Alexander Haig Quotes

We must have a timetable for withdrawal of U.S. forces - or at the very least a plan for it - something the administration has incredulously failed to do for over two years.

Neither Johnson nor his party nor the government as a whole were willing to raise, train, equip, and then send Vietnam sufficient manpower to do the job.

We must either reduce the number of our engagements or increase the number of our troops.

Our military commanders have said over and over again that a timetable for withdrawal sends the wrong message to our troops, but more importantly to our enemy.

I would be very careful about using our troops as nation builders. I believe the role of the military is to fight and win war and therefore prevent war from happening in the first place

We have the most skillful, firecest, and certainly the most ethical ground forces in the world... I'm not saying we have to commit right now, but certainly don't pull it off the table.

If we are going to commit American troops, we must be certain they have a clear mission, an achievable goal and an exit strategy.

I will be as careful as I can in making the most significant decisions any president and commander-in-chief can make about sending our men and women into harm's way.

In my opinion, 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,' as General MacArthur so delicately put it.

We're not going to put the cart before the horse and just think by sending more troops, we're automatically going to make Americans safe.

We're in danger of breaking our army and preventing our national leaders from having the flexibility to confront not just Iraq and Afghanistan, but crises around the globe.

Anyone that goes to battle goes to battle knowing the mindset and tactics of their enemies.

I'm going to vote in support of the president of the United States in keeping the troops in Iraq until the president and our military is convinced that the mission is complete.

Any Congressional agreement of an arbitrary time table to bring our troops home before we have accomplished our mission is unacceptable and could potentially increase the risk to our soldiers.

We want to support our troops because they didn't make the decision to go there... but I don't think it should be open-ended. We ought to have a benchmark where the administration has to come back and give us a report.

The United States has to have the capability to deal with more than one enemy at one time and be able to confront them and win.

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

Well, let's assume the world is linear. If we required a certain amount of troops per 25,000 population in the Balkans, if the world is not radically different, something of the same extent is going to be needed in Iraq.

For three years now, our brave men and women in uniform have done everything their country has asked of them, yet President Bush still does not have a plan to win the peace in Iraq and bring our troops home.

The only plan the Administration seems to have for winning the war is that there is no plan and no schedule for our troops to come home and get out of harm's way.

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 is no battle space the U.S. Military cannot access. They said we couldn't do Afghanistan. We did it with ease. They said we couldn't do Iraq. We did it with 150 combat casualties in six weeks. We did it so fast we weren't prepared for their collapse. There is nobody we can't take down. The question is, what do you do with the power?

The country is going to ruin for a want of a proper Head to the War Department.

The military mind always imagines that the next war will be on the same lines as the last.

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