Scott Ritter Quotes

If we give Al Haig his way, the next thing we know, we'll be carpet-bombing Central America.

I could have been very popular if I had launched a military attack on Iran but I chose patience.

Washington still refuses to provide evidence to support the claims in 1990 that a huge Iraqi military build-up on the Saudi border justified war.

The biggest budget is the military budget. For what? We're fighting two wars in very small countries that have no nuclear weapons, that have no capabilities to destroy anything. They probably couldn't even get to America.

The fight against drug trafficking is a false pretext for the United States to install military bases.

Declarations of war have never been a constitutional requirement for military action abroad. The United States has used force abroad more than 130 times, but has only declared war five times - the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War, the Spanish-American War, and World Wars I and II.

Iraq was a war of choice, not necessity.

A state department official once told me this about the role of the president. He said: "We wage war for realist reasons, we justify wars for idealist reasons, and it's the president's job to balance the two." I agree.

When any kind of military action is popular it's because either there's been a very clear, direct threat to us - 9/11 - or an administration uses various hooks to suggest that American interests were directly threatened - like in Panama or Grenada. And sometimes, those hooks are more persuasive than others, but typically, they're not put before Congress.

Bill Clinton kept funding Star Wars. He took the biggest military budget to Congress in history. He routinely bombed Iraq, and he kept the barbaric sanctions in place. He's really played his part. The George W. Bush gang has taken it just a little further.

The Gulf War was a clear precedent as well, and it let us begin to understand how the US government would go to war to secure strategic oil reserves and potential markets.

Taking stock of 'Operation Iraqi Freedom' a decade later, the Financial Times concluded that the US won the war, Iran won the peace, and Turkey won the contracts. I can only agree.

The Iraq War is largely about oil.

What we did in Iraq was exactly the right thing to do. If I had it to recommend all over again, I would recommend exactly the same course of action.

Some of the same self-certified smart people, who preached about mushroom clouds and weapons of mass destruction, are once again trying to stampede us into war. They seem to think only with their guns. To those who want to shoot first and ask questions later in Iraq, I join in a firm 'No!' We've been there and done that, and America is still paying for their past failure.

The Kosovo campaign was a just and necessary war. And I believe that Blair - of whom I have many criticisms - in this case showed real determination in conducting it.

He (former President Gerald Ford) made it very clear that he did not agree with the reasons President Bush laid out for the war, namely the belief that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq or that there was some obligation that the United States or the president had to expand democracy.

America roused to a righteous anger has always been a force for good. States that have been supporting if not Osama bin Laden, people like him need to feel pain. If we flatten part of Damascus or Tehran or whatever it takes, that is part of the solution.

When was the last time the United States won a war? You know, it lost in Vietnam. It's lost in Afghanistan. It's lost in Iraq. And it will not be able to contain the situation. It is hemorrhaging. It is now - you know, of course you can continue with drone attacks, and you can continue these targeted killings, but on the ground, a situation is being created which no army - not America, not anybody - can control. And it's just, you know, a combination of such foolishness, such a lack of understanding of culture in the world.

When you invade Grenada, or when you invade Panama to capture a disreputable person, or when you bomb the Bosnia area, you can always find justification for those military actions, but it's really surprising how many times in those 25 years - that's a long time - the United States has interceded, I wouldn't say most of the time militarily, but a lot of those have been military actions.

The latest developments in Iraq are deeply troubling, but as the United States considers military and diplomatic responses to the actions of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) action, we should be clear that U.S. troops on the ground cannot go a million miles near a sectarian civil war-it's simply not an option.

Most US presidents since World War II have led military actions without a declaration of war by Congress, though most, if not all, have properly consulted and sought support from Congress. That is the wise thing to do.

This notion that the United States is getting ready to attack Iran is simply ridiculous. And having said that, all options are on the table

It was at a certain stage (you might have forgotten, haven't you?) that the United States actively collaborated with Saddam when he was at war with Iran: weapons were supplied, diplomatic and political support was provided and so on. Then the US fell out with him for some reason and decided to do away with him.

The foreign policy, you have to know how to pick and choose. There's no way, if Saddam [Hussein] had not had weapons of mass destruction, I would have gone, because I don't believe that the U.S. should be involved directly in civil wars.