Winston Churchill Quotes
I am deeply concerned about Iraq…. At present we are paying eight millions a year for the privilege of living on an ungrateful volcano out of which we are in no circumstances to get anything worth having …. There is scarcely a single newspaper --Tory, Liberal or Labour -- which is not consistently hostile to our remaining in this country… any alternative Government that might be formed here - Labour, Die-hard or Wee Free - would gain popularity by ordering instant evacuation. Moreover in my own heart I do not see what we are getting out of it..
The British had sent troops to Iraq expecting to be greeted by a grateful population who would then obtain relief from the warring factions which had destabilized the area. However, in a historical precursor to the George W. Bush invasion of Iraq, the British troops became the targets for all sides in the complex power struggle of the area. Hence Churchill’s description as an “ungrateful volcano”. At the time, the oil of Iraq had not been discovered and England was the world’s largest superpower.
Winston Churchill, 1874-1965, British Prime Minister (Conservative), Communiqué to then Prime Minister David Lloyd George, September 1, 1922
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
In this remarkable quotation, the king whose own invasion by Iraq was only stopped by American troops in the Gulf War, tells the Arab world that the American occupation which was endorsed by the Iraqi government was illegal. Many others in the world and even many in the U. S. agreed about the illegality, but the King claims to be one of the major allies and supporters of the United States. What he says for Arab and Islamic consumption is different from what he tells American and other Western diplomats. See {620141} for another example.
The problems of Iraq regarding internecine ethnic struggles have not changed in 60 years. See {586486} for another example.
Although a clergyman, he has his own army, stores arms and soldiers in his Mosques, and acts more like a warlord than a member of the clergy.
The neo-conservative expectation of the American invasion of Iraq almost a century later was essentially the same, and the false expectation led to the same kind of failure as the George W. Bush debacle of the early 21st century.
The General’s warning was not taken seriously at the time and the George W. Bush administration made him a persona non grata. But his warning turned out to be very prescient and the United States got so badly bogged down in the Iraq War.
Scowcroft and Colin Powell had been key military and security advisors to President George W. Bush’s father when he was President. The younger Bush had no foreign policy or military experience, and he and his party assured the public that with men like Scowcroft and Powell advising him, all would be well. However, when Bush thought of invading Iraq, Scowcroft and Powell strongly advised him against it, but the younger Bush ignored the advice of these men who had served the nation so well under his father. Scowcroft’s warning could not have been more accurate.
Webb and others believe that President George W. Bush invaded Iraq, and unseated Saddam Hussein with no intention of leaving—that the plan was to establish a permanent American presence in the Middle East.
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill, KG, OM, CH, TD, DL, FRS, RA was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945, during the Second World War, and again from 1951 to 1955. Apart from two years between 1922 and 1924, Churchill was a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1900 to 1964 and represented a total of five constituencies. Ideologically an economic liberal and imperialist, he was for most of his career a member of the Conservative Party, as leader from 1940 to 1955. He was a member of the Liberal Party from 1904 to 1924. Churchill was also well known for his military career and as a historian, painter and writer, and among his many awards was the Nobel Prize in Literature.
