Political Quotes

“I have just learned of the death in Iraq of an extraordinarily brave woman from my State of Illinois who died this week in a bombing in the Sadr City section of Baghdad. Nicole Suveges was a civilian assigned to the 3rd Brigade Combat Team for the 4th Infantry Division. She was a political scientist from Illinois and a doctoral student at Johns Hopkins University. She was participating in a program that embeds academics into military units to help personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan navigate difficult local environments. She chose to go to Iraq for her employer, BAE Systems, because she was interested in learning how people make the transition from an authoritarian society to freedom; that was the focus of her doctoral dissertation. She hoped she might use her knowledge to help Iraqis develop the habits and institutions of democracy. When she died in a bombing on Tuesday, she was helping local officials mediate disputes in Sadr City. Also killed in the blast were two U.S. soldiers and a State Department Foreign Service Officer. Iraq was not the first war zone Nicole had worked in. She served as an Army Reservist in Bosnia in the 1990s. Nicole graduated from the University of Illinois in Chicago in 1992. She was 38 years old. She was one of more than 180 American civilians to die in the war in Iraq. Their deaths are in addition to the 4,113 members of the U.S. military who have lost their lives in Iraq. Nicole Suveges represented what is best about America.…”