Quotes About Iraq

#1. 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

#2. 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

#3. I would love to see the French spending money to restore Iraq.

Bob Schaffer

#4. 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

#5. The reality in Iraq is that we are creating new terrorists and severely damaging the public impression of the United States in the Muslim world.

Sherrod Brown

#6. What we have in the Bush team is a faith-based administration. It launched a faith-based war in Iraq, on the basis of faith-based intelligence, with a faith-based plan for Iraqi reconstruction, supported by faith-based tax cuts to generate faith-based revenues.

Thomas Friedman

#7. 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

#8. 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

#9. 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

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

Scott Ritter

#11. For us Catholics, John Paul II will be remembered as a traveling Pope ... and we should also remember he preached world peace. When the United States invaded Iraq, for example, John Paul II said it was an illegal and immoral act.

Hugo Chavez

#12. The death toll had gotten so bad, Mexico would eventually rank second only to Iraq in the number of killed or kidnapped reporters.

Christopher McDougall

#13. I think of all the guys that strap a gun on their backs and head to Afghanistan and Iraq to keep us free and safe and maintain what America has stood for.

Foster Friess

#14. The corruption in Iraq has nothing to do with ideas - it has to do with the regime and institutional structures and power.

Elliott Colla

#15. Military force is irrelevant to many of the most urgent threats we face. If we are to solve our myriad domestic problems and revitalize our economy we need to be more selective about our involvement in foreign crises large and small.

William Hartung

#16. One year after the United States led the invasion of Iraq, the country remains extremely dangerous not only to our troops, but also to the stability of the world.

Jay Rockefeller

#17. President Bush admitted that the United States went to war in Iraq based on bad intelligence. But he says knowing what we know now he would still do it again. So at least we're learning from our mistakes.

Jay Leno

#18. I firmly believed we should not march into Baghdad ... To occupy Iraq would instantly shatter our coalition, turning the whole Arab
world against us and make a broken tyrant, into a latter-day Arab hero.

George H. W. Bush

#19. In the time that we're here today, more women and children will die violently in the Darfur region than in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Israel or Lebanon. So, after September 30, you won't need the UN - you will simply need men with shovels and bleached white linen and headstones.

George Clooney

#20. Iraq is a very wealthy country. Enormous oil reserves. They can finance, largely finance, the reconstruction of their own country. And I have no doubt that they will.

Richard Perle

#21. Aside from an intervention, which I don't think is on anybody's mind, Iraq is going to have defend for itself.

Doug Collins

#22. 'The war in Iraq - if Osama was a Christian - it's the Christmas present he never would have expected.

Michael Scheuer

#23. I believe the democratic transformation in Iraq will lead to change in Middle East.

Jalal Talabani

#24. The Wahhabists are the boogeymen, the guys who will chop the head off any American they catch. And they will destroy Iraq without a second thought if they believe that the instability will benefit them.

Alex Berenson

#25. Mr. Speaker, in the years since we enacted our attack against Iraq, the threat from Iran has only grown more difficult, and our capacity to meet that threat actually has diminished. It is one of the reasons many of us opposed that action against Iraq.

Earl Blumenauer

#26. 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

#27. 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

#28. Desert Storm II would be in a walk in the park ... The case for 'regime change' boils down to the huge benefits and modest costs of liberating Iraq.

Kenneth Adelman

#29. 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

#30. I served two tours in Iraq, in the Marine Corps.

Josh Mandel

#31. Whether or not Afghanistan would be a peaceful nation-state had we not gone into Iraq I doubt. Afghanistan is going to be Afghanistan, no matter how hard we try to make it something else.

Michael Hastings

#32. I had several near death experiences or very, you know, close calls, if you may, in Iraq. You know, there was an incident where I was nearly kidnapped.

Farnaz Fassihi

#33. We are asked now seriously to accept that in the last few years-contrary to all history, contrary to all intelligence-Saddam decided unilaterally to destroy those weapons. I say that such a claim is palpably absurd.

Tony Blair

#34. Some international law specialists compare the invasion of Iraq to the 'crimes against the peace' for which Nazi leaders were indicted at Nuremberg.

Noam Chomsky

#35. I have made it clear that we will hunt down terrorists who threaten our country, wherever they are. That means I will not hesitate to take action against ISIL in Syria, as well as Iraq. This is a core principle of my presidency: if you threaten America, you will find no safe haven.

Barack Obama

#36. We're going to be on the ground in Iraq as soldiers and citizens for years. We're going to be running a colony almost,

Paul Bremer

#37. The (Iraq) war can only be won diplomatically, politically and economically, and the president needs to come to that realization,

Harry Reid

#38. The Iraq Survey Group has already found massive evidence of a huge system of clandestine laboratories, workings by scientists, plans to develop long range ballistic missiles.

Tony Blair

#39. What we now have in Iraq is a defeat.

Henry Waxman

#40. The American war-writing tradition is a proud one and booming in this era of the Global War on Terror - at least in the nonfiction realm. Hundreds of memoirs and press accounts from Iraq and Afghanistan have been published since 9/11.

Matt Gallagher

#41. The invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq were both justified by an appeal to the emancipation of women, and the discourse of feminism was specifically invoked.

Nina Power

#42. The choices Israelis face and the decisions they make, day in and day out, are literally the difference between life and death. In many ways, I liken their reactions to the way I felt while serving in Iraq.

Pete Hegseth

#43. We are running out of time. We need a strategy to win in Iraq or an exit strategy to leave.

Max Cleland

#44. We are not denying that Turkey has a right to defend itself from extremists but some of its actions are not serving any democratic purpose in Turkey or in Iraq. This will not benefit the relations between the two countries.

Jalal Talabani

#45. 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

#46. Our men and women fighting in Iraq are held accountable for their performance and their conduct. On duty and off, twenty-four hours a day. They're fighting for us, for our safety, our rights, and our freedoms.

Wesley Clark

#47. The Administration has made critical mistakes and errors in judgment leading up to the war in Iraq. The President refuses to acknowledge these mistakes, and thus, no corrective action has been taken to prevent these problems from happening again.

Zoe Lofgren

#48. I am encouraged by the news today that United States special operations personnel found, identified and killed the terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the operational commander of the al-Qaeda led insurgency in Iraq. Al-Zarqawi was the public face of the insurgency.

Mike Fitzpatrick

#49. That does not mean we won't experience the tragedy of the loss of some American lives. We will have an opportunity to instill a democracy in Iraq which will be an example and perhaps force other nations in that region to move in the same direction.

John McCain

#50. If it had been our intention to take Iraq, if it had been our intention to destroy the country, if it had been our intention to overrun the country, we could have done it unopposed.

Norman Schwarzkopf

#51. I'm glad you asked. It has nothing to do with oil, literally nothing to do with oil.

Donald Rumsfeld

#52. Well, I've been to Iraq twice now. I was in Baghdad in June and then north of Baghdad in November.

Gary Sinise

#53. 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

#54. Saddam Hussein could have provided irreplaceable help to future historians of the Iran/Iraq war, of the invasion of Kuwait, and of the subsequent era of sanctions culminating in the current invasion.

Richard Dawkins

#55. You know, I wish the world well. I want Iraq to have democracy and the Haitians to have democracy. I want the people of Afghanistan to thrive. Lord knows, we spend enough money there to help them. What about people at home? Isn't that our first responsibility?

Barbara Boxer

#56. 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

#57. If we're successful in Iraq ... we will have struck a major blow right at the heart of the base, if you will, the geographic base of the terrorists who have had us under assault now for many years, but most especially on 9/11.

Dick Cheney

#58. The most foreign fighters in Iraq are wearing British and American uniforms. The level of self-delusion is bordering frankly on the racist. The vast majority of the people of Iraq are against the occupation of Iraq by the American and British forces.

George Galloway

#59. The Bush administration also was not straightforward about the intelligence it had, releasing tenuous information that fit its goal of attacking Iraq. I feel deceived.

Ken Lucas

#60. The intelligence is clear: (Saddam) continues to believe his WMD programme is essential both for internal repression and for external aggression.

Tony Blair

#61. According to Richard Clarke, the former White House counterterrorism chief, Bush was so obsessed with Iraq that he failed to take action against Osama Bin Laden despite repeated warnings from his intelligence experts.

Ferdinand Mount

#62. We don't want to have a child that has many illnesses, and that will pass away after a few months. A child must have a good environment, and parents that will take care of it.
[...] It [a Kurdish state] must be a part of stability in this area.

Fuad Hussein

#63. The trip to Iraq confirmed that I made the right decision when I voted against lending Iraq the $18 billion the United States plans to use to help rebuild the country.

Vic Snyder

#64. Think about the decade after Iraq, not just the day after.

Joe Biden

#65. Many conservatives were openly angry with the Bush administration over enormous government spending and the chaos in Iraq. I don't see as much independent thinking on the left, where President Obama is rarely criticized by his acolytes.

Bill O'Reilly

#66. How can rogue terrorists in Iraq detonate bombs? They're all too busy flying kites with their children! Hasn't [Katrina vanden Heuvel (Queen of the May at the fun-loving Nation magazine)] seen Fahrenheit 9/11?

Ann Coulter

#67. We would all rather see Iraq resolved successfully.

Charles Kennedy

#68. 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

#69. Had the United States not acted in Iraq, Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi would likely not have declared his weapons programs, submitted to international inspections and voluntarily dismantled its programs.

Jim Gerlach

#70. A fertilizer bomb that kills hundreds in Oklahoma. Fuel-laden civil jets that kill 4000 in New York. A sanctions policy that kills one and a half million in Iraq. A trade policy that immiserates continents. You can make a bomb out of anything. The ones on paper hurt the most.

Raj Patel

#71. 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

#72. 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

#73. 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

#74. 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

#75. Iran has, by virtue of its growth and by virtue of the United States' mistakes in Iraq, tilted the balance of power in the Middle East. That is the case, but that doesn't necessarily mean it is a threat.

Trita Parsi

#76. When an army unit returns from service in Iraq or Afghanistan, it barely gets a breather before it begins training for its next deployment.

Hillary Clinton

#77. From Chile to China to Iraq, torture has been a silent partner in the global free-market crusade.

Naomi Klein

#78. 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

#79. We are helping the people that [George W.]Bush says are evil. Teheran couldn't be happier about the high oil prices resulting from the Iraq war.

Joseph Stiglitz

#80. 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

#81. Iraq is short on capital, short on electricity, and short on management expertise, but it does not lack economic enthusiasm.

Alex Berenson

#82. I leave Iraq gladdened by what has been accomplished and confident your future is full of hope.

Paul Bremer

#83. 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

#84. We cannot undo the past in this misguided war in Iraq.

Xavier Becerra

#85. The key to making the inspections work is the Iraqi government making the crucial decision that because of the international pressure Iraq has to disarm itself.

Douglas Feith

#86. Further, by acting decisively in Iraq, the United States has sent very strong signals to other nations that have been or could be terrorist sympathizers.

Jim Gerlach

#87. Well, it looks like we've moved a step closer to war. Not with Iraq. With France and Germany. How did we screw that one up?

Jay Leno

#88. 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

#89. If he declares he has none, then we will know that Saddam Hussein is once again ...

Ari Fleischer

#90. We know that there are unaccounted-for Scud and other ballistic missiles in Iraq. And part of the problem is that, since 1998, there has been no way to even get minimal information about those programs except through intelligence means.

Condoleezza Rice

#91. 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

#92. Without just cause of reason, without legal or moral justification, and without a thread of proof that Iraq directly threatens the security of the United States, the Bush administration has headed to war ...

Zack De La Rocha

#93. The increased incidence of abductions represents a major challenge within the ongoing humanitarian crises. The kidnapped archbishops have suffered terribly, and their families have suffered immensely not knowing what has become of them.

Widad Akreyi

#94. 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

#95. It was not in our interest to enter Iraq in the first place.

William Odom

#96. Iraq is a very important part of securing the homeland, and its a very important part of helping change the Middle East into a part of the world that will not serve as a threat to the civilized world, to people like
or to the developed world, to people like
in the United States.

George W. Bush

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

David Letterman

#98. Military activities (are) not a role for the United States. There needs to be a number of steps that Maliki and his government must take to demonstrate that he is committed to an inclusive Iraq, something he has not done up to date.

Hillary Clinton

#99. The war in Iraq will end, our troops will come home, Bush will be impeached and he will be brought to justice.

Cindy Sheehan

#100. 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