"We must provide all kinds of freedom, personal and economic, to all Iraqis. I will fight for that."

"My door will always be open to those who genuinely renounce violence and seek peaceful accommodation into our nascent democracy."

"We believe that an Iraqi founding national assembly, freely elected, must decide the future of Iraq."

"Self-determination could mean independence, confederacy, federal and autonomy."

"This will be Iraq for all without discrimination among Iraqi citizens, or ethnic or sectarian discrimination."

"As president of Iraq, I shall strive to represent the diversity of a country that has too often in the past denied difference."

"A military coup needs a sacrifice and courage that you can't find in an army without morale."

"I shall stand for freedom of thought and expression in a place where it has been trampled and penalized."

"Every human must take responsibility for his actions."

"Wishful thinking is one thing, and reality another."

"Democracies, unlike dictatorships, are forgiving and generous, but they cannot survive unless they fight."

"The Kurdish people welcome the no-fly zone protection, contrary to the Iraqi regime that is against it."

"Conciliation is not capitulation, nor is compromise to be deemed equivalent to imbalanced concession."

"Iraq is not occupied, but there are foreign forces on its soil, which is different."

"Justice for the major perpetrators cannot be separated from the vindication of the rights of the individual victim."

"The Kurdish people have the right of self-determination like every other nation in the world."

"Our gratitude to the American people is immense and we should never be embarrassed to express it."

"All I wanted was to be a university teacher."

"The justice of our cause must be reflected in the manner in which we rectify the crimes of the past."

"Rather, it is through conciliation and compromise that we are building a fair Iraq, a just state for all its peoples."