Iraq Best Quotes & Sayings

I must say that the Katrina response does help me better understand the situation in Iraq, ... The best bet is that the president doesn't actually know what's happening there, is cocooned from reality, has no one in his high-level staff able to tell him what's actually happening, and has created a culture of denial and loyalty that makes fixing mistakes or holding people accountable all but impossible. — Andrew Sullivan

[Invading Iraq] will unite the entire Arab world against the West. — Richard Dawkins

So the idea that you could put Kurds, Shiite Arabs, and Sunni Arabs in a nice, liberal, federal system in Iraq in a short amount of time, six months or a year, boggles the mind. — William Odom

No terror state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people and the stability of the world than the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. — Donald Rumsfeld

However one feels about the war in Iraq, realize that our troops deserve our support 100 percent. — Ric Keller

I think our great task is to make certain that our young men and women in the military do not get sucked into never- ending, perpetual warfare within the quagmire of Syria and Iraq. And I will do my very best to make sure that that doesn't happen. — Hillary Clinton

For no good reason, George W. Bush and the best and brightest he could muster, including the likes of Paul Bremer and Paul Wolfowitz, decided it made sense to attack Iraq. — Jay Parini

It's going to be a long, lonesome eleven months in Iraq, long and lonesome being the best-case scenario — Ben Fountain

I think there is a potential civic culture in Arab countries that can lead to democratic institutions and I think Iraq is probably the best place to put that proposition to the test Well, you're going to find a disproportionate number of Jews in any sort of intellectual undertaking. — Richard Perle

As it happened, the guy who was the honor man or best in our class was part of our platoon. He never had as many kills as I did, though, at least partly because he was sent to the Philippines for a few months while I spent my time in Iraq. You need skill to be a sniper, but you also need opportunity. And luck. — Chris Kyle

Downslopes in the curve show that at various times Algeria, Australia, Brazil, Egypt, Iraq, Libya, Romania, South Korea, Switzerland, Sweden, Taiwan, and Yugoslavia have pursued nuclear weapons but then thought the better of it - occasionally through the persuasion of an Israeli air strike, but more often by choice. — Steven Pinker

And just as your beautiful skyscrapers were destroyed and caused your grief, beautiful buildings and precious homes crumbled over their owners in Lebanon, Palestine, and Iraq by American weapons ... Americans should feel the pain they have inflicted on other peoples of the world, so as when they suffer, they will find the right solution and the right path. — Saddam Hussein

When I first came back from Iraq, I of course found myself thinking a lot about it. Not just my experiences, but those of people I talked to, friends, and colleagues. — Phil Klay

If any overarching conclusion emerges from the Afghan and Iraq Wars (and from their Israeli equivalents), it's this: victory is a chimera. — Andrew Bacevich

The victor of the war in Iraq is Iran. — Madeleine Albright

In what is perhaps the strangest turn in the President's efforts to rally support, he agreed that Iraq is just like Vietnam, but in a good way. — Jon Stewart

To sum up, the position we took was that since we didn't know the internal situation in Iraq nor Saddam Hussein, that our best bet was to take counsel from the people who did know him and who did deal with him. — Brent Scowcroft

That we have collectively failed to halt and repudiate the war in Iraq makes us even worse than the Germans. — Scott Ritter

The administration does not agree with those who suggest we should deploy hundreds of thousands of American troops to engage militarily in a ground war in Iraq. — Madeleine Albright

In Vietnam, our soldiers came back and they were reviled as baby killers, in shame and humiliation. It isn't happening now, but I will tell you, there has never been an American army as violent and murderous as our army has been in Iraq. — Seymour Hersh

I pray that this council, which will probably be too late to save Iraq, will do what it can, which will be immeasurably strong in what it does in trying to save our democracy. — Ed Asner

Sen. Edward Kennedy knows very directly. Senator Kennedy and I talked on several occasions prior to the war that my view was that the best evidence that I had seen was that Iraq indeed had weapons of mass destruction. — David Kay

I needed to talk to my dad. My dad who had been to war, who had seen its horrors, who suffered from its nightmares, my dad who was a good man, the best man I'd ever known, who, along with my uncle, I wanted to honor by teaching military kids - my dad, the only one who I would believe if he would just tell me I could be good, too, that I could do right by my students, because for sure they were going to suffer. It's just cause and effect. We're at war. The military fights wars. I teach military kids. I'd never served, but now I could make a difference. I just needed my dad to tell me what to do, to tell me I was good enough to get it done. — Tucker Elliot

What I see as the greatest threat to America is that the American people will put political pressure on their leaders to pull out of Iraq before we should. — Thelma Drake

I think the men and women serving in Iraq today deserve special recognition for that. — Jeff Bingaman

The best power of all is to be free, but Obama is not a free person. He is a prisoner of a military system. He talked about closing Guantanamo and ending the war in Iraq. Now he's taken on another war. What's happening? — Adolfo Perez Esquivel

We won the war, but we are losing the occupation and reconstruction of Iraq. It is past time for a new approach, one that relies on accountability, responsibility, and phasing down the scope of our military commitment. — Earl Blumenauer

We all lose people. We all have to live in the aftermath. It's how we move forward that counts, but sometimes we are tethered to something in our past that won't let us move forward. — Tucker Elliot

Grievances are not in themselves sufficient to radicalize somebody. They are half the truth. My meaning is best summarized this way: when we in the West failed to intervene in the Bosnian genocide, some Muslims became radicalized; when we did intervene in Afghanistan and Iraq, more Muslims became radicalized; when we failed to intervene in Syria, many more Muslims became radicalized. The grievance narrative that pins the blame on foreign policy is only half the story. It is insufficient as an explanation for radicalization. — Sam Harris

I have been to Iraq on a number of occasions. I was with the first group that went in. — Robin Hayes

That is the best case for Bush; that, among other things, he liberated Iraq. It is good enough for me. — Boris Johnson

On the issue of Iraq, it is my hope, and my challenge to my colleagues, that our debate will be based on what is best for the future of our nation and for Iraq, not what's best for a political party or presidential campaign. — Mitch McConnell

I strongly believe that a federal structure based on administrative and geographic lines with strong powers for the federated states will be the best solution for Iraq. — Ahmed Chalabi

I believe that the government that governs best is a government that governs least, and by these standards we have set up a fabulous government in Iraq. — Stephen Colbert

We've been at war for 10 years with this generation of Marines. We've seen women do a whole lot of things between the war in Iraq and the current war in Afghanistan. The fact that I'm sitting here making sure that we continue to put out the best young Marines is just a matter of it being 2011. — Loretta Reynolds

It is time we had a defense budget that lives within its means, accounts for what is truly required in Iraq and provides the best possible support for all our troops. — Pete Stark

We ought to realize by now (see Korea, see Vietnam, see Afghanistan, see Iraq, see Iran) that deploying the US military, or dealing billions of dollars a year of arms to our ally of the moment that can serve as a regional rival to our enemy of the moment, is not always the best way to make threats go away. Our military and weapons prowess is a fantastic and perfectly weighted hammer, but that doesn't make every international problem a nail. — Rachel Maddow

One of the outstanding sources of resistance to imperial power in the Muslim world came from Sufi groups. While Sufi brotherhoods are generally known for a more quietist and mystic approach to Islam, they traditionally rank among the best organized and most coherent groupings in society. They constitute ready-made organizations - social-based NGOs, if you will - for maintaining Islamic culture and practices under periods of extreme oppression and for fomenting resistance and guerrilla warfare against foreign occupation. The history of Sufi participation in dozens of liberation struggles is long and widespread across Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. Sufi groups were prominent in the anti-Soviet resistance, and later against the American in Afghanistan and against US occupation forces in Iraq. — Graham Fuller

Any outside use of military power would at best furnish a temporary respite from the processes that we see playing out. We know that because we have been through all this before. The "surge" of several years ago was supposed to provide space and time for Iraqi political interests to work out their differences. 30,000 additional U.S. troops failed to lead to any working out of those differences, and the outcome is the mess we see today. — Paul R. Pillar

I like to tell people that I have the best job in the media. All I do is hang around with heroes. I do that every week for my 'War Stories' documentary series - and when FOX News wants - I go off and cover the young Americans we send to places like Afghanistan or Iraq. — Oliver North

The purpose of such propaganda phrases as "war on terrorism" and attacking "those who hate freedom" is to paralyze individual thought as well as to condition people to act as one mass, as when President Bush attempted to end debate on Iraq by claiming that the American people were of one voice. The modern war president removes the individual nature of those who live in it by forcing us into a uniform state where the complexities of those we fight are erased. The enemy-terrorism, Iraq, Bin Laden, Hussein-becomes one threatening category, something to be defeated and destroyed, so that the public response will be one of reaction to fear and threat rather than creatively and independently thinking for oneself. Our best hope for overcoming perpetual thinking about war and perpetual fear about both real and imagined threats is to question our leaders and their use of empty slogans that offer little rationale, explanation or historical context. — Nancy Snow

Teaching isn't rocket science. It's about being engaged, listening, paying attention. Despite conventional wisdom, you don't need to talk a lot to teach well. You do need to care, though. Not so much about what people think of you or whether or not they like you, but about the kids and doing what's best for them. — Tucker Elliot

The art of coalition command - whether it is here in Afghanistan, whether it was in Iraq or in Bosnia or in Haiti - is to take the resources you are provided with, understand what the strengths and weaknesses are and to employ them to the best overall effect. — David Petraeus

I must tell you that I am committed, as the president of Iraq, to benchmarks and to do our best to achieve some progress forward for national reconciliation. — Jalal Talabani

The only thing that separates the Jews of Israel from the fate of the Christians, Yazidis, and other religious minorities in Iraq and Syria is the might of the Israel Defense Forces. Faced with murderous terrorists, Israelis are able to respond with F-16s, Merkava tanks, and one of the best-trained armies in the world. — Jay Sekulow

Over the past five decades, civilian officials have favored the use of military force over the opposition of their military counterparts. In doing so, the 'best and brightest' have blundered into long-term engagements in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan that didn't favor U.S. national security interests ... Paradoxically, the military is far less likely than their civilian counterparts to resort to the use of force. — Melvin A. Goodman

Every drop of blood that falls in Tibet or Cambodia or Gallipoli or Iraq lands upon our shoes and spatters the hem of our best suit. — Mark Collins

For the senior officers in Iraq, at least in 2005-2006, the responsibility was to the men at the top, the media, the message, the public back home - anything and everything, it seemed, but the soldiers under their command. And that's the ultimate betrayal of Iraq, the one that disillusioned me in Baghdad and Nineveh and keeps me outraged today. — Luis Carlos Montalvan

Clearly, Iran has influence in Iraq. Iraq has a majority Shi'a population, they have relationships to Iran. Some are natural. — Barack Obama

I pray every day for all who are suffering in Iraq. Please join me. — Pope Francis

What President Bush did in his doctrine of preemptive strike and in his war in Afghanistan and in Iraq was to turn even his allies in Europe negatively toward America. — Louis Farrakhan

Well, the United States has said that the disarmament of Iraq is the top priority, but we have also noted that there are many other United Nations Security Council Resolutions which are on the books, including the necessity to respect the human rights of all the citizens of Iraq that we're very interested in. — Richard Armitage

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. — Al Gore

I think indeed our response on counterinsurgency needs to be finely tuned to the needs of Afghanistan. This is not Iraq. We don't have a Sons of Iraq here. We don't have the same divisions here that we had between Sunni and Shia. — Rahm Emanuel

We would send them all to hell! And hell they would go! — Thomas Ferreolus

We know that Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction, is determined to make more. — Colin Powell

We have learned that terrorist attacks are not caused by the use of strength; they are invited by the perception of weakness. And the surest way to avoid attacks on our own people is to engage the enemy where he lives and plans. We are fighting that enemy in Iraq and Afghanistan today so that we do not meet him again on our own streets, in our own cities. — George W. Bush

Things aren't getting better; they're getting worse. The White House is completely disconnected from reality. It's like they're just making it up as they go along. The reality is that we're losing in Iraq. — Chuck Hagel

I think we should take Iraq and Iran and combine them into one country and call it Irate. All the pissed off people live in one place and get it over with. — Denis Leary

You cannot possibly expect even the most illiterate person on Earth to believe that you really want a democracy in Iraq while you are paying Mubarak $3 billion a year to pretend he doesn't hate Israel. And you're providing the military and diplomatic umbrella that protects the fascist government, if you will, of the al Sauds. — Michael Scheuer

Athletes as role models and heroes is a hoax, a sick hoax. The men and women who are fighting in Iraq, they are the true heroes. — Gale Sayers

To expiate the pain of losing her firstborn son in the Iraq war, Cindy Sheehan decided to cheer herself up by engaging in Stalinist agitprop outside President Bush's Crawford ranch, ... It's the strangest method of grieving I've seen since Paul Wellstone's funeral. Someone needs to teach these liberals how to mourn. — Ann Coulter

By the time we, consumers, are aware of processes like genetic engineering, they're already being done. It's sort of like the war in Iraq: By the time we know about it, it's almost a fait accompli. And that's certainly true with science. — Ruth Ozeki

I'm obsessed with trying to recount events as accurately and honestly as possible, but in practice the only thing I'm really any good at is telling you how I feel. — Jason Christopher Hartley

Well, first of all, I have to say that Iraq has already used weapons of mass destruction against her own people and against Iranians during their long war, so we know that weapons of mass destruction are existent with the Iraqis. — Richard Armitage

So we are fulfilling our task in preventing serious armament stocks in Iraq within our possibilities. — Bulent Ecevit

So to recap: we may or may not be going to war with Iraq because Saddam may or may not have weapons of mass destruction, which he may or may not use, or pass to other terrorists groups with whom he may or may not have links. — Rory Bremner

We have reached an important milestone and achieved a new momentum in reaching a goal all Americans should embrace - building a secure, peaceful, democratic Iraq that is no longer a threat to the United States or the international community. — Joe Lieberman

The President reminded us that the war in Iraq is a central battlefield in the war on terror that began the morning of September the 11th. — Mike Pence

If the president is going to use so much language of theology and the Bible, then let's use that language for a serious discussion about the war in Iraq. And that was never done. — Jim Wallis

What's fascinating is where they come from in the world. People in Bangladesh, a chap in a fire-base in Tikrit in Iraq. Chap in an Irish pub in Dublin. And lovely to think this literary network - or rather network of readers - is well spread out. — John Gimlette

There is no sign, not one sign, that the Iraqi regime has any intent to comply fully with the terms of Resolution 1441, just as it has failed to comply with previous U.N. Security Council resolutions. The international community gave Iraq one final opportunity to disarm peacefully, and that opportunity has run its course. Dr. Blix [Chief U.N. Weapons Inspector] told us on Monday that there has been no progress toward credible, verifiable disarmament. — Richard Armitage

Whoever tries to climb over our fence, we will try to climb over his house. — Saddam Hussein

In 2003, Congress should have resisted the rush to a war of choice with Iraq. I will do everything in my power to prevent us from repeating the mistakes of my predecessors. — John Garamendi

But the U.S. has to be careful. If our strategy depends on Sunnis doing the fighting to clear Mosul and Ramadi - and, as near as I can tell, that is the strategy - then you have to be careful that Sunnis don't perceive the U.S. to be operating arm in arm with Iran or with Iranian-backed Shiite militias that Abadi - Prime Minister Abadi is using in Iraq, so that, in effect, we're fronting for Iran. — David Ignatius

My anxiety and pain during the Scud attacks on Israel, where some of my family lives, did not cancel out my fear and anguish for the victims of the bombardment of Iraq, where I also have relatives. — Ella Shohat

Iraq is the central battleground in the war on terror. The terrorists certainly know what is at stake, which is why they are pulling out all the stops to derail our efforts there. They know that a free and democratic Iraq is a serious blow to their interests. — Elizabeth Dole

Today, the government of a free Afghanistan is fighting terror, Pakistan is capturing terrorist leaders, Saudi Arabia is making raids and arrests, Libya is dismantling its weapons programs, the army of a free Iraq is fighting for freedom, and more than three-quarters of al-Qaida's key members and associates have been detained or killed. We have led, many have joined, and America and the world are safer. — George W. Bush

The invasion of Iraq was a bandit act, an act of
blatant state terrorism, demonstrating absolute
contempt for the concept of international law. — Harold Pinter

It is impossible to exaggerate the wide, and widening, gulf between the American attitude on the Iraq war and the view from our friends across the Atlantic. — Nick Clooney

I am all in favour of democracy in Iraq. — John Bolton

In the 10th century, Baghdad instituted a licensing exam that all doctors had to take before practicing as physicians — Firas Alkhateeb

You've got audiences cheering at the prospect of somebody dying because they don't have health care and booing a service member in Iraq because they're gay. That's not reflective of who we are. — Barack Obama

Critics of the war plans (including myself) have pointed to the disastrous political results that must be expected: Iraq would break into three parts (Kurds in the north, Sunnis in the center, Shi'ites in the south), the Middle East would be exposed to the onslaught of Iranian fanaticism, pro-Western Arab regimes would collapse. Israel would be surrounded by aggressive Islamic fundamentalism, like the Crusader kingdom with the advent of Saladin. — Uri Avnery

The president is being denounced for not taking the kind of pre-emptive action in Afghanistan that he has been so passionately denounced for taking in Iraq. Damned if he does and damned if he doesn't. — Ferdinand Mount

Had we taken all of Iraq, we would have been like a dinosaur in the tar pit - we would still be there, and we, not the United Nations, would be bearing the costs of that occupation. — Norman Schwarzkopf