Wayne White Quotes

We were reminded first-hand of the work that still needs to be done in Iraq on the security front when insurgents fired five rounds into the base while we were still meeting with the nurses.

Iranians hate Arabs. They're a fairly well-educated population and they have centuries of experience with self-government.

So the idea that you could put Kurds, Shiite Arabs, and Sunni Arabs in a nice, liberal, federal system in Iraq in a short amount of time, six months or a year, boggles the mind.

The rise of ISIS in Iraq is a wider threat to the stability of the Middle East and the West than many realise.

Both Iraq and Syria are a fissile mixture of ethnicities and religions thrown together after Versailles by departing French and British imperialists and only kept together by Baathist tyranny and violence.

Even the majority of the Sunnis have grown tired of foreign terrorists operating in Iraq.

Iraq is a long way from the U.S., but what happens there matters a great deal here. For the risks that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest security threat we face.

The situation in Iraq is dangerous but the regional situation is also very complicated and precarious.

The main reason the Americans have come to Iraq is to put down the Shiite people—to prevent us from setting up a Shiite religious government.

Extremism in Syria cannot be contained within Syria.

Western history shows that the current legitimacy crises in the Middle East is neither unprecedented in its gravity nor likely to resolve itself in any straightforward manner.

Great weight should be given to the judgment of professionals on what information, if disclosed, would harm national security.

Ethno-sectarian violence is a particular concern in Iraq, as it is a cancer that continues to spread if left unchecked.

As we used to say when I was privileged to be the commander there, Nineveh province has the most diverse human terrain in all of Iraq - Sunni Arab majority to be sure, but also Shia Arabs, numerous Kurdish communities, and they are broken out into several different political parties.

The central problem in Syria is that Sunni Arabs will not be willing partners against the Islamic State unless we commit to protect them and the broader Syrian population against all enemies, not just ISIS.

If anything caused ISIS, it was the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq.

The more the Iranians are seen to be dominating the region, the more it is going to inflame Sunni radicalism and fuel the rise of groups like the Islamic State.

No greater privilege than I had as a soldier and then as a spymaster and to some degree now in the business world.

The Taliban has asked Osama bin Laden to voluntarily leave the country.They said they delivered him a note asking him to leave, which is a pretty goodtrick considering they claim they don't even know where he is.

Saddam Hussein's regime is a gray and gathering danger.

Some of us learn from other people’s mistakes and the rest of us have to be other people.

The most profound security threat we face today is global warming....climate change has the capacity to change the way all of us live.

The general election's taking place today in Iraq, so I guess that means we're one step closer to being there for another 10 years.

After a regime is removed, however, it is dangerous to leave a security vacuum.

There is a worry about a bomb being implanted in a human being and placed on an airplane. So, I think there is a lot to worry about.