Top 100 Iraq's Quotes
#1. In the short run, using militias might be the quickest and easiest way to improve order on Iraq's streets and uproot the terrorists and guerrillas who routinely attack American troops and civilian targets.
Alex Berenson
#2. It's very hard to understand just what our strategy is in Syria, frankly, and on Iraq that this is Iraq's war, that the role of the United States is to help Iraq, to arm, train, support, provide air support, but this has to be Iraq's war.
David Ignatius
#3. It was, however, in the interest of Osama bin Laden for us to destroy a secular Arab leader; it was very much in the interest of the Iranians because they wanted revenge against Saddam Hussein for Iraq's invasion in 1980.
William Odom
#4. Of all Iraq's rocket scientists, none drew warier scrutiny abroad than Modher Sadeq-Saba Tamimi.
Barton Gellman
#6. What you have in Iraq is not just a society coming apart like Yugoslavia or Congo. What is at stake is not just Iraq's stability but the balance of power in the region.
Vali Nasr
#7. If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program.
William J. Clinton
#8. 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
#9. Your message is stupid. Iraq is not afraid of you or anyone else when it has a right to claim. What you warned about is not on Iraq's agenda. Iraq is vital and powerful. It is not an opportunistic country. Your administration has not learned from the past.
Mohammed Aldouri
#10. If Iraq's weapons are weapons of mass destruction, surely ours are weapons of growth and nurturing.
Greg Proops
#11. I can't imagine how Afghanistan's fall isn't going to be ten times faster than Iraq's.
Eliza Griswold
#12. Before the trip began we mapped out three primary goals: 1) to see and meet with our American troops, and thank them for their bravery and sacrifice; 2) to assess the security situation in Iraq; and 3) to give our support to Iraq's national unity government.
John Boehner
#13. Out of my desire to complete Iraq's independence and to finish the withdrawal of the occupation forces from our holy lands, I am obliged to halt military operations of the honest Iraqi resistance until the withdrawal of the occupation forces is complete.
Muqtada Al Sadr
#14. The capacity of Iraq's security forces has improved, and Iraq's leaders have made strides toward political accommodation
Barack Obama
#15. All of Iraq's oil fields are under U.S. control which is ironic considering all the gas stations here are run by Middle Easterners.
Jay Leno
#16. Our combat mission is ending, but our commitment to Iraq's future is not.
Barack Obama
#17. After a generation of misrule under Mr. Hussein, who built a huge military infrastructure while neglecting civilian investment, and a dozen years of United Nations sanctions, Iraq's unemployment rate tops 50 percent.
Alex Berenson
#18. It's a tragedy what is happening, what Bush is doing. All Bush wants is Iraqi oil. There is no doubt that the U.S. is behaving badly. Why are they not seeking to confiscate weapons of mass destruction from their ally Israel? This is just an excuse to get Iraq's oil.
Nelson Mandela
#19. I call on the international community to be fair to the Iraqi people. My position is that we respect international resolutions but in return demand justice and accountability for those who stole Iraq's money.
Ahmed Chalabi
#20. One of the most worrisome things that emerges from the thick intelligence file we have on Iraq's biological weapons is the existence of mobile production facilities used to make biological agents.
Colin Powell
#21. Did you hear that we're writing Iraq's new Constitution?
Why not just give them ours? We're not using it anymore.
Jay Leno
#22. The American flag is an enduring symbol of liberty, democracy, and justice. It is fitting that the House act to protect it as we approach our nation's birthday, and as our men and women in uniform rally behind it in Iraq's battlefields.
Joe Barton
#23. The Persian Gulf crisis has forged a new world order in which the superpower adversaries of the Cold War now stand united to reverse Iraq's conquest of Kuwait ...
George H. W. Bush
#24. Surrender your forces and give yourselves and your troops the opportunity to be a part of Iraq's future and not a part of Iraq's past.
Peter Pace
#25. The coalition did not act in Iraq because we had discovered dramatic new evidence of Iraq's pursuit. We acted because we saw the evidence in a dramatic new light - through the prism of our experience on 9/11.
Donald Rumsfeld
#26. Terrorists from the Islamic State (formerly ISIS) have killed at least 500 members of Iraq's Yazidi ethnic minority during their offensive in the north, Iraq's human rights minister told Reuters on Sunday.
Anonymous
#27. We know where they are [Iraq's weapons of mass destruction]. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat.
Donald Rumsfeld
#28. Our military is doing everything it can to equip Iraq's forces so our troops can come home as soon as possible, but we cannot leave until the job is done.
Mike Rogers
#29. Iraq's elite Republican Guard is doing so badly they're changing their name to the Democratic Guard.
David Letterman
#30. In a new poll 54 percent believed President Bush exaggerated the size of Iraq's missile threat. Hey, he's a guy.
Craig Kilborn
#31. I am deeply skeptical of re-entering into Iraq's civil war.
John Garamendi
#32. In October 2008, American commandos launched a cross-border raid into Syria to capture an Islamic militant known as Abu Ghadiya. He was accused of being one of al Qaeda in Iraq's main smugglers of fighters and money between Iraq and Syria.
Richard Engel
#33. Our policies toward Iraq simply are to protect the region and to protect Iraq's people and neighbors.
Condoleezza Rice
#34. The American taxpayer should not be treated more shabbily than debtors from other nations and we should be encouraging other nations to help rebuild Iraq's economy.
Hillary Clinton
#35. The claims made about Iraq's WMD capabilities before the invasion were inaccurate, wrong, and in some cases, deliberately misleading.
Colin Powell
#36. In the remaining months, we should focus on achieving more robust international involvement in training of Iraqi soldiers, police officers, judges, teachers, and doctors - all key elements needed to end the sectarian and civil conflict and build Iraq's future.
John Olver
#37. Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power.
Al Gore
#38. Saddam's goal is to achieve the lifting of U.N. sanctions while retaining and enhancing Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs. We cannot, we must not and we will not let him succeed.
Madeleine Albright
#39. I would also point out that many governments that chose not to support this war - certainly, the French president, Jacques Chirac, as I recall in April of last year, referred to Iraq's possession of WMD.
David Kay
#40. The largest single contributor to Iraq's security is that effort of Iraqi people who continue to step forward to join the various Iraqi security forces.
Craig L. Thomas
#42. House Speaker John Boehner says President Obama should have clearly outlined his exact plans before bombing Libya. Apparently it's only Iraq where you don't have to do that.
Jay Leno
#43. We are a country that has many friends, many allies, when we operate in the world, we operate with friends and allies that's been true for decades and if we wind up going to war in Iraq it will be true in Iraq.
Douglas Feith
#44. President Bush said it's now time for a change in Iraq and he wants them to have a Western-style democracy like ours. So right now in Iraq, the economy is collapsing, businessmen are corrupt, and Hussein wants his son to take over as president. Sounds like mission accomplished.
Jay Leno
#45. The British Labour Party has always had a very strong "Atlanticist component," with an obsequiousness to American policies, and Blair represents this wing. He's clearly obsessed with Iraq. He has to be because the overwhelming majority of the people of Britain oppose a military action.
John Pilger
#46. Aside from an intervention, which I don't think is on anybody's mind, Iraq is going to have defend for itself.
Doug Collins
#47. 'The war in Iraq - if Osama was a Christian - it's the Christmas present he never would have expected.
Michael Scheuer
#48. As far as Iraq is concerned, let's not forget what the UNSCR is about, that the main consideration in Iraq is that there is a leader who has been developing weapons of mass destruction, and has been violating UN resolutions for over a decade.
Donald Evans
#49. We can't have a failure in Iraq, but we also can't be there for the next 10 years because if we are, it's going to become, I think, a failure in and of itself.
Dennis Ross
#50. What we've also got to think about is the limitations of military power. Maybe it's time to focus on the economic issues, and most of all the political issues, because the political failure in Iraq right now is almost worse than the military failure. And the two are intertwined.
Paul Rieckhoff
#51. Independence used to be the ticket for liberty. But today, security and freedom, whether it's in the Arab Spring, whether it's in Iraq or whether it's right here in the United States, means working cooperatively and interdependently with others.
Benjamin Barber
#52. We were told by the president that we had no alternative but to go into Iraq because of the threat that Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction posed, but to date, these weapons have not been found.
Jay Rockefeller
#53. There is no question that Iraq is one of the main problems. You'd have to be blind not to see what a magnet and generating force it's become for terrorist groups.
Otto Schily
#54. If there is a thread that unites all of our work, whether it's in Iowa or whether it's in Maryland or whether it's among our young men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan, I believe that it's the thread of human dignity.
Martin O'Malley
#55. The only people benefiting in Iraq war are George Bush's Jr. friends in the oil industry. He has done the American economy and the global economy an enormous disfavor, but his Texan friends couldn't be happier.
Joseph Stiglitz
#56. My message is, is that although some of you didn't agree with the actions we took, now let's work together to rebuild Iraq, rebuild Afghanistan, fight AIDS and hunger, deal with slavery, like sex slavery, and deal with proliferation. Let's work together on big issues.
George W. Bush
#57. That's what separates out American democracy from dictators and horrible governments across the world and the reason why that works is that we have a president that can consult with congress before making big decisions. That doesn't just make a unilateral decision to go in for military conflict.
Charles R. Chamberlain
#58. Bringing the troops home is necessary not just for the future of Iraq, but also for the people of the United States. We must stop the hemorrhaging of tax dollars that could go to meet our Nation's vital domestic needs.
Raul Grijalva
#59. As a final example, let's remember Jeremy Glick, whose father died in the World Trade Center. After his name appeared in an ad opposing war in Iraq, Mr. Glick was invited on The Factor .. I'm not going to dress you down anymore.
Bill O'Reilly
#60. As the hobbits are going up Mount Doom, the eye of Mordor is being drawn somewhere else. It's being drawn to Iraq. You know what? I want to keep it on Iraq. I don't want the eye to come back to the United States.
Rick Santorum
#61. Maybe it's the spy novelist in me looking for a future plot, but I hope the U.S. and its allies are thinking how to operate 'unconventionally' in Iraq and Syria in ways that undermine the Islamic State.
David Ignatius
#62. When Britain and the U.S. invaded Iraq, it was with the reasonable expectation that it was going to increase the threat of terror, as it has.
Noam Chomsky
#63. I think Donald Trump's history has shown that this was a very problematic thing. There were so many ways Iraq could have gone awry once we started, and I don't think most of us spend enough time considering the dangers.
Jeff Sessions
#64. 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
#65. The Committee's review of a series of intelligence shortcomings, to include intelligence prior to 9/11 and the pre-war intelligence on Iraq, clearly reveal how vital a diverse intelligence workforce is to our national security.
Jane Harman
#66. A lot of controversy over this possible invasion of Iraq. In fact, Nelson Mandela was so upset, he called Bush's dad. How embarrassing, when world leaders start calling your father.
Jay Leno
#67. If the thumbnail version of the Iraq war was that Bush lied about WMD, the thumbnail version of Obama's war in Afghanistan is that the generals pushed him into a war he didn't want to fight.
Michael Hastings
#68. There are more good people than bad people, and overall there's more that's good in the world than there is that's bad. We just need to hear about it, we just need to see it.
Tucker Elliot
#69. The conduct of President Bush's war of choice has been plagued with incompetent civilian leadership decisions that have cost many lives and rendered the war on and occupation of Iraq a strategic policy disaster for the United States.
John Olver
#70. It's a thin line between what we're calling acceptable and not acceptable. As a leader, you're supposed to know when not to cross it. But how do you know? Does the army teach us how to control our emotions? Does the army teach us how to deal with a friend bleeding out in front of you? No.
David Finkel
#71. At the end of the day we want to bring stability and hope to Iraq. That's the only way to defeat terrorism.
Abdallah II Of Jordan
#72. Religious distinctions are deeply important for many of the problems in today's Middle East, particularly between Sunni and Shia Muslims in Syria and Iraq.
Max Fisher
#73. No. That's someone else's business. Quagmire is - I don't do quagmires.
Donald Rumsfeld
#74. But the key thing is that Iraq, while it's got very large oil reserves, has marginalized itself as an oil exporter and these days its exports are only about one tenth that of neighboring Saudi Arabia.
Daniel Yergin
#75. Well, this is an unfortunate part of the UN institution. It's the - the theater of the absurd. It doesn't only cast Israel as the villain; it often casts real villains in leading roles: Gadhafi's Libya chaired the UN Commission on Human Rights; Saddam's Iraq headed the UN Committee on Disarmament.
Benjamin Netanyahu
#76. There's something odd about working 24/7, being consumed with everything that's happening in Iraq, and then coming back to the country that ordered you over there only to realize that a lot of Americans are not really paying attention.
Phil Klay
#77. The only time I penetrated Tony Blair's defenses over Iraq was by keeping eye contact while telling him he never seemed to by sorry
Andrew Marr
#78. The church that took two thousand years to build in Iraq and Syria, started by the apostles themselves, has nearly been destroyed in the blink of an eye at the hands of manics who won't stop until they win or they die. At least that's what everyone I met in Iraq believes. Every single one of them.
Johnnie Moore
#79. [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.
Christopher Hitchens
#80. Gen. David Petraeus, commander of U.S. troops in Iraq, Afghanistan and at Centcom, is probably the most decorated officer of his generation.
David Ignatius
#81. Are you okay, man?"
"Yeah, I'm good."
It's a lie. I wonder if I will ever be good again.
David Bellavia
#82. Those who arrived on America's tanks are not credible in Iraq.
Bashar Al-Assad
#83. We are succeeding in Iraq. It's a tough struggle with setbacks, but we are succeeding.
Iyad Allawi
#84. One of the lessons of Vietnam, which we failed to heed in the Iraq war and the Afghanistan surge, is that before you commit U.S. military forces to aid or assist, it is essential to know what you want them to achieve.
Kathleen Troia McFarland
#85. Here's how bizarre the war is that we're in in Iraq, and we should have known this right from the get-go: When we first went into Iraq, Germany didn't want to go. Germany. The Michael Jordan of war took a pass.
Jon Stewart
#86. Over in Iraq after you vote they paint your finger purple so you can't vote again. It's a flawless system. It works perfectly unless, of course, someone has paint remover.
Jay Leno
#87. Of course, I'm drawn to a place like Iraq because It's the biggest story of our generation.
Joe Sacco
#88. On almost every issue involving postwar Iraq, [Bush's] assumptions and policies have been wrong. This strange combination of arrogance and incompetence has not only destroyed the hopes for a new Iraq. It has had the much broader effect of turning the United States into an international outlaw.
Fareed Zakaria
#89. If the United States were to cut and run from Iraq, we would send a message of weakness that would embolden our terrorist enemies across the globe. A failed Iraq would destabilize the entire region and undermine U.S. national security for decades to come.
Dennis Cardoza
#90. I've said before: If Osama bin Laden was a Christian, Iraq was the Christmas present he always wanted but never expected his parents to give. It validated for the Muslim world virtually all of bin Laden's rhetoric. He had always said the Americans will destroy any strong Muslim regime, and we did.
Michael Scheuer
#91. Since the election, since the formation of a government, the death in Iraq has increased. The United States stands by, helpless to do anything about it. That's the reality, not George Bush's revisionist history!
Mark Shields
#92. It's now clear that from the very moment President Bush took office, Iraq was his highest priority as unfinished business from the first Bush Administration. His agenda was clear: find a rationale to get rid of Saddam.
Edward Kennedy
#93. I think what he's - what he believes, and he may be correct, I don't know, that we have some intelligence information that leads us to know some things about what's going on in Iraq that we haven't revealed to others.
Lawrence Eagleburger
#94. There were no terrorists in Iraq. There's never been an Iraqi terrorist.
Jodie Evans
#96. In November 2007, the White House issued a Declaration of Principles demanding that U.S. forces must remain indefinitely in Iraq and committing Iraq to privilege American investors.
Noam Chomsky
#97. There's no question that Saddam Hussein is a threat to the United States and to our allies. If Saddam persists in thumbing his nose at the inspectors, then we're clearly going to have to do something about it.
Howard Dean
#98. Let's see what's going on over in Iraq. A Burger King has opened up and prostitutes are back on the street of Baghdad after 20 years. Fast food and hookers - they are truly living the American Dream.
David Letterman
#99. Destroying Iraq was the greatest strategic blunder this country has made in its history. Unless we change course, there's every reason to believe the Iraq War will end up changing the United States more than it will ever change Iraq.
Robert Baer
#100. As you may have heard, the U.S. is putting together a constitution for Iraq. Why don't we just give them ours? Think about it - it was written by very smart people, it's served us well for over two hundred years, and besides, we're not using it anymore.
Jay Leno
