John Kerry Quotes

The United States has been essentially engaged in an ongoing war that most people date from 2001. That war has taken us to Afghanistan, to Iraq, in a lesser way to other countries - Libya, Somalia, Yemen.

The war in Iraq has been very, very expensive - partly because the Administration tried to keep the apparent costs down. But the benefits have been elusive at best - partly because the ostensible reasons for going war were unconnected with reality - no weapons of mass destruction, no connections with 9/11.

Most Americans believe that escalation will not bring the war in Iraq to a responsible end, and that's why I've proposed not just a troop cap, but a phased redeployment that will start bringing our troops home.

When it comes to the war in Iraq, the time for promises and assurances for waiting and for patience is over. Too many lives have been lost, too many billions of dollars have been spent for us to trust the president on another tired and failed policy that's opposed by generals and experts, Democrats and Republicans, Americans and many of the Iraqis themselves.

The ongoing strife in Iraq, and the billions of dollars that the President is seeking to continue that war, give me little comfort that this Administration has learned from its mistakes in Iraq.

What I've learned, and will try to remember from now on, is that defending your country's credibility is never sufficient reason to fight a war.

Our opponent and many in Congress criticized our decision to end the Iraq war.

I think a weakened, fragmented, chaotic Iraq, which could happen if this isn’t done carefully, is more dangerous in the long run than a contained Saddam is now.

He had rather spend 100,000 pounds on Embassies to keep or procure peace with dishonor, than 100,000 pounds on an army that would have forced peace with honor.

Our country is being bled daily in an effort to create a democracy in a place where it never existed.

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

Reasonable people can differ on whether or not we should have gone into Iraq.

I'm a believer in the Afghan people, so I support an increase in forces there.

Jimmy Carter proposed withdrawing the troops from South Korea. He was stopped by the United States Congress.

My generation knows the cost of short-sightedness in Iraq.

I profoundly do not believe that the United States could make things better in Syria by being there. And we have an evidentiary record of what happens when we're there - nearly a decade in Iraq.

I think that the decision to go to war in Iraq was a mistake.

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.

I believe myself that the secretary of state, secretary of defense and - you have to make your own decisions as to what the president knows - (know) this war is lost and the surge is not accomplishing anything as indicated by the extreme violence in Iraq yesterday.

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 don't know about [Rex] Tillerson, but I do know that John Bolton doesn't get it. He still believes in regime change. He's still a big cheerleader for the Iraq war. He's promoted a nuclear attack by Israel on Iran. He wants to do regime change in Iran. So, I think John Bolton is so far out of it and has such a naive understanding of the world. If he were to be the assistant or the undersecretary for Tillerson, I'm an out automatic no on Bolton.

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.

When you go into a country like Libya where a large chunk of the population wants the old regime back you could end up with a protracted civil war. That we're now in a stalemate was both entirely predictable, and predicted. That we're now relying on drones is disturbing. How vital can a cause be if we're not willing to risk American lives to defend it, and instead use robots and remote control operators? It gets me back to the larger feeling about the intervention - there's just not a compelling reason for us to be involved.

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.

There's a fundamental difference between many of the Democrats and my party. And that is: They want to leave before the job is completed in Iraq. Again, I repeat: These are decent people. They're just as American as I am. I just happen to strongly disagree with them. And it's very important for the American people to understand the consequences of leaving Iraq before the job is done. This is a global war on terror.