John Kerry Quotes

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

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.

I think the disarmament of Iraq is inevitable.

The reality is, it will be a significant conflict going for many, many months, if not longer. Saddam Hussein is not a fool. He hasn't been sitting there waiting to get shot for 13 years.

So we are disappointed that some of our closest allies, including Canada, have not agreed with us on the urgent need for this military action against 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 Should President Obama have withdrawn all troops from Iraq in 2011?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.

I know I will be severely criticized by the interventionists in America when I say we should not enter a war unless we have a reasonable chance of winning.

Note the three most important Cabinet positions. Rice said that it was better to find the weapons of mass destruction than to see a mushroom cloud.

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.

As someone who has seen war first hand, and as a father of three young adults, it was my hope that we could have resolved this conflict and disarmed Saddam Hussein without war. However, this was not the case.

Countries that intervene militarily rarely do so out of pure altruism.

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.'

But, as you have intimated, I am among those who would be very wary of any military action in the light of Saddam Hussein's willingness to allow the weapons inspectors to go in.

By linking these countries together in his 'axis of evil' speech, President Bush implied an identity between them not only in terms of their threat, but also in terms of the action necessary to deal with the threat. A lot of work will now need to be done to delink the three, and to show why military action against Iraq is so much more justified than against Iran and North Korea.

We ought to nuke North Korea right about now just to give the world a warning.

I could have been very popular if I had launched a military attack on Iran but I chose patience.

War is but an instrument of international policy.

Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion … and you allow him to make war at pleasure. … If today he thinks it necessary to invade Canada to prevent the British from invading us, how could you stop him? You may see no probability he would say to you, “Be silent!, I see if you don’t.”

The United States, as the world knows, will never start a war.

If Americans are entitled to hit Iraq unilaterally, then why isn't Russia entitled to the same with respect to Georgia? Why is China not entitled to the same with respect to some other neighboring country which, according to Chinese views, may be supporting insurrection in Tibet or Shenyang? Why, say, India is not entitled to hit Pakistan, which openly supports terrorists in Kashmir and which has nuclear weapons, and which has a very fragile domestic situation under which fundamentalists any day can come to power

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

One hour ago, President Johnson informed me that Egyptian forces are preparing an attack on Israeli positions and that this attack is to be launched. If such a thing happens, then the United States will consider itself freed from the commitments it gave to the USSR to exercise restraint.

Are we going to start a war, the end of which we cannot see?

The United States of America never goes to war because we want to, we only go to war because we have to.

A United States President should never, never, never, never threaten the use of force unless he is prepared to follow up.