Iraqis Quotes & Sayings

The Iraqis have once again failed to meet a deadline for a final draft of the constitution. — Matt Lauer

The rules of engagement are so lax that soldiers are shooting and killing Iraqis under mere suspicion, and tragedies are everyday. There are road killings, killings on the road when someone is trying to pass a convoy and they get shot. Or if a roadside bomb goes off, the soldiers just start shooting in all directions. — Yaroslav Trofimov

According to recent opinion polls, a large majority of Iraqis believe that the U.S. military has no intention to leave Iraq, and that it would stay even is asked by the Iraqi government to leave. — John Conyers

Iraqis have held elections and have recently put together their government, all encouraging developments. — James A. Leach

God will roast their stomachs in hell at the hands of Iraqis. — Mohammed Saeed Al-Sahaf

The history of the world is like: He kills me, I kill him, only with different cosmetics and different castings. So in 2001, some fanatics killed some Americans, and now some Americans are killing some Iraqis. And in my childhood, some Nazis killed Jews. And now, some Jewish people and some Palestinians are killing each other. — Woody Allen

The U.S. is not constructing a palatial embassy, by far the largest in the world and virtually a separate city within Baghdad, and pouring money into military bases, with the intention of leaving Iraq to Iraqis. — Noam Chomsky

The obvious objections to the execution of Saddam Hussein are valid and well aired. His death will provoke violent strife between Sunni and Shia Muslims, and between Iraqis in general and the American occupation forces. — Richard Dawkins

We are ready to sacrifice our souls, our children and our families so as not to give up Iraq. We say this so no one will think that America is capable of breaking the will of the Iraqis with its weapons. — Saddam Hussein

The Iraqis have become invested in their nationhood. — Joe Biden

I saw Kuwait many times before the war. I remember it as a beautiful place, full of very nice people, and it's a tragedy to see that somebody could set out to deliberately destroy a country the way the Iraqis have. — Norman Schwarzkopf

We need to get our sons and daughters home and their responsibility for the security of Iraq needs to be assumed by Iraqis who will stand up and toe the line for their countries. — Jay Inslee

Did you see those Iraqis making that pilgrimage slashing their foreheads with knives and whipping their backs with chains. See, when Saddam Hussein was around they weren't allowed to make that pilgrimage. If they tried that with Saddam Hussein, he would have slashed their foreheads with knives and whipped their backs with chains. — Jay Leno

We've killed a million Iraqis since the start of the Gulf war - mostly by blocking humanitarian aid. — Woody Harrelson

We have had some bad incidents and there continue to be allegations of others which will be investigated; but overwhelmingly American forces there, putting their lives on the line every day, protecting Iraqis, helping to liberate them, that is appreciated by the Iraqi people and by the Prime Minister. — Condoleezza Rice

Iraq has not been disarmed 100 percent [but] in terms of what they [Iraqis] have accomplished there are no meaningful weapons or weapons production capability in Iraq today. — Scott Ritter

Unlike the Afghans and Iraqis, the South Korean people solidly supported the American military presence, which was part of a United Nations operation. — John Eisenhower

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

If we are lucky, and George W. Bush is right, we are about to witness the War of the Happy Iraqis. — Howard Fineman

I think Barack Obama has the overall right strategy and he's been right to resist bringing in massive numbers of American troops. The Iraqis would love to have Americans die for Iraq and the Syrians would love to have Americans die for Syria. — Adam Schiff

Iraqis will never forget that on 8 August 1990 Kuwait became part of Iraq legally, constitutionally and actually. It continued to do so until last night, when withdrawal began. — Saddam Hussein

President Bush threw out the first pitch Monday at Cincinnati's great American ball park. 18 Iraqis were killed. — Amy Poehler

I really am tired of all the Clinton Democrats running around getting all-sanctimonious over Iraq. It was them who killed 1.5 to 2.2 million Iraqis through sanctions. Sanctions that Madeline Albright, their illustrious Secretary of State, when confronted with the fact of 500,000 dead Iraqi children, said it was a price she was willing to pay. — Scott Ritter

If one does not wish to take the word of journalists, human rights groups, and the United Nations that Iraq conducted a deliberate campaign to eradicate the Kurdish population, there's always the word of the Iraqis themselves. — Timothy Noah

The deadline is at midnight in America; dawn, 5 A.M., in England, and 8:00 A.M., early morning, in Iraq. The Americans tie yellow ribbons around oak trees, hoping for their sons' safe return home. The Iraqis tie green ribbons around the Shrine of the Imam al-Hussain, praying for God's protection. In the coldest month, the coldest war of the modern age is declared. — Betool Khedairi

Each of the Iraqi children killed by the United States was our child. Each of the prisoners tortured in Abu Ghraib was our comrade. Each of their screams was ours. When they were humiliated, we were humiliated. The U.S. soldiers fighting in Iraq - mostly volunteers in a poverty draft from small towns and poor urban neighborhoods - are victims just as much as the Iraqis of the same horrendous process, which asks them to die for a victory that will never be theirs. — Arundhati Roy

The Iraqis sat down for talks on how to put together a post-war government. They would have sat down yesterday, but somebody stole all their couches. — Jay Leno

Despite the negativity coming from the President's opponents, the United States remains fully committed to assisting the Iraqis in restoring security and rebuilding their nation. — Craig L. Thomas

I read this morning that he's [Saddam Hussein] also said the love that the Iraqis have for him is so much greater than anything Americans feel for their President because he's been loved for 35 years, he says, the whole 35 years. — Diane Sawyer

George W.Bush can go and kill thousands of Iraqis every day. By making people believe they are the enemy, and not human beings any more. If evil has an address, a nationality, you can exterminate all of them. This is fascism. — Marjane Satrapi

The violent subjugation of the Palestinians, Iraqis, and Afghans will only ensure that those who oppose us will increasingly speak to us in the language we speak to them - violence. — Chris Hedges

What the UN inspectors can do is demonstrate to the world, help the Iraqi government demonstrate to the world that the Iraqis are cooperatively disarming if that is in fact what the Iraqi government decides to do. — Douglas Feith

When it comes to the war in Iraq, the time for promises and assurances, for waiting and patience is over. Too many lives have been lost and too many billions have been spent for us to trust the President on another tried-and-failed policy, opposed by generals and experts, opposed by Democrats and Republicans, opposed by Americans and even the Iraqis themselves. It is time to change our policy. It is time to give Iraqis their country back, and it is time to refocus America's effort on the wider struggle against terror yet to be won. — Barack Obama

The act of voting by ordinary Iraqis in the face of extreme danger confirms President Bush's belief that people around the globe, when given a chance, will choose liberty and democracy over enslavement and tyranny. — John Ensign

Iraqis are sick of foreign people coming in their country and trying to destabilize their country. — George W. Bush

If the Iraqis fail to implement the reforms, if they fail to get a handle on the violence, there's nothing the United States can do, militarily or otherwise, that can solve those problems. They have to assume the primary responsibility to govern themselves. — Leon Panetta

Faced with the collapse of Iraq into something like Lebanon - or worse, Somalia - the Bush administration opted for a new counterinsurgency strategy. Violence was reduced because, for the first time since the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003, Iraqis felt that there was a force capable of dominating the situation and ensuring basic order. — Noah Feldman

I want the Iraqis to understand that we are with them and that they have to make tough decisions, and we'll help them make those tough decisions for this country, for this democracy to survive. And they've made some tough decisions. — George W. Bush

The Ambassador and the General were briefing me on the ... the vast majority of Iraqis want to live in a peaceful, free world. And we will find these people and we will bring them to justice. — George W. Bush

There is no doubt that Iraqis, like Australians and Americans, love and desire freedom. However, if freedom doesn't mean the right to complete self-determination, unfettered by interests other than one's own, then that freedom is less than worthless - it's oppression. — Amir Butler

The U.S. and Iraq will work together next year to shift Iraqi resources from unproductive subsidies to productive uses that enable Iraqis to earn livelihoods. — Zalmay Khalilzad

If in the past, you didnt cry out when thousands of protestors were killed and injured by Turkey, Egypt and Libya, when more victims than ever were hanged by Iran, women and children in Afghanistan were bombed, whole communities were massacred in South Sudan, 1800 Palestinians were starved and murdered by Assad in Syria, hundreds in Pakistan were killed by jihadist terrorist attacks, 10,000 Iraqis were killed by terrorists, villagers were slaughtered in Nigeria, but you ONLY cry out for Gaza, then you are NOT Pro- Human Rights, you are only Anti-Israel. — Hillel Neuer

People don't realize that by voting Republican, they voted against themselves ... I worry that some people are entertained by the idea of this war. They don't know anything about the Iraqis, but they're angry and frustrated in their own lives. It's like Germany, before Hitler took over. The economy was bad and people felt kicked around. They looked for a scapegoat. Now we've got a new bunch of Hitlers. — Linda Ronstadt

I sent American troops to Iraq to make its people free, not to make them American. Iraqis will write their own history and find their own way. — George W. Bush

The publisher Jeff Johnson, who has offered not a word of explanation to me, has privately told people that he hated every word that I wrote. I assume that mostly refers to my exposing the lies used by President Bush to justify the invasion of Iraq. Fortunately 60 percent of Americans now get the point but only after tens of thousand of Americans and Iraqis have been killed and maimed as the carnage spirals out of control. My only regret is that my pen was not sharper and my words tougher. — Robert Scheer

An economic blockade may cause more deaths by a factor of a hundred, but it does so silently and behind closed doors. Its first victims are the very young, the very old and the very sick. The numbers of children dying before their first birthday increased from one in thirty when sanctions were imposed to one in eight seven years later. Many Iraqis were simply not getting enough to eat. I — Patrick Cockburn

As Turkish entrepreneurs perform well in Iraq, the Iraqis will have more confidence in Turkish contractors than in some European company they do not know. — Husnu Ozyegin

The national unity government will need to implement a program that brings all Iraqis together, builds a happy future for the people of Iraq, and gets Iraq to stand on its own feet. — Zalmay Khalilzad

The president [Barack Obama] is not willing to send in apaches and spotters if the Iraqis say they don't want them and if it means that these Shia mobilization forces are going to be going after and trying to kill Americans. — Adam Schiff

I don't think that the United States has the bulk of the responsibility. I really put that on [Bashar] Assad and on the Iraqis and on the region itself. — Hillary Clinton

Wars are motivated by the need to seize the wealth of our neighbours, to wield power, to protect ourselves from real or imagined threats: in short they have, as we have seen, political, social, economic or demographic causes. There is no need to refer to Islam or the clash of civilizations to explain why the Afghans or the Iraqis resist the western military forces occupying their countries. Nor to speak of anti-Jewish sentiment or anti-Semitism to understand the reasons why the Palestinians are not overjoyed by the Israeli occupation of their lands. — Tzvetan Todorov

It is hard as an American to support the failure of American military operations in Iraq. Such failure will bring with it the death and wounding of many American service members, and many more Iraqis. — Scott Ritter

The people of Iraq realize that a stable, successful, democratic Iraq can only come about if average Iraqis are willing to sacrifice to build it. — John Ensign

Just two weeks ago, millions of Iraqis defied the threats of terrorists and went to the polls to determine their own future. I congratulate the Iraqi people for the courage they've shown in making these elections so successful. — Bill Frist

American POWs from the last Iraq war, who were held prisoner and tortured by Iraq, are now being prevented by our government from suing the Iraqis who tortured them. — Dana Rohrabacher

I am told that the majority of Iraqis wanted Saddam removed from power, but they were unwilling and were incapable of doing the job themselves because they feared Saddam and knew the pain and torture he was capable of inflicting upon them. — Howard Coble

I don't know anybody that I can think of who has contended that the Iraqis had nuclear weapons. — Donald Rumsfeld

We should not mislead the Iraqis into thinking they have unlimited time to reach a settlement. The longer they think that, the less likely they will be to act. — Sherrod Brown

All Iraqis should live under one roof and for one goal. — Muqtada Al Sadr

Fallujah was a Guernica with no Picasso. A city of 300,000 was deprived of water, electricity, and food, emptied of most of its inhabitants who ended up parked in camps. Then came the methodical bombing and recapture of the city block by block. When soldiers occupied the hospital, The New York Times managed to justify this act on grounds that the hospital served as an enemy propaganda center by exaggerating the number of casualties. And by the way, just how many casualties were there? Nobody knows, there is no body count for Iraqis. When estimates are published, even by reputable scientific reviews, they are denounced as exaggerated. Finally, the inhabitants were allowed to return to their devastated city, by way of military checkpoints, and start to sift through the rubble, under the watchful eye of soldiers and biometric controls. — Jean Bricmont

Saddam Hussein was a CIA operative whom the American spy agency deployed in 1959 to kill the ruler of Iraq, Abdul Karim Kassem. When that assassination attempt failed, Saddam entered a CIA protection program in Egypt until his Baath Party, also supported by the CIA, seized power in 1963. At least 5,000 Iraqis, most of them student activists, were executed immediately by the Baathist regime. And so our Iraq War began. — Anonymous

North Americans do not understand that you do not throw down human rights like bombs on the Iraqis. — Shirin Ebadi

This is so like the way the Americans deliberately erroneously refer to Afghans and Iraqis as terrorists when they fight back killing American soldiers to protect their young from the illegal American invasion. — Bob Barker

I agree with Pres. Barack Obama, Iraqis need a political solution. No war in Iraq! — Barbara Lee

I can imagine that the Iraqis undertake the destruction out of fear. If they had denied it, if they had said no, that certainly would have played into the hands of those that would like to take armed action immediately. I have no illusions in that regard. — Hans Blix

The good news from the U.S. military survey of focus groups is that Iraqis do accept the Nuremberg principles. They understand that sectarian violence and the other postwar horrors are contained within the supreme international crime committed by the invaders. — Noam Chomsky

The US is often the first to call for transparency and integrity in the reporting of other governments. It has never provided transparency or integrity in its reporting on the war in Iraq. It has downplayed the growth of the insurgency and other civil conflicts. It exaggerated progress in the development of Iraqi forces, and has reported meaningless macroecomic figures claiming 'progress' in the face of steadily deteriorating economic conditions for most Iraqis outside the Kurdish security zone, and does so in the face of almost incredible incompetence by USAID and the Corps of Engineers. — Anthony H. Cordesman

The infidels are committing suicide by the hundreds on the gates of Baghdad ... Be assured, Baghdad is safe, protected. Iraqis are heroes. — Mohammed Saeed Al-Sahaf

From watching the news one would think the Iraqis want us out of their country. But an overwhelming majority of Iraqis support our involvement there. Our freedom is contagious and we helped liberate them. — Jim Bunning

You can tell when Iraqis are getting upset because, like Italians we start talking with our hands. — Wafaa Bilal

I said in October of 2008 that there was no proof that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or had the intention or capability of attacking the United States. Here we are. Almost 4,700 troops died, tens of thousands injured, over a million Iraqis dead. It will cost $5 trillion in the end for the war. — Dennis Kucinich

As I've said, there were patriots who supported this war, and patriots who opposed it. And all of us are united in appreciation for our servicemen and women, and our hopes for Iraqis' future. — Barack Obama

One of the most ignored dimensions of the Iraqi insurgency are the Iraqis themselves who are regularly abducted, held for ransom and sometimes executed. — Bruce Hoffman

coming from the Iraqis, who were trying — Chris Kyle

Yet the march toward freedom is not without its hazards or its casualties and the threats of violence aimed at Iraqis who participate in the election will be dealt with accordingly. — Jim Gerlach

On Jan. 30, millions of Iraqis will cast ballots in the country's first fair and free election in decades, marking continued progress in Iraq's transition toward a country built on the pillars of democracy and freedom for all. — Jim Gerlach

In 2001, the oil companies, the war contractors and the Neo-Con-Artists seized the economy and added $4 trillion of unproductive spending to the national debt. We now pay four times more for defence, three times more for gasoline and home-heating oil and twice what we payed for health-care. Millions of Americans have lost their jobs, their homes, their health-care, their pensions; trillions of dollars for an unnecessary war payed for with borrowed money. Tens of billions of dollars in cash and weapons disappeared into thin air at the cost of the lives of our troops and innocent Iraqis, while all the President's oil men are maneuvering on Iraq's oil. Borrowed money to bomb bridges in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. No money to rebuild bridges in America. Borrowed money to start a hot war with Iran, now we have another cold war with Russia and the American economy has become a game of Russian roulette. — Dennis Kucinich

At the same time I think it is absolutely necessary that there be no confusion, no misunderstanding that if the Iraqis.. do not comply, then there will be consequences and those consequences will involve the use of military force to disarm them through changing the regime. — Colin Powell

I am so sick of reading about another car bomb, another suicide bomber, another 10, 20, 30, 70, 100 people dead in a day, both Americans and Iraqis. — Rosanne Cash

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

Saddam Hussein has been brutal against his people, but when he was committing those crimes, the international community did not come to the rescue of the Iraqis. — Bianca Jagger

Keep in mind that the Iraqis are not telling us anything we don't already know or can't prove. This is what makes this whole inspection process and all the rigmarole surrounding it a total farce. — Rush Limbaugh

The people in the southern provinces have no interest whatsoever to see British forces leave because they're providing security, stability, structure, and relations have always been good ... really between the British forces and the local Iraqis in this area, — Hoshyar Zebari

Obviously, I didn't think, and nobody else did, that the Iraqis were going to take ALL of Kuwait . — April Glaspie

We must provide all kinds of freedom, personal and economic, to all Iraqis. I will fight for that. — Jalal Talabani

I believe we've ... we've worked very hard with the Iraqis to build a better place ever since the fall of Saddam's government. — John Abizaid

It seems to me that the Iraqis laid down a lot of the arms that we gave to them. So that doesn't seem to be the solution. — Brad Wenstrup

In the calculus of western interests, there is no suffering, whatever its scale, which cannot be justified. Chechens, Palestinians, Iraqis, Afghans, Pakistanis are of little importance. — Tariq Ali

I support a very active programme on disarmament and arms control for Iraq, and of course every other country in the world ... That does not require economic sanctions ... I think we've got to take the risk and give up economic sanctions while hanging on to the disarmament programme and allow the Iraqis to get on with rebuilding their country. — Denis Halliday

After the bombing, most Iraqis saw what the perpetuators of this attack were trying to do. — George W. Bush

We must acknowledge that for scores of years the Iraqis have offered martyrs and victims but have not been able to change the regime. — Jalal Talabani

It could safely be said that Iraqis are dying at a faster clip since the American-led invasion and occupation than they did during the last decade of Saddam Hussein's rule. — Graydon Carter

We remember the specter of sectarian violence
al Qaeda's attacks on mosques and pilgrims, militias that carried out campaigns of intimidation and campaigns of assassination. And in the face of ancient divisions, you stood firm to help those Iraqis who put their faith in the future. — Barack Obama

What you could say, and what I do argue in the book, is that he doesn't have as much concern for the lives of Iraqis as he does for the lives of Americans, or even frozen American embryos. — Peter Singer

Second, recent polls over there show that the majority of Iraqis want us to leave precipitously. — William Odom

If we want to build the Iraqis' confidence about our intentions in their country, if we want to stop adding fuel to the fire of insurgency and terrorism, we must clarify our intent. — John Conyers

So here's a question from one who believed, only a week ago, that Baghdad might just collapse, that we might wake up one morning to find the Baathist militia and the Iraqi army gone and the Americans walking down Saadun Street with their rifles over their shoulders. If the Iraqis can still hold out against such overwhelming force in Umm Qasr for four days, if they can keep fighting in Basra and Nassariyeh the latter a city which briefly rose in successful revolt against Saddam in 1991 why should Saddam's forces not keep fighting in Baghdad? — Robert Fisk

Then there is the matter of the presidential untruths. The problem is not just that Barack Obama says things that are untrue but that he lies about what Barack Obama has said. He brags that he set red lines, but then he says it was the U.N. had set red lines. He boasts of pulling out every U.S. soldier from Iraq but then alleges that President Bush, the Iraqis, or Maliki did that. He claims that ISIS are Jayvees but then claims they are serious. But his prevarication too is habitual and was known in 2008 when it was discovered that he had simply misled the nation about his relationships with Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers. He had no desire, in the transparent manner of John Kerry, Al Gore, John McCain, or George W. Bush, to release his medical records or college transcripts. If Americans find their president ill-informed, there was no record that he was informed in 2008. His gaffes were far more frequent than those of Sarah Palin, who knew there were 50 states. — Anonymous

Status anxiety definitely exists at a political level. Many Iraqis were annoyed with the US essentially for reasons of status: for not showing them respect, for humiliating them. — Alain De Botton

And we remember the end of our combat mission and the emergence of a new dawn
the precision of our efforts against al Qaeda in Iraq, the professionalism of the training of Iraqi security forces, and the steady drawdown of our forces. In handing over responsibility to the Iraqis, you preserved the gains of the last four years and made this day possible. — Barack Obama