Political Quotes

“Well, Mr. Speaker, if so many of these Iraqis are ready to come up and to provide the security, the police work in the country, then surely there should be no problem with putting American forces into the background instead of having them up front. The reality is that we have missed a lot of opportunities in Iraq because of a failed policy. Our own State Department polls say that 80 percent of Iraqis view the United States as an unpopular occupier. That is right, an occupier. Forty-five percent of Iraqi citizens think it is morally okay to attack American troops. So if, in fact, Iraqis are ready to keep security in their own country, surely now is the time to let them do that. We should have had, as General Shinseki said, more security forces in from the beginning. He said a few hundred thousand troops. And if we had had them there, maybe we could have won the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people from the beginning when Saddam Hussein fell. But the Pentagon and the civilian leadership thought General Shinseki did not know what he was talking about and they put him out to pasture. But the truth is, he knew what he was talking about. There have been other mistakes made. In April of last year, the shocking photographic evidence of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib became public. In an instant, America's new image in the war on terror was published around the world with photos of Iraqi prisoners being subjected to cruel, unusual, and degrading treatment.…”