Quotes Archive: Iraq
"On NBC and in other public forums, General McCaffrey has consistently advocated wartime policies and spending priorities that are in line with his corporate interests. But those interests are not described to NBC's viewers. He is held out as a dispassionate expert, not someone who helps companies win contracts related to the wars he discusses on television."
NY Times reporter David Barstow, on how one of the most frequently seen military experts in the media has conflicts of interest not shared with viewers, like most former generals working as military experts on TV.
"Next up, Baghdad!"
John McCain in January 2002, cheering for more wars while speaking on an aircraft carrier, and showing his judgment by being one of the first salesmen for invading Iraq.
"The Habbush episode is the most spectacular case study in [Ron] Suskind's book [alleging the CIA forged a letter used as evidence for invading Iraq], but it's by no means the most depressing. Consider: In September 2002, Iraqi foreign minister (and paid French spy) Naji Sibri told a Lebanese intermediary that Saddam really, truly, honestly didn't have any WMD. Somehow, in transcribing the findings, the CIA's New York station wrote up a conclusion that was directly opposite to what Sibri had said."
Louis Bayard, reviewing Suskind's book, mentioning another new example of Bush faking the case for war, and maybe revealing why the French never believed Bush. Who knew the case for war could fall apart any more? Hey Pelosi, NOW do you have enough to start impeachment hearings?
"I've been there too many times, I've met too many times with them, and I know what they want. They want it based on conditions, and of course they'd like to have us out, that's what happens when you win wars, you leave. We may have a residual presence there as even Sen. Obama has admitted, but the fact is, that it should be based, that the agreement between Prime Minister Maliki, the Iraqi government, and the United States is it will be based on conditions."
Sen. John McCain, in an interview after the Iraqi government was specific about wanting a timetable, once again ignoring what they're saying or else ignorant of what they're saying.
"Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such purpose, and you allow him to make war at his pleasure. Study to see if you can fix any limit to his power in this respect, after having given him so much as you propose."
Abraham Lincoln in 1848, during the Mexican War, expressing why allowing a president's sole discretion to decide when to invade another country is dangerous to the liberty of his own country.
"As I was leaving the UN food distribution center in Damascus, Layla Atiya, the widow with seven children, touched my arm. 'Can you tell me one thing?,' she pleaded. 'Why did America do this to us? What did we do to America to make her hate us so?'"
Medea Benjamin, cofounder of Code Pink, writing about her visit to Iraqi refugee camps.
"Where does the madness end? Where do words lose their meaning? Al-Qa'ida is not being defeated. Hizbollah has just won a domestic war in Lebanon, as total as Hamas's war in Gaza. Afghanistan and Iraq and Lebanon and Gaza are hell disasters — I need no apology to quote Churchill's description of 1948 Palestine yet again — and this foolish, stupid, vicious man is lying to the world yet again."
Robert Fisk, columnist and resident of Lebanon, responding to remarks by Bush that show he hasn't the least understanding of the region he's mucking up.
"Night and day. I felt we'd been hosed."
Kenneth Allard, former NBC military analyst, on how the Pentagon used TV military analysts to feed disinformation about Iraq to the media and public.
"The people inside the Beltway don't seem to get how big an issue this is."
Darcy burner, Democratic candidate for Congress and participant with other candidates in Responsible Plan, on how Democratic leaders in DC think they can just focus on domestic issues. They've been so good at losing elections on national security, why stop now?
"I just kept thinking, we could have had him. It came out later that the president had been briefed and had turned down my request for soldiers. I found that heartbreaking."
Gary Berntsen, who lead CIA operations in Afghanistan, on how Bush squandered the chance to defeat Al Qaida and kill or capture Osama Bin Laden at Tora Bora. Iraq was already more important to him.
"Bush and the top officials of his administration have so far largely avoided the harsh, sustained glare of formal scrutiny about their personal responsibility for the litany of repeated, false statements in the run-up to the war in Iraq. There has been no congressional investigation, for example, into what exactly was going on inside the Bush White House in that period."
Charles Lewis and Mark Reading-Smith, in the introduction to the report by the Center for Public Integrity documenting 935 times Bush or his officials made statements about Iraq that contradicted the intelligence they had at the time.
"There is no place in the American force structure, or in American culture for mercenaries. They are guns for hire; No more, no less... Private Armies represent the very things we despise as a people. Servants to the highest bidder with true allegiance to no-one."
Marshall Adame, Democratic candidate in Blackwater's district, and also a former marine and State employee in Iraq who saw Blackwater up close.
"The actions taken in 2003 were based on the collective judgment of intelligence agencies around the world."
White House spokesman Scott Stanzel, when asked about the study showing Bush, Cheney, etc. lied 935 times to sell the invasion of Iraq. He lied again: most agencies got their information from Bush and never thought a US president would lie like that. Most of the rest didn't share that judgement.
"One career State Department observer put it to me this way. 'In Blackwater's dealings with the Department,' he said, 'I often find myself wondering who is the service provider and who is beneficiary of the services.' His point was simple: Blackwater exercised an unseen influence over the process of contracting and supervision; often the Government seems to be working for them."
Scott Horton writing about the enormous influence Blackwater has with the Bush administration, especially State Dept.
"Outside of the military, some of the most widespread polling in Iraq has been done by D3 Systems, a Virginia-based company that maintains offices in each of Iraq's 18 provinces. Its most recent publicly released surveys, conducted in September for several news media organizations, showed the same widespread Iraqi belief voiced by the military's focus groups: that a U.S. departure will make things better. A State Department poll in September 2006 reported a similar finding."
Washington Post reporter Karen DeYoung, reporting on surveys showing most Iraqis think our occupation is part of the problem. Hey conservatives, remember you said we'd leave if the Iraqis wanted us out? Well?
"The judge announced on the opening day that he would recommend conviction and refer the matter to the Central Criminal Court of Iraq. This was before any evidence or arguments had been produced. Our folks were elated, but concerned that his somewhat rash statement would undermine the credibility of the proceedings. They had expected him to say this only at the end of the proceedings."
Anonymous Pentagon source, as reported by Scott Horton, about how the trial of Bilal Hussein in an Iraqi court is being rigged by the US Defense Dept.
"The PKK [Kurdish guerrilla group fighting Turkey] is a threat to Turkey, to Iraq and to the United States. And so we continue to share information, share intelligence."
Press Secretary Dana Perino, as part of the bushies' process of screwing over the one group of Iraqis who want us there.
"Holding hearings would put the evidence on the table, and the evidence -- not politics -- should determine the outcome. Even if the hearings do not lead to removal from office, putting these grievous abuses on the record is important for the sake of history. For an Administration that has consistently skirted the constitution and asserted that it is above the law, it is imperative for Congress to make clear that we do not accept this dangerous precedent. Our Founding Fathers provided Congress the power of impeachment for just this reason, and we must now at least consider using it."
Three members of the House Judiciary Committee, Robert Wexler D-FL, Luis Gutierrez, D-IL and Tammy Baldwin, D-WI, making the case for their committee to start hearings on the Kucinich impeachment resolution referred to the committee November 7. Full text
"Haythem identified his son from what was left of his shoes. His forehead and brains were missing and his skin completely burned. He identified his wife of 20 years by a dental bridge."
Jennifer Daskal, senior counterterrorism counsel at Human Rights Watch, who interviewed witnesses and relatives of victims of the Nisour Square massacre by Blackwater.
"You've seen here tonight people who voted for the war, voted to fund the war, now they have a different position. People voted for the Patriot Act. Now they have a different position. People voted for China trade. Now they have a different position. People who voted for Yucca Mountain. Now they had a different position. Just imagine what it will be like to have a president of the United States who's right the first time."
Rep. Dennis Kucinich at the Nov. 15 debate, making the key point in his favor: he consistently gets the big issues right the first time, unlike most of his competitors.
"I certainly regret that we did not have the kind of oversight that I would have insisted upon."
Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, being asked about the unprovoked killings of Iraqis by Blackwater, regretting she doesn't have the authority she might have if she were, say, Secretary of State.
"It was as we were awaiting the documentary record of the Army's investigation that the Army leaked several documents, including the September 6 transcript, to The Drudge Report, which incorrectly reported that the documents show that Beauchamp had recanted. In fact, they show no such thing, and Drudge soon removed the supporting documents from its website, and later its entire report."
The editors of New Republic, giving an example how the military has been politicized into an arm of the GOP. This article concerns the magazine's investigation into Scott Beauchamp, and the Army's refusal to release documents even with a FOIA request, yet selected documents are leaked to conservative propaganda media.
"The simple truth about the missing money is the same one that applies to so much else about the American occupation of Iraq. The U.S. government never did care about accounting for those Iraqi billions and it doesn't care now. It cares only about ensuring that an accounting does not occur."
Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele, on how billions of dollars have been stolen in Iraq, and the administration cares only about stopping any accounting.
"It was kind of a running joke in our office. We would sarcastically refer to everybody as al-Qaeda."
Alex Rossmiller, former intelligence officer in Iraq, on how any attack in Iraq would be credited to al-Qaeda.
"Two witnesses scheduled to testify before Congress against Custer Battles ultimately declined not only because they had received death threats but because they, too, were contractors and feared that they would be shut out of future government deals. To repeat: Witnesses were afraid to testify in an effort to recover government funds because they feared reprisal from the government."
Matt Taibbi, writing about the incredible fraud committed by contractors in Iraq.
"We're kicking ass."
Acting President George Bush, when the Australian Deputy Prime Minister asked him how Iraq was going. Did Bush study to be the stereotypical American, or does it come naturally to him?
"Rather than continuing support of a just-war theory, a more compassionate church would oppose all war and teach peacemaking skills for all levels of government and interpersonal conflict resolution."
The National Coalition of American Nuns in a statement calling for Bush's impeachment.
"The Israeli chief of military intelligence, Maj. Gen. Aharon Farkash, said Iraq had not deployed any missiles that could strike Israel directly and challenged the Bush administration's argument that Iraq could obtain nuclear weapons within a relatively short time."
Gareth Porter, reporting that the Israeli government told Bush not to invade Iraq. Remember how Bush told us --- repeatedly --- everybody thought the same thing about the threat from Iraq?
"Just as the Pentagon had made up the story of the heroism of Jessica Lynch, ... it made up a story about Tillman's heroism until the story couldn't stand up to the facts. Hasn't that been the true overriding story of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan?"
Daytona Beach News-Journal editorial on the coverup of how Pat Tillman dies and got used for propaganda.
"And that is what is so frustrating -- to see this same mindset over and over and over again -- where Democrats say they have to capitulate or else it will be used against them, and then it's used against them anyway, but it's even more effective because Democrats haven't fought or made the case for their position."
Presidential candidate and senator Chris Dodd, R-CT, explaining Democratic failure to stand up against Bush regarding invading Iraq, the military commissions bill, and now the FISA revisions.
"The founders were particularly wary of giving the president power over war. They were haunted by Europe's history of conflicts started by self-aggrandizing kings. John Jay, the first chief justice of the United States, noted in Federalist No. 4 that 'absolute monarchs will often make war when their nations are to get nothing by it, but for the purposes and objects merely personal.'"
Adam Cohen writing about how the founding fathers tried to restrain the presidency because they feared a president would use war to establish dictatorship, completely contrary to conservative claims the founders wanted a strong executive with extensive war powers.
"Mr. [Fouad] Ajami, I'm not going to let you end this with the idea that Iraq was part of 9/11, when everybody knows --- everybody knows --- Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11."
Guest Hardball host David Shuster, refusing to let neocon guest Fouad Ajami get away with the usual neocon spin. Can you believe that with Shuster available, MSNBC still lets Chris Matthews host that show?
"The only people clamoring for Mr. Libby's freedom were the pundits who still believe that Saddam secured uranium in Africa and who still hope that any exoneration of Mr. Libby might make them look less like dupes for aiding and abetting the hyped case for war. That select group is not the Republican base so much as a roster of the past, present and future holders of quasi-academic titles at neocon think tanks like the American Enterprise Institute."
Frank Rich, commenting on just who it was wanted Libby pardoned, namely the delusional neocons. Pardon the redundancy.
"The torture methods that Tenet defends have nurtured the recuperative power of the enemy. This war will be won or lost not on the battlefield but in the minds of potential supporters who have not yet thrown in their lot with the enemy. If we forfeit our values by signaling that they are negotiable in situations of grave or imminent danger, we drive those undecideds into the arms of the enemy. This way lies defeat, and we are well down the road to it."
Charles C. Krulak and Joseph P. Hoar, former high ranking generals, on how US use of torture actually aids the insurgents.
"Except that Saddam did, in fact, allow inspectors in. Remember Hans Blix? When those inspectors failed to find nonexistent W.M.D., Mr. Bush ordered them out so that he could invade. Mr. Romney's remark should have been the central story in news reports about Tuesday's debate. But it wasn't."
Paul Krugman on Mitt Romney's statement that Saddam refused to allow arms inspections and thereby brought on the war.
"The act of procuring these letters is further evidence of Libby's stove-piping of disinformation. Libby could not reasonably have expected to sway the judge, but there is a higher authority to which he is appealing. These letters constitute the beginnings of the Libby Lobby's pardon campaign."
Sidney Blumenthal, writing about the neocons enormous sympathy for Scooter Libby. As far as sympathy for millions of Iraqis whose lives have been ruined or ended because of their whacked out ideas, not so much.
"Everyone knows that the oil law does not serve the Iraqi people, and that it serves Bush, his supporters and the foreign companies at the expense of the Iraqi people who have been wronged and deprived of their right to their oil despite enduring all difficulties."
Hasan Jum'a Awwad, head of the Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions, in a May 12 letter to Democrats in the U.S. Congress, quoted in an article on Dennis Kucinich's opposition to the proposed oil revenue sharing law in Iraq.
"You'd think, with a Congress full of benchmark setters promising to end the war in a matter of months, and a White House still pretending to give a damn about democracy and prosperity for Iraqis, these details would not just be interesting to news agencies, but vital to any realistic assessment of the Iraqi situation. Unfortunately, they're too busy asking John Edwards how much he pays for a haircut."
Allan Uthman writing about how shallow election coverage avoids important issues, like the proposed Iraqi oil law that gives oil companies large degrees of control.
"All of the bad actors in the Middle East get mixed up in people's minds. That's why it was easy to play on the perception that Saddam Hussein got together with Osama bin Laden and said 'Let's fly some planes into buildings.' Saddam Hussein was seen as a bad guy in the Middle East, and so it all gets jumbled up in people's thinking."
Andrew Kohut of the Pew Research Center, commenting on how the GOP is still able to mislead the public that Iraq was part of 911 and all terrorist groups are the same.
"I remember Baghdad before the war -- one could live anywhere. We didn't know what our neighbors were -- we didn't care. No one asked about religion or sect. No one bothered with what was considered a trivial topic: are you Sunni or Shia? You only asked something like that if you were uncouth and backward. Our lives revolve around it now. Our existence depends on hiding it or highlighting it -- depending on the group of masked men who stop you or raid your home in the middle of the night."
Riverbend, an Iraqi blogger in Baghdad, on how Iraq wasn't torn by sectarian strife before the invasion.
"Part of this whole thing is Cheney's quote where he said: You don't negotiate with evil, you defeat it. Well, that's a nice sound bite, but it's very impractical ... when it comes to resolving conflict. And we just have to be real clear that the philosophical underpinnings of this idea that we don't talk to people who we don't like is just bankrupt and invalid."
Rep. Keith Ellison, interviewed about Middle East conflicts, on the need to talk with nations we regard as enemies.
"After all, we've had no opportunity to hear neocon ideas except on every network, every cable channel, the Op-Ed pages of the New York Times, Fox News, all the major newsweeklies, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the Weekly Standard, the New Republic, Slate and just about every other media outlet. This intolerable censorship of failed right-wing ideas must cease!"
Gary Kamiya in a review of "America at the Crossroads", commenting on the decision to give a full episode to Richard Perle despite his record of being wrong on everything.
"I told reporters afterward that it was just like any open-air market in Indiana in the summertime. I didn't mean that Baghdad was as safe as the Bargersville Flea Market; I just meant that that was what it looked and felt like --- lots of people, lots of booths and a friendly relaxed atmosphere."
Rep. Mike Pence, R-IN, on his walk through the Shorja market in Baghdad, which was previously swept by US troops, 100 of whom guarded him and other congressmen during their walk, which protection also included attack helicopters and bullet-proof vests. Otherwise, not much more dangerous than Bargersville.
"If the CIA was really being careful, and had guidelines for all these covert agents, why did they allow Valerie Plame to contribute $1,000 to Al Gore's campaign and list her CIA cover business, Brewster Jennings and Associates, as her employer?"
Victoria Toensing, testifying after Valerie Plame Wilson to cast doubt on the secrecy of her covert status. Here's an answer: because she has the right to donate money to campaigns and listing herself as a CIA agent would have blown her cover. That's maybe not obvious if you're a Bushie scraping for an excuse.
"Yes congressman, and I can tell you that he came to me, (pause) almost with tears in his eyes, he said his words had been twisted and distorted. He wrote a memo, and he asked his supervisor to allow him to be reinterviewed by the committee, and the memo went nowhere, and his request to be reinterviewed so the record could be set straight was denied."
Valerie Plame Wilson describing the Counter Proliferation Division reports officer whose testimony was the source of the Senate Intelligence Committee report claiming she had recommended her husband for the assignment to check the report Iraq bought uranium from Niger. The quote is about 1:15 into the video.
"No. I did not recommend him, I did not suggest him, there was no nepotism involved, I didn't have the authority."
Valerie Plame Wilson, responding to Rep. Stephen Lynch's question, "I want to ask you now under oath, did you make the decision to send Ambassador Wilson to Niger?"
"The people who have fled are the ones the administration was relying on to build democracy in Iraq; it would rather ignore them than acknowledge that its initiative has failed."
Bill Frelick, refugee policy director at Human Rights Watch, on how Bush is abandoning the Iraqis who supported his occupation.
"I will say there was a tremendous amount of sympathy for Mr. Libby on the jury. It was said a number of times, 'What are we doing with this guy here? Where's Rove? Where are these other guys?' I'm not saying we didn't think Mr. Libby was guilty of the things we found him guilty of. It seemed like he was, as Mr. Wells put it, he was the fall guy."
Libby juror Denis Collins asking what many of us in the public are asking, especially if he's implying that Libby is taking the fall for Cheney.
"The Constitution does not belong to the politicians. It belongs to all of us. And the medicines it prescribes for the ailments of the body politic are ours to administer."
John Nichols, writer for The Nation Magazine, who is traveling Vermont to promote the impeachment resolutions being debated in town meetings and the state legislature.
"That is not exactly prize-winning prose, but it seemed a little snappier to us -- and more on point. Please note the context: What is slowly bleeding away is the administration's political support to keep fighting the war. Republicans pounced on the phrase because of the ease with which that context could be shorn away, to give the impression that what Democrats were slow-bleeding were the bodies of troops in Iraq.
That willingness to wrest words from context -- and to attribute the phrase to Democrats even though it was not theirs -- was demagogic on the part of Republican operatives. But it was never my plan to make their work so easy."
Politico Editor John Harris, admitting that he made up the term "slow bleed" for John Murtha's plan to require troops to have specified levels of readiness before going to Iraq, and denouncing the GOP for pretending the Democrats were using the term.
"I have faith in the American people. Congress has an approval rating of 30 percent, the president has an approval rating of 30 percent. The American people will end this war."
Marine Sgt. Liam Madden, veteran of Iraq, who delivered the Appeal for Redress to End the War in Iraq to Congress.
"No Iraqi woman under the circumstances- under any circumstances- would publicly, falsely claim she was raped. There are just too many risks. There is the risk of being shunned socially. There is the risk of beginning an endless chain of retaliations and revenge killings between tribes. There is the shame of coming out publicly and talking about a subject so taboo, she and her husband are not only risking their reputations by telling this story, they are risking their lives."
"river" on "Baghdad Burning" describing the refusal of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to believe the story of an Iraqi woman, Sabrine Al Janabi, who claimed she was raped by Iraqi police.
"The lead interrogator at the DIF had given me specific instructions: I was to deprive the detainee of sleep during my 12-hour shift by opening his cell every hour, forcing him to stand in a corner and stripping him of his clothes. Three years later the tables have turned. It is rare that I sleep through the night without a visit from this man. His memory harasses me as I once harassed him"
Eric Fair, a US interrogator in Iraq, revealing that torture was policy, not an accident.
"Molly's enduring message is, 'Raise more hell.'"
The editors of the Texas Observer in their obituary for columnist Molly Ivins, who died Jan. 31 of breast cancer, and used her last column to call on Americans to stop the stupidity in Iraq.
"I have no illusion of the impact it might have, but I don't want our silence to be seen as a complicit acceptance of the war."
Ralph Remington, Minneapolis City Councilman, who proposed the resolution expressing the council's opposition to Iraq War II.
"Iraqis are freer today and we are safer. Relax and enjoy it."
Richard Perle in May 2003. Look at the other nonsense in the column. Why does anyone listen to this man?
"If I had done as Vice President what this Vice President has done, Carter would have thrown me out of there. I don't think he could have tolerated a Vice President over there pressuring and pushing other agencies, ordering up different reports than they wanted to send us. I don't think he would have stood for it."
Walter Mondale speaking on Cheney's role is creating the falsehoods used to sell the invasion of Iraq.
"Here's a question for Emily Post: What level of gratitude is appropriate when your country has been invaded under false pretenses, tens of thousands of your fellow citizens have been killed, and hundreds of thousands have fled the country due to the very real fear of assassination? Will a muffin basket do it?"
Clara Jeffrey commenting in the Mother Jones blog on the acting president's expectation of more gratitude from th Iraqis.
"We believe the way forward is to begin the phased redeployment of our forces in the next four to six months, while shifting the principal mission of our forces there from combat to training, logistics, force protection and counter-terror."
Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid in a letter to the acting president, which brought the response that they haven't offered a plan and suggestions would be welcomed. I wonder what Bush would have said if he had actually read the letter?
"So far, however, [Larry] Franklin [neocon in the DIA convicted of passing classified information to AIPAC] is the only member of [Douglas] Feith's [Undersecretary of Defense for Policy] team to face charges. The continuing lack of indictments demonstrates how frighteningly easy it is for a small group of government officials to join forces with agents of foreign powers—whether it is AIPAC or the MEK or the INC—to sell the country on a disastrous war."
James Bamford, author of A Pretext for War, on how the neocons who brought us Iraq War II were simultaneously working on war with Iran.
"The Pentagon did some very stupid things during the Vietnam War and they're doing some very stupid things now. They are not listening to their own (military) leadership. They're saying 'do it my way.' I'm very upset about that."
Wayne Sandbulte, Vietnam vet and former Republican, on how Iraq War II put the "former" in front of "Republican", and showing the opportunity Democrats have to make national security a Democratic issue.
"MJ: When B.D. went to Vietnam, you treated it humorously. Why the more serious approach to B.D.'s time in Iraq?
GT: When I was writing about Vietnam, I was 22. Now I'm 58. I know more."
Garry Trudeau in an interview with Mother Jones about the storyline of his character B.D. who lost a leg in Iraq and struggles after coming home.
"The White House hopes that its much-trumpeted reshuffling of a failed strategy and flawed tactics will buy time for their bad luck to change miraculously. That this time will be bought and paid for with the lives and futures of our soldiers and Marines - and their families - apparently means little to these wise men who've never heard a shot fired in anger."
Joseph Galloway, former senior military correspondent for Knight Ridder (now McClatchy), on the acting president's likely decision to send more troops to Iraq.
"The end of the Cold War should have taught the West a good lesson: It's not a bad idea to wait out tyrannical regimes, whether they're the Soviet Union or Iraq. Isolated, bankrupt, they eventually crumble under their own weight. The democratic sweep started by the fall of the old Soviet Union might have spread to the Middle East, if only there'd been enough patience. Instead, there was George W. Bush and that old flammable mixture of hubris, divine right and lust for oil, which he thought could yield miracles so long as the U.S. military could lead the way. The result was good-old-European-style overreach, with America left alone to hold the bloody bag."
Pierre Tristam on the core misguidance behind the acting president's Middle East policies.
"These are soldiers, and this is very personal, they sat in my classrooms, I coached them in football, they joined my guard unit, I trained them, we deployed together, and I watched them leave to go to Iraq as their children cried. We owe a debate. There has not been one on the floor of the Congress in open debate. We were told that we should simply 'stay the course'. 'Stay the course' and 'cut and run' are merely slogans. They are not strategies."
Tim Walz, DFL candidate in Minnesota's 1st district, on the personal impact of the war. He followed this quote with an actual strategy. The link is to the audio of a debate. The quote is nine minutes in.
"Along with adrenaline and fear, a profound feeling of disgust welled up inside me. I had become a kind of stock character in a movie, someone I categorically despised. I hated violence and guns, was against the American presence in Iraq, and was sympathetic to almost every Iraqi I had met during the summer. The Glock's barrel even pointed directly at Farooq, for Christ's sake! John Simpson may have been on the receiving end of interrogations, but he certainly never carried one out. And I was doing all this to recover a few thousand misappropriated dollars, for a company that was set to make millions from the American war effort."
Willem Marx, who interned with the Lincoln Group in Baghdad, writing about what happened when he was the one placing articles written by the US military in Iraqi papers under the pretense they were written by Iraqis.
"What the Johns Hopkins team has done in Iraq is a more rigorous version of the technique used to calculate deaths in southern Sudan and the eastern Congo. To reject it, you must either reject the whole discipline of statistics or question the professional integrity of those doing the survey."
Journalist and historian Gwynne Dyer, on the validity of the Johns Hopkins study of the number of deaths resulting from Bush's invasion of Iraq. Bush questions the survey, but without giving a reason.
"Then, just as we were barely into Afghanistan ... Rumsfeld came and told us to get ready for Iraq."
Brig. Gen. Mark Scheid, one of the planners of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, on why Afghanistan has turned into a mess. Yes, I mean Afghanistan.
"I have to be honest Gary, I found that that speech was intended to polarize the country. That is, he knew it would polarize public debate immediately. You could see that by the immediate Democratic response. To kind of categorize them in this blanket of a bunch of appeasement cowards and so on and so forth. It was designed to polarize debate in this country, not to bring it together."
History Professor and Mideast expert Nick Hayes commenting on the intention and effect of Rumsfeld's accusations of appeasement by his and the acting president's critics in his American Legion speech.
"One camper is a Marine who served 15 months in Iraq. Another is an art teacher from Michigan whose brother died fighting in Vietnam in 1968. One young woman lives in fear, worried sick about her Army husband on duty in Iraq. A Weatherford resident, Jennifer Wright, is a cancer survivor."
Fort Worth Star-Telegram staff writer David Casstevens in his article on the people camped at Camp Casey near the acting president's ranch near Crawford, TX.
"This is an election year. The president is down in the polls, he's trying to appease his base. It's a moment of political opportunism. It goes back to the idea that in some quarters it is good to perpetuate the myth of a clash between civilizations."
Parvez Ahmed, chairman of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, on how the term "Islamic Fascism" is being used by the acting president to increase conflict with the Muslim world.
"The recent arrests that our fellow citizens are now learning about are a stark reminder that this nation is at war with Islamic fascists who will use any means to destroy those of us who love freedom, to hurt our nation."
Acting President George Bush using the term "Islamic fascists" just as I said the right was going to do. Here's what's wrong with that.
"I have never painted a rosy picture. I've been very measured in my words, and you'll have a dickens of a time finding instances where I've been excessively optimistic."
Donald Rumsfeld responding to Sen. Clinton's criticism that he had been too optimistic in his assessments of Iraq, and apparently thinking no one had recorded his prior statements (the clip is about 41 minutes in to the podcast).
"The Taliban have been out of power for almost as long as they were in power. But here we are five years later. Schools are being burned. Boys being raped on their way to school. Teachers being beheaded. There are no roads; no electricity."
Zama Coursin-Neff of Human Rights Watch on the effects of the neglect of Afghanistan's reconstruction while resources were moved to Iraq.
"Some are willing to see us; some just want us to speak with aides. I am still waiting to schedule an appointment with Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert. My son resides in his district; my son is under his watch. As a side note Hastert's wife was my son's PE teacher. I want him to hear how little Bobby grew up into a fine young man… and then he went to war. Now he lives in a hell I can't even fathom."
Georgia Stillwell, mother of a soldier with post-traumatic stress, on her attempts to get her representative, Speaker Hastert, to leave off the land speculation long enough to meet her.
"It is less toxic than most things that Americans have under their kitchen sink at this point."
Chief US arms inspector David Kay on the poison gas find announced by Sen. Rick Santorum and Rep. Peter Hoekstra and trumpeted by conservative media --- without fact checking of course, or maybe they didn't care. Hard to tell.
"Unless you are prepared to resign, it is very difficult to continue to tell the president something that he doesn't want to hear. Because if you're not prepared to resign, you're also not prepared to be fired."
Rand Beers, former counterterrorism specialist with the National Security Council, on how tough it is for intelligence employees to tell the truth when it contradicts policy.
"there are many things we all could wish had happened. i can wish that your boss had surrounded himself with close advisers who had, once at least, held a dying boy in their arms and watched the life run out of his eyes while they lied to him and told him, over and over, 'You are going to be all right. Hang on! Help is coming. Don't quit now...' Such men in place of those who had never known service or combat or the true cost of war, and who pays that price, and had never sent their children off to do that hard and unending duty."
Knight-Ridder war correspondent Joe Galloway in an e-mail exchange with Pentagon spokesman Laurence DiRita about the ignorance of war on the part of those who brought us Iraq War II.
"How do you sleep when the rest of us cry? How do you dream when a mother has no chance to say goodbye?"
Pink, in her song "Dear Mr. President", a nominee if we had an award for most moving protest song.
"The (White House) group that was dealing with preparation for the Iraq war came back and said they were no longer interested. We said: 'Well, what about the intel?' And they said: 'Well, this isn't about intel anymore. This is about regime change'."
Tyler Drumheller, who headed CIA covert operations in Europe before Iraq War II, and whose group gathered intelligence showing Iraq had no WMD, on how disinterested the White House was in accurate intelligence.
"One is between two senior British official[s] in the run-up to the Iraq war. It talks of the US determination to oust Saddam and the differences within the administration. For a better understanding of the situation the memo recommends reading one source in particular: Seymour Hersh."
Julian Borger of The Guardian describing a secret British memo in the possession of Seymour Hersh, who broke the story on plans to drop a tactical nuke on Iran.
"It should never have been in the speech. I didn't need Wilson to tell me that there wasn't a Niger connection. He didn't tell us anything we didn't already know. I never believed it."
Colin Powell acknowledging the Bush administration knew at least that there was great doubt about Iraq trying buy uranium. Now why didn't speak up before 100,000 people were killed?
"I went home and fully expected that our findings would be publicly stated. It never happened. And I just had to live with it."
A member of a Defense Intelligence Agency team which determined the Iraqi trailers suspected of being biological weapons labs weren't, but had to keep quiet while the acting president kept using them as proof of Iraqi WMDs.
"Nancy Sindelar was in the Reserve for 20 years. That guy over there in a chair was in World War II. We went over to the military base and asked the soldiers if they needed anything. They told us they wanted disposable cameras, so we took up a collection and bought them some. Putting a yellow ribbon on the side of your car doesn't do anything."
Lesley Wischmann, Stand Up for Peace, about participants at a weekly anti-war demonstration and supporting the troops.
"In fact, contrary to Rice's statement, the president was indeed informed of such doubts when he received the October 2002 President's Summary of the NIE. Both Cheney and Rice also got copies of the summary, as well as a number of other intelligence reports about the State and Energy departments' doubts that the tubes were meant for a nuclear weapons program."
Murray Wass in a National Journal article reporting that Bush, Cheney, and Rice knew, when they said the aluminum tubes proved Saddam's intentions to make nuclear weapons, that intelligence was conflicted over this crucial point.
"And, like several media organizations, the NBC News bureau has been bombed twice.
(On camera): Increasingly, it seems that the challenge is not to find stories—there are plenty of stories here in Iraq—but to find ways to report them, and live to tell about it."
Richard Engel, a NBC reporter posted to Iraq, on the terrible risk run by journalists. Many have been killed covering the war, only to be accused by conservatives of being lazy and biased
"In my view, the invasion of Iraq accelerated the transformation of al Qaeda from a man and an organization into a philosophy and a movement."
Ex-CIA analyst Michael Scheuer, who started the Bin Laden unit and was ignored byBush (proof of his credentials right there).
"If the entire body of official intelligence analysis on Iraq had a policy implication, it was to avoid war -- or, if war was going to be launched, to prepare for a messy aftermath."
Paul Pillar, former CIA official, who says Bush cherry picked the intelligence that supported the already-made decision to go to war, and ignored the consensus which said the opposite and warned of a bloody aftermath.
"I've asked why nobody saw it coming. It does say something about us not having a good enough pulse."
Condoleeza Rice on Hamas election win, showing she's the smart one by being the first in the Bush administration to realize they haven't a clue about the Middle East, and it only took her five years.
"Those who question this war are not opposing the troops. Supporting a war simply because our troops are present makes us like the dictatorship we've overthrown. Blindly following our leaders is not democracy."
Joseph Boskovski, who wrote this impressive opinion piece while still a high school student.
''I am very proud I helped get rid of Saddam Hussein, but I am also embarrassed at how badly we have messed it up since then. People say there wasn't a plan. I know there was a plan. Our problem was we were told [by Pentagon leaders] we can't use it."
Andrew Duck, veteran of Iraq War II, now running for Maryland's 6th US House seat.
"I would like to be inside, I would wish to be seated at the $10,000 a seat table, with other patriots. Maybe then Mr. Bush would be willing to speak to me, look at my son's picture and tell me why Sherwood was killed looking for the weapons of mass destruction."
Celeste Zappala, mother of Sgt. Sherwood Baker, who was killed in Baghdad while protecting the Iraq Survey Group as they looked for WMD.
"But now, we are living in a country whose administration both declares and acts upon the belief that preemptive strikes are wise foreign policy, are a legitimate use of our military. Was the attack on Pearl Harbor anything other than a preemptive strike?
I ask President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld -- are we now to view Pearl Harbor as the product of a sound foreign policy by a nation with a strong military? Or would we instead be wise to remember that December 7, 1941, is still a date which will live in infamy?"
Retired Navy officer Alan Youel in a letter to the editor on the anniversary of Pearl Harbor
"At all relevant times from January 1, 2002 through July 2003, Valerie Wilson was employed by the CIA, and her employment status was classified. Prior to July 14, 2003, Valerie Wilson's affiliation with the CIA was not common knowledge outside the intelligence community."
Section 1f of the Libby indictment laying to rest the allegation Valerie Wilson's occupation was widely known before one or more of Bush's henchmen leaked it.
"Look at the Jessica Lynch fairytale and the lies that were told to Pat Tillman's parents after his friendly fire death in Afghanistan. Not trusting the public with the truth implies to the public -- as in the oft-quoted Jack Nicholson line in 'A Few Good Men' --'You can't handle the truth!'"
Journalist Kevin Sites writing about the difficulties of telling the truth about Iraq War II.
"Five senior officials from Germany's Federal Intelligence Service, or BND, said in interviews with the Los Angeles Times that they warned U.S. intelligence authorities that the source, an Iraqi defector code-named Curveball, never claimed to produce germ weapons and never saw anyone else do so."
Bob Drogin and John Goetz, reporters for the LA Times, writing about some of the evidence Bush withheld regarding Iraqi WMD.
"A lot of us relied on [former CIA director] George Tenet. We had many meetings with the White House and CIA, and they did not tell us there was a dispute between the CIA, Commerce or the Pentagon on the WMDs."
Rep. Norm Dicks, D-WA, defense hawk and formerly a staunch supporter of invading Iraq, giving a personal account that Bush deliberately withheld intelligence from Congress.
"We know that Iraq and al Qaeda have had high-level contacts that go back a decade... We've learned that Iraq has trained al Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases."
Acting President Bush one year after he learned Iraq and al Qaida had no connection.
"On this occasion, the Prime Minister may have been successful in averting political disaster, but it shows how dangerous his relationship with President Bush has been."
Menzies Campbell, Liberal Democratic Party foreign affairs spokesman, commenting on reports Bush wanted to bomb Al-Jazeera. By the way, if there's nothing to the story, why so stern an attempt to suppress further publication?
"The American public is way ahead of the members of Congress."
Rep. John Murtha, R-PA (video link), on how the public figured out the war before Congress did. The shock of his statement shows Congress is still just beginning to see the mistake.
"Now let me tell you, we spent more money on intelligence than all the countries in the world put together, and more on intelligence than most countries' GDP. And when they say it's a world intelligence failure, it's a US intelligence failure. It's a US failure, and it's a failure in the way the intelligence was used.
Rep. John Murtha, R-PA (video link), refuting the defense of Bush's failure that claims the whole world believed Saddam had WMDs and ties to Al Qaida. Of course they believed it --- that's what Bush told them.
"It should give Americans of both parties pause when the assessment of ordinary citizens opposing the war, and that of the U.N. officials looking for weapons in Iraq, proves more reliable than the combined intelligence capability of the free world."
Houston Chronicle Editorial pointing out that many citizens saw through the lousy evidence against Iraq even before the war.
"Why did I write the article? Because I believe that citizens in a democracy are responsible for what government does and says in their name. I knew that the statement in Bush's speech — that Iraq had attempted to purchase significant quantities of uranium in Africa — was not true. I knew it was false from my own investigative trip to Africa (at the request of the CIA) and from two other similar intelligence reports. And I knew that the White House knew it."
Ambassador Joseph Wilson explaining why he wrote the article that caused the Bush administration to try to smear him and intimidate anyone else who knew the truth.
"We're short of time --- it's the fault of the Americans. They are always insisting on short deadlines. It's as if they're [making] hamburgers and fast food. If we'd had more time, it would have been possible to get Sunni participation. When Oct. 15 comes, many won't even have seen the constitution."
Kurdish politician Mahmoud Othman on the difficulty of building a political process under American control.
"What will it take for Americans to re-establish accountability in their government? Bush has gotten away with lies and an illegal war of aggression, with outing CIA agents, with war crimes against Iraqi civilians, with the horrors of the Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo torture centers, and now with the destruction of New Orleans."
Paul Craig Roberts, Senior Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution, and former columnist for the Wall Street Journal (in other words, very conservative) calling for Bush's impeachment.
"A beautiful moment just happened at Camp Casey I. There was a candle light vigil honoring troops who have died in Iraq. The counter protesters came across the street and joined the vigilers at Camp Casey, They shared the flag and prayed together for the families on both sides who have lost loved ones in the war. They are now singing and holding candles together. This is a testament to the power of this movement ..."
Scott Galindez who was present at Camp Casey.
"On one side of the road, the grieving mother of a soldier son cut down in his prime. On the other side of the road, a self-indulgent, insensitive little man masquerading as president of the United States."
David Rossie describing the scene at Crawford.
"I think it's a lot easier to support the president when you don't have a family member over there."
Karen Lieurance, mother of a soldier killed in Iraq earlier this week, expressing her opposition to the war and disdain for hawks who are happy to let other people do the fighting.
"We understand the Americans have sided with the Shi'ites. It's shocking. It doesn't fit American values. They have spent so much blood and money here, only to back the creation of an Islamist state. I can't believe that's what the Americans really want or what the American people want."
A secular Kurdish politician commenting on the backing of the US ambassdor for an Islamic government for Iraq.
"There are a lot of mothers out there who still believe if they don't agree with the war that their child has died in vain and it was a useless death, and that's so not true."
Lynn Bradach, whose son was killed in Iraq, who is going to Crawford to support Cindy Sheehan.
"Bill O'Reilly said that I am doing this because I have been bought out by, 'The Arab Anti-Discrimination League.' He was telling his viewers that I am a tool for the liberals and that I am a tool for the anti-war movement. Right now, what we are doing right here in Crawford is the anti-war movement."
Cindy Sheehan, currently camped by the acting president's vacation home, responding to one of the right wing smears against her.
"To honor him, I no longer can sit still, just keeping quiet and being politically correct."
Paul Schroeder, gold star father, on why he is speaking out after being told of his son's death in a war he opposed.
"Meant it, said it, stand by it."
Paul Hackett on whether he thought referring to the acting president as a son of a bitch and a chickenhawk had hurt him.
"Last week a pro-government newspaper had an article on the reconstruction of Baghdad. Above the article was a picture of a crane at a building site. But there are no cranes at work in Baghdad so the paper had been compelled to use a photograph of a crane which has been rusting for more than two years, abandoned at the site of a giant mosque that Saddam Hussein was constructing when he was overthrown."
Patrick Cockburn, a journalist posted in Baghdad, on how little progress is being made.
"I say this as a currently registered Republican: I wish Howard Baker was back in the Senate. I wish there was a Republican of some courage and conviction that would stand up and call the ugly dog the ugly dog that it is. But instead, you know, I watched last night, John McCain on Chris Matthews' 'Hardball,' making excuses, being an apologist. Where are these men and women over there with any integrity to stand up and speak out against this?"
Larry Johnson, former CIA analyst, responding to a question during the Congressional Democratic forum on the exposure of a CIA agent. The Republicans still refuse to hold hearings.
"These comments reveal an astonishing ignorance of the intelligence community and the role of cover. The fact is that there are thousands of U.S. intelligence officers who "work at a desk" in the Washington, D.C. area every day who are undercover. Some have official cover, and some have non-official cover. Both classes of cover must and should be protected."
Former CIA employees responding to the right wing Big Lie (a blatant lie repeated to make it believed) that Valerie Plame wasn't actually undercover.
"It was, in fact, a story that had everything to do with politics and not much to do with national security--a story that illuminates a signature disgrace of the Bush presidency: its tendency to treat the war in Iraq as an issue to be spun, rather than a life-and-death struggle to be won."
Joe Klein on how Bush reacted to the debunking of his WMD evidence by trying to disgrace this debunker and intimidate anyone else who might speak up.
"As Karl Rove chuckles and Judy does time, we are left to ask, What are Miller and The New York Times doing: protecting the name of a source or covering up their conduit to the Bush gang's machinery of deception?"
Greg Palast on why Judith Miller and the New York Times might be protecting a source.
"We have secretly replaced the White House press corps with actual reporters."
Jon Stewart stage whispering during a story on the unprecedented grilling reporters gave Scott McClellan over Karl Rove's role in leaking Valerie Plame's identity.
"I ran into John Warner (US senator, R- VA) after I was on the Larry King show, and he said, 'You know, we've all had to sacrifice for this war,' you know, and I looked at him and I said, 'What have you had to sacrifice? You've sacrificed nothing,' I said, 'I gave my son for this mistake,' and I said, 'It was a mistake before, and it's a mistake now, and you haven't even sacrificed a good night's sleep...'"
Cindy Sheehan, mother of a soldier killed in Iraq and president of Gold Star Families for Peace, interviewed by Mike Malloy (audio link, large download)
"Even more important than ending this war is preventing the next dozen wars. And that is the opportunity that has been laid at our feet. Not only did some people know already that Bush lied, but some people knew already that many wars over the decades and centuries have been begun on false pretenses. Yet, when have we ever had a body of evidence this early and this authoritative? This opportunity is unique, and it is our responsibility to seize it."
David Swanson on AfterDowningStreet.org, explaining why we must make an issue of the leaked memos even if impeachment looks impossible.
"Not now. At the beginning. Where I am now is like a country club compared to where I was."
Cyrus Kar, according to his relatives, saying he was tortured after being arrested in Iraq. Despite being a US citizen, he was being held incommunicado and his whereabouts were unknown when this article was published.
"Korea turned out to be B.S., Vietnam was B.S., and Iraq is B.S. It's all political. All these people are dying in vain ... I was in for nine years, so don't go waving a flag in my face and say I'm not being patriotic."
Korean War vet Ted Anderson interviewed after Bush's speech at Ft. Bragg.
"If I had reached him [Karl Rove] I would have asked him as he blathered about how anxious and proud the conservatives were who jumped at the chance to have a war -- where are they now on the streets of Baghdad? My son was a very liberal Democrat, when he signed up for the National Guard no one asked, when he was deployed no one asked his opinion or his politics, and after he lost his life protecting the people looking for those weapons of mass destruction no conservative hawk came forth to take his place. Nor have they lined up at recruiters offices to answer the needs of our exhausted Army."
Celeste Zappala, mother of a soldier killed in in Iraq, responding to Rove's accusation only conservatives are willing to fight after 911.
"The abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib alienated a broad swath of the Iraqi public. On top of that, it didn't work. There is no evidence that all the mistreatment and humiliation saved a single American life or led to the capture of any major terrorist, despite claims by the military that the prison produced 'actionable intelligence.'"
Rod Norland, Newsweek Baghdad bureau chief the last two years, offering observations on why the invasion of Iraq, which he supported, went so wrong.
''If I knew [then] what I knew today, I would not have voted for the resolution."
US Representative Walter Jones of North Carolina, a conservative Republican who voted for the invasion of Iraq.
"By mumbling his way through a litany of paperwork, when a strong case had just been made about a larger, more deadly deception, it was clear that the one thing Coleman had neglected to prepare for was the weakness of his moral position. He is in no position, with his president's war going this badly, to be sitting in judgment of those who have argued for the relief of the Iraqi people, and, unlike the path taken by Coleman, placed themselves in political peril by doing so."
Paul Scott on Norm Coleman's predicament after George Galloway's opening statement.
"The program gave 30 cents per day per Iraqi for the period of the oil for food program. 30 cents for all food, all medicine... I believe that the United Nations had no right to starve Iraq's people because it had fallen out with Iraq's dictator. David Bonior, your former colleague Senator, ... described the sanctions policy as "infanticide masquerading as politics". Senator Coleman thinks that's funny. But I think it's the most profound description of that era that I have ever read... So I opposed this program with all my heart not because Saddam was getting kickbacks from it, ... but because it was a murderous policy of killing huge numbers of Iraqis."
George Galloway answering a question on the Oil for Food program during his testimony before Norm Coleman's subcommittee and remarking on Coleman's reaction at the moment. (Video link, longer written quote here.)
"The United States was not only aware of Iraqi oil sales which violated UN sanctions and provided the bulk of the illicit money Saddam Hussein obtained from circumventing UN sanctions. On occasion, the United States actually facilitated the illicit oil sales."
Report by the Democratic staff of the Senate subcommittee investigating Oil for Food on the role of the US government in corrupting the program. This is the investigation where the chairman, Norm Coleman, has been accusing foreign politicians.
"I was an opponent of Saddam Hussein when British and Americans governments and businessmen were selling him guns and gas. I used to demonstrate outside the Iraqi embassy when British and American officials were going in and doing commerce."
George Galloway, British MP and Iraq War II opponent, refuting accusations he took money from Saddam.
"Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action."
Matthew Rycroft, foreign policy aide to the British government, in the secret memo revealing the Bush administration has already decided on war while they pretended to be considering it, and they didn't care about the facts or the aftermath.
"In other words, we would need to be able to demonstrate hard evidence of non-compliance and non-cooperation. Given the structure of the resolution as a whole, the views of UNMOVIC and the IAEA will be highly significant in this respect. In the light of the latest reporting by UNMOVIC, you will need to consider very carefully whether the evidence of non-cooperation and non- compliance by Iraq is sufficiently compelling to justify the conclusion that Iraq has failed to take its final opportunity."
Attorney General Lord Goldsmith in his report to Blair two weeks before Iraq War II, and casting doubt on the war's legality, contrary to how the opinion was spun at the time.
"Those who wrote the policies are being promoted. Those who are pivotal to the discussions are being promoted, Gonzales being the most obvious... So what's actually happened is the memos have done two things. They've articulated the fact that there was a very lengthy discussion of when, why, and how to use torture..."
Karen Greenburg, editor of The Torture Papers: The Road to Abu Ghraib.
"A report to the UN human rights commission in Geneva has concluded that Iraqi children were actually better off under Saddam Hussein than they are now.
This, of course, comes as a bitter blow for all those of us who, like George Bush and Tony Blair, honestly believe that children thrive best when we drop bombs on them from a great height, destroy their cities and blow up hospitals, schools and power stations."
Terry Jones, writing on behalf of the Department of Making Things Better for Children in the Middle East By Military Force.
"We called Mike Battles in and said, 'Bring a bag'"
Franklin Willis, Coalition Provisional Authority senior advisor, testifying to Congress about corruption among contractors in Iraq with the blind eye of the acting president.
"With Schiavo, however, DeLay said, 'We should investigate every avenue before we take the life from a human being.' ... The purity of their motives might be less in question if they'd said the same thing in March 2003, when diplomats asked the United States to wait 45 more days before invading Iraq. They asked that we explore every avenue before starting a war that would take thousands of lives. The president and his partners in Congress said no."
Ed Montini commenting on how the GOP concern for Terri Schiavo was just to bamboozle the base.
"Someone tell me, please, what marks the difference between the fatal techniques used against my father, Col. Norman Schmidt -- labeled "war criminal" -- and those used on "enemy combatant" Manadel Jamadi, whose death in custody in Baghdad has been classified as a homicide?"
Janet Schmidt Zupan, whose father was tortured to death in the Hanoi Hilton, condeming similar practices by the Bush administration.
"As far as I'm concerned, Bush deserves to be impeached for lying to his employers--us--about Iraq's WMDs. He should face prosecution at a war crimes tribunal for the murder of the 100,000-plus Iraqis he ordered killed by U.S. troops. He deserves life in prison for ordering the torture, and allowing the murder under torture, of countless innocent Afghans and Iraqis. Nothing, not even if the Iraq war sparked the transformation of the entire Muslim world into peaceful and prosperous Athenian-style democracies, could retroactively justify such murderous perfidy."
Ted Rall keeping perspective on Bush's role in changing the Middle East.
"To say that Bush's policies had nothing to do with what The New York Times called a 'Mideast climate change' is, of course, stupid. But to give it more than token credit is equally stupid. When the world's only superpower invades a fourth-rate tyranny and plunks down $300 billion along the way, you expect some payoff. The disgrace is how little the payoff has been, how poorly thought out, how bloody. The pro-democracy stirrings elsewhere in the Middle East don't vindicate Bush's policies so much as they prove how much he could have achieved politically and diplomatically, if he'd had the will and the diplomatic skills."
Pierre Tristam writing about how Bush is getting very little for all the money he's spending.
"By linking Lebanon's independence movements to American designs for the region, the Bush Administration is weakening Lebanon's secularists and religious moderates and increasing the power of Hezbollah. Which is precisely what Bremer did in Iraq: Whenever he needed a good news hit, he had his picture taken at a newly opened women's center, a trick that set the feminist movement back decades. (The centers are now mostly closed, and hundreds of secular Iraqis who worked with the coalition in local councils have been murdered.)"
Naomi Klein on the damage Bush is doing by pretending moves to democracy in the Middle East are his doing.
"And let us not forget the biggest disclaimer of all: Not a single one of BushCo's alleged reasons for dragging our fractured and bankrupt nation into one of the most brutal wars since Vietnam has actually proved valid or justifiable. The disgusting array of WMD/nuclear/biotoxin lies and deceptions are not suddenly erased because we set up some polling places. "
Mark Morford commenting on the spin that Iraq's tenuous trappings of democracy validated the war.
"Sherwood would chuckle at the sheltered, overprivileged, retrogressive Americans who believe that their hyperactive sense of danger is a cause worth others fighting for. The security moms, six-figure executives, stock dividend trust-funders -- they aren't in Iraq, they certainly don't send their kids there. Sherwood didn't have to go there to figure that out."
Dante Zappala, whose brother was killed in combat in Iraq writing about what his brother thought of those who sent others to fight their war.
"War is no accident. It is willed into existence, and sometimes it must be so. But never, ever casually. It hurts too many too much for too long. Tuesday the hurt descended on all those folk who loved three young, decent men from Minnesota. We grieve with them. We keenly regret the loss they have suffered. With Senate Majority Leader Dean Johnson, who is also a minister and brigadier general in the National Guard, we ask, and will keep asking: Is this war worth the price?"
Star Tribune editorial after three guardsmen from Minnesota were killed by the same bomb.
"The size of the popular vote and the inability of the Vietcong to destroy the election machinery were the two salient facts in a preliminary assessment of the nation election based on the incomplete returns reaching here."
Peter Grose in the New York Times reporting on South Vietnamese elections in 1967, and the hope the government would finally gain legitimacy. 38 years later, it's a reminder elections are no guarantee of democracy.
"I might as well skip all the Senate Armed Services Committee hearings and meetings and top secret briefings and just read the papers. And thank goodness for a free and vigilant press to ferret out the truth and to report the truth, because we cannot get the truth from this administration."
US Senator Mark Dayton, D-MN, member of the Armed Services Committee and recently returned from Iraq, during the floor debate on the Condoleeza Rice nomination.
"Well, we are here at the invitation of the Iraqis, and we are here in complete respect for their sovereignty."
John Negroponte, US ambassador to Iraq, crying out for someone to explain what "invasion" means.
"The sad thing is we have created what the administration claimed we were intervening to prevent: an Iraq/al-Qaida linkage."
Senior intelligence official commenting anoymously on an intelligence report saying Iraq has become the source of terrorists which it wasn't before Bush invaded. This report shows even some intelligence officials can recognize the completely obvious.
"Multi-National Force Iraq deeply regrets the loss of possibly innocent lives."
U.S. military statement on the accidental bombing of a house where the dead included seven children.
"As it was sufficient to have made a measurable improvement in the lives of all the 2.8 billion people living in absolute poverty, and as there are only 25 million people in Iraq, this is simply not possible. Even if you ignore every other issue - such as the trifling matter of mass killing - the opportunity costs of the Iraq war categorise it as a humanitarian disaster."
George Monbiot on the wastefulness of Iraq War II if Bush's claims of humanitarian motives are accepted.
"If I wanted to go to the store just to get a bottle of shampoo, I would give prior warning to my bodyguards, put on my 'party clothes' [bulletproof vest, etc.], then go with two carloads of guards. An advance team would go in and check out the store to make sure everything looked good. One guy would go in front of me and remain in front of me at all times. Another guy would go behind me at all times. There would be someone outside the store, and the other guards would be in the car watching."
Linda Cullen, freelance photographer in Baghdad, who said the coverage she saw while home doesn't reflect what she saw in Iraq.
"I couldn't stand it. I was born in that town. I know every inch of it. But when I got there, I didn't recognize it."
Yasser Abbas Atiya, Fallouja resident, describing what he saw when he left the refugee camp and tried to go home. He went back to the camp.
"If the justness of the cause -- democracy in Iraq -- doesn't inspire people to sign up, the military will recruit them from the ranks of the unemployed, hoping that with our slack economy, a résumé posted three years ago might lead them to a person still unemployed. Which makes me wonder, if the American people are truly supporting this war, why aren't more people signing up to fight it?"
Reva Rasmussen, a middle-aged nurse who received a pitch from the Navy reserve from her old resume on Monster.
"I was in a college in North Carolina, and a young woman said, 'My dad's a marine in Fallujah, and my boyfriend's a marine and he's in Fallujah, and we've lost a lot of friends, and if what you say about the complexities and difficulties of the situation are true,' her question to me as she interpreted my remarks was, 'How do I not feel that they have died in vain?' ... Even Iraqis who desperately wanted an end to Saddam said, 'Do you know what's going to happen when you remove the strongman? Do you know this country is going to explode?' The administration seemed to have a much more simplistic picture than Iraqis as they expressed it to me. ...These were all issues that should have been discussed and I don't think were.
Anne Garrels, NPR correspondent (scroll to "The mood in Iraq") who has spent seven months in Iraq over the last year and was embedded at Fallujah.
"Because on some level, he still respects you. I don't have that problem."
Christine Loria, wife of Spc. Robert Loria, who lost an arm in Iraq and was discharged with all of his last paycheck taken, a debt hanging over him and no money to get home, to his commanders who responded to her call for help by asking why the wife was calling instead of the soldier.
"Maybe this should be the rule: If you can't handle seeing what really goes on in a war, maybe you don't deserve to support it. If you can't stomach the truths of what our soldiers are doing and how brutally and bloodily they're dying and in just what manner they have to kill those innocent Iraqi civilians in the name of BushCo's desperate lurch toward greed and power and Iraqi oil fields and empire, maybe you don't have the right to stick that little flag on your oil-sucking SUV. Clear enough?"
Mark Morford writing about how the public and press avoid seeing the graphic photos from Iraq War II.
"War criminals are not welcome in Canada"
A sign displayed at a protest in Ottawa during Bush's visit.
"We appreciate your support, but we can't see those yellow ribbons from here. I ask that you let your vote show your support. I don't know what you go to bed thinking, but I go to bed wondering not how many more years of this administration I can handle but how many more days I might survive."
George Sprague, member of the New Hampshire National Guard in Iraq, in a letter to the editor of the Concord Monitor.
"For the sake of a country in crisis and for a people under daily threat of violence, the evidence that we publish today must change heads as well as pierce hearts."
Richard Horton of The Lancet in the comment accompanying the study that concluded 100,000 Iraqis died as a consequence of the war.
"To Be Provided."
The slide showing post-war plans in a review of war plans in a presentation to war planners and intelligence officials days before invading Iraq.
"Now, you realize that the people to blame for this aren't the ones you are fighting. It's the people who put you in this situation in the first place. You realize you wouldn't be in this situation if you hadn't been lied to. Soldiers are slowly coming to that conclusion. Once that becomes widespread, the resentment of the war is going to grow even more."
Mike Hoffman, Iraq War II combat vet and a founder of Iraq Veterans Against the War, in a Mother Jones article about growing disaffection with Bush in the armed forces.
"They understand warfare in a way our current leadership does not. Not one veteran I've met -- not one -- supports this war in Iraq, and I've talked to dozens. I think they see the damages the war can cause and the suffering."
Richard Wolfgramm, Vietnam combat vet and lifelong Republican who is participating with Veterans for Kerry, speaking of his conversations with WW II vets.
"People don't want to be reminded that their passive support is killing their children."
Paul Vogel, father of a soldier who served in Iraq and who organized a protest in the northwestern suburb of Chicago where he lives.
"Kerry protested the war in Vietnam. He is the one to end this stuff, to lead to our exit of Iraq."
Army Spc. Nathan Swink currently serving in Iraq.
"It is never easy to discuss what has gone wrong while our troops are in constant danger. But it's essential if we want to correct our course and do what's right for our troops instead of repeating the same mistakes over and over again.
I know this dilemma first-hand. After serving in war, I returned home to offer my own personal voice of dissent. I did so because I believed strongly that we owed it those risking their lives to speak truth to power. We still do."
John Kerry in his speech on September 20 giving his plan for Iraq and dissecting the problems created by Bush.
"I don't just blame his death on the Iraqis that made the bomb. I blame you, for agreeing with Bush that we had to go to war when we didn't."
Maxine Gentle, in a letter to Prime Minister Tony Blair, after her brother Gordon was killed in Iraq.
"How can you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?"
John Kerry, testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1971
"Iraq as a team does not want Mr. Bush to use us for the presidential campaign. He can find another way to advertise himself."
Salih Sadir, Iraqi Olympic soccer player on Bush's use of the Olympics in his campaign ads.
"How will he meet his god having slaughtered so many men and women? He has committed so many crimes."
Ahmed Manajid, another member of the Iraqi soccer team, also on Bush's use of the Olympics in his campaign ads.
