Kurt Eichenwald Quotes

The war on terror is the war in Afghanistan.

They have called Operation Iraqi Freedom a war of choice that isn't part of the real war on terror. Someone should tell that to al Qaeda.

After 9/11, a few hundred CIA and Special Operations personnel, backed by airpower and Afghan militias, devastated Taliban and al-Qaeda forces. That effort has since turned into a conventional Pentagon nation-building exercise and gone backward.

Four years ago, I promised to end the war in Iraq. We did. I promised to refocus on the terrorists who actually attacked us on 9/11. We have. We've blunted the Taliban's momentum in Afghanistan, and in 2014, our longest war will be over. A new tower rises above the New York skyline, al Qaeda is on the path to defeat, and Osama bin Laden is dead.

As we continue to make great progress in the war on terror, now more than ever, it is important that members of the international community stand-by and bolster the efforts of the emerging diplomatic leaders in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Among all the upheavals of war with al Qaeda, the surest indicator of the historic stakes is the ongoing rotation of top U.S. government managers - scores at a time - into a bunker deep underground and far from Washington.

Afghanistan and Iraq were lumped together in what was called a 'global war on terrorism.'

Operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and the war on terrorism have reduced the pace of military transformation and have revealed our lack of preparation for defensive and stability operations. This Administration has overextended our military.

If bin Laden is in fact publicly killed, then the US military will find itself standing around with its hands in its pockets, wondering what's supposed to come next.

Similarly, today, we do not know what will happen as we wage the War on Terror. We do know that we can count on the strong support from our closest ally and friend in the world in winning this war to secure our freedoms and the freedoms for all peoples throughout the world.

Mr. Speaker, we are a blessed Nation. We have not suffered another attack on our soil since September 11, and we are grateful. We have killed or captured dozens of members of al Qaeda and the Taliban. Our military and intelligence forces are working both hard and smart.

The administration asserts that two thirds or three quarters of al-Qaeda’s managers have been captured or killed, and that al-Qaeda must therefore be on the ropes. Why spend vast sums defending against it?

In order to have defense here at home, we have to have offense in Iraq and Iran.

My mission was not to assure that little girls could go to school in Afghanistan. My mission was not to establish a legal system in Afghanistan. That was not my mission. My mission was to destroy Al Quaeda and to do that we had to overthrow the Taliban.

The problem was you didn’t have an approach against Al Qaeda because you didn’t have an approach against Afghanistan. And you didn’ have an approach against Afghanistan because you didn’t have an approach against Pakistan. And until we could get that right, we didn’t have a policy.

… the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.

A decade and a half ago, the U.S. Air Force dropped massive 15,000-pound 'Daisy Cutter' bombs on the Tora Bora complex where Osama bin Laden was hiding in December 2001.

The Taliban didn't attack us on 9/11 - Al-Qaeda did. That's why I and other people joined the military - to go after Al Qaeda. Not the Taliban.

Because of what happened on 9/11, a lot of our resources, our money and our people were dedicated to the terrorism fight.

When the United States first went into Afghanistan in 2001, it devastated the Taliban and Al Qaeda in a matter of weeks using only a few hundred C.I.A. and Special Operations personnel, backed by American air power. Later, when the United States transitioned to conventional Pentagon stability operations, this success was reversed.

And after September the 11th, the United States Congress also granted me additional authority to use military force against al Qaeda. . . .

As I have said for two years now, when Osama Bin Laden and al-Qaeda were cornered in the mountains of Tora Bora, it was wrong to outsource the job of capturing them to Afghan warlords who a week earlier were fighting against us.

We're making progress. Our military is assisting in Iraq. And we're hoping that within the year we'll be able to push ISIS out of Iraq and then, you know, really squeeze them in Syria.

Al-Qaeda's resurgence brings out the worst in the Bush Administration's math and logic.

In 2016, Washington and its coalition partners conducted more than 7,000 strikes in Iraq and Syria. And in Libya, the United States has conducted more than 350 air strikes since August as part of its military campaign against ISIS there.