Quotes About Iraq

We've persevered because of a belief we share with the Iraqi people - a belief that out of the ashes of war, a new beginning could be born in this cradle of civilization. Through this remarkable chapter in the history of the United States and Iraq, we have met our responsibility. Now, it's time to turn the page.

As the daughter of a 25-year veteran of the armed forces, I am incredibly thankful for the sacrifices our women and men have made in Iraq, and continue to make in Afghanistan.

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?

Look, obviously a lot of years to reflect on. Definitely, from my perspective from Iraq, from Baghdad, and I would daresay that reflecting the view of the majority of Iraqis, the decision to take on Saddam Hussein and remove him from power was the right decision; it was the moral decision. The world is a better place without Saddam Hussein. He was a war criminal. He was engaged in crimes against humanity, genocide, you name it. But no doubt: a lot of problems in the transition.

Is there an equality of power between America and Iraq? Definitely not however, the Iraqi people are standing fast and are defending their land courageously.

Reasonable people can differ on whether or not we should have gone into Iraq.

Let me just say, I think there's a reasonable criticism to be made of the Obama administration on the way that it left Iraq.

I would love to go back and help rebuild that country and help - you know, kind of like what's going on with Iraq right now. You know, they've got a new government in place. They're trying to rebuild the country. I would love for that to happen in Cuba also.

We are not utilizing the Iraqi oil for U.S. purposes. We are not asking that the Iraqi oil be used to pay our military expenses. We are asking only that the Iraqi oil be used to rebuild Iraq - that is, to rebuild Iraq for the Iraqi people.

As I think through the issue of funding the rebuilding of Iraq, I think about the analogy of a bankruptcy proceeding. There is no doubt that Iraq as a country is bankrupt.

The reason that ISIL was so successful, yes, it had to do with their capabilities and prowess on the battlefield, but they were dealing with a receptive constituency in northern Iraq because of the intense hatred of the Maliki government, which of course is imposing the Shia view on them.

My experience in Iraq made me realize, and during the recovery, that I could have died. And I just had to do more with my life.

Will we fight or will we retreat? That is the question that is posed to us. Some of my friends on the other side of the aisle often refer to Iraq as a distraction.

There is much in the result of John Chilcot's seven-year inquiry into the decision-making that led to Britain's involvement in the 2003 invasion of Iraq that can be cited to excuse headlines that refer to his findings as 'scathing' and 'damning.'

We believe the use of force against Iraq, especially with reference to previous resolutions of the UN Security Council, has no grounds, including legal grounds.

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.

The Ambassador and the General were briefing me on the....the vast majority of Iraqis want to live in a peaceful, free world. And we will find these people and we will bring them to justice.

You know, one of the hardest parts of my job is to connect Iraq to the war on terror. --George W. Bush, interview with CBS News' Katie Couric, Sept. 6, 2006

Every American who served in Iraq helped to make our nation safer, gave twenty-five million people the chance to live in freedom, and changed the direction of the Middle East for generations to come. There are things we got wrong in Iraq, but that cause is eternally right.

You know the most important thing the Americans did for Iraq apart from liberating the country from Saddam was helping Iraq reduce its debt. The United States worked very hard to reduce 80 percent of Iraqi debt.

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.

Al Qaeda is nothing more than a mutant supply chain. They're playing off the same platform as Wal-Mart and Dell. They're just not restrained by it. What is al Qaeda? It's an open source religious political movement that works off the global supply chain. That's what we're up against in Iraq. We're up against a suicide supply chain.

Most people here agree that the rhetoric got overblown on both sides of the Atlantic before the Iraq war, and it was a disagreement among friends over the timing, not the substance, of the Iraq war.

Even the majority of the Sunnis have grown tired of foreign terrorists operating in Iraq.