Paul Bremer Quotations

I think there really is no shortcut to sovereignty.

I think we Americans, of all people, understand the importance of a good, legal, constitutional framework as the basis of political life.

These people hate the United States, not for what we do, but for who we are and what we are.

I think the Iraqi people have shown extraordinary patience and courage in the last few months. They have really put a political system on the way to success, to a real democracy here.

I leave Iraq gladdened by what has been accomplished and confident your future is full of hope.

I think what we've learned is that the terrorist threat is serious, but it shifts. You cannot make a single person the sole focus of your counterterrorism.

If you look back today over the last 25 years, it is a fact that we have had a progressive degeneration of our intelligence community in general; in particular in the field of human intelligence.

Saddam spent 35 years stealing and wasting money, and all of these systems are very fragile and brittle, and you try to fix one thing and something else gets in trouble.

Iraq is a better place, absolutely worth it.

We've thrown out Saddam and Saddam, dead or alive, is finished in Iraq.

I hope they're going to learn, and as a result of our response, that it isn't going to work. They're not going to change our life, they're not going to have us throw out our Constitution, and they're not going to chase us out of the Middle East.

Iraq has become, for better or for worse, the front on the war on terrorism, and so we've got to do this, and I can understand why congressmen and senators would take their responsibility seriously, but I think in the end we'll get the money.

It is certainly not unrealistic to think we could have elections by mid-year 2004 and when a sovereign government is installed -- my job here will be done.

We try very quickly to show that we are not at war with the Iraqi people. We're trying to deal with the people who are indeed themselves at war with the Iraqi people.

When the new wave of terrorism came on the modern world, which is the late 1960s, early 1970s, I think we spent about a decade, the United States and our allies, trying to figure out how to deal with it.

While it's very hard to know exactly how to measure public opinion there, because there's no really good polling, the fact of the matter is that in all the polls I've seen the vast majority of the Iraqis prefer to be free and are pleased that the coalition freed them.

The fact of the matter is that we are facing a small group of bitter-enders who are basically trying turn the tide of history.

send in people who are effectively guerrillas and have them get in the country and try to set up social services and decide that these social services are their ticket to popularity.

My sense is there's a lot of momentum behind this desire for democracy here, ... We've had town hall meetings, selection of provincial councils ... all over this country. There's a real thirst for democracy.

The people who are attacking the coalition and who are trying to upset the security here are of course in the first instance attacking us. But in the end, they're really attacking the Iraqis, because they're really trying to undermine security, ... Security is the first and most important role of any government to its citizens.

He is virulently anti-Western and is particularly anti-American, ... and he has the resources to fund considerable anti-American or anti-Western activity. So he is a concern, because he's got a clear motive and he's got the means to carry out -- or to pay people to carry out -- attacks.

We need experienced Iraqi commanders who can lead troops. Listen, I've always told you that I opposed disbanding the army.

the question is how do we select a transitional government by the end of June.

There are 40,000 Iraqi police on duty around the country. If they detect an attack about to happen, the police are the ones who are supposed to stop it.

We have to do everything we can to defeat

We saw this coming, in a general sense; certainly not the actual way it was done.

the tragic waste and abuse of billions of dollars that belonged to the Iraqi people.

The FBI is after these guys because they know something or they are trying to scare them.

If the provisional government asks us to leave, we will leave,

[Insurgents] pose no strategic threat to the United States or to the Coalition Forces.

You know, the country is basically peaceful.

We dominate the scene and we will continue to impose our will on this country.

As long as we're here, we are the occupying power. It's a very ugly word, but it's true.

We're going to be on the ground in Iraq as soldiers and citizens for years. We're going to be running a colony almost,

The new administration seems to be paying no attention to the problem of terrorism. What they will do is stagger along until there's a major incident and then suddenly say, `Oh, my God, shouldn't we be organized to deal with this?'

There are 40,000 Iraqi police on duty around the country. If they detect an attack about to happen, the police are the ones who are supposed to stop it.

The loss of innocent life is a tragedy for anyone involved in it, but the numbers are really very low.

And hold it should. In the November 15th agreement, the Governing Council and coalition promised the Iraqi people sovereignty on a date certain and we will give it to them.

The general referendum will be successful and the draft constitution ratified if a majority of the voters in Iraq approve and if two-thirds of the voters in three or more governorates do not reject it.