George H. W. Bush Quotes

Look at the results of regime change in Iraq. You can't possibly claim that it was successful.

One of the enduring mysteries of America's occupation of Iraq is why a nation that so little relishes peacekeeping nonetheless refuses to turn the job over to the United Nations.

Sure we won the war, but the peace we’re losing badly.

President Bush admitted that the United States went to war in Iraq based on bad intelligence. But he says knowing what we know now he would still do it again. So at least we're learning from our mistakes.

People say the war in Iraq is a bad war, and the war in Afghanistan is a good war, but what's the difference between them? Democratic people around the world cannot accept that this is a good war. This is just endless war.

My belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators. . . . I think it will go relatively quickly, . . . [in] weeks rather than months.

The problem with the war in Iraq is not so much the intelligence as the stupidity.

The invasion only made matters worse. The occupation will not work, Iraq is unoccupiable, that will not work.

I care about politics just like any other citizen. I'm against the war in Iraq, or any type of war.

I want the troops from Great Britain and the U.S. to be successful, but by the same token, Afghanistan has always been a screw-up.

There are a growing number of conservatives and Republicans who, while they support the president and support the war in Iraq, wonder how many of these nation-building wars we're going to engage in and what the parameters of that are.

I think all foreigners should stop interfering in the internal affairs of Iraq. Those who want to come and help are welcome. Those who come to interfere and destroy are not.

I’d rather build highways here then try nation building in Iraq

The possibility of the United States winning the war and losing the peace is real and serious

We’re not going to need as many people to do peacekeeping as we needed to fight the war.

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.

Since 2001, NATO or its leading member states have initiated military operations in Afghanistan, Iraq and Lybia. All three campaigns led to various forms of regime change, and. in the case of Iraq and Lybia, the deterioration of the state.

Iraq and Afghanistan are now democracies and they are allies in the cause of freedom and peace.

American troops and American taxpayers are shouldering a huge burden with no end in sight because Mr. Bush took us to war on false premises and with no plan to win the peace.

I think what Mr. Trump has made clear is that he would not undertake optional wars, what I have called wars of choice, a la, say Iraq in 2003 or Libya, for the purposes of transforming another country. It's not clear whether Hillary Clinton, if she were to have the opportunity, would do such a thing again or whether she would have taken a - the lesson from both Iraq and Libya that we ought not to be undertaking those kinds of wars of choice.

Iraq may still have a decent outcome...but even if it becomes Switzerland, we overpaid for it.

[Invading Iraq] will unite the entire Arab world against the West.

President Bush bet his presidency-and America's world leadership-on the war in Iraq. Tragically, it looks as though he bit off more than the American people were willing to chew.

The administration does not agree with those who suggest we should deploy hundreds of thousands of American troops to engage militarily in a ground war in Iraq.

The idea that the United States is going to win the war in Iraq is just plain wrong.