Quotes of the Morning: Wolfie

“North of Baghdad, two British helicopters crashed after an apparent mid-air collision, killing two service members, U.K. officials said.
And in the holy Shiite city of Karbala, health officials raised the toll from a bombing Saturday close to one of the sect's most sacred shrines, saying 47 people were killed and 224 wounded.
Twin car bombs exploded minutes apart in the busy market in the Shurta Rabia neighborhood, a mostly Shiite area of western Baghdad. The first blast went off midmorning in front of a kebab restaurant. Five minutes later, another car exploded nearby as rescuers were evacuating victims. Many women and children were among the casualties, police said.
Shortly after noon, a suicide bomber blew himself up on a minibus near a courthouse in the mainly Shiite northwest Baghdad neighborhood of al-Utafiyah, killing at least eight people and wounding 11, officials said.”
-Associated Press, April 15, 2007

“You know.. I’m tired of reading about our great victory in Iraq. By now everyone knows how wonderfully everything is going there, so there really isn’t any use in going over it all again. Let’s talk about the true champions: those brave men and Condi who pushed so hard for this war, making it the success that it is today. We can start off with that great American hero: Paul Wolfowitz.”
-Skippy

“Disarming Iraq of its chemical and biological weapons and dismantling its nuclear weapons program is a crucial part of winning the War on Terror.”
-Paul Wolfowitz, January 23, 2003

“There are other differences that suggest that peacekeeping requirements in Iraq might be much lower than our historical experience in the Balkans suggest. There has been none of the record in Iraq of ethnic militias fighting one another that produced so much bloodshed and permanent scars in Bosnia.”
-Paul Wolfowitz, February 27, 2003

“Wolfowitz has been all over the Iraq situation since day one. He saw the problem with Saddam and his insane quest for weapons of mass destruction and saw that there was a simple solution. Take out Saddam and everything will work itself out.”
-Skippy

"There's definitely a rule in the Convention against humiliating prisoners and I'd have to see exactly the interview to see whether that in itself violated the Convention, but the Convention is very clear that prisoners have got to be treated properly. We are treating the Iraqi prisoners extremely well. In fact I think they get good food and shelter and they're free from the horrible commanders they used to work for. I think most of them are much happier, frankly."
-Paul Wolfowitz, March 23,2003

‘See? Heck, Iraqis will probably be fighting it out to get into American-run prisons like Abu Ghraib. So much nicer than what they used to deal with.”
-Skippy

"There's a lot of money to pay for this. It doesn't have to be U.S. taxpayer money. We are dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon."
-Paul Wolfowitz, March 27, 2003

“Yep, and it will all be free! Whoo hoo.. In a way I guess that we are just lucky that Saddam was after those weapons of mass destruction. Without them we never would have been able to justify our invasion on Iraq and we wouldn’t have our current successes.”
-Skippy

“For bureaucratic reasons, we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction [as justification for invading Iraq] because it was the one reason everyone could agree on.”
-Paul Wolfowitz in Vanity Fair interview, May 28, 2003

“I'm not concerned about weapons of mass destruction.”
-Paul Wolfowitz, July 21, 2003

“Um, I guess we just used WMDs as a foot in the door to invasion. I guess Wolfie is just saying that we needed a theme to work behind politically. That’s fine.. Screwing around with the American public about wars is what politicians do. It isn’t like they would get involved in actually screwing up the way the war works.”
-Skippy

“Rumsfeld and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz criticized the Army's chief of staff, Gen. Eric Shinseki, after Shinseki told Congress in February that the occupation could require ‘several hundred thousand troops.’ Wolfowitz called Shinseki's estimate ‘wildly off the mark.’
Rumsfeld was furious with White when the Army secretary agreed with Shinseki.”
-USA Today, June 2, 2003

“The number two Pentagon official said reducing American casualties in Iraq was more important than bringing US troops back home -- and pointed to the rising Iraqi death toll as evidence this strategy was working.
‘I'm more concerned about bringing down our casualties than bringing down our numbers,’ Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said in an interview with PBS television's ‘The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer’ program. ‘And it is worth saying that since June 1, there have been more Iraqi police and military killed in action than Americans.’
Wolfowitz said he was encouraged by the fact that Iraqis continued to volunteer to join the country's fledgling security forces, despite their losses at the hands of Islamist insurgents.
The number of Iraqi troops and police officers being trained by the US military has now reached 120,000, according to the deputy defense secretary.
But he acknowledged ‘there are problems in the quality’ of the Iraqi recruits, who he said have a tendency to disappear from their units without permission.”
-AFP, January 20, 2005

“See? Success! Lots of Iraqis had died a few years ago, clearly proving that our victory in Iraq is inevitable.”
-Skippy

“An Army general who has been criticized for his role in the treatment of prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay detention center and Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq has contradicted his sworn congressional testimony about contacts with senior Pentagon officials.
Gen. Geoffrey Miller told the Senate Armed Services Committee in May 2004 that he had only filed a report on a recent visit to Abu Ghraib, and did not talk to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld or his top aides about the fact-finding trip.
But in a recorded statement to attorneys three months later, Miller said he gave two of Rumfeld's most senior aides-- then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Undersecretary for Intelligence Steve Cambone--a briefing on his visit and his subsequent recommendations.”
-Chicago Tribune, July 15, 2005

“Wolfie was probably just making sure that the prisoners were having their pillows fluffed properly. Enough of old history though. Wolfie left his old job years ago to go work for the World Bank, and, as you can imagine, success is following in his footsteps.”
-Skippy

“World Bank President Paul D. Wolfowitz publicly apologized yesterday for the ‘mistake’ of personally orchestrating a high-paying job and guaranteed promotions for a bank employee with whom he is romantically involved, as new details of his role in the arrangement emerged and staff members angrily demanded his resignation.

Wolfowitz attempted to address about 200 staffers gathered in the bank's central atrium but left after some began hissing, booing, and chanting ‘Resign. . . . Resign.’ He had approached the gathering after holding a news conference in which he said, ‘I made a mistake for which I am sorry.’

Bank insiders confirmed reports from the bank's staff association that Wolfowitz directed personnel officials to give Shaha Riza, his longtime companion, an automatic ‘outstanding’ rating and the highest possible pay raises during an indefinite posting at the State Department, as well as a promotion upon her return to the bank.”
-Washington Post, April 13, 2007

“His staff in open revolt, World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz apologized Thursday for his role in landing his romantic partner a job at the U.S. State Department that gave her more than $60,000 a year in raises and a total salary greater than that of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.”
-LA Times, April 13, 2007

“See? He’s happy and his girlfriend has a nice, high-paying job. It doesn’t get any better than this.”
-Skippy