Brent Scowcroft Quotes

We have to go in and win this war quickly, and then be prepared to help stabilize Iraq over an indefinite period, five to ten years, at a minimum, I believe, using a large fraction of American forces. This is a major undertaking that likely would require a total of 150,000 troops and could stay above 100,000 for several years

It is important to recognize the differences between the war in Iraq and the war on terrorism. The treatment of those detained at Abu Ghraib is governed by the Geneva Conventions, which have been signed by both the U.S. and Iraq.

Although I voted against the initial resolution approving the war in Iraq, I have consistently voted to support our troops with much-needed armor and supplies.

My own view of this, by the way, is, if the war on terrorism is successful over time, in its own way it's going to box Saddam in in a way that's going to make it much more difficult for him to maintain his power, and that he's going to become increasingly isolated. I think that's going to take time.

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.

The war in Iraq has as much to do with terrorism as the administration has to do with compassion.

As the war on terrorism spreads and prolongs, the fruits of ending the threat of terrorism around the world will be tempered with a whole new series of problems to be addressed and resolved.

It's probably time to end the global war on terrorism.

The central thesis of the American failure in Afghanistan - the one you'll hear from politicians and pundits and even scholars - was succinctly propounded by Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage: 'The war in Iraq drained resources from Afghanistan before things were under control'.

One of the lessons of Vietnam, which we failed to heed in the Iraq war and the Afghanistan surge, is that before you commit U.S. military forces to aid or assist, it is essential to know what you want them to achieve.

Most people here agree that the rhetoric got overblown on both sides of the Atlantic before the Iraq war, and it was a disagreement among friends over the timing, not the substance, of the Iraq war.

In the issue war in Iraq, it was very clear to me that the policies that were being espoused by neoconservatives were totally devoid of substance - but they marketed it wonderfully.

Woe to the statesman whose reason for entering a war do not appear so plausible at its end as at its beginning.

History will show that perhaps we did not think through the aftermath of the fall of Baghdad. But here we are.

We find ourselves in places in the world where our interests require, maybe, limited application of force, involved in strange missions, missions difficult to define and state criteria and exit strategies. So it's much more difficult now. It's not that clear.

I am saddened, saddened that this President [George W. Bush] failed so miserably at diplomacy that were now forced to war.

The Senate is rushing to vote on whether to declare war on Iraq without pausing to ask why. Why is war being dealt with not as a last resort but as a first resort?

Someone should tell the president that U.S. forces would need to be in Iraq for two to five years, and they will not have an easy time there.

The question in my mind then is how many additional American casualties is Saddam worth? And the answer is not very damned many.

By invading Iraq, the President has undermined the War on Terrorism.

We went in there [the Iraq War invasion] with a complete misunderstanding, regionally and inside Iraq, of what was going on. I don’t ever want that to happen again.

In practice, the U.K.'s most consistent strategic objective in relation to Iraq was to reduce the level of its deployed forces.

We, Britain and Germany, can neither of us be happy about our handling of the Iraq war.

War is much too serious a thing to be left to military men.

The war in Iraq has been extremely divisive here at home, and has also divided the world community.