Quotes About Iraq War

#1. 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

#2. 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

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

Scott Ritter

#4. 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

#5. 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

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

Michael Scheuer

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

Harry Reid

#8. 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

#9. 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

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

Donald Rumsfeld

#11. 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

#12. 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

#13. 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

#14. 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

#15. 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

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

Xavier Becerra

#17. 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

#18. 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

#19. 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

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

Cindy Sheehan

#21. 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

#22. I think the press, which arguably was cowed by the (Bush) administration in the run-up to the war with Iraq, was certainly not cowed in covering the aftermath of Katrina.

Ken Auletta

#23. Before the Iraq war I was quite disturbed by some of the neoconservatives, who were saying things like, "What is the point of being a superpower if you can't do such-and-such, take on these responsibilities?" The point of being a superpower is that people will leave you alone.

Thomas Sowell

#24. 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

#25. More Medals of Honor were given for the indiscriminate slaughter of women and children than for any battle in World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq or Afghanistan.

Aaron Huey

#26. 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

#27. Although I voted against the initial resolution approving the war in Iraq, I have consistently voted to support our troops with much-needed armor and supplies.

Ed Pastor

#28. The resolution has made a real threat of war go away and opens the way for further work in the interests of a political- diplomatic settlement of the situation around Iraq.

Igor Ivanov

#29. No country in history ever sent mothers of toddlers off to fight enemy soldiers until the United States did this in the Iraq war.

Phyllis Schlafly

#30. 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

#31. Iraq made commitments after the Gulf War to completely dismantle all weapons of mass destruction, and unfortunately, Iraq has not lived up to its agreement.

Barbara Boxer

#32. The rules also explicitly stated that carrying a shovel, standing on a rooftop while speaking on a cell phone, or holding binoculars or being out after curfew constituted hostile intent, and we were authorized to use deadly force.

Iraq Veterans Against The War

#33. 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

#34. The Americans invaded a country without understanding what eight years of a war with Iran had meant, how that traumatized Iraq. They didn't appreciate what they support for a decade of sanctions in Iraq had done to Iraq and the bitterness that it created and that it wiped out the middle class.

Anthony Shadid

#35. Long before 9/11 and the war in Iraq, a lot of people hated the United States and the West. But what the Iraqi war seems to have done, at least in ... I mean, I'm just reporting what I see from the people on the ground, is that it has silenced many pro-American forces in the Muslim world.

Yaroslav Trofimov

#36. For many foreign fighters, the jihad in Iraq and Syria is a commuter war.

Richard Engel

#37. In any event, it is one thing to assert, then or now, that the Iraq war was ill-advised. It is quite another to make the horrendous charge that President Bush lied to or deceived the American people about the threat from Saddam.

Laurence Silberman

#38. No. That's someone else's business. Quagmire is - I don't do quagmires.

Donald Rumsfeld

#39. Four hundred thousand South Africans are dying of AIDS every year. This makes the war on Iraq look like a birthday party.

Jeremy Cronin

#40. Nobody should claim that the war [in Iraq] is over. But certainly it can be said that the regime is finished.

John Howard

#41. In the lead up to the Iraq war and its later conduct, I saw at a minimum, true dereliction, negligence and irresponsibility, at worse, lying, incompetence and corruption.

Anthony Zinni

#42. Afghanistan and Iraq were lumped together in what was called a 'global war on terrorism.'

Richard Engel

#43. Trying to teach creativity is the major hoax of our time along with the Iraq war and plastic surgery"
~ Snarky comment of Clive from "The River Swimmer" (pg 47)

Jim Harrison

#44. CNN said that after the war, there is a plan to divide Iraq into three parts: regular, premium and unleaded.

Jay Leno

#45. In the wake of winning the war, Poland wants to help win peace with Iraq. I believe that the international community cannot leave Iraq without support.

Aleksander Kwasniewski

#46. Are you okay, man?"
"Yeah, I'm good."
It's a lie. I wonder if I will ever be good again.

David Bellavia

#47. The cost of war is like an immeasurable tremor that knows no borders, its shockwaves reverberating across the world resulting in universal suffering.

Aysha Taryam

#48. Playing on the streets of Iraq, or in Israel or the Gaza strip, I'd sing angry protest songs against war. People would say, 'Make us clap, make us dance, and laugh and sing.' It really made me think about the importance of happy music.

Michael Franti

#49. God works through people by stirring their hearts and sometimes people never know how they are helping others.

Colby Buzzell

#50. Some Democrats say the estimated $60 billion dollar cost of a war with Iraq could be better spent at home. When he heard that, President Bush agreed and announced plans to bomb Ohio.

Jay Leno

#51. As the criminal, sinful war in Iraq enters its third year, the president goes to Europe to heal the wounds between the United States and its former allies, on his own terms of course.

Andrew Greeley

#52. We have a substantial number of countries that have pledged and provided all kinds of support for the United States in the event that war becomes necessary in Iraq.

Douglas Feith

#53. 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

#54. 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

#55. France ... What can you say about a country that was too stupid to get on board with our wonderfully-conceived and brilliantly-executed war in Iraq?

Bill Maher

#56. The young patriots now returning from war in Iraq and Afghanistan and other deployments worldwide are joining the ranks of veterans to whom America owes an immense debt of gratitude.

Steve Buyer

#57. The Second World War is and was constantly being drudged up by Blair and Bush to rationalize the invasion of Iraq.

Robert Fisk

#58. The United States spends over $87 billion conducting a war in Iraq while the United Nations estimates that for less than half that amount we could provide clean water, adequate diets, sanitations services and basic education to every person on the planet. And we wonder why terrorists attack us.

John Perkins

#59. I mean, we're going to probably debate the Iraq war for at least as long as I'm alive.

Paul Wolfowitz

#60. Should we freeze or postpone prospective tax cuts and avoid any new tax cuts until we are sure we have the money to pay for the war on terrorism and the war in Iraq.

Tim Russert

#61. There are a growing number of conservatives and Republicans who, while they support the president and support the war in Iraq, wonder how many of these nation-building wars we're going to engage in and what the parameters of that are.

Lamar Alexander

#62. I had earlier concluded that a war with Iraq would be a distraction from the successful and expeditious completion of our aims in Afghanistan. Now I had come to question whether the White House was telling the truth.

Bob Graham

#63. The war being fought in Afghanistan and Iraq is bringing about a fundamental change to the environment that has given rise and power to the extremists who export terrorism.

Craig L. Thomas

#64. Iraq has become, for better or for worse, the front on the war on terrorism, and so we've got to do this, and I can understand why congressmen and senators would take their responsibility seriously, but I think in the end we'll get the money.

Paul Bremer

#65. I was against the Iraq war I was against the Afghan war I was against bombing Libya and Syria but to be quite honest and with a heavy heart because more innocent people are gonna be killed....We have to step in and help wipeout ISIS!

Cal Sarwar

#66. 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

#67. The progressive movement against the war of occupation in Iraq is a reason for hope, as is resistance to free trade agreements in Latin America. Those are moments that we have to celebrate: that people still find the resolve and energy to resist.

Danny Glover

#68. In recent weeks, I have heard former Associated Press reporter Ron Fournier on Fox News twice asserting, quite offhandedly, that President George W. Bush 'lied us into war in Iraq.'

Laurence Silberman

#69. Undoubtedly the war with Iraq was a tragedy. I think it was also a crime.

Tony Benn

#70. 1 month ago the American people stopped to remember the third anniversary of the beginning of the Iraq war. We thought first and foremost of the selflessness, patriotism and heroism by our troops, our National Guard and Reserves.

Rosa DeLauro

#71. What is the first thing we did when we took control of Iraq? Protect the oil fields. Remember the administration quote about how the oil would pay for the war.

Peter Schuyler

#72. Iraq was a war of choice, like Vietnam.

Chuck Hagel

#73. 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

#74. We also know that Iraq is harboring a terrorist network headed by a senior al Qaeda terrorist planner. This network runs a poison and explosive training camp in northeast Iraq, and many of its leaders are known to be in Baghdad.

George W. Bush

#75. The Iraqi regime ... possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons. We know that the regime has produced thousands of tons of chemical agents, including mustard gas, sarin nerve gas, VX nerve gas.

George W. Bush

#76. Our relationship with the United States is not reduced to questions of fighting terrorism and the Iraq war. German-American relations were so good for so many years because they extended deeply into the normal lives of people.

Angela Merkel

#77. I was against it [war in Middle East]. And I was against it very early. And we shouldn't have been in there. And I think it is probably perhaps the worst mistake we have ever made. First of all, they didn't knock down the World Trade Center, OK? It wasn't Iraq. It was other people.

Donald Trump

#78. These kids understood what is not immediately obvious; that they were going to pay the bills for tax cuts that had been passed today or in the last 4 years, and for the war in Iraq, because essentially we are borrowing money to do those things.

Tom Allen

#79. To deny a genocide because of convenience and expediency having to do with an illegal war or occupation in Iraq to me, is double hypocritical.

Serj Tankian

#80. You want to see a war on women? Come with me to Iraq and Afghanistan, folks. I've been there 35 times. I will show you what they do to women.

Lindsey Graham

#81. On big issues like war in Iraq, but in many other issues they simply must be multilateral. There's no other way around. You have the instances like the global warming convention, the Kyoto protocol, when the U.S. went its own way.

Hans Blix

#82. In my judgment, the greatest risks are international terrorist groups like al Qaeda and Hezbollah. The war in Iraq has taken our attention off those priorities.

Bob Graham

#83. I was the first blogger on the 'Times's website. That happened during the Iraq war, when I wanted an outlet for the things I was seeing every day that couldn't fit into just two columns a week. Then I became interested in using multimedia, specifically as a way to engage young people.

Nicholas Kristof

#84. However one feels about the war in Iraq, realize that our troops deserve our support 100 percent.

Ric Keller

#85. In this global war against extremists who use murder as a weapon, Iraq is now the central front.

George W. Bush

#86. Fobbit is fast, razor sharp, and seven kinds of hilarious. Thank you, Mr. Abrams, for the much needed salve
it feels good to finally laugh about Iraq. Fobbit deserves a place alongside Slaughterhouse Five and Catch-22 as one of our great comic novels about the absurdity of war.

Jonathan Evison

#87. Most people think the Iraq war has increased the probability of an attack. However, it's difficult to put this aspect into financial terms.

Joseph Stiglitz

#88. It is a kind of ego booster, the way Egypt's winning the 1973 war, in the first stages, was an uplift. But I did not find when I spoke to people that the war in Iraq was seen as the major issue in American-Arab relations.

Walter Russell Mead

#89. With 300 Marines, you could probably take over Iraq if you wanted to and get rid of ISIS completely. Make no mistake about it, Marines are war fighters. I mean they are really good at what they do. The only time they are not good at what they do is when someone puts the shackles on them,

Marcus Luttrell

#90. We did not go to war in Afghanistan or in Iraq to, quote, 'impose democracy.' We went to war in both places because we saw those regimes as a threat to the United States.

Paul Wolfowitz

#91. Think of what happened after 9/11, the minute before there was any assessment, there was glee in the administration because now we can invade Iraq, and so the war drums beat.

Ron Paul

#92. With our Reserve and Guard units playing increasingly important roles in the war on terror and in Iraq, it is unacceptable to make them jump through any unnecessary hurdles.

Pat Roberts

#93. A lot of Iran's empowerment is a result of the war in Iraq.

Richard Engel

#94. I have never solicited nor received money from Iraq for our campaign against war and sanctions. I have never seen a barrel of oil, never owned one, never bought one, never sold one.

George Galloway

#95. I still believe that the Democrats have it right about health care, education, the war in Iraq and, yes the war on terror.

Alan Colmes

#96. I have this thought, it's horrible, and it makes me sick, but it's true: one day these students will grow up and have their own kids, and they're going to name them for men and women who will die in this war.

Tucker Elliot

#97. I don't think that [the war in Iraq] damaged our reputation around the world.

Dick Cheney

#98. The reality is no one knows how much it will cost us to wage war with Iraq.

Kent Conrad

#99. President Bush said this Iraq situation looks like 'the rerun of a bad movie.' Well sure, there's a Bush in the White House, the economy's going to hell, we're going to war over oil. I've seen this movie, haven't I?

Jay Leno

#100. I think every day we look at the mess of the chaos of the civil war in Iraq, I think every day people become more and more convinced that the war was a mistake. I think we have to learn from the mistakes of our past.

Rand Paul