John Abizaid Quotes
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I think you will see a lot of strains develop in the political process that will result in violence everywhere in the country - but it's controllable, it's workable and it will lead to a much better future for these people.
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You know as well as I do that counterinsurgency is a very nuanced type of military operation.
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Our forces will not be on the sidelines.
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Everybody needs to understand that I learned Arabic from the United States Army as a second language. I never spoke it at home.
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But the key shift in focus will be from counter-insurgency operations to more and more cooperation with Iraqi security forces and to building Iraqi security capacity.
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We've got to ensure that the quality and the capability of these forces will be good enough to withstand the challenges that the insurgents and the terrorists will present to the new Iraqi government.
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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.
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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.
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Well, the hardest thing to do, as we know from our own experience on 9/11 is protect everything all the time.
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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.
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But I am satisfied that the information that we have that this is the work of Zarqawi, is accurate.
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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.
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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.
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I don't believe Iran is a suicide state.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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You don't build a new power plant in the United States overnight. It takes years to build.
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Undoubtedly, there are members of the former regime that are cooperating in some fashion and then there are extremists that are within Iraq that are cooperating with them.
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Nobody's more mindful of the sacrifices of our troops than those of us that command them.
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The power to prevent violence is a power that no police force seems to have anywhere in the United States.