Howard Coble Quotes

I was heartened to hear the President say that as we make progress on the ground, and Iraqi forces increasingly take the lead, we should be able to further decrease our troop levels.

Our military is doing everything it can to equip Iraq's forces so our troops can come home as soon as possible, but we cannot leave until the job is done.

We must have a timetable for withdrawal of U.S. forces - or at the very least a plan for it - something the administration has incredulously failed to do for over two years.

Conventional wisdom holds that setting a timetable for getting American troops out of Iraq would be a mistake.

I have no idea what the U.S. intends to do further there and what would be the reaction of the Iraqi people. I only know that the sole option is to leave Iraq to the Iraqi people.

Do not form your judgment about our military doctrine from the assessments given by NATO representatives.

You can't just drop the 82nd Airborne into Baghdad and it will all be over.

We were told this war would be over in a matter of weeks, and that the Iraqis would be able to finance it with oil sales. We were promised it was not a mission of nation building.

In Iraq we must succeed. Failure is not an option.

Of course, it's imperative that we stabilize Iraq and quickly reduce our armed role there.

Any Congressional agreement of an arbitrary time table to bring our troops home before we have accomplished our mission is unacceptable and could potentially increase the risk to our soldiers.

It's very unlikely that we're going to send more troops to Iraq. We are going to have to train the Iraqis faster and harder.

I believe the military should be wary of diplomacy until war is declared; then the State Department should keep its nose out and let the military do whatever is necessary to win.

The conclusion that many uniformed military came away from Vietnam with was that political interference, dominance of strategy and even tactics were a very bad way to conduct a war, and that indeed, if that was going to be our practice, that we shouldn't wage conflict again.

I believe very deeply in the proposition that what we did in Iraq was the right thing to do. It was hard to do. It took a long time. There were significant costs involved.

American boys should not be seen dying on the nightly news. Wars should be over in three days or less, or before Congress invokes the War Powers Resolution.

I thought Iraq was the wrong war at the wrong time and have been fighting to get the Administration to stop its failed policy and bring our troops home.

The U.S. spent billions of dollars to build a secular, professional national Iraqi army but failed because, despite all the U.S.-supplied guns, tanks and planes, the Iraqi military fell apart when challenged by a band of terrorists.

Our military commanders have said over and over again that a timetable for withdrawal sends the wrong message to our troops, but more importantly to our enemy.

A war on Al-Qaeda could have been won with a decisive military strike in Tora Bora during December 2001, but American fighters at Tora Bora were refused requests for more forces when they trapped Al-Qaeda there; the Pentagon was busy husbanding resources for the Iraqi invasion.

War is too serious a matter to entrust to military men.

Tonight, I concurred with President Bush when he stated that the decisions on future involvement of U.S. troops in Iraq should be left to the Pentagon and not politicians in Washington.

We must continue, however, to send a strong message of resolve to the people of Iraq, to our troops, to our coalition partners, and to the rest of the world that we, the United States of America, will stay the course and get the job done.

It can’t be any other than madness to commence hostilities before we have established resources on a sure plan for certain and effectual military supplies. Men in that case will not be wanting.

What's the point of having this superb military your always talking about if we can’t use it?