Iraqis Quotes

Our own State Department polls say that 80 percent of Iraqis view the United States as an unpopular occupier. ~ Marty Meehan

One day I am at home, watching dramatic images of Iraqi Yazidis fleeing for their lives being aired nonstop on 24-hour news channels. Days later, I am there, staring at tens of thousands of displaced Iraqis and feeling a 35-millimeter frame cannot capture the scope of devastation and heartbreak before me. ~ Lynsey Addario

I support a very active programme on disarmament and arms control for Iraq, and of course every other country in the world ... That does not require economic sanctions ... I think we've got to take the risk and give up economic sanctions while hanging on to the disarmament programme and allow the Iraqis to get on with rebuilding their country. ~ Denis Halliday

Young Shia who have been brought up with nothing, who are pretty anarchic, pretty dangerous. In 2004 when they came close to killing me, and of course they have killed very large numbers of other Iraqis. That's a major source of strength for Muqtada. ~ Patrick Cockburn

In addition to a timeline, I have proposed that U.S. troops be removed from front line combat positions in Iraqi cities and towns, turning over daily security patrols, interactions with citizens, and any offensive security actions to the Iraqis themselves. ~ Peter DeFazio

Iraqis will never forget that on 8 August 1990 Kuwait became part of Iraq legally, constitutionally and actually. It continued to do so until last night, when withdrawal began. ~ Saddam Hussein

We could never predict what moment in the service would trigger a full-blown crisis of faith. Once, it was the kids' choir singing "Nothing but the Blood" during special music.
"Surely I'm not the only one who thinks it's creepy to hear all those little voices singing about getting washed in the flow of someone's blood," I muttered as Dan and I escaped out the double doors.
Another time it was a prayer about God granting our troops victory over their enemies as they served him in Iraq.
"Don't you think the Iraqis are just as convinced God is on their side?" I whispered.
Sometimes it was just the way people chatted in the fellowship hall about "those liberals," as if feminists or Democrats or Methodists couldn't possibly be in their midst.
Often it was the assumption that women were unfit to speak from the pulpit or pass the collection plate on Sunday mornings, but were welcome to serve the men their key lime pie at the church picnic. ~ Rachel Held Evans

The president [Barack Obama] is not willing to send in apaches and spotters if the Iraqis say they don't want them and if it means that these Shia mobilization forces are going to be going after and trying to kill Americans. ~ Adam Schiff

Americans would have a right to go to war with the Iraqis if we could name one author from Iraq. It disturbs me that we're going to war with somebody we know absolutely nothing about. Name one Iraqi poet, one Iraqi woman activist, one Iraqi singer. Name one Iraqi novelist. You can't. And how can you go kill someone you don't know anything about? ~ Jimmy Santiago Baca

One of the most ignored dimensions of the Iraqi insurgency are the Iraqis themselves who are regularly abducted, held for ransom and sometimes executed. ~ Bruce Hoffman

I hate most bugs. Bugs fall into two categories as far as I'm concerned: Butterflies - which I want to play with, take pictures of them to post on my FB timeline, and smile if I'm lucky enough that they flutter over and land on my arm. They're so cute I'd kiss their little faces. All other insects - which I declare outright war on, spraying them with the kinds of biological/chemical weapons that we thought the Iraqis had, smashing them with sticks, and crushing their multi-legged bodies beneath my sneakers. ~ Jill Falter

If our commanders on the ground say we need more troops, I will send them. But our commanders tell me they have the number of troops they need to do their job. Sending more Americans would undermine our strategy of encouraging Iraqis to take the lead in this fight. And sending more Americans would suggest that we intend to stay forever, when we are, in fact, working for the day when Iraq can defend itself and we can leave. ~ George W. Bush

A lot of these people are Iraqis fighting for control of their own government. Maybe there's an argument to make that outside forces that go in and start bombing that country or invading that country are actually terrorists more so than the people in the country. ~ Glenn Greenwald

I can imagine that the Iraqis undertake the destruction out of fear. If they had denied it, if they had said no, that certainly would have played into the hands of those that would like to take armed action immediately. I have no illusions in that regard. ~ Hans Blix

What the US evidently sought to impose by main force on Iraq was a state apparatus whose fundamental mission was to facilitate conditions for profitable capital accumulation on the part of both domestic and foreign capital. I call this kind of state apparatus a neoliberal state. The freedoms it embodies reflect the interests of private property owners, businesses, multinational corporations, and financial capital. Bremer invited the Iraqis, in short, to ride their horse of freedom straight into the neoliberal corral. ~ David Harvey

Trying to stop suiciders
which we're doing a pretty good job of on occasion
is difficult to do. And what the Iraqis are going to have to eventually do is convince those who are conducting suiciders who are not inspired by Al Qaeda, for example, to realize there's a peaceful tomorrow. ~ George W. Bush

It looks like President Bush will be handing over power to the Iraqis by June 30th. That's amazing and not only that, but it looks like he'll be handing over power to the Democrats by November 2nd. ~ David Letterman

I am confident that in the end freedom and democracy will prevail over terror and tyranny. We will win this war on terror - and when we do Americans, the British, Iraqis, and people around the world will be more secure. ~ Doc Hastings

Despite the negativity coming from the President's opponents, the United States remains fully committed to assisting the Iraqis in restoring security and rebuilding their nation. ~ Craig L. Thomas

We have an orientation that tends to make us think that everything is our responsibility and that we should be doing this. It is the Iraqis' country, 28 million of them. They are perfectly capable of running that country. ~ Donald Rumsfeld

Keep in mind that the Iraqis are not telling us anything we don't already know or can't prove. This is what makes this whole inspection process and all the rigmarole surrounding it a total farce. ~ Rush Limbaugh

Shortly after we arrived in Baghdad, we had another conversation with the ambassador. He said that he wanted us to give him the timeline, because we had 90 days to get these prisons operational and transfer responsibility back to the Iraqis. ~ Janis Karpinski

Christians should put survival of the planet ahead of national security...Here is the mystery of our global responsibility: that we are in communion with Christ- and we are in communion with all people...The fact that the people of Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador, Russia, Afghanistan, and Ethiopia are our brothers and sisters is not obvious. People kill each other by the thousands and do not see themselves as brothers and sisters. If we want to be real peace-makers, national security cannot be our primary concern. Our primary concern should be survival of humanity, the survival of the planet, and the health of all people. Whether we are Russians, Iraqis, Ethiopians, or North Americans, we belong to the same human family that God loves. And we have to start taking some risks- not just individually, but risks of a more global quality, risks to let other people develop their own independence, risks to share our wealth with others and invite refugees to our country, risks to offer sanctuary- because we are people of God ~ Henri J.M. Nouwen

I voted 'yes' and I urge all Iraqis, no matter their different ethnicities and religions ... to vote 'yes' to the constitution ~ Jalal Talabani

The Iraqis have become invested in their nationhood. ~ Joe Biden

Second, recent polls over there show that the majority of Iraqis want us to leave precipitously. ~ William Odom

Unlike the Afghans and Iraqis, the South Korean people solidly supported the American military presence, which was part of a United Nations operation. ~ John Eisenhower

This is so like the way the Americans deliberately erroneously refer to Afghans and Iraqis as terrorists when they fight back killing American soldiers to protect their young from the illegal American invasion. ~ Bob Barker

Obviously, I didn't think, and nobody else did, that the Iraqis were going to take ALL of Kuwait . ~ April Glaspie

But as we move from this period of what many Iraqis regard as perceived occupation, we need to move towards one of partnership. ~ John Abizaid

And we remember the end of our combat mission and the emergence of a new dawn
the precision of our efforts against al Qaeda in Iraq, the professionalism of the training of Iraqi security forces, and the steady drawdown of our forces. In handing over responsibility to the Iraqis, you preserved the gains of the last four years and made this day possible. ~ Barack Obama

You will triumph, O Iraqis, and with you the sons of your Arab nation ~ Saddam Hussein

All Iraqis can unite to defeat terrorism and can unite to rebuild the country. ~ Ahmed Chalabi

George W.Bush can go and kill thousands of Iraqis every day. By making people believe they are the enemy, and not human beings any more. If evil has an address, a nationality, you can exterminate all of them. This is fascism. ~ Marjane Satrapi

Allowing the U.N. into Iraq will demonstrate to the Iraqis that the international community as a whole is committed to bringing stability and safety to their country. ~ Jay Rockefeller

The way in which the USA and Great Britain delivered Iraq to the Iraqis, the way and means that this played out, that is the endgame. ~ Neil Young

We need to make it clear that we will withdraw from Iraq within 6 to 9 months - so that the Iraqis will know that they must stand up and defend the opportunity given to them. ~ John Olver

I woke up and all I could see was Iraqis standing all around me, looking down upon me. I knew at that moment something terrible had happened and I wasn't in the right place. ~ Jessica Lynch

A lot of (Kyle's) stories when he was back home in Texas, a lot of his own personal opinions about what he was doing in Iraq, how he viewed Iraqis. Some of what people have described as his racist tendencies towards Iraqis and Muslims when he was going on some of these, you know, killing sprees in Iraq on assignment. So I think there are issues ... When he was involved in his - on assignments in terms of what he was doing. A lot of the description that has come out from his book and some of the terminology that he has used, people have described as racist. ~ Ayman Mohyeldin

Almost all Iraqis with any previous experience in the intelligence business are Sunni Arab, increasing the risk of penetration of the new intelligence apparatus by the insurgency. ~ Wayne White

God will roast their stomachs in hell at the hands of Iraqis. ~ Mohammed Saeed Al-Sahaf

The Iraqis sat down for talks on how to put together a post-war government. They would have sat down yesterday, but somebody stole all their couches. ~ Jay Leno

There is no military solution to the war in Iraq. Our troops can help suppress the violence, but they cannot solve its root causes. And all the troops in the world won't be able to force Shia, Sunni, and Kurd to sit down at a table, resolve their differences, and forge a lasting peace. In fact, adding more troops will only push this political settlement further and further into the future, as it tells the Iraqis that no matter how much of a mess they make, the American military will always be there to clean it up. ~ Barack Obama

There are some things that could hold it together, notably oil revenues. But at the moment, the much vaunted surge has had a measure of success primarily, to my mind, because Sunni and Shia Iraqis hate and fear each other more these days than they hate and fear the Americans. ~ Patrick Cockburn

The act of voting by ordinary Iraqis in the face of extreme danger confirms President Bush's belief that people around the globe, when given a chance, will choose liberty and democracy over enslavement and tyranny. ~ John Ensign

The U.S. and Iraq will work together next year to shift Iraqi resources from unproductive subsidies to productive uses that enable Iraqis to earn livelihoods. ~ Zalmay Khalilzad

Sometimes the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are presented as a hunting expeditions ("As British close in on Basra, Iraqis scurry away"; "Terror hunt snares twenty-five"; and "Net closes around Bin Laden") with enemy bases as animal nests ("Pakistanis give up on lair of Osama"; "Terror nest in Fallujah is attacked") from which the prey must be driven out ("Why Bin Laden is so difficult to smoke out"; "America's new dilemma: how to smoke Bin Laden out from caves"). We need to trap the animal ("Trap may net Taliban chief"; "FBI terror sting nets mosque leaders") and lock it in a cage ("Even locked in a cage, Saddam poses serious danger"). Sometimes the enemy is a ravening predator ("Chained beast - shackled Saddam dragged to court"), or a monster ("The terrorism monster"; "Of monsters and Muslims"), while at other times he is a pesky rodent ("Americans cleared out rat's nest in Afghanistan"; "Hussein's rat hole"), a venomous snake ("The viper awaits"; "Former Arab power is 'poisonous snake'"), an insect ("Iraqi forces find 'hornet's nest' in Fallujah"; "Operation desert pest"; "Terrorists, like rats and cockroaches, skulk in the dark"), or even a disease organism ("Al Qaeda mutating like a virus"; "Only Muslim leaders can remove spreading cancer of Islamic terrorism"). In any case, they reproduce at an alarming rate ("Iraq breeding suicide killers"; "Continent a breeding ground for radical Islam"). ~ David Livingstone Smith

Iraqi's minister of information did not show up for his press conference today. However, he claims he was there and he said it went very well. ~ David Letterman

Faced with the collapse of Iraq into something like Lebanon - or worse, Somalia - the Bush administration opted for a new counterinsurgency strategy. Violence was reduced because, for the first time since the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003, Iraqis felt that there was a force capable of dominating the situation and ensuring basic order. ~ Noah Feldman

If liberals think Iraqis are genetically incapable of pulling off even the most rudimentary form of democracy, why do they believe 50 million Mexicans will magically become good Americans, imbued in the nation's history and culture, upon crossing the Rio Grande? Maybe we should dunk Iraqis in the Rio and see what happens ... ~ Ann Coulter

We remember the specter of sectarian violence
al Qaeda's attacks on mosques and pilgrims, militias that carried out campaigns of intimidation and campaigns of assassination. And in the face of ancient divisions, you stood firm to help those Iraqis who put their faith in the future. ~ Barack Obama

If we want to build the Iraqis' confidence about our intentions in their country, if we want to stop adding fuel to the fire of insurgency and terrorism, we must clarify our intent. ~ John Conyers

The U.S. is not constructing a palatial embassy, by far the largest in the world and virtually a separate city within Baghdad, and pouring money into military bases, with the intention of leaving Iraq to Iraqis. ~ Noam Chomsky

An economic blockade may cause more deaths by a factor of a hundred, but it does so silently and behind closed doors. Its first victims are the very young, the very old and the very sick. The numbers of children dying before their first birthday increased from one in thirty when sanctions were imposed to one in eight seven years later. Many Iraqis were simply not getting enough to eat. I ~ Patrick Cockburn

I believe we've ... we've worked very hard with the Iraqis to build a better place ever since the fall of Saddam's government. ~ John Abizaid

And maybe the Iraqis could've missed, or shot at something else. Or maybe the other helicopter could've seen them first. Or, I don't know, maybe Bush could've never started the war in the first place! You're still not getting it-none of that had anything to do with you. Did you start the fire? Did you?" Gabriel repeated when Jake didn't say anything. "I'm going to sit here until you answer me. ~ Aundrea Singer

I said in October of 2008 that there was no proof that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or had the intention or capability of attacking the United States. Here we are. Almost 4,700 troops died, tens of thousands injured, over a million Iraqis dead. It will cost $5 trillion in the end for the war. ~ Dennis Kucinich

The good news from the U.S. military survey of focus groups is that Iraqis do accept the Nuremberg principles. They understand that sectarian violence and the other postwar horrors are contained within the supreme international crime committed by the invaders. ~ Noam Chomsky

Here's why I think there's something a little odd with George Bush. Because a lot of the times when he speaks, his words don't match his face. Something is askew. You can't talk about the war with a smile on your face. He does it constantly. If you're the President, you should go We're going to talk about the war, I must have a frowny face. The only time you can smile when you're talking about the war in Iraq is when you go, Well, two Iraqis walk into a bar, hahaha. ~ Lewis Black

If in the past, you didnt cry out when thousands of protestors were killed and injured by Turkey, Egypt and Libya, when more victims than ever were hanged by Iran, women and children in Afghanistan were bombed, whole communities were massacred in South Sudan, 1800 Palestinians were starved and murdered by Assad in Syria, hundreds in Pakistan were killed by jihadist terrorist attacks, 10,000 Iraqis were killed by terrorists, villagers were slaughtered in Nigeria, but you ONLY cry out for Gaza, then you are NOT Pro- Human Rights, you are only Anti-Israel. ~ Hillel Neuer

North Americans do not understand that you do not throw down human rights like bombs on the Iraqis. ~ Shirin Ebadi

Wars are motivated by the need to seize the wealth of our neighbours, to wield power, to protect ourselves from real or imagined threats: in short they have, as we have seen, political, social, economic or demographic causes. There is no need to refer to Islam or the clash of civilizations to explain why the Afghans or the Iraqis resist the western military forces occupying their countries. Nor to speak of anti-Jewish sentiment or anti-Semitism to understand the reasons why the Palestinians are not overjoyed by the Israeli occupation of their lands. ~ Tzvetan Todorov

America's distinctive history - its ethnicity-transcending national identity and its unusual success in assimilating people from diverse origins - has shaped how we see the rest of the world and has deeply influenced our foreign policy. It's not just ignorance, racism, or arrogance that predisposes us to ignore ethnic, sectarian, and tribal divisions in the countries where we intervene. In the United States, immigrant communities from all sorts of background have become 'Americans'; why wouldn't Sunnis and Shias, Arabs and Kurds, all similarly become 'Iraqis'? ~ Amy Chua

Capturing Saddam Hussein and ensuring that this brutal dictator will never return to power is an important step toward stabilizing Iraq for the Iraqis. Let's also be clear: Our problems in Iraq have not been caused by one man, and this is a moment when the administration can and must launch a major effort to gain international support and win the peace. ~ John F. Kerry

As I've said, there were patriots who supported this war, and patriots who opposed it. And all of us are united in appreciation for our servicemen and women, and our hopes for Iraqis' future. ~ Barack Obama

I think the American people have been surprised by the enthusiasm with which the Iraqis have taken to elections and politics. ~ Duncan Hunter

I sent American troops to Iraq to make its people free, not to make them American. Iraqis will write their own history and find their own way. ~ George W. Bush

I don't know anybody that I can think of who has contended that the Iraqis had nuclear weapons. ~ Donald Rumsfeld

We must acknowledge that for scores of years the Iraqis have offered martyrs and victims but have not been able to change the regime. ~ Jalal Talabani

Just two weeks ago, millions of Iraqis defied the threats of terrorists and went to the polls to determine their own future. I congratulate the Iraqi people for the courage they've shown in making these elections so successful. ~ Bill Frist

The time frame is very small to disarm the militia, to bring about a security situation in which the governing council, the 24 Iraqis or however many others they appoint, can govern the country. ~ Richard Lugar

Iraqis are sick of foreign people coming in their country and trying to destabilize their country. ~ George W. Bush

Fallujah was a Guernica with no Picasso. A city of 300,000 was deprived of water, electricity, and food, emptied of most of its inhabitants who ended up parked in camps. Then came the methodical bombing and recapture of the city block by block. When soldiers occupied the hospital, The New York Times managed to justify this act on grounds that the hospital served as an enemy propaganda center by exaggerating the number of casualties. And by the way, just how many casualties were there? Nobody knows, there is no body count for Iraqis. When estimates are published, even by reputable scientific reviews, they are denounced as exaggerated. Finally, the inhabitants were allowed to return to their devastated city, by way of military checkpoints, and start to sift through the rubble, under the watchful eye of soldiers and biometric controls. ~ Jean Bricmont

If we invade Iraq and the regime is very close to falling, I'm very, very concerned that the Iraqis will, in fact, use weapons of mass destruction. ~ Norman Schwarzkopf

People don't realize that by voting Republican, they voted against themselves ... I worry that some people are entertained by the idea of this war. They don't know anything about the Iraqis, but they're angry and frustrated in their own lives. It's like Germany, before Hitler took over. The economy was bad and people felt kicked around. They looked for a scapegoat. Now we've got a new bunch of Hitlers. ~ Linda Ronstadt

Are Iraqis ready to carry the responsibility for their country? Is Iraq ready to be its own master? We want to be the masters of ourselves and to carry our responsibilities in this region. ~ Ahmed Chalabi

We should not mislead the Iraqis into thinking they have unlimited time to reach a settlement. The longer they think that, the less likely they will be to act. ~ Sherrod Brown

The people of Iraq realize that a stable, successful, democratic Iraq can only come about if average Iraqis are willing to sacrifice to build it. ~ John Ensign

The men and women of our armed forces played an instrumental role in the election process - securing polling sites and providing security - that allowed so many Iraqis the opportunity to vote freely for the first time ever. ~ John M. McHugh

The publisher Jeff Johnson, who has offered not a word of explanation to me, has privately told people that he hated every word that I wrote. I assume that mostly refers to my exposing the lies used by President Bush to justify the invasion of Iraq. Fortunately 60 percent of Americans now get the point but only after tens of thousand of Americans and Iraqis have been killed and maimed as the carnage spirals out of control. My only regret is that my pen was not sharper and my words tougher. ~ Robert Scheer

We have exhausted all of our diplomatic effort to get the Iraqis to comply with their own agreements and with international law. Given that ... we have got to force them to comply, and we are doing so militarily. ~ Tom Daschle

While it may take generations of nurturing, nations founded on and grounded in freedom will eventually overcome and prosper. Once free, folks rarely accept anything less, and that includes Iraqis. ~ Trent Lott

Did you see those Iraqis making that pilgrimage slashing their foreheads with knives and whipping their backs with chains. See, when Saddam Hussein was around they weren't allowed to make that pilgrimage. If they tried that with Saddam Hussein, he would have slashed their foreheads with knives and whipped their backs with chains. ~ Jay Leno

Iraqis don't trust one another, parties and ministries are run by sects and not by functionaries. ~ Lawrence Kaplan

It's often frustrating when you're a war reporter and you're covering these places that far away. You're frustrated by making stories that people can't connect to in any way. It's hard for Americans to connect to Arabic-speaking Iraqis in refugee camps or Pashto-speaking Afghans in the countryside, and having a character who is a vehicle through which you're allowed to make these relationships really allowed us to gain in an emotional weight that was difficult for us to do any other way to make it all human. ~ Rick Rowley

There is no doubt that Iraqis, like Australians and Americans, love and desire freedom. However, if freedom doesn't mean the right to complete self-determination, unfettered by interests other than one's own, then that freedom is less than worthless - it's oppression. ~ Amir Butler

The Iraqis have once again failed to meet a deadline for a final draft of the constitution. ~ Matt Lauer

Each of the Iraqi children killed by the United States was our child. Each of the prisoners tortured in Abu Ghraib was our comrade. Each of their screams was ours. When they were humiliated, we were humiliated. The U.S. soldiers fighting in Iraq - mostly volunteers in a poverty draft from small towns and poor urban neighborhoods - are victims just as much as the Iraqis of the same horrendous process, which asks them to die for a victory that will never be theirs. ~ Arundhati Roy

Well, first of all, I have to say that Iraq has already used weapons of mass destruction against her own people and against Iranians during their long war, so we know that weapons of mass destruction are existent with the Iraqis. ~ Richard Armitage

It's harder and harder for journalists to get out in the field and interview Iraqis. The Web can get these voices out easily and cheaply. ~ Rebecca MacKinnon

The Americans have always been better than the Iraqis at the leaflets. Early on in the first Gulf War, Iraqi PsyOps dropped a batch of their own leaflets on US troops, designed to be psychologically devastating. They read, 'Your wives are back at home having sex with Bart Simpson and Burt Reynolds. ~ Jon Ronson

As Turkish entrepreneurs perform well in Iraq, the Iraqis will have more confidence in Turkish contractors than in some European company they do not know. ~ Husnu Ozyegin

The overall U.S. homeownership rate increased from 64 percent in 1994 to a peak in 2004 with an all-time high of 69.2 percent. Real estate had become the leading business in America, more and more speculators invested money in the business. During 2006, 22 percent of homes purchased (1.65 million units) were for investment purposes, with an additional 14 percent (1.07 million units) purchased as vacation homes.

These figures led Americans to believe that their economy was indeed booming. And when an economy is booming nobody is really interested in foreign affairs, certainly not in a million dead Iraqis. But then the grave reality dawned on the many struggling, working class Americans and immigrants, who were failing to pay back money they didn't have in the first place.

Due to the rise in oil prices and the rise of interest rates, millions of disadvantaged Americans fell behind. By the time they drove back to their newly purchased suburban dream houses, there was not enough money in the kitty to pay the mortgage or elementary needs. Consequently, within a very short time, millions of houses were repossessed. Clearly, there was no one around who could afford to buy those newly repossessed houses. Consequently, the poor people of America became poorer than ever.

Just as Wolfowitz's toppled Saddam, who dragged the American Empire down with him, the poor Americans, that were set to facilitate Wolfowitz's war, pulled down American capitalism as we ~ Gilad Atzmon

In the calculus of western interests, there is no suffering, whatever its scale, which cannot be justified. Chechens, Palestinians, Iraqis, Afghans, Pakistanis are of little importance. ~ Tariq Ali

If one does not wish to take the word of journalists, human rights groups, and the United Nations that Iraq conducted a deliberate campaign to eradicate the Kurdish population, there's always the word of the Iraqis themselves. ~ Timothy Noah

Three big assumptions proved wrong: one, that the Iraqi people would welcome us as liberators; two, that oil would soon pay for Iraqi's rebuilding; and, three, that we have plenty of troops, weapons, and equipment for the postwar situation. ~ John Spratt

After they underestimated you, you Iraqis, now they've come on land; this attempt is our chance to incur losses on them ~ Saddam Hussein

It seems to me that the Iraqis laid down a lot of the arms that we gave to them. So that doesn't seem to be the solution. ~ Brad Wenstrup

Iraq has not been disarmed 100 percent [but] in terms of what they [Iraqis] have accomplished there are no meaningful weapons or weapons production capability in Iraq today. ~ Scott Ritter

The Americans set up impromptu checkpoints along the roads and erected stop signs in English - a language and script that not all Iraqis understood. Cars that failed to stop before the checkpoint were fired upon. I witnessed two entire families killed at the same checkpoint within twenty minutes of each other. ~ Lynsey Addario