A new regime would have become the United States’ responsibility. Conceivably, this could have led the United States into a more or less permanentoccupation of a country that could not govern itself, but where the rule of a foreign occupier would be increasingly resented.
Describing the future, after the collapse of theSoviet Union. -Eric Schmitt, "Washington at Work; Ex-Cold Warrior Sees the Future as 'Up for Grabs'" The New York Times, December 23, 1991.
I think one has to say it's not just simply a matter of capturing people and holding them accountable, but removing the sanctuaries, removing the support systems, ending states who sponsorterrorism. And that's why it has to be a broad and sustained campaign. It's not going to stop if a few criminals are taken care of.
Dep't of Defense News Briefing (September 13, 2001).
There has been a good deal of comment — some of it quite outlandish — about what our postwar requirements might be inIraq. Some of the higher end predictions we have been hearing recently, such as the notion that it will take several hundred thousandU.S. troops to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq, are wildly off the mark. It is hard to conceive that it would take more forces to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq than it would take to conduct the war itself and to secure the surrender of Saddam's security forces and his army — hard to imagine.
House Budget Committee testimony on Iraq (February 27, 2003).
I can't imagine anyone here wanting to spend another $30 billion to be there for another 12 years.
House subcommittee on Iraq testimony (February 28, 2003).
I think all foreigners should stop interfering in the internal affairs of Iraq. Those who want to come and help are welcome. Those who come to interfere and destroy are not.(2003)
...the importance of leadership and what it consists of: not lecturing and posturing and demanding, but demonstrating that your friends will be protected and taken care of, that your enemies will be punished, and that those who refuse to support you will regret having done so.
There's a lot ofmoney to pay for this. It doesn't have to beU.S. taxpayer money. We are dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon.
Congressional Testimony, March 27, 2003.
There's definitely a rule in the Convention against humiliating prisoners and I'd have to see exactly the interview to see whether that in itself violated the Convention, but the Convention is very clear that prisoners have got to be treated properly. We are treating the Iraqi prisoners extremely well. In fact I think they get good food and shelter and they're free from the horrible commanders they used to work for. I think most of them are much happier, frankly.
Sunday March 23, 2003.
We know that in Basra and in the other cities the people do not want to repeat the experience of 12 years ago where they rise up against Saddam and then they're slaughtered. But before we take care of the killers that are left behind in those cities, we've got to take care of the regime. It's almost like cutting off the head of the snake and then the rest of the body will go.
This word 'imminent' keeps coming up. ThePresident never said that there was an imminent threat.
On theRoger Hedgecock Show (transcript) (February 6, 2004).
Firing employees, that's unfortunately a part of doing business.
"The terrorists in Iraq believe their attacks on innocent people will weaken our resolve. They believe we will run from a challenge. They are mistaken. Americans are not the running kind."
Jeremy Black,The Cold War: A Military History (2015)
You know, I have repeatedly defendedPresident Bush against theleft on Iraq, even though I think he should have waited until theU.N. inspections were over. I don't believe he went in there foroil. We didn't go in there forimperialist or financial reasons. We went in there because he bought the Wolfowitz-Cheney analysis that theIraqis would be better off, we could shake up theauthoritarianArab regimes in theMiddle East, and our leverage to make peace between thePalestinians andIsraelis would be increased.
About 10 days after9/11, I went throughthe Pentagon, and I sawSecretary Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz. I went downstairs just to say hello to some of the people on the joint staff who used to work for me, and one of the generals called me in. He said, “Sir, you’ve got to come in and talk to me a second.” I said, “Well, you’re too busy.” He said, “No, no.” He says, “We’ve made the decision we’re going to war with Iraq.” This was on or about the 20th of September. I said, “We’re going to war with Iraq? Why?” He said, “I don’t know.” He said, “I guess they don’t know what else to do.” So I said, “Well, did they find some information connectingSaddam toal-Qaeda?” He said, “No, no.” He says, “There’s nothing new that way. They just made the decision to go to war with Iraq.” He said, “I guess it’s like we don’t know what to do aboutterrorists, but we’ve gota good military and we can take downgovernments... I guess if the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem has to look like a nail.”... he said, “This is a memo that describes how we’re going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and thenSyria,Lebanon,Libya,Somalia,Sudan and, finishing off,Iran.” I said, “Is it classified?” He said, “Yes, sir.” I said, “Well, don’t show it to me.”
That war in the early 1990s changed a lot for me. I never thought I would see, inEurope, a full-dress reprise ofinternment camps, themass murder of civilians, the reinstitution oftorture andrape as acts of policy. And I didn't expect so many of my comrades to be indifferent – or even take the side of thefascists. It was a time when many people on the left were saying 'Don't intervene, we'll only make things worse' or, 'Don't intervene, it might destabilise the region. And I thought – destabilisation of fascist regimes is a good thing. Why should theleft care about the stability of undemocratic regimes? Wasn't it a good thing to destabilise the regime ofGeneral Franco? It was a time when the left was mostly taking theconservative, status quo position – leave theBalkans alone, leave Milosevic alone, do nothing. And that kind of conservatism can easily mutate into actual support for the aggressors.Weimar-style conservatism can easily mutate intoNational Socialism. So you had people likeNoam Chomsky's co-authorEd Herman go from saying 'Do nothing in the Balkans', to actually supportingMilosevic, the most reactionary force in the region. That's when I began to first find myself on the same side as theneocons. I was signing petitions in favour of action inBosnia, and I would look down the list of names and I kept finding, there's Richard Perle. There's Paul Wolfowitz. That seemed interesting to me. These people were saying that we had to act. Before, I had avoided them like the plague, especially because of what they said aboutGeneral Sharon and aboutNicaragua. But nobody could say they were interested inoil in the Balkans, or in strategic needs, and the people who tried to say that – like Chomsky – looked ridiculous. So now I was interested.
