Scott McClellan Quotes

Don't invade Iraq. Inspections work, war won't.

The Senate is rushing to vote on whether to declare war on Iraq without pausing to ask why. Why is war being dealt with not as a last resort but as a first resort?

I did not believe in the Iraq war.

I also hear your president say that war is the means of last resort and I think he means that. I met him last autumn and he assured me that they wanted to come through and disarm Iraq by peaceful means, and that's what we are trying to do as hard as we can.

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

In July of 2004, I came out strongly against the war with Iraq because it was going to destabilize the Middle East.

My journalistic mission was straightforward: to await the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Nobody knew quite when this would be. But the diplomacy - the meetings in the U.N. security council, the allegations about weapons of mass destruction, the martial language of Tony Blair and George W. Bush - all suggested a war was brewing.

I am an opponent of Saddam Hussein, but an opponent also, of the sanctions that have killed a million Iraqi children and an opponent of the United States' apparent desire to plunge the Middle East into a new and devastating war.

I think the Iraq War is not particularly tailored to American interests.

So we are disappointed that some of our closest allies, including Canada, have not agreed with us on the urgent need for this military action against Iraq.

The war on Iraq was a disaster, clearly carried out under false pretences.

I mean, we're going to probably debate the Iraq war for at least as long as I'm alive.

I support the current operational position and tactics in Iraq, but we’re in a bad place, we didn’t need to be there, and we shouldn’t do it again.

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

Iraq is an unjust war. I thought then, and I think now, that the invasion of Iraq was unnecessary and unjust. And I think the premises on which it was launched were false.

The war in Iraq, clearly has not turned out in the way that was hoped.

Surely our inaction with respect to Syria is a poor precedent if we're fighting a war on terror.

War should be the politics of last resort. And when we go to war, we should have a purpose that our people understand and support.

The issue of what my role in the - in persuading the Bush administration to go to war has been greatly exaggerated.

The Pentagon still has not given a name to the Iraqi war. Somehow 'Operation Re-elect Bush' doesn't seem to be popular.

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.

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

So to recap: we may or may not be going to war with Iraq because Saddam may or may not have weapons of mass destruction, which he may or may not use, or pass to other terrorists groups with whom he may or may not have links.

While war is never anyone first choice, sometimes it is a necessary choice.

I had earlier concluded that a war with Iraq would be a distraction from the successful and expeditious completion of our aims in Afghanistan. Now I had come to question whether the White House was telling the truth.