John Dingell Quotes

My point was that removing Saddam should not have been our highest priority. Fighting terrorism should have been our number one concern, followed by the Palestinian peace process.

It's very unlikely that we're going to send more troops to Iraq. We are going to have to train the Iraqis faster and harder.

When Americans invade Iraq, Bush says, we will be greeted as liberators by the Iraqi people, proving that taking out Saddam Hussein was the right thing to do.

As far as Iraq, the important thing is that the Taliban is gone in Afghanistan, three-quarters of the al-Qaida leadership is either dead or in jail, and we now have Saudi Arabia working with us, Pakistan working with us.

We went into Iraq because Iraq posed a threat to the stability of the region and was engaged in the process of trying to develop weapons of mass destruction and had links to terrorists.

Once it was suggested that Saddam Hussein might give his weaponry to terrorists, or might use weapons himself in the region, then it became hard for the Democrats to say, 'Well, that can't happen.'

I, for one, begin with intent. There is no question that, Saddam Hussein had intent to do harm to the Western alliance and to the United States of America.

In order to have defense here at home, we have to have offense in Iraq and Iran.

I don’t think that we have ever had a coherent strategy on Iraq.

Should President Clinton have killed Osama bin Laden when he had the opportunity in 1990s? Should President Bush have sent the U.S. military into Iraq to depose Saddam Hussein in 2003? Should President Obama have withdrawn all troops from Iraq in 2011? Such questions provide no real insight into future considerations.

Both Presidents George Bush and Barack Obama pursued policies of regime change after 9/11 - with Bush removing al-Qaida's safe haven in Afghanistan and the sadistic anti-American dictator Saddam Hussein in Iraq - but Obama took it a step further and disregarded regional stability as a guiding factor for U.S. policy.

You go to war when there is a security threat, and Saddam Hussein was seen as a threat to our interests and our security.

I think the war in the Mideast, how we got into it and how we're going to address the current problems, are issues that every American should be concerned about.

I don't know all the facts on Iraq, but I think we should work closely with the Americans.

Our safety at home and the cause of freedom abroad is largely contingent upon our success in Iraq.

I still agree with the invasion of Iraq. I don't agree with most of the decisions that accompanied it.

Tony Blair took us to war in Iraq on the basis of the supposed threat of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction.

The Second World War is and was constantly being drudged up by Blair and Bush to rationalize the invasion of Iraq.

It's now clear that from the very moment President Bush took office, Iraq was his highest priority as unfinished business from the first Bush Administration. His agenda was clear: find a rationale to get rid of Saddam.

It was essentially for self defence that we went to war in Afghanistan and would go to war in Iraq.

I am an opponent of Saddam Hussein, but an opponent also, of the sanctions that have killed a million Iraqi children and an opponent of the United States' apparent desire to plunge the Middle East into a new and devastating war.

In time it will become clear to everyone that support for the policies of pre-emptive war and interventionist nation-building will have much greater significance than the removal of Saddam Hussein itself.

Further, by acting decisively in Iraq, the United States has sent very strong signals to other nations that have been or could be terrorist sympathizers.

It would be a tragedy if the remarkable international coalition against terrorism, successfully marshalled in the aftermath of 11 September, were to fragment over a unilateral U.S. strike against Baghdad.

Ironically, the Canadian naval vessels, aircraft and personnel in the Persian Gulf I mentioned earlier who are fighting terrorism will provide more support indirectly to this war in Iraq than most of the 46 countries that are fully supporting our efforts there.