John Dingell Quotes

The United States will never take part in an aggressive war.

Before and during the first phase of the war his administration repeatedly maligned the UN but now, that Iraq has turned into a quagmire, it is asking the UN for help.

First, we could have defied both of them and could have gone to war against both of these nations for this violation of international law and interference with our neutral rights.

America must continue diplomacy, even as we continue the war, to expand the coalition of the willing to share the burden of war and to share the responsibility and the economic cost of rebuilding Iraq.

Either a war has to be fought, or it doesn't.

We are a country that has many friends, many allies, when we operate in the world, we operate with friends and allies that's been true for decades and if we wind up going to war in Iraq it will be true in Iraq.

I think that war is diplomacy by other means, for sure, and there have been wars that have been fought for righteous reasons. There are wars that have had to be fought, and there will probably continue to be.

Most people here agree that the rhetoric got overblown on both sides of the Atlantic before the Iraq war, and it was a disagreement among friends over the timing, not the substance, of the Iraq war.

If it must come to war, I argue that the world should respond through the United Nations. This is the best way to give legitimacy to the use of force in these circumstances.

We talk a great deal about war and do nothing.

By invading Iraq, the President has undermined the War on Terrorism.

If this phrase of “the balance of power” is to be always an argument for war, the pretext for war will never be wanting …

I think war is so incredibly backward, and I don't think it's intelligent, and it's not sane. So why would you want to support it?

Let's be clear: Neither Secretary Powell or I opposed the notion of removing Saddam Hussein by force, but we wanted to avoid the war if we could. But if we couldn't, the notion of removing Saddam Hussein from the scene seemed eminently sensible, given that you had, what, 16 or so U.N. Security Council resolutions basically saying the same thing.

Politics and war are remarkably similar situations.

I also hear your president say that war is the means of last resort and I think he means that. I met him last autumn and he assured me that they wanted to come through and disarm Iraq by peaceful means, and that's what we are trying to do as hard as we can.

War as Napoleon knew it just not possible any more. However, we're very unlikely to accept or recognize 'world peace' even when we get it.

It's not just Iraq - it's the Atlantic partnership which is at stake.

We wanted this war and now we've got it, and I'm not sure that we know what to do with it.

War is not, in itself, a condition so much as the symptom of a condition - that of international anarchy.

All war represents a failure of diplomacy.

So to recap: we may or may not be going to war with Iraq because Saddam may or may not have weapons of mass destruction, which he may or may not use, or pass to other terrorists groups with whom he may or may not have links.

We were so shocked by how fast that war went that President Bush did not have a plan, a peace plan.

I beg Osama to stop warring. He is a Muslim, and Islam means peace. Nobody wins in a war... I wish I were tapped in the problem about Iraq. I knew Saddam enough that I could have talked him into surrendering. But it's too late.

It's not a choice between war and peace. It's a choice between war and endless war. It's not appeasement. I think it's better even to call it American self-interest.