The U.S. presence and American missteps made ethnic violence in Iraq far worse than it would have been otherwise after Saddam Saddam Hussein's fall.
Initially, before the modern state of Iraq was created, there were three separate provinces here: a Shiite in the south, a largely Sunni one in the middle, and a Kurdish one in the north.
The administration has a disturbing pattern of behavior when it comes to budgeting not only for the ongoing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan but also for military requirements not directly related to these conflicts.
No one in this body wants to see terrorism and the rule of force prevail in Iraq. Some on the other side say otherwise, but I believe they know better.
I was 20 years old when, despite mass protests against military action, Iraq was invaded in 2003 - it didn't make for motivated political participation, I can tell you.
My goal in Baghdad was to facilitate a debate here in the United States on America's policy toward Iraq, a debate that's been sadly lacking.
My last passport, I had North Korea, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Sudan, Liberia, Guinea... I had, like, every war-torn country in there.
We have warned and continue to warn against calls for the division of Iraq, which come up now and then, calling for sectarian rights or minority freedoms.
What I see as the greatest threat to America is that the American people will put political pressure on their leaders to pull out of Iraq before we should.
Iraq is not the only nation in the world to possess weapons of mass destruction, but it is the only nation with a leader who has used them against his own people.
One of the enduring mysteries of America's occupation of Iraq is why a nation that so little relishes peacekeeping nonetheless refuses to turn the job over to the United Nations.
As we have heard, the end of al-Zarqawi is a significant blow to al-Qaida operations in Iraq. It is another clear indication of the progress we are making.
If the prime minister really believes it, he must be the only person left who thinks that the recent bombs in London had no connection at all with his policy in Iraq.
When we went to Iraq, we stayed in one of Saddam's palaces. It was kind of creepy. If those walls could talk, there's no telling what stories they'd tell.
Long-term, we must figure out a way that the Kurdish territory within Iraq operates with a certain amount of autonomy so that they feel comfortable and safe going back.
I wanted to make people think, to open their minds, to give them a full picture of what was happening in Iraq so they can decide whether they supported our presence there.
What people can survive and what they don't survive is shocking to me. Someone can go to Iraq and be blown to bits and survive. Someone can trip and fall on the street and they die - that's that.
We take our international responsibilities very seriously and will not withdraw our troops from Iraq... Otherwise, the victims of terror in Madrid will have died in vain.
It would be, in fact, very ominous if Iraq were to be able to get weapon-usable material, hydro-plutonium or highly enriched uranium from abroad.
Wisdom of the Ages: "Brian Williams Week" Just like me in 2003, it looks like Brian Williams ended up "Between Iraq and a Hard Place.
Both Iraq and Syria are a fissile mixture of ethnicities and religions thrown together after Versailles by departing French and British imperialists and only kept together by Baathist tyranny and violence.
