Quotes from John Abizaid

I don't believe Iran is a suicide state.

It's clear to me now that we've got to reach out to the Arab Sunni community in particular in an effort to cause some moderate political activity to take place so they join the future of Iraq.

Every American soldier wants as much public support as he can possibly have. That's the soldiers on duty in Iraq, and that's me, as well. We fight better knowing that our people back home support us, back us, and understand what we're doing. It's hugely important.

But my Arabic is pretty good. It's good enough to have conversations with people, to understand what they say, to understand what they're feeling.

The power to prevent violence is a power that no police force seems to have anywhere in the United States.

We need to make it very clear to the Iranians, the same way we made it clear to the Soviet Union and China, that their first use of nuclear weapons would result in the devastation of their nation.

Well, the reports are correct that we're conducting very robust military operations on the Afghan side of the border in areas where we think al-Qaida is operating and Taliban remnants are.

The United States is the most powerful nation on Earth and it just can't walk away from the Middle East and central Asia and the Horn of Africa.

I think what actually works best is local-level individual targeting of key leadership nodes.

And so I think that if the person has the funds, the network, and the equipment to do this, and also the experience, which is the key factor, then they can be quite deadly.

We'll try to include Iraqi officers in our staffs. We will do everything we can to empower Iraqi security forces to stand up on their own and operate where they can alone.

Well, the hardest thing to do, as we know from our own experience on 9/11 is protect everything all the time.

And over time, I think, as Iraqi security capacity builds, you'll see American and coalition presence there decline.

In other words, for every 10 enemy you kill you bring on 20 new recruits to their anti-coalition cause then essentially you are working against yourself.

Our forces will not be on the sidelines.

But I am satisfied that the information that we have that this is the work of Zarqawi, is accurate.

Oh, the transition concerns me because as we move towards an important political event, it's clear to me that the terrorists and insurgents will move as hard as they can to disrupt this process.

But the truth of the matter is that there is there is an opportunity for them to participate in the economic and political future of the country and certainly in the security life of the country.

Nobody's more mindful of the sacrifices of our troops than those of us that command them.

But all that having been said, you can't, in a city of a million people like Karbala, or 5 million like Baghdad, you can't be in all places at all times.

But clearly the fact that we've gone from zero Iraqi security forces on duty in May to up to 200,000 today is an enormous accomplishment, but it's not enough.

Certainly our goal is to leave Iraq, but we can't leave Iraq with our forces until we know that the Iraqi security forces are capable and efficient enough to defend the sovereignty of the nation.

You know as well as I do that counterinsurgency is a very nuanced type of military operation.

Being on the run, having to change the way that you do business, being unable to plan in a safe and secure environment, always looking over your shoulder, knowing that some day somebody's going to knock on your door and it's going to be your last.