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"Sen. Edward Kennedy knows very directly. Senator Kennedy and I talked on several occasions prior to the war that my view was that the best evidence that I had seen was that Iraq indeed had weapons of mass destruction."
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"But to us of a later generation...it is inconceivable that millions of Christian men should have killed and tortured each other, because Napoleon was ambitious, Alexander firm, English policy crafty, and the Duke of Oldenburg hardly treated. We cannot grasp the connections between these circumstances and the bare fact of murder and violence, nor why the duke's wrongs should induce thousands of men from the other side of Europe to pillage and murder the inhabitants of the Smolensk and Moscow provinces and to be slaughtered by them."
"Military foolishness is ultimately suicidal. They believe that by risking death they pay the price of any violent behavior against enemies of their own choosing. They have the invader mentality, that false sense of freedom from responsibility for your own actions."
"That's the attractive thing about war, said Rosewater. "Absolutely everybody gets a little something."
"Secret operations are essential in war; upon them the army relies to make its every move."
"A self-respecting nation is ready for anything, including war, except for a renunciation of its option to make war."
"What obsession do men have for destruction and murder? Who do we electrocute men for murdering an individual and then pin a purple heart on them for mass slaughter of someone arbitrarily labeled 'enemy?"
"The philosophy of protectionism is a philosophy of war."
"Rostov kept thinking about that brilliant feat of his, which, to his surprise, had gained him the St. George Cross and even given him the reputation of a brave man - and there was something in it that he was unable to understand. "So they're even more afraid than we are!" he thought. "So that's all there is to so-called heroism? And did I really do it for the fatherland? And what harm had he done, with his dimple and his light blue eyes? But how frightened he was! He thought I'd kill him. Why should I kill him? My hand faltered. And they gave me the St. George Cross. I understand nothing, nothing!"
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"I would also point out that many governments that chose not to support this war - certainly, the French president, Jacques Chirac, as I recall in April of last year, referred to Iraq's possession of WMD."
"I had innumerable analysts who came to me in apology that the world that we were finding was not the world that they had thought existed and that they had estimated. Reality on the ground differed in advance."
"I've seen looting around the world and thought I knew the best looters in the world. The Iraqis excel at that."
"I think the aim - and certainly the aim of what I've tried to do since leaving - is not political and certainly not a witch hunt at individuals. It's to try to direct our attention at what I believe is a fundamental fault analysis that we must now examine."
"And you know, almost in a perverse way, I wish it had been undue influence because we know how to correct that. We get rid of the people who, in fact, were exercising that."
"I also believe that it is time to begin the fundamental analysis of how we got here, what led us here and what we need to do in order to ensure that we are equipped with the best possible intelligence as we face these issues in the future."
"I came not from within the administration, and it was clear and clear in our discussions and no one asked otherwise that I would lead this the way I thought best and I would speak the truth as we found it."
"But I do think the survey group - and I think Charlie Duelfer is a great leader. I have the utmost confidence in Charles. I think you will get as full an answer as you can possibly get."
"And never - not in a single case - was the explanation, 'I was pressured to do this.' The explanation was very often, 'The limited data we had led one to reasonably conclude this. I now see that there's another explanation for it.'"
"I do believe we have to understand why reality turned out to be different than expectations and estimates. But you have more public service - certainly many of you - than I have ever had, and you recognize that this is not unusual."
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