Jay Leno Quotes

It's just a matter of time before we go into Iraq and get Saddam Hussein. I think just before Bush falls below 50 percent, that's when we'll be going.

Republican control of the Senate = expanded neocon wars in Syria and Iraq. Boots on the ground are coming!

I don’t think that we have ever had a coherent strategy on Iraq.

America went into Iraq. We shouldn't have gone into Iraq. We shouldn't have gotten out the way we got out. The world is a total mess.

The White House was so eager to rid itself of Iraq that it was willing to withdraw rather than lock in arrangements that would preserve our influence and interests.

Governor Dean has no policy on Iraq evidently, except 'no.' 'No' is not a policy.

I was talking about [Donald] Trump and certain things he was saying, that he wanted to go into Iraq and just "take the oil." I said he sounded like the Corleone Family from The Godfather, you know, "Let's just get it all while we got the muscle."

The White House was signaling that the threat posed by Saddam Hussein was of such urgency that it had priority over the crushing of al Qaeda.

I had said from the start that I thought Iraq was a mistake, that we should have stayed focused on Afghanistan. I think it was the right decision because the Taliban at that point had gotten a lot of momentum before I'd gotten into office, partly because we hadn't been paying attention as much as we needed to to Afghanistan.

Few knew in 2000 that Bush was going to end up with neoconservatives all over the place. And once 9/11 happened, I think it's fair to say that eight or nine neocons have had an enormous influence. The whole solution to every problem was to go after Iraq. This had been a neoconservative mantra for ten years. There was no secret about it.

Iraq was invaded to secure Israel and everybody knows it.

The fact is that the American government and NATO have destroyed Iraq and Afghanistan. Their next targets will be Syria and Iran.

Iraq is not about oil.

I think the attempt to draw a comparison between Iran and Syria is false, misleading and dangerous.

In addition, it is very likely that United States action in Iraq caused Iran to open its nuclear facilities for international inspection and suspend its uranium enrichment activities.

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.

Instead, we did take our eye off the ball. We decided, instead of finishing the job in Afghanistan, to go into Iraq. And today, unfortunately, if you look at the situation on the ground, it is a mess.

Tony Blair is a brilliant politician. Unfortunately, his legacy is entwined with George W. Bush because of Iraq.

The Iraqis are not threatened by the Turks or by the Iranians or by the Saudis and they tell me that these are not weapons of mass destruction, they are weapons of self-destruction.

When it comes to the Middle East, this is always a very difficult issue for any American president.

By linking these countries together in his 'axis of evil' speech, President Bush implied an identity between them not only in terms of their threat, but also in terms of the action necessary to deal with the threat. A lot of work will now need to be done to delink the three, and to show why military action against Iraq is so much more justified than against Iran and North Korea.

If my goal were to spread democracy, Iraq would be the last country that I would use as a demonstration.

I'm no friend of Tony Blair's and I consider the Middle East policies of the United States and the UK fatal.

In 2011, General Alston, four-star commander in Iraq, recommended to the President, a force level of over 20,000. The President rejected it and pulled out all the forces with what is now known as a disastrous consequence in Syria.

I think the Bush Administration was bound and determined on regime change, and we will be paying the price of that for some time to come.