John Boehner Quotes

I consider Bush's decision to call for a war against terrorism a serious mistake. He is elevating these criminals to the status of war enemies, and one cannot lead a war against a network if the term war is to retain any definite meaning.

The concept of war is not the construct that will govern - psychologically, politically, and legally - our continuing response to Al Qaeda.

I did not believe in the Iraq war.

The deliberate and deadly attacks which were carried out yesterday against our country were more than acts of terror. They were acts of war.

The war on terror is the war in Afghanistan.

The war on terror is a fight that we did not start, but it is one that we shall finish.

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

America responded to the 9-11 attacks by invading Iraq, only to discover that Saddam Hussein had palaces of mass luxury, not weapons of mass destruction.

In order to have defense here at home, we have to have offense in Iraq and Iran.

Find Al Quaeda and Kill Them

… the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.

Four years ago, I promised to end the war in Iraq. We did. I promised to refocus on the terrorists who actually attacked us on 9/11. We have. We've blunted the Taliban's momentum in Afghanistan, and in 2014, our longest war will be over. A new tower rises above the New York skyline, al Qaeda is on the path to defeat, and Osama bin Laden is dead.

So a truthful assessment of how America is doing in the war on terror as a result of President Bush's war on Iraq is that we have been set back by decades.

As many people have chronicled, the decision to fight in Vietnam was a years-long accretion of step-by-step choices, each of which could be rationalized at the time. Invading Iraq was an unforced, unnecessary decision to risk everything on a 'war of choice' whose costs we are still paying.

That was one of the great successes of removing Saddam Hussein, as we took Iraq out of the picture of having a sovereign nation from which the terrorists could operate. But this war has not gone perfectly.

The road ahead is not easy. Iraq is currently the center of the war on terror.

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.

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.

Afghanistan and Iraq were lumped together in what was called a 'global war on terrorism.'

It was essentially for self defence that we went to war in Afghanistan and would go to war in Iraq.

We live in a world where terror has become a too familiar part of our vocabulary. The terror of 9/11, in which al-Qaeda's attacks on America launched the nation into three wars - against Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Islamic State.

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.

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

It's very important to go back and keep in mind the distinction between handling these events as criminal acts, which was the way we did before 9/11, and then looking at 9/11 and saying, 'This is not a criminal act,' not when you destroy 16 acres of Manhattan, kill 3,000 Americans, blow a big hole in the Pentagon. That's an act of war.