Quotes of the Morning: Uniting Iraq

“On the facts, reduced violence in Baghdad and incredibly reduced violence in Anbar province to the west, which Al Qaeda in Iraq was in control of a few months ago. The surge is working. You might say that in Iraq, we have the enemy on the run. But for some reason in Washington, a lot of politicians are on the run to order a retreat by our troops even as they are beginning to succeed.”
-Sen. Joseph Lieberman, July 1, 2007

“Feel the Joementum! Things in Iraq are great! Wonderful! Stupendous!”
-Skippy

“Three months after the start of the Baghdad security plan that has added thousands of American and Iraqi troops to the capital, they control fewer than one-third of the city’s neighborhoods, far short of the initial goal for the operation, according to some commanders and an internal military assessment.”
-New York Times, June 3, 2007

“Hey, that was almost a month ago. No fair. Since then things have been looking up.”
-Skippy

“The US military says their forces have found around 40 bodies, bound and shot, in a fresh mass grave south of Fallujah.
It also reported 26 militants killed in heavy fighting in Baghdad.
A local Iraqi citizen's tip led coalition forces to the site of a mass grave late Friday evening (local time) outside Ferris, approximately 35 kilometres south of Fallujah, in western Anbar province.
Coalition forces uncovered 35 to 40 bodies at the site.
‘There were gunshots to the head and torso. Some of them had been bound, they were executed. It was recent,’ Major Jeff Pool said, adding that an investigation had been launched to identify the victims and their killers. “
-AFP July, 1, 2007

“Those corpses were NOT found in a mass grave. They couldn’t be. Not a chance. Why? Because there are no more mass graves in Iraq. Fearless Leader says so.”
-Skippy

“A year ago, I did give the speech from the carrier, saying that we had achieved an important objective, that we'd accomplished a mission, which was the removal of Saddam Hussein. And as a result, there are no longer torture chambers or rape rooms or mass graves in Iraq."
-George ‘Dubya’ Bush, April 30, 2004

“I don’t think of it as a ‘mass grave’. I think of it as a ‘designated corpse internment zone’. The whole ‘ethnic cleansing with, um, designated corpse internment zone’ kind of thing does bring back memories of an earlier world conflict. I wonder if anyone else sees it?”
-Skippy

“I had an Arab diplomat say to me two weeks ago that what is happening in the Middle East today reminds him of what happened in Europe during the 1930s, when Nazi Germany began to make moves and the rest of Europe and the United States did not act quick enough to stop the Second World War. He was talking about Iran. Iran is on the move in Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine and Afghanistan. And if we pull out of Iraq, Iran and Al Qaida are the victors. So my answer is, as long as we have a reasonable chance of success in Iraq, then I’m going to say it’s worth it for us to stay.
Because if Iran and Al Qaida take over Iraq, they will destabilize the entire Middle East, and they will strike at us here at home…”
-Sen. Joseph Lieberman, July 1, 2007

“Good ol’ Joe. He knows how to talk about the Nazis. The first, and most important, thing is that HE isn’t talking about them. No, an Arab diplomat was. And it was a good point. You see, if we leave Iraq then Iran (a conservative Shiite state) and al Qaida (an ultra-conservative Sunni organization) will take over and go after us.
Yep, apparently if we leave the two sides currently killing each other in Iraq will give up their religious conflicts and will unite to kill us.”
-Skippy

“I’m a uniter, not a divider.”
-George ‘Dubya’ Bush