iraq

Had the United States and the United Kingdom gone on alone to capture Baghdad, under the provisions of the Geneva and Hague conventions we would have been considered occupying powers and therefore would have been responsible for all the costs of maintaining or restoring government, education and other services for the people of Iraq.

1 month ago the American people stopped to remember the third anniversary of the beginning of the Iraq war. We thought first and foremost of the selflessness, patriotism and heroism by our troops, our National Guard and Reserves.

Barack Obama's life was so much simpler in 2009. Back then, he had refined the cold act of blaming others for the bad economy into an art form. Deficits? Blame Bush's tax cuts. Spending? Blame the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. No business investment? Blame Wall Street.

I hope I'm wrong, but I am afraid that Iraq is going to turn out to be the greatest disaster in American foreign policy - worse than Vietnam, not in the number who died, but in terms of its unintended consequences and its reverberation throughout the region.

Dr. Rice's record on Iraq gives me great concern. In her public statements she clearly overstated and exaggerated the intelligence concerning Iraq before the war in order to support the President's decision to initiate military action against Iraq.

According to Richard Clarke, the former White House counterterrorism chief, Bush was so obsessed with Iraq that he failed to take action against Osama Bin Laden despite repeated warnings from his intelligence experts.

Disarming Iraq is legal under a series of U.N. resolutions. Iraq is in flagrant violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions.

During a trip to Iraq last fall, I visited our theater hospital at Balad Air Force Base and witnessed these skilled medical professionals in action and met the brave soldiers whose lives they saved.

iraq, uiraq, 8iraq, 9iraq, oiraq, jiraq, kiraq, uraq, 8raq, 9raq, oraq, jraq, kraq, iuraq, i8raq, i9raq, ioraq, ijraq, ikraq, ieraq, i4raq, i5raq, itraq, ifraq, ieaq, i4aq, i5aq, itaq, ifaq, ireaq, ir4aq, ir5aq, irtaq, irfaq, irqaq, irwaq, irsaq, irzaq, irqq, irwq, irsq, irzq, iraqq, irawq, irasq, irazq, ira1q, ira2q, irawq, iraaq, ira1, ira2, iraw, iraa, iraq1, iraq2, iraqw, iraqa.

I believe in the transformational power of liberty. I believe that the free Iraq is in this nation's interests. I believe a free Afghanistan is in this nation's interest.

I believe that we were not as effective in the second term dealing with this issue of nuclear none proliferation as we had been during the first term when we stripped Libya and Iraq and A.Q. Khan and their capacity to proliferate nuclear technology.

Cliches about supporting the troops are designed to distract from failed policies, policies promoted by powerful special interests that benefit from war, anything to steer the discussion away from the real reasons the war in Iraq will not end anytime soon.

Everybody has a job to do. There are people in Iraq on both sides of this war who do what they do for religious reasons, and they feel with God on their side. Some people are good at annihilating people. Maybe that's their gift.

I have never solicited nor received money from Iraq for our campaign against war and sanctions. I have never seen a barrel of oil, never owned one, never bought one, never sold one.

A devastating commentary on the war in Iraq is that we have been unable to spend money on infrastructure.

Bush's war in Iraq has done untold damage to the United States. It has impaired our military power and undermined the morale of our armed forces. Our troops were trained to project overwhelming power. They were not trained for occupation duties.

Conventional wisdom holds that setting a timetable for getting American troops out of Iraq would be a mistake.

'The war in Iraq - if Osama was a Christian - it's the Christmas present he never would have expected.