George W. Bush Quotes

I don’t think our troops ought to be used for what’s called nation-building. I think our troops ought to be used to fight and win war.

I would hope that we have in place the adequate resources to become an army of occupation because you’re going to walk into chaos

The most fundamental purpose of government is defense, not empire.

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.

We will not send troops. Germany is not committed to Iraq - we will not commit ourselves with troops.

The Pentagon is always going to be the last to want to intervene. It is up to the civilians to tell us what they want to do and we’ll figure out how to do it.

If I had 50,000 additional troops here now, I believe I could substantially close the [civil] war in two weeks.

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

History will judge the war against Iraq not by the brilliance of its military execution, but by the effectiveness of the post-hostilities activities

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

In Washington the semantics of the military muted the reality of war for the civilian policy-makers. In quiet, air-conditioned, thick-carpeted rooms, such terms as 'systematic pressure,' 'armed reconnaissance,' 'targets of opportunity,' and even 'body count' seemed to breed a sort of games-theory detachment.

Is a military solution the only way to stop nations from doing bad things?

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.

Anybody who has experienced war will never want to do it again unless they have to. But if we’re going to do it, we have to be damn good at it.

When you are Commander in Chief, you should keep all your options on the table.

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.

Our national aims can be realized only by military means. The matter needs no further elaboration or interpretation.

You can’t take military action in war without the support of government.

Our military is trained to kill our enemies in foreign lands, not to do civilian law enforcement within our country.

Our military knows how to invade and conquer a country, but we do not know how to run one.

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

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.

Thinking about the war now and the occupation later is not an acceptable solution.

If American lives must end, and American treasure be spilled, in countries we barely know, that is the price that change has demanded of conviction and of our enduring covenant.

I will not be the first American President who lost a war!