David Petraeus Quotes

There is a direct line relationship between what happened in Afghanistan in the work up to 11 September 2001 and what we're doing in Afghanistan today.

The war on terror is the war in Afghanistan.

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.

The attacks of 9/11 came out of Afghanistan. It was a failed state, a rogue nation. That's why al Qaeda was there in the first place.

I want the American people to understand, we have a clear and focused goal: to disrupt, dismantle and defeat Al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

I know the pain of having to deal with terrorism. And that's why, after 9-11, I was one of the first to join the international coalition to fight terrorism.

Now, al Qaeda's on the run. Afghanistan is no longer a base of operations. The Afghan government is a friendly government that is trying to bring democracy to its people.

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.

It is very much in America's national security interests to ensure that the Taliban do not dominate Afghanistan and that neither ISIS nor al Qaeda continues their growth in the country.

Osama bin Laden is gone. The war in Iraq is over. Afghanistan is coming to a close.

I recommended to the president [George Bush] that our focus had to be on al-Qaida, the Taliban and Afghanistan. Those were the ones who attacked the United States of America on 9/11.

One cannot understate the importance of eliminating Bin Laden. He was a symbolic head of the organisation and, as we now know, an operational head of the organisation.

This body, the United States Congress, was united, Republicans and Democrats alike, in taking that action, toppling the Taliban government, and working to try and root out al Qaeda and find Osama bin Laden.

When we started after Osama bin Laden, we really decided to go after the Taliban. And we seemed to be content to kick the Taliban out of Kandahar. And then we let Osama bin Laden escape from Tora Bora.

It would be a tragedy if the remarkable international coalition against terrorism, successfully marshalled in the aftermath of 11 September, were to fragment over a unilateral U.S. strike against Baghdad.

I was distressed that after 9/11, when the United States was attacked by terrorists, the United States' response was to attack Afghanistan, where some of the terrorists had been.

The Europeans must finally understand the incredible shock triggered by the attacks of September 11.

Your first priority is to go after bin Laden.

Your biggest threat is bin Laden!

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.

Since Bin Laden's death, many Americans have decided that our job in Afghanistan is done. They see a victory in the counterterrorism campaign, and are tired of the corruption, confusion and dysfunction of the nation-building campaign.

The horror and tragedy that was 9/11 did many things; one of them was to galvanize this country and much of the world against terrorists and those who support them.

Iraq is now the central front in the war against al-Qaeda.

Iraq broke our back in terms of counterterrorism. There's no doubt about it. The first thing, though, that hurt us was the fact that the U.S. military was absolutely unprepared to do anything on 9/11 - or 9/12 or 9/13. And by the time we actually attacked Afghanistan, al Qaeda and the Taliban had dispersed.

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