The impression that's left around the world is that we plan to occupy the country, we plan to use their bases over the long period of time, and it's flat false, ... We went in there to change a regime, we went in there to find weapons of mass destruction, we went in there to stop them from threatening their neighbors, and we have said precisely what we're there for, and it's not what that article says. |
The insurgency could go on for any number of years, |
The intelligence experts in our government and I believe ... that they have engaged in a process and become connected in a variety of different ways. |
The investigation has not been completed, |
The investigation will determine that, but I've heard no indication that there was any conspiracy, |
The Iranian regime is today the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism. The world does not want, and must work together to prevent, a nuclear Iran. |
The Iraqi people are going to sort out what the Iraqi government ought to look like, |
The Iraqi people who are involved in this process are relatively new to the political process. It will take them some time I suspect. |
The Iraqi soldiers and officers must ask themselves whether they want to die fighting for a doomed regime or do they want to survive, help the Iraqi people in the liberation of their country and play a role in a new free Iraq. |
The killing fields are gone, the mass graves are not having new bodies piled up day after day, as happened under Saddam Hussein, |
The likelihood of it seems to be so low that it does not surprise me that it's never been discussed in my presence, |
The military is not the answer |
The minute that Saddam Hussein and his small ruling clique sense that they're out of danger, I suspect that they'll have no further incentive to cooperation, and any U.N. inspection and disarmament efforts could then fail, |
The more troops you have, the more targets you have, and the more people you might get killed. The more troops you have, the more of an occupying power you are, the heavier footprint, the more force protection you need, the more logistics you need and the more intrusive you are on the people of that country. |
The most underestimated risk for a politician is overexposure. |