A change of strategy suggests there is a strategy. I don't see a strategy that deals with - that concerns with dealing wit with ISIL overall. There is some sort of strategy for dealing with it in Iraq. I'm not sure there is one in Syria. And Libya is another problem altogether.
An American-led overthrow of Saddam Hussein - and the replacement of the radical Baathist dictatorship with a new government more closely aligned with the United States would put America more wholly in charge of the region than any power since the Ottomans, or maybe even the Romans.
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.
The President's speech suggested to me that were we to follow his leadership, we will be in Iraq not for months, but for years. I also hope I am wrong on this.
Vietnam is a jungle. You had jungle warfare. Kuwait, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, you have sand. [There is no need to worry about a protracted war because] from a historical basis, Middle East conflicts do not last a long time.
They appear to have had a higher voter turnout in Iraq than we did in our recent federal elections, and we didnt have terrorists threatening to kill our families if we voted.
Any time you have a situation in which you are calling for more time rather than calling for Iraq to immediately comply, it plays into the hands of Saddam Hussein.
There clearly are contacts between al Qaeda and Iraq that can be documented; there clearly is testimony that some of the contacts have been important contacts and that there's a relationship here
U.S. officials never expected that 'we were going to open garages and find' weapons of mass destruction.
We needed to go back on the offense and offer clear leadership on Iraq.
And we believe that our policies toward Iraq simply are to protect the region and to protect Iraq's people and neighbors.
So has the strategic decision been made to disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction by the leadership in Baghdad? I think our judgment has to be clearly not.
I'm absolutely sure that there are weapons of mass destruction there and the evidence will be forthcoming. We're just getting it just now.
Baghdad fell on April 9, 2003, Hussein and his regime were brought down, we declared "Mission Accomplished" and celebrated victory . . . and chaos erupted. We did not assert control and authority over the country, especially Baghdad. We did not bring with us the capacity to impose our will. We did not take charge. And Iraq did not in a few weeks magically transform itself into a stable nation with democratic leaders. Instead a raging insurgency engulfed the country.
There is no question about the fact that we had very serious disagreements with my German, French, and Russian colleagues over the Iraq war. But I never stopped talking.
It is the US government's desire for the Iraqi people to lead themselves, not for any outside power to be the leadership for Iraq in the future. There may be some transition period where the international community would have to help the Iraqi people put in place a representative government. But that is the goal, not for the United States, or any other nation, for that matter, who might be in such a coalition, if one is formed, to serve as the leader of the Iraqi nation.
But then Iraq happened after September 2001 and America claimed that Al Qaeda was there, and we all know that was a lie and we now know that our own Prime Minister deceived the country terribly.
Things aren't getting better; they're getting worse. The White House is completely disconnected from reality. It's like they're just making it up as they go along. The reality is that we're losing in Iraq.
[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.
There is no question that Iraq possesses biological and chemical weapons and that he [Saddam Hussein] seeks to acquire additional weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons. That is not in debate. I also agree with President Bush that Saddam Hussein is a threat to peace and must be disarmed, to quote President Bush directly.
My son is not wild about going back to Iraq, but he'd sure rather do that than sacrifice all that he and his fellow soldiers have accomplished by leaving too early and inviting chaos.
We've got to recognize that when we march into Iraq, we're setting up the card tables in front of every university in the Arab world, the Islamic world, to recruit for al-Qaida.
Iraq can emerge as a beacon of hope and democracy in the Middle East, and the world, with our help.
The liberation of Iraq is a crucial advance in the campaign against terror
The terrorist attacks of September 11th and the courageous actions of our armed forces in Afghanistan and Iraq remind us that friends of tyranny and enemies of freedom still exist
