Political Quotes

“Iraq is still a very dangerous place. Our troops will tell us that. There are Iraqis who clearly were part of the brutal regime of Saddam Hussein who received and reaped all the benefits of the Oil for Food program, the health care system and all of those types of things. Obviously, Iraq for them will not be a better place because now instead of the few benefiting from the riches of Iraq, all 26 million people will benefit. Obviously, the terrorist organizations have made Iraq a battleground, the point of intersection with those who are fighting terrorism. We recognize that Iraq continues to be a very dangerous place for our troops, for the Coalition troops and for the Iraqis that are working for us. The Iraqis that are now working for us are the targets frequently rather than Coalition forces. My last trip 4 weeks ago to Iraq, we went to the police academy. The police academy is one of the first institutions of building a civil government after 30 years of a brutal regime, a lawless regime. We want to get a constitution in place, we want to get a set of laws in place as well, we want a police force in place, we want a judiciary in place, we want representative government in place, we want a free press. All of this stuff takes time, but one of the first building blocks is putting in place a functioning police organization.”