Quotes of the Morning

“[Interior Minister] Al-Naqib said Jan. 29, 30 and 31 would be a public holiday during which the nighttime curfew will be in place. People will be barred from carrying weapons during that period, al-Naqib said.
The country's borders will also be sealed for those three days, except for pilgrims returning from the Hajj in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, al-Naqib said.
During that period the movement of cars will also be restricted, with the exception of emergency vehicles. And cars will be prevented from moving between Iraq's 18 provinces, the minister said.”
-MSNBC, January 22, 2005

“It’s a holiday! Whee! Start the curfew! Close the borders! Restrict travel! Wow, just like here, ‘freedom’ takes many forms.”
-Skippy

“From where I sit in Iraq, things are not all bad right now. In fact, they are going quite well . . . In the distance, I can hear the repeated impacts of heavy artillery and five-hundred-pound bombs hitting their targets. The occasional tank main gun report and the staccato rhythm of a Marine Corps LAV or Army Bradley Fighting Vehicle's 25-millimeter cannon provide the bass line for a symphony of destruction.”
-Lt. Col. Tim Ryan, January 18, 2005

“You smell that? Do you smell that? That's napalm, son. Nothing else in the world smells like that. I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed for twelve hours. When it was all over I walked up. We didn't find one of 'em, not one stinkin' dink body. The smell — you know that gasoline smell — the whole hill. It smelled like . . . victory.”
-Lt. Col. Bill Kilgore, Apocalypse Now

“The previously undisclosed organization, called the Strategic Support Branch, arose from Rumsfeld's written order to end his ‘near total dependence on CIA’ for what is known as human intelligence. Designed to operate without detection and under the defense secretary's direct control, the Strategic Support Branch deploys small teams of case officers, linguists, interrogators and technical specialists alongside newly empowered special operations forces.”
-Washington Post, January 22, 2005

“Lt. Gen. William G. Boykin, deputy undersecretary for intelligence, acknowledged that Rumsfeld intends to direct some missions previously undertaken by the CIA. He added that it is wrong to make ‘an assumption that what the secretary is trying to say is, 'Get the CIA out of this business, and we'll take it.' I don't interpret it that way at all.’
‘The secretary actually has more responsibility to collect intelligence for the national foreign intelligence program . . . than does the CIA director,’ Boykin said. ‘That's why you hear all this information being published about the secretary having 80 percent of the [intelligence] budget. Well, yeah, but he has 80 percent of the responsibility for collection, as well.’"
-Washington Post, January 22, 2005

“Well, is he [bin Laden] the enemy? Next slide. Or is this man [Saddam] the enemy? The enemy is none of these people I have showed you here. The enemy is a spiritual enemy. He’s called the principality of darkness. The enemy is a guy called Satan.”
-General William Boykin, June 2003

“Well, you know what I knew that my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God, and his was an idol. But I prayed, Lord let us get that man. Three days later we went after him again, and this time we got him. Not a mark on him. We got him. We brought him back into our base there and we had a Sea Land container set up to hold prisoners in, and I said put him in there. They put him in there, there was one guard with him. I said search him, they searched him, and then I walked in with no one in there but the guard, and I looked at him and said, ‘Are you Osman Atto?’ And he said ‘Yes.’ And I said, ‘Mr. Atto, you underestimated our God.’”
-General William Boykin, 2003

“And we ask ourselves this question, ‘Why do they hate us? Why do they hate us so much?’ Ladies and gentlemen, the answer to that is because we’re a Christian nation, because our foundation and our roots are Judeo-Christian. Did I say Judeo-Christian? Yes. Judeo-Christian.”
-General William Boykin, 2003

“Somewhere at the bottom of this you'll find Cambone and his deputy, [General William] Boykin. I think Cambone and Boykin are reflective of the whole neoconservative philosophy that these prisoners are undeserving of treatment as prisoners of war.”
-A ‘Former Military Intelligence Official’, L.A. Times, May 11, 2004

“Most international terrorism suspects in U.S. custody are held not by the CIA but by the Defense Department at the Guantanamo Bay prison. They are guaranteed access to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and, as a result of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling this year, have the right to challenge their imprisonment in federal courts.
CIA detainees, by contrast, are held under separate rules and far greater secrecy. Under a presidential directive and authorities approved by administration lawyers, the CIA is allowed to capture and hold certain classes of suspects without accounting for them in any public way and without revealing the rules for their treatment. The roster of CIA prisoners is not public, but current and former U.S. intelligence officials say the agency holds the most valuable al Qaeda leaders and many mid-level members with knowledge of the group's logistics, financing and regional operations.
The CIA facility at the Guantanamo Bay prison was constructed over the past year as the agency confronted one of its toughest emerging problems: where to hold terrorists for interrogations that could last for years.”
-Washington Post, December 17, 2004

"Why is this man in the White House? The majority of Americans did not vote for him. Why is he there? And I tell you this morning that he’s in the White House because God put him there for a time such as this.”
-General William Boykin, 2003

“These are the people we have looking for intelligence. And I think that we all can agree that no one needs to find it more.”
-Skippy