, as you will recall, was profoundly forward-leaning and outspoken about the importance of invading Iraq under George W. Bush, and we all know what happened with that decision." Senator Bernie Sanders later titled a statement: "Netanyahu Was Wrong in 2002. He Is Wrong Now."
Twenty-four years after the testimony, the United States went to war with the second country he named. On the Senate floor in April 2026, as printed in the Congressional Record: "For 40 years—for 40 years—Netanyahu had wanted the United States to participate with Israel in a war against Iran, and, finally, after 40 years of effort, he finally found in Trump a President willing to go along" (Congressional Record, April 15, 2026).
Where Iraq fits the larger plan
Iraq was the first country on the post-9/11 list that General Wesley Clark said a Pentagon officer showed him: "seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran" (Wesley Clark Clip). The 1996 policy paper "A Clean Break," written for Netanyahu's first government, had already proposed "removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq" (see A Clean Break, 1996). The testimony is where that plan met the American Congress, in person, on camera.
Watch it: C-SPAN user clips cut from the hearing: "Netanyahu 2002: I guarantee you" and "Benjamin Netanyahu projects the benefits of War in Iraq, 2002".
Status: Benjamin Netanyahu is alive. John Kerry and Bernie Sanders are alive.
Sources
- govinfo.gov, House Committee on Government Reform hearing, September 12, 2002
- New York Times, February 26, 2015
- C-SPAN user clip, "I guarantee you" and longer cut
- Sen. Bernie Sanders statement
- Congressional Record, April 15, 2026
Last Updated: 2026-09-26