Political Quotes

“You know, in Iraq it is tough, it is difficult, it is dusty and it is dangerous; but we are following the same pattern that we followed for the last 60 years in bringing freedom to other parts of the world. It is not a smooth road. First, you stand up a free government. We have done that. It is an inept government. It bumbles along, as most new governments do. But it is a free government, and it represents the people. The second thing that you do is stand up a military capable of protecting that free government. Thirdly, the Americans leave, because we don't covet anything that another country has. We are right now in the second phase of standing up a military capable of protecting this government. My good friend who just spoke talked about the difficulty of standing up the Iraqi military. I know a couple of years ago in the first battle of Fallujah when we rushed green Iraqi troops to that battle and we thought they were going to help the United States Marines, the next day they were gone. They didn't show up for roll call. But this time when you go out there and you are in Fallujah and Ramadi, the Iraqi military is standing and fighting.”