THE POLITICIANS SAY

"I wake up every morning and think I’m back in 1967 listening to Lyndon Johnson say, ‘Stay the course.’ "

Max Cleland, former Senator and former head of Veterans Administration, who lost both legs and his right arm in Vietnam

And our security will require all Americans to be forward-looking and resolute, to be ready for pre-emptive action.
Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists.
Our enemies are a radical network of terrorists -- and every government that supports them.

Predident Bush

" All of us have heard this term ‘preventive war’ since the earliest days of Hitler. I recall that is about the first time I heard it. In this day and time…I don’t believe there is such a thing; and frankly, I wouldn’t even listen to anyone seriously that came in and talked about such a thing. "

US President Eisenhower, 1953

As long as there is a forum in which questions can be asked by men and women who do not stand in awe of a chief executive and one can speak as long as one's feet will allow one to stand, the liberties of the American people will be secure.

The American people are dismayed by this conflict in Iraq. Most assuredly dozens of mistakes have been made and billions of dollars have been spent. Without a doubt our international reputation has been damaged. And we are losing the support of our own people for a drawn-out commitment in Iraq and further loss of life.

The Senate is larger than the sum total of its 100 members. When the duly elected Representatives of the people gather in the Senate chamber, they become much more than the combined intellects, talents, and idiosyncracies of 100 individuals. They become the living, breathing manifestation of the vision of the Framers -- the guardians of the spirit and the soul of the sovereign people of this nation.

Iraq is not the center of the Global War on Terrorism, nor is it overwhelmed by foreign terrorist groups, as this Administration would like Americans to believe. Iraqis are fighting Iraqis in sectarian violence, and US troops have become the target."

Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania, top Democrat on House Defense

Never in the history of the world has any soldier sacrificed more for the freedom and liberty of total strangers than the American soldier.

"In the war on terrorism globally, there’s not going to be a surrender on the battleship Missouri. You’re always going to have some element of terrorism, isolated incidents, attacks against our nation and other free nations. You can’t totally eliminate terrorism any more than you can totally eliminate crime. What you can do is dismember the leadership.

Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.)

The United States does not start fights. We will never be an aggressor. We maintain our strength in order to deter and defend against aggression -- to preserve freedom and peace.

"We the people" tell the government what to do, it doesn't tell us. "We the people" are the driver, the government is the car. And we decide where it should go, and by what route, and how fast. Almost all the world's constitutions are documents in which governments tell the people what their privileges are. Our Constitution is a document in which "We the people" tell the government what it is allowed to do. "We the people" are free.

Ronald Regan

A "helluva mess" is how the former US Secretary of State James Baker is said to have described the state of Iraq - and the search is on for the least-worst option for US policy makers.

In order for a war to be just, three things are necessary. First, the authority of the sovereign.... Secondly, a just cause.... Thirdly ... a rightful intention.

"Yes, the american troops have advanced further. This will only make it easier for us to defeat them"

FALLON, Nev. - Former President Jimmy Carter said Wednesday major policy changes are needed because the Iraq war has divided the nation "almost as much as Vietnam."

"So there's no doubt that our country is in much more danger now from terrorism than it would have been if we would have done what we should have done and stayed in Afghanistan,"

"I think he's one of the worst secretaries of defense we've ever had," the former president said of Rumsfeld. "Almost every decision he has made has aggravated his military subordinates and has also proved to be a mistake."

"Our armed forces fight to disarm and destroy a regime that has proven not only that it will continue to stockpile weapons of mass destruction, but that it will use them.

"The idea that you can introduce democracy via military force is a non-starter," Soros told a gathering at the Council on Foreign Relations. "We have lost the moral high ground."

Bush's with-us-or-against-us stance in the fight to combat terrorism has hampered America's ability to differentiate between groups like Hamas and Hizbollah, which he said could be dealt with politically.

" this Administration has directed all of the anger, fear, and grief which emerged from the ashes of the twin towers and the twisted metal of the Pentagon towards a tangible villain, one we can see and hate and attack. And villain he is. But, he is the wrong villain."

Senator Robert Byrd

"F**k Saddam, we're taking him out." –President Bush to three U.S. Senators in March 2002, a full year before the Iraq invasion

" I consider bin Laden an evil man. And I don't think there's any religious justification for what he has in mind. Islam is a religion of love, not hate. This is a man who hates. This is a man who's declared war on innocent people. This is a man who doesn't mind destroying women and children. This is man who hates freedom. This is an evil man.

Q - But does he have political goals?

He has got evil goals. And it's hard to think in conventional terms about a man so dominated by evil that he's willing to do what he thinks he's going to get away with. But he's not going to get away with it. " - remarks by President George W. Bush meets Muslim Community Leaders in The White House, September 26 2001

"If you're going to go in and try to topple Saddam Hussein,you have to go to Baghdad. Once you've got Baghdad, it's not clear what you do with it. It's not clear what kind of government you would put in place of the one that's currently there now. Is it going to be a Shia regime, a Sunni regime or a Kurdish regime? Or one that tilts toward the Baathists, or one that tilts toward the Islamic fundamentalists?

How much credibility is that government going to have if it's set up by the United States military when it's there? How long does the United States military have to stay to protect the people that sign on for that government, and what happens to it once we leave?"

Dick Cheney, 1991

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. [...] This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.

"The Bush Administration must understand that each American has a right to question our policies in Iraq and should not be demonized for disagreeing with them."

Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.)

"Nearly a century ago, President Woodrow Wilson issued a rousing call to make the world safe for democracy. Americans, and the world, did not rise to the challenge, and the bloodiest century in the history of humanity ensued. The President has ordered American forces into action in Iraq to help make America, and the world, safe from another such century, when tyrants are empowered by technology to inflict the sort of devastation from which free nations might not recover – a capability that puts freedom itself in peril. America, the greatest of free nations, will not take that risk.

"In my visit to southern Afghanistan, it is clear the Taliban are aggressively recruiting and attempting to build support in that region

"Much remains to be accomplished, but I'm confident that we are making tremendous progress in hunting down and killing the murderers of Islamic fascism, in stabilizing the democratic governments of Afghanistan and Iraq and in winning the generational struggle that is the War on Terror.

But my visit also confirmed that the battle against the Taliban cannot be won by the military alone. Taliban fighters are coming across the southern border into Afghanistan. They must be eliminated. One of their major objectives is to recruit local Afghans who are farmers by day, putting arms in their hands by night

Senator Bill Frist

DICK CHENEY

We cannot allow Saddam to have nuclear weapons

Americans support force when appropriate & clear objective

Edwards has got his facts wrong. I have not suggested there's a connection between Iraq and 9/11.

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.

If our commanders need more troops, they'll ask us.

US beat communism because of leadership & military force

There was broad-based bipartisan agreement that Saddam Hussein was a threat ... that he violated U.N. Security Council resolutions and that, in a post- 9/11 world, we couldn't afford to take the word of a dictator who had a history of WMD (weapons of mass destruction) programs, who had excluded weapons inspectors ... who had committed mass murder," Cheney said. "Those are the facts."

We must not send unprepared, demoralized troops to war

"These terrorists view the world as a giant battlefield — and they seek to attack us wherever they can. This has attracted al-Qaeda to Iraq, where they are attempting to frighten and intimidate America into a policy of retreat,"