Bush Al Qaeda Quotes & Sayings

The L.A. Times reports that al Qaeda terrorists have been traced to Iran, and President Bush is talking tough. In fact he said he will attack the minute he has evidence his approval rating is under 45 percent. — Jay Leno

And after September the 11th, the United States Congress also granted me additional authority to use military force against al Qaeda ... — George W. Bush

Most people, when directly confronted by evidence that they are wrong, do not change their point of view or course of action but justify it even more tenaciously. Even irrefutable evidence is rarely enough to pierce the mental armor of self-justification. When we began working on this book, the poster boy for "tenacious clinging to a discredited belief" was George W. Bush. Bush was wrong in his claim that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, he was wrong in claiming that Saddam was linked with Al Qaeda, he was wrong in predicting that Iraqis would be dancing joyfully in the streets to receive the American soldiers, he was wrong in predicting that the conflict would be over quickly, he was wrong in his gross underestimate of the financial cost of the war, and he was most famously wrong in his photo-op speech six weeks after the invasion began, when he announced (under a banner reading MISSION ACCOMPLISHED) that "major combat operations in Iraq have ended. — Carol Tavris

There was no such thing as Al Qaeda in Iraq, until George Bush and John McCain decided to invade Iraq. — Barack Obama

Even though ... 9/11 happened because ... Bush's FBI and CIA did not detect the Al Qaeda conspiracy ... , Bush not only failed to apologize to the nation or the victims' survivors, he demonstrated his total lack of leadership by refusing to fire or even criticize those in these agencies who, like Bush, let this nation down. As in private life, to stimulate excellence, good performances have to be rewarded and gross negligence and incompetence punished. — Vincent Bugliosi

Trying to stop suiciders
which we're doing a pretty good job of on occasion
is difficult to do. And what the Iraqis are going to have to eventually do is convince those who are conducting suiciders who are not inspired by Al Qaeda, for example, to realize there's a peaceful tomorrow. — George W. Bush

President Obama dropped the term 'war on terror', and rightly so. Terrorism is not an enemy but a type of warfare that may or may not be adopted by an enemy. Imagine if, after Pearl Harbor, an attack that relied on aircraft carriers, President Roosevelt had declared a global war on naval aviation. By focusing on terrorism instead of al Qaeda or radical Islam, Bush elevated a specific kind of assault to a position that shaped American global strategy, which left the United States strategically off-balance.
Obama may have clarified the nomenclature, but he left in place a significant portion of the imbalance, which is an obsession with the threat of terrorist attacks. As we consider presidential options in the coming decade, it appears imperative that we clear up just how much of a threat terrorism actually presents and what that threat means for U.S. policy. — George Friedman

I would guess, I would surmise that some of the more spectacular bombings are done by al Qaeda suiciders. — George W. Bush

I have assured His Majesty that our war is against evil, not against Islam. There are thousands of Muslims who proudly call themselves Americans, and they know what I know - that the Muslim faith is based upon peace and love and compassion. The exact opposite of the teachings of the al Qaeda organization, which is based upon evil and hate and destruction. — George W. Bush

To date, we've arrested or otherwise dealt with many key commanders of al Qaeda ... All told, more than 3,000 suspected terrorists have been arrested in many countries. Many others have met a different fate. Let's put it this way - they are no longer a problem to the United States and our friends and allies. — George W. Bush

Al-Qaeda's resurgence brings out the worst in the Bush Administration's math and logic. — Jon Stewart

[Saddam Hussein] is a threat because he is dealing with al-Qaeda ... A true threat facing our country is that an al-Qaeda-type network trained and armed by Saddam could attack America and not leave one fingerprint. — George W. Bush

Launching more drone strikes than Bush ever did and compiling a secret "kill list," President Obama's administration took the view that al-Qaeda was like an organized crime gang - disrupt the hierarchy, destroy the gang. Theirs was a concerted and dogmatic attempt at pretending that al-Qaeda was nothing but a fringe criminal group, and not a concrete realization of an ideological phenomenon with grassroots sympathy. They took this view in part because of how successful Islamist "fellow-traveler" lobbies had been in influencing Obama's campaign after the mistakes of the Bush years. For Islamists and their allies, the problem was "al-Qaeda inspired extremism," and not the extremism that had inspired al-Qaeda. — Sam Harris

Human-rights advocates, for example, claim that the mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners is of a piece with President Bush's 2002 decision to deny al Qaeda and Taliban fighters the legal status of prisoners of war under the Geneva Conventions. — John Yoo

We also know that Iraq is harboring a terrorist network headed by a senior al Qaeda terrorist planner. This network runs a poison and explosive training camp in northeast Iraq, and many of its leaders are known to be in Baghdad. — George W. Bush

I think it is important for Europe to understand that even though I am president and George Bush is not president, Al Qaeda is still a threat. — Barack Obama

God told me to strike at Al Qaeda and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did. — George W. Bush

I fully support President Bush's decision to strike Al Qaeda's terrorist network. Now more than ever, we must stand united as a nation and support our President and our military. It is important to remember that this carefully targeted response is not an attack on a religion, nor a nation, but an attack on terrorism. In Congress, we will continue to work with the White House to do what's needed to bring justice to those who committed the heinous and evil attacks of September 11. — Tom Harkin