Iraq quotes
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"The question is the morning after. What sort of Iraq do we wake up to after the bombing? What happens in the region? What impact could it have? These are questions leaders I have spoken to have posed."
"Now let me be clear - I suffer no illusions about Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power. He has repeatedly defied UN resolutions, thwarted UN inspection teams, developed chemical and biological weapons, and coveted nuclear capacity. He's a bad guy. The world, and the Iraqi people, would be better off without him."
"Isil poses a threat to the people of Iraq and Syria, and the broader Middle East - including American citizens, personnel and facilities. If left unchecked, these terrorists could pose a growing threat beyond that region, including to the United States."
"Our combat mission is ending, but our commitment to Iraq's future is not."
"We will send an additional 475 service members to Iraq. As I have said before, these American forces will not have a combat mission - we will not get dragged into another ground war in Iraq. But they are needed to support Iraqi and Kurdish forces with training, intelligence and equipment."
"Even if we give first priority to the destruction of terrorist networks, and even if we succeed, there are still governments that could bring us great harm. And there is a clear case that one of these governments in particular represents a virulent threat in a class by itself: Iraq. As far as I am concerned, a final reckoning with that government should be on the table."
"[Today's left] would have left us with Slobodan Milosevic in power, Bosnia ethnically cleansed, Kosovo part of Greater Serbia, Afghanistan under the Taliban, and Iraq the property of a psychopathic crime family. Now, I'm sorry to say, I've no patience with that leftist mentality anymore."
"They appear to have had a higher voter turnout in Iraq than we did in our recent federal elections, and we didnt have terrorists threatening to kill our families if we voted."
"I guess what surprised me the most was the discrepancy in casualties: Iraq, one hundred fifty thousand casualties, USA: seventy-nine! Let's go over those numbers again, they're a little baffling at first: Iraq: 150,000, USA: 79. Does that mean we could have won with only 80 guys there? Just one guy in a ticker-tape parade, "I did it! Hey!""
"We are in possession of what I think to be compelling evidence that Saddam Hussein has, and has had for a number of years, a developing capacity for the production and storage of weapons of mass destruction."
"I will be asking my network to lead a discussion on the issues of class, race, energy, the environment, disaster planning, Iraq -- all those things and more. This encompasses so many of the major issues of our time."
"There is only one option in Iraq: that we win."
"The Iraq War is the largest strategic blunder in U.S. history … On every level - moral, strategic, military and economic - Iraq was a failure. And it was you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, who started this war. It is you who should pay the consequences."
"The brave and capable women who served in Iraq and Afghanistan have performed admirably."
"When Time magazine conducted a poll in Europe in March [2003] asking which of three - North Korea, Iraq, or the United States - was the biggest threat to world peace, a whopping 86.9% answered the United States."
"Rather, it is through conciliation and compromise that we are building a fair Iraq, a just state for all its peoples."
"Under extremely difficult circumstances (Iraq) pursues the inherently complicated task of rebuilding the country. Yet Iraq continues, courageously, to reach for the promise of a democratic, federal and pluralistic state, where generations of oppressed Iraqis will regain their dignity, freedom and the right to join the civilized and progressive nations of the world."
"I believe the democratic transformation in Iraq will lead to change in Middle East."
"Iraq is not occupied, but there are foreign forces on its soil, which is different."
"We are trying to persuade all the Iraqi opposition to come breathe freedom in Iraq and use liberated Kurdistan as a base for our common struggle."
