John Abizaid famous quotes

Last updated: Sep 5, 2024

Morale is good; troops are confident; leaders are capable.
-- John Abizaid

#Military #Leader #Troops
Oh, the transition concerns me because as we move towards an important political event, it's clear to me that the terrorists and insurgents will move as hard as they can to disrupt this process.
-- John Abizaid

#Military #Moving #Political
Undoubtedly, there are members of the former regime that are cooperating in some fashion and then there are extremists that are within Iraq that are cooperating with them.
-- John Abizaid

#Fashion #Military #Iraq
We'll try to include Iraqi officers in our staffs. We will do everything we can to empower Iraqi security forces to stand up on their own and operate where they can alone.
-- John Abizaid

#Military #Empowering #Trying
You know as well as I do that counterinsurgency is a very nuanced type of military operation.
-- John Abizaid

#Military #Type #Operations
Capturing any member of any terrorist cell or any insurgent cell that we may happen to come across is always very, very valuable, and the thing that interests me is that in most instances after a time people talk and they tell us what they know.
-- John Abizaid

#Cells #People #May
And over time, I think, as Iraqi security capacity builds, you'll see American and coalition presence there decline.
-- John Abizaid

#Thinking #Decline #Capacity
Well, the hardest thing to do, as we know from our own experience on 9/11 is protect everything all the time.
-- John Abizaid

#Protect #Hardest #Wells
Everybody needs to understand that I learned Arabic from the United States Army as a second language. I never spoke it at home.
-- John Abizaid

#Home #Army #United States
You don't build a new power plant in the United States overnight. It takes years to build.
-- John Abizaid

#Years #United States #Plant
But my Arabic is pretty good. It's good enough to have conversations with people, to understand what they say, to understand what they're feeling.
-- John Abizaid

#People #Feelings #Good Enough
Nobody's more mindful of the sacrifices of our troops than those of us that command them.
-- John Abizaid

#Sacrifice #Troops #Command
I don't believe Iran is a suicide state.
-- John Abizaid

#Suicide #Believe #Iran
It's clear to me now that we've got to reach out to the Arab Sunni community in particular in an effort to cause some moderate political activity to take place so they join the future of Iraq.
-- John Abizaid

#Military #Iraq #Political
I believe we've... we've worked very hard with the Iraqis to build a better place ever since the fall of Saddam's government.
-- John Abizaid

#Military #Believe #Fall
And so I think that if the person has the funds, the network, and the equipment to do this, and also the experience, which is the key factor, then they can be quite deadly.
-- John Abizaid

#Thinking #Keys #Reincarnation
So, these political activities will create friction in and of themselves, and in this environment of friction there'll be additional violence.
-- John Abizaid

#Political #Environmental #Violence
The United States is the most powerful nation on Earth and it just can't walk away from the Middle East and central Asia and the Horn of Africa.
-- John Abizaid

#Powerful #Earth #Asia
But clearly the fact that we've gone from zero Iraqi security forces on duty in May to up to 200,000 today is an enormous accomplishment, but it's not enough.
-- John Abizaid

#Zero #Military #Accomplishment
But the key shift in focus will be from counter-insurgency operations to more and more cooperation with Iraqi security forces and to building Iraqi security capacity.
-- John Abizaid

#Military #Keys #Focus
Certainly our goal is to leave Iraq, but we can't leave Iraq with our forces until we know that the Iraqi security forces are capable and efficient enough to defend the sovereignty of the nation.
-- John Abizaid

#Military #Iraq #Goal
I think you also understand that one of the key things that's got to be done in Iraq is to build a mentality of understanding that the military needs to be subordinate to civilian control and respectful of its own people.
-- John Abizaid

#Military #Thinking #Iraq
We've got to ensure that the quality and the capability of these forces will be good enough to withstand the challenges that the insurgents and the terrorists will present to the new Iraqi government.
-- John Abizaid

#Government #Challenges #Quality
As far as Zarqawi is concerned, there is a network of extremists; it's not just Zarqawi.
-- John Abizaid

#Military #Concerned #Extremist
But as we move from this period of what many Iraqis regard as perceived occupation, we need to move towards one of partnership.
-- John Abizaid

#Military #Moving #Needs
But the truth of the matter is that there is there is an opportunity for them to participate in the economic and political future of the country and certainly in the security life of the country.
-- John Abizaid

#Country #Military #Opportunity
Clearly the Secretary of Defense, my boss, would like nothing better than to get Osama bin Laden and to get... to ensure the complete defeat of al-Qaida, because we know that al-Qaida is planning operations against the United States even as we speak here.
-- John Abizaid

#Military #Boss #Als
The power to prevent violence is a power that no police force seems to have anywhere in the United States.
-- John Abizaid

#Police #United States #Violence

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