Iraq Quotes - Page 24

• Our relations with Iran have witnessed grave crises because of the policies of successive regimes in Iran which have considered Iraq and the Arab homeland, particularly the Arab Gulf area, as a sphere for domination and influence.

  Saddam Hussein

  Iran, Spheres, Influence

  Saddam Hussein (1981). “Statement of H.E. Mr. Saddam Hussein, President of the Republic of Iraq, on the Iraq-Iranian conflict: before the third summit meeting of the Islamic Conference, 19-22 Rabi'i-al Awal, 1401, 25-28 January, 1981, Saudi Arabia”

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• During the rule of the Shah, arrogance, aggression, territorial expansion at the expense of the Arabs and attempts to harm Iraq's national sovereignty and the rights of the Arab nation were a constant pattern. Iraq and the Arab nation were regarded as a sphere of influence for the expansionist plans of Iranian interests. That policy has been followed throughout history by the State of Persia against its neighbours to the west, and as we have shown.

  Saddam Hussein

  Rights, Arrogance, Sphere Of Influence

  Saddam Hussein (1981). “Statement of H.E. Mr. Saddam Hussein, President of the Republic of Iraq, on the Iraq-Iranian conflict: before the third summit meeting of the Islamic Conference, 19-22 Rabi'i-al Awal, 1401, 25-28 January, 1981, Saudi Arabia”

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• Iraqi fighters on the front lines, You courageous officers and soldiers who have been fighting valiantly and efficiently - you have restored the glories of your great Iraq. You have proved that you are the true descendants of those great fighters throughout the ages. You have given the most remarkable example of Arab military power, of which the Arab nation is in need today and tomorrow in its struggle to maintain its existence and integrity, and to restore its usurped rights and territories.

  Saddam Hussein

  Military, Integrity, Struggle

  "President Saddam Hussein's Speech on National Day", Baghdad : Dar al-Ma'mun for Translation and Pub, 1981.

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• I'm serious. I've got to get people to realize that the government is full of it. Republicans and Democrats want to argue over stuff that's not important, like gay marriage or the war in Iraq or illegal immigration... When I run - if I run - we're going to talk about real issues like improving our schools, cleaning up our neighborhoods of drugs and crime and making Alabama a better place for all people.

  Charles Barkley

  Running, Real, War

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• As you know, John McCain is an older, white-haired man who has been in the Senate for over twenty years, voted for the Iraq War, and said Barack Obama did not have the experience to be president. I'm sorry, that's our intro for next week when Joe Biden is on, I got confused.

  Jay Leno

  Sorry, Confused, War

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• Should any Iraqi officer or soldier receive an order from Saddam Hussein.... don't follow that order. Because if you choose to do so, when Iraq is liberated, you will be treated, tried and persecuted as a war criminal.

  George W. Bush

  War, Order, Soldier

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• It's pretty clear we have enough Guard people in the United States, but are they capable of handling our oversees commitments as well? We need to figure out how that impacts our ability in Iraq.

  John McCain

  Commitment, Impact, People

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• Katrina did not declare a truce on Iraq.

  John McCain

  Truce, Katrina

  "Congress Will Shift Focus to Defense Bill, Iraq". www.foxnews.com. September 15, 2005.

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• The day that I can land at the airport in Baghdad and ride in an unarmed car down the highway to the Green Zone is the day that I'll start considering withdrawals from Iraq.

  John McCain

  Airports, Land, Car

  "FOX News Sunday" with Chris Wallace, www.foxnews.com. August 15, 2005.

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• If Barack Obama cannot appreciate that our troops are winning in Iraq, he should not be their Commander in Chief.

  Lindsey Graham

  Winning, Appreciate, Troops

  "Special Coverage for the RNC". "Hardball with Chris Matthews", www.nbcnews.com. September 4, 2008.

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• I'll tell you what they're all going to face, whichever one of them becomes president on January 21st of 2009. They will face a military force - a United States military force that cannot sustain - continually sustain 140,000 people deployed in Iraq and the 20-odd or 25,000 people we have deployed in Afghanistan and our other deployments.

  Colin Powell

  Military, People, Deployment

  "Meet the Press" with Tim Russert, www.nbcnews.com. APril 13, 2008.

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• In every major war we have fought in the 19th and 20th centuries. Americans have been asked to pay higher taxes - and nonessential programs have been cut - to support the military effort. Yet during this Iraq war, taxes have been lowered and domestic spending has climbed. In contrast to World War I, World War II, the Korean War and Vietnam, for most Americans this conflict has entailed no economic sacrifice. The only people really sacrificing for this war are the troops and their families.

  Robert Hormats

  Military, War, Sacrifice

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• The Petraeus-Crocker testimony is the kind of short-lived event on which the Administration has relied to shore up support for the war: the 'Mission Accomplished' declaration, the deaths of Uday and Qusay Hussein, Saddam's capture, the transfer of sovereignty, the three rounds of voting, the Plan for Victory, the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Every new milestone, however illusory, allows the Administration to avoid thinking ahead, to the years when the mistakes of Iraq will continue to haunt the U.S.

  George Packer

  War, Mistake, Thinking

  "Planning for Defeat" by George Packer, www.newyorker.com. September 17, 2007.

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• Iraq is a strange country. Where else can American civilians like me be protected by terrorist human shields?

  Michael Totten

  Country, Shields, Strange

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• 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

  Integrity, War, Government

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• There is something very consistent about governance in the Arab world. Among the Arab countries today in which there is a modicum of internal stability, each is controlled by an Arafat-type figure - an anti-democratic strongman who is able to crush all challenges to his authority. Likewise, among those Arab countries that aren't ruled by a despot, the political dynamic is also consistent: In Lebanon, Iraq, and now Gaza, sectarian violence is the dominant form of political expression.

  Michael Totten

  Crush, Country, Expression

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• The intellectual and moral failures common to America's general officer corps in Vietnam and Iraq constitute a crisis in American generalship. Any explanation that fixes culpability on individuals is insufficient. No one leader, civilian or military, caused failure in Vietnam or Iraq. Different military and civilian leaders in the two conflicts produced similar results. In both conflicts, the general officer corps designed to advise policymakers, prepare forces and conduct operations failed to perform its intended functions.

  Paul Yingling

  Military, Two, America

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• A surreal and ultimately disgusting facet of the Iraq fiasco is the lag between when a fact becomes obvious and when the fiasco's architects acknowledge that fact.

  George Will

  Lag, Facts, Architect

  "Togetherness In Baghdad" by George Will, www.newsweek.com. November 5, 2006.

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• In September 1942 the U.S. government purchased 58,575 acres of wilderness in eastern Tennessee. Soon there was a town, Oak Ridge, and amazing scientific facilities. Thirty-four months after the purchase, an atomic blast lit the New Mexico desert. After 43 months in Iraq, U.S. forces still struggle to cope with improvised explosive devices.

  George Will

  Struggle, Government, Tennessee

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• There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. But he still says so. There was no link between Saddam Hussein and al Qaida. But he still says so. And thus, gripping firmly these figments of his own imagination, Mr. Cheney lives on, in defiance, and spreads - around him and before him - darkness, like some contagion of fear. They are never wrong, and they never regret - admirable in a French torch singer, cataclysmic in an American leader.

  Keith Olbermann

  Regret, Mass Destruction, Imagination

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• The din of politicians speechifying about the war, the faux moral posturing of opinion-makers who claim to speak in the name of 'the troops,' everything that Iraq has come to represent in the American imagination - it all melts away in the 115-degree heat. What's left is the machinery of a war that, having been called into being by civilians, no longer bears a relation to anything they say.

  Lawrence Kaplan

  War, Names, Imagination

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• Some right-wingers, especially those who think of the entire Islamic religion as a totalitarian death cult, would likewise get a crash-course in reality if they ever bothered to hang out in Iraq and meet actual Muslims.

  Michael Totten

  Islamic, Reality, Thinking

  "Lockdown". www.michaeltotten.com. February 17, 2006.

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• I would caution anyone who thinks the solution is to get out to realize that Iraq will be our problem, whether we're there or not, for years to come. It will not be Vietnam; it will not let us go home and lick our wounds.

  George Packer

  Home, Thinking, Years

  "An author's confession -- he got the war wrong / George Packer supported Iraq invasion, but now fears spiraling civil conflict". Interview with Steven Winn, www.sfgate.com. December 4, 2005.

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• The Bush administration must understand that each American has a right to question our policies in Iraq and elsewhere, and should not be demonized or condemned for disagreeing with them. Suggesting that to challenge and criticize policy is undermining and hurting our troops is not democratic, nor what this country has stood for over 200 years.

  Chuck Hagel

  Country, Hurt, Years

  "Cheney raps Democrats on war charges", www.cnn.com. November 17, 2005.

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• Iraq is so bad that President Obama phoned Hillary Clinton and asked her if she could start early.

  David Letterman

  President, Clinton, Ifs

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