Withdrawal of Troops Quotes

We can't stay in Afghanistan forever.

God willing, the occupation forces will be driven out as happened in Vietnam.

I have no idea what the U.S. intends to do further there and what would be the reaction of the Iraqi people. I only know that the sole option is to leave Iraq to the Iraqi people.

Waning public support for a war tends to influence even the most stubborn of presidents

I agree that obviously we cannot retreat from our position in Vietnam…. But we are going to have to muddle through for a while and see what we do.

The United States will not be in Afghanistan forever.

While this debate today is a belated effort to inform the American people, it is nevertheless an empty gesture. It is time to admit our mistake in Iraq and begin to bring our troops home with honor.

The military alone cannot end the conflict in Afghanistan. On that much nearly everyone can agree, offering a rare island of consensus among sides otherwise divided on the question of how and when America's longest-ever war should wind down.

Conventional wisdom holds that setting a timetable for getting American troops out of Iraq would be a mistake.

We don't have a prayer of staying in Vietnam. But I can't give up a piece of territory as big as South Vietnam and still have the people re-elect me.

I can remember when President Nixon basically said, 'All troops have been withdrawn from the delta.' And I said, 'Wait, I'm still here.'

It was helpful to have the American troops there in great strength. They knew there'd be consequences if they didn't move back. Now, there has been some removal of the foreign forces.

This was a war that was based on lies. It was wrong for us to invade Iraq. It's wrong for us to occupy Iraq and we need to bring our troops home.

Any Congressional agreement of an arbitrary time table to bring our troops home before we have accomplished our mission is unacceptable and could potentially increase the risk to our soldiers.

America’s war in Afghanistan will come to a responsible end.

I am convinced that no military victory is possible in this theater. [Vietnam]

I simply told people what I thought about the state of the war in Vietnam, and it was that we better get out of this.

The U.K. military role in Iraq ended a very long way from success.

The American surge of combat forces into Baghdad that was ordered by President Bush worked. And there was a calm, a relative calm that descended on the country kind of late 2008. That pretty much held until the last American combat soldiers left at the end of 2011.

There is the possibility that these troops will be used against us if we are victorious. There is also the possibility that in fact the South Africans are there at the invitation of Britain, because Britain is hesitating to remove them. Hence there is a need for us to combine forces and demand through all political platforms, through all media, the withdrawal of South African troops and action, definite action, by Britain to get those South African troops out.

We've had it very clear to the Bosnians that our obligation to equip and train their forces is completely conditional on the foreign forces being gone.