Kent Conrad Quotes

The budgetary cost to the UK of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan through 2010 will total more than £18 billion. If we include the social costs the total impact will exceed £20 billion.

I found it peculiar that those who wanted to take military action could — with 100 per cent certainty — know that the weapons existed and turn out to have zero knowledge of where they were.

The war in Iraq has been very, very expensive - partly because the Administration tried to keep the apparent costs down. But the benefits have been elusive at best - partly because the ostensible reasons for going war were unconnected with reality - no weapons of mass destruction, no connections with 9/11.

The likely economic effects [of the war in Iraq] would be relatively small... Under every plausible scenario, the negative effect will be quite small relative to the economic benefits.

Most people think the Iraq war has increased the probability of an attack. However, it's difficult to put this aspect into financial terms.

In fact, for just about 1/6 of the cost of an Iraq War, we could have put the social security system on sound financial footings for the next 50 to 75 years. The problems can be managed - but not if we continue to fight this war for another 80 years.

President Bush bet his presidency-and America's world leadership-on the war in Iraq. Tragically, it looks as though he bit off more than the American people were willing to chew.

People say the war in Iraq is a bad war, and the war in Afghanistan is a good war, but what's the difference between them? Democratic people around the world cannot accept that this is a good war. This is just endless war.

The administration does not agree with those who suggest we should deploy hundreds of thousands of American troops to engage militarily in a ground war in Iraq.

Iraq was only the latest in a succession of countries. Earlier, there was Cuba, Nicaragua, Libya, Granada, Panama. But this time it wasn't just your ordinary brand of friendly neighborhood frenzy. It was frenzy with a purpose. It ushered in an old doctrine in a new bottle: the doctrine of preemptive strike, also known as the United States can do whatever the hell it wants, and that's official. The war against Iraq has been fought and won, and no weapons of mass destruction have been found, not even a little one.

World War II was really unusual, because America was in the Great Depression before. So the war did help the US economy to get securely out of this decline. This time, the war [in Iraq] is bad for the economy in both the short and long run. We could have spent trillions in research or education instead. This would have led to future productivity increases.

Iraq may have been a preview of that, but it's still redeemable if we get out fast. In a war with Iran, we'll get dragged down for 20 or 30 years. The world will condemn us. We will lose our position in the world.

Iraq was a war of choice, like Vietnam.

New Rule: The people of America who were most in favor of the Iraq War must now go there and fight it.

I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil.

[the war in Iraq] "could have terrifically good effects troughout the Middle East

Iraq is sort of a situation where you've got a guy who drove the bus into the ditch. You obviously have to get the bus out of the ditch, and that's not easy to do, although you probably should fire the driver.

It's hard to conceive that it would take more forces to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq than it would take to conduct the war itself and secure the surrender of Saddam's security forces and his army. Hard to imagine.

The mistakes of the Iraq war are not only tactical and strategic, but historical. It is essentially a war of colonialism, attempted in the post-colonial age.

It's very hard to understand just what our strategy is in Syria, frankly, and on Iraq that this is Iraq's war, that the role of the United States is to help Iraq, to arm, train, support, provide air support, but this has to be Iraq's war.

The Iraq War is largely about oil.

I was against the war in Iraq.The record shows that I'm right. When I did an interview with Howard Stern.

Nobody should claim that the war [in Iraq] is over. But certainly it can be said that the regime is finished.

Take the Iraq War,it's the second worst crime after the Second World War. It's the first time in history, in the history of imperialism, there were huge demonstrations, before the war was officially launched.

According to CNN, Donald Rumsfeld said the war in Iraq did not go according to plan. And President Bush said, 'What? We had a plan?'