Quotes of the Morning: Bring em On

"There are some who, uh, feel like that, you know, the conditions are such that they can attack us there. My answer is: Bring 'em on. We got the force necessary to deal with the security situation. “
-George ‘Dubya’ Bush, July 2, 2003.

“Sometimes you say things that you wish that you could take back. You actually tell someone that that dress DOES make them look fat, or that they must be happy to be pregnant when it turns out that they’re just putting on weight. Believe me when I tell you that nothing that you can say or do will be as regretted as the previous Quote.”
-Skippy

“As Pentagon generals offered optimistic assessments that the sectarian violence in Iraq had dissipated this weekend, other military experts told ABC News that Sunni and Shiite groups in Iraq already are engaged in a civil war, and that the Iraqi government and U.S. military had better accept that fact and adapt accordingly.
‘We're in a civil war now; it's just that not everybody's joined in,’ said retired Army Maj. Gen. William L. Nash, a former military commander in Bosnia-Herzegovina. ‘The failure to understand that the civil war is already taking place, just not necessarily at the maximum level, means that our counter measures are inadequate and therefore dangerous to our long-term interest.
‘It's our failure to understand reality that has caused us to be late throughout this experience of the last three years in Iraq,’ added Nash, who is an ABC News consultant.
Anthony Cordesman, the Arleigh A. Burke chair in strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told ABC News, ‘If you talk to U.S. intelligence officers and military people privately, they'd say we've been involved in low level civil war with very slowly increasing intensity since the transfer of power in June 2004.’"
-ABC News, March 5, 2006

“The top commander of the Iraqi army division in Baghdad was killed Monday when his car came under small-arms fire while traveling through the capital, the U.S. military said.
Maj. Gen. Mubdar Hatim Hazya al-Dulaimi was one of the highest-ranking members of the new Iraqi army to be killed in insurgent violence. Under his leadership, the 6th Iraqi Army Division has been gradually assuming control of parts of the capital from U.S. forces.
His killing could set back security efforts in Baghdad, particularly following the recent outbreak of sectarian violence, according to a senior U.S. commander who worked closely with him.
[…]
Elsewhere in the capital on Monday, at least four car bombs exploded, killing four people and injuring 24, police said. Another four people were killed and 10 wounded when three car bombs detonated in the town of Mahmudiyah, about 15 miles south of the capital, security officials said.
In the worst attack of the day, seven people, including five children, were killed and 17 were injured when a car bomb exploded in a crowded market in central Baqubah, about 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, police said.”
-Washington Post, March 7, 2006

“So Iraq, despite all of Dubya’s assurances, doesn’t seem to be going well. Oh well, maybe we’ll get it right in the next war. We’re already getting the stage set ready for the new production.”
-Skippy

“U.S. military and intelligence officials tell ABC News that they have caught shipments of deadly new bombs at the Iran-Iraq border.
They are a very nasty piece of business, capable of penetrating U.S. troops' strongest armor.
What the United States says links them to Iran are tell-tale manufacturing signatures — certain types of machine-shop welds and material indicating they are built by the same bomb factory.
‘The signature is the same because they are exactly the same in production,’ says explosives expert Kevin Barry. ‘So it's the same make and model.’
U.S. officials say roadside bomb attacks against American forces in Iraq have become much more deadly as more and more of the Iran-designed and Iran-produced bombs have been smuggled in from the country since last October.”
-ABC March 6, 2006

“I honestly don’t know whether to believe these stories or not anymore. Especially when these stories have been floated before and disproved.”
-Skippy

“Eight British soldiers killed during ambushes in Iraq were the victims of a highly sophisticated bomb first used by the IRA, The Independent on Sunday can reveal.
The soldiers, who were targeted by insurgents as they travelled through the country, died after being attacked with bombs triggered by infra-red beams. The bombs were developed by the IRA using technology passed on by the security services in a botched "sting" operation more than a decade ago.
This contradicts the British government's claims that Iran's Revolutionary Guard is helping Shia insurgents to make the devices.
The Independent on Sunday can also reveal that the bombs and the firing devices used to kill the soldiers, as well as two private security guards, were initially created by the UK security services as part of a counter-terrorism strategy at the height of the troubles in the early 1990s.”
-The Independent (UK), October 16, 2005

“Blaming it on Iran sounds like exactly the kind of thing that we were saying about Saddam in the run-up to our current war, and those all turned out to be lies, and it is fairly obvious that the Administration is trying to gear us up for another war. One thing I do know.. Our army is already over-extended and Iran has 2.6 times the population of Iraq. Have fun.”
-Skippy