A Quote by Jack Keane

What did we want out of Iraq? We wanted a country that was stable and secure, that elected its own government, that was not going to be a threat to its neighbors and also was capable of protecting and defending itself. That was our objective in Iraq.
In my own mind, it is profoundly disappointing to see what has occurred in Iraq given the sacrifice of our troops, given our commitment to removing Saddam Hussein and putting in place a fledgling government that would have a chance for a stable, secure Iraq.
It's harder to end a war than begin one. Indeed, everything that American troops have done in Iraq -- all the fighting and all the dying, the bleeding and the building, and the training and the partnering -- all of it has led to this moment of success. Now, Iraq is not a perfect place. It has many challenges ahead. But we're leaving behind a sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq, with a representative government that was elected by its people. We're building a new partnership between our nations.
A stable Iraq at peace with its neighbors will remain elusive until we improve both the security and the economic environment in Iraq.
I am very optimistic about - about Iraq. I mean, this could be one of the great achievements of this administration. You're going to see 90,000 American troops come marching home by the end of the summer. You're going to see a stable government in Iraq that is actually moving toward a representative government.
Our President feels, and apparently many in the United Nations Security Council feel, that it is necessary to disarm Iraq before Iraq can again use weapons of mass destruction on her neighbors or she makes some liaison with terrorists who will use these weapons either against Iraq's neighbors or ourselves.
What I did warn about when I testified in front of Congress in 2002, I said if you want to worry about a state, it shouldn't be Iraq, it should be Iran. But this government, our administration, wanted to worry about Iraq, not Iran.
Iraq at one time was actually a functioning government. It's a real state. Afghanistan is not Iraq. It's tribal. It's got a different - a number of different sects, never really had a solid government there running the country on any kind of a continuing basis. Well, to rebuild the nation of Afghanistan is going to be more difficult than rebuilding the nation of Iraq.
Our military is overextended. Nine out of 10 active-duty Army divisions are either in Iraq, going to Iraq or have come back from Iraq. One way or the other, they're wrapped up in it.
Baghdad fell on April 9, 2003, Hussein and his regime were brought down, we declared "Mission Accomplished" and celebrated victory . . . and chaos erupted. We did not assert control and authority over the country, especially Baghdad. We did not bring with us the capacity to impose our will. We did not take charge. And Iraq did not in a few weeks magically transform itself into a stable nation with democratic leaders. Instead a raging insurgency engulfed the country.
If you're coming from America to Iraq, then how are you supposed to be objective? I mean, you could pay lip service to being objective, but how are you going to objective when you're embedded with the Marines? The Marines are saving your life every day and they're protecting you.
The Western alliance should have supported the Sunni opposition against the Assad regime from the beginning. As far as Iraq is concerned, if it had stayed stable the way it was in 2008, IS would not have been able to expand in Iraq the way they did. The mistake was that Barack Obama withdrew the armed forces from Iraq too fast.
This is a major step forward in achieving our objective, which is an ally having a democratic Iraq, a country able to sustain itself and defend itself, a country that will be an ally in the war on terror and a country which will set such a powerful example to others in the region.
Mr. Speaker, in the years since we enacted our attack against Iraq, the threat from Iran has only grown more difficult, and our capacity to meet that threat actually has diminished. It is one of the reasons many of us opposed that action against Iraq.
I opposed the war in Iraq because I did not believe it was in our national security interest, and I still don't. What we [America] did was akin to taking a baseball bat to a beehive. Our primary security threat right now is terrorism - and by doing what we did in Iraq, we've managed to alienate a good part of the world and most of the allies whose intelligence and other help we need to combat and defeat terrorism.
If you believe that the job of the federal government is to secure this country, it's really important for you to understand that success in Iraq is part of securing the country.
If you're coming from America to Iraq, then how are you supposed to be objective? I mean, you could pay lip service to being objective, but how are you going to objective when you're embedded with the Marines? The Marines are saving your life every day and they're protecting you. But when you're sort of living with people who are there, we just press record and let them tell the story.
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