Barry McCaffrey Quotes

Any future Defense Secretary who advises the President to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should have his head examined.

I've traveled with Jack Murtha to Iraq three times to learn more about the region, talk with our diplomats and military leaders, and meet with our troops. Those visits are the main reason that I opposed the War in Iraq since its inception.

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.

I do not believe, given her past decisions and comments on the reasons to go to war in Iraq, that Dr. Rice will be able to represent the United States without a predetermined bias from the war.

As the criminal, sinful war in Iraq enters its third year, the president goes to Europe to heal the wounds between the United States and its former allies, on his own terms of course.

The Iraq war was not necessary.

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

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.

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 in national security, the war in Iraq is troublesome and a difficult challenge, but our troops and the military leaders we have are managing that situation, although it continues to be very risky and very dangerous.

This wretched war in Iraq which we never should have started, we don’t seem to be able to win, and we don’t know how to get out of …

I don’t think that Americans should die to make Iraq free. What are we going to do? Have these endless wars of altruism?

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.

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

Barack Obama has done something I find very hard to understand. Ever since FDR, we've had the capacity to be engaged in two conflicts at once, and he's saying, No, we're going to cut that back to only one conflict.

Iraq was a war of choice, like Vietnam.

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

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

We've made some mistakes in this country in times past - the Korean conflict proceeding that, some say proceeding the Persian Gulf War, where we were ambiguous as to what we would do.

We all know that in war the political and military factors have to complement each other.

You can't just drop the 82nd Airborne into Baghdad and it will all be over.

Before and during the first phase of the war his administration repeatedly maligned the UN but now, that Iraq has turned into a quagmire, it is asking the UN for help.

The American people have decided that it was a mistake to choose to go to war in Iraq.

I believe in a strong national defense. But it's my belief that neither Iraq nor Afghanistan poses a threat to national security, and we shouldn't be involved in either area.