| Individuals quoted herein issued remarks in a variety of ways–speeches, impromptu statements, testimony, briefings, press interviews, and so forth. Where possible, we cite the original venue and the date. Otherwise, we provide a prominent media source of the quotation. Date of media publication does not necessarily indicate the date of the actual utterance. |
News Media Abbreviations Used |
|
| Christian Science Monitor | CSM |
| Inside the Air Force | ITAF |
| International Herald Tribune | IHT |
| Los Angeles Times | LAT |
| New York Times | NYT |
| Wall Street Journal | WSJ |
| Washington Post | WP |
| Washington Times | WT |
| USA Today | USAT |
“A coalition partner must do more than just express sympathy; a coalition partner must perform. … [A]ll nations, if they want to fight terror, must do something. It is time for action.”-President Bush, remarks to press, 11-6-01.
“Over time, it’s going to be important for nations to know they will be held accountable for inactivity. You are either with us or you are against us in the fight against terror.”-Bush, remarks to press, 11-6-01.
“Our first phase right now is in Afghanistan, but there are no plans at the moment to undertake any other military action.”-Secretary of State Colin Powell, IHT, 11-7-01.
“In the first Crusade, when the Christian soldiers took Jerusalem, they first burned a synagogue with 300 Jews in it and proceeded to kill every woman and child who was Muslim on the Temple Mount. … I can tell you that that story is still being told today in the Middle East, and we are still paying for it. Here in the United States, we were founded as a nation that practiced slavery, and slaves were quite frequently killed, even though they were innocent. This country once looked the other way when significant numbers of Native Americans were dispossessed and killed to get their land or their mineral rights or because they were thought of as less than fully human. And we are still paying the price today.”-Former President Bill Clinton in a speech at Georgetown University, WT, 11-7-01.
“We’ll find him [Osama bin Laden]. … On the other hand, he could show up today, dead, and I’d be delighted.”-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, on PBS’s “The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer,” 11-7-01.
“These people couldn’t care less about international law. I mean, they killed 5,000 people in the United States without batting an eye. If they had had Weapons of Mass Destruction, they would have killed hundreds of thousands.”-Rumsfeld, “The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer,” 11-7-01.
“There is a lot we do not know. We were forbidden to speak about our activities among each other, even off duty. But over the years you see and hear things. These Islamic radicals were a scruffy lot. They needed a lot of training, especially physical training. But from speaking with them it was clear they came from a variety of countries, including Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Algeria, Egypt, and Morocco. We were training these people to attack installations important to the United States. The Gulf War never ended for Saddam Hussein. He is at war with the United States. We were repeatedly told this.”-Unnamed former Iraqi lieutenant general who defected, NYT, 11-8-01.
“The Pentagon is relearning a timeless lesson about the utility of land power. In the end, if you can’t control territory, then you can’t determine how adversaries are going to use it. Airpower can only do so much. The Army is finding its future and will take a central role in dealing with the threat of global terror.”-Loren Thompson, Lexington Institute analyst, NYT, 11-8-01.
“Pakistan has one of the strongest and best-disciplined armies in the world, which would follow only its leader. Just as there is no possibility of another coup in Turkey, there is none in Pakistan, either.”-Pervez Musharraf, president of Pakistan, during a stopover in Turkey, NYT, 11-8-01.
“This is a struggle that’s going to take a while. … It’s not one of these Kodak moments. There is no ‘moment’ to this.”-Bush, remarks to the press, 11-8-01.
“If bin Laden or his supporters indeed obtained a genuine suitcase-sized Russian nuclear weapon (and not some fake traded on the black market), it is virtually impossible that they would be able to make it explode. Outsiders cannot directly use modern Russian and American nuclear weapons because they have security codes that fully deactivate them when there is an attempt at unauthorized penetration or activation. It is also not easy to use the core nuclear materials of a sophisticated nuke to make a clandestine bomb. If there is any serious threat that bin Laden may get a usable nuke, its origin would likely be Pakistan, not Russia.”-Russian military analyst Pavel Felgenhauer, WSJ, 11-8-01.
“Tommy Franks is no Norman Schwarzkopf.”-Army Gen. Tommy R. Franks in response to reporters who said he was being criticized for not being as accessible as the commander in chief was in the Gulf War, DOD briefing, 11-8-01.
“It is only those who believe that all of this should be done in two weeks’ time … who are disappointed by this. The campaign plan which we have initiated … is precisely the plan that we intended to begin to initiate, and I’m well satisfied with it.”-Franks, DOD briefing, 11-8-01.
“I do not subscribe to-and I even resent-the theory that America’s arrogance, even indirectly, led to the attacks.”-Chelsea Clinton, remarks in Talk magazine, as quoted in WP, 11-9-01.
“We need to win this war. We need to destroy the Taliban regime, and we need to do it sooner rather than later. If the only way it can be done is by ground troops, then I would very much favor it. We cannot protect the American public by losing the first engagement.”-Richard Perle, chairman of Defense Policy Board, USAT, 11-9-01.
“The United Nations is nothing but a tool of crime. … [In Bosnia] our brothers have been killed, our women have been raped, and our children have been massacred in the safe havens of the United Nations and with its knowledge and cooperation.”-bin Laden, videotaped message broadcast on al Jazeera television, NYT, 11-9-01.
“This [bin Laden’s statement] is an important speech. It tells you that you cannot bargain with someone like this, you cannot reconcile. This reinforces my belief that we are doing the right thing in bombing him because if we don’t want this to be a war of civilizations, we have really got to get rid of a person who is intent on making it that way.”-National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, NYT, 11-9-01.
“There are no plans to meet with Mr. Arafat in New York. There are responsibilities that come with being the representative of the Palestinian people, and that means to make certain that you do everything that you can to lower the level of violence, everything that you can to root out terrorists, to arrest them. We still don’t think that there has been enough in this regard. You cannot help us with al Qaeda and hug Hezbollah. That’s not acceptable. Or Hamas. And so the President continues to make that clear to Mr. Arafat.”-Rice, WT, 11-9-01.
“I think some ground forces are going to be necessary. No doubt about it.”-Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), LAT, 11-9-01.
“We must [deal with Iraq] because Saddam has a special hatred for America and the capacity to do something terrible about it.”-Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.), writing in WSJ, quoted in LAT, 11-9-01.
“I think we should have a very simple, straightforward discussion with the Saudis, and they should understand that they have a hell of a lot more to lose in the breakup of the [US-Saudi] relationship than we do.”-Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.), LAT, 11-9-01.
“Airpower has done its business, but it is only Stage 1. Airpower alone will never do the job. The US thought it would in Kosovo, and it didn’t. And it will not in Afghanistan. Ground forces are needed now as much as ever.”-Andrew Brookes, “airpower specialist” with the International Institute for Strategic Studies, CSM, 11-9-01.
“If the US is serious about destroying the Taliban, a bloody war with numerous US and allied forces on the ground in Afghanistan is a must.”-Strategic Forecasting (Stratfor), an analysis group on the Internet, CSM, 11-9-01.
“The campaign cannot be described as fully satisfactory. It appears the Taliban are well-entrenched, so ground forces will have to be engaged.”-Atal Bihari Vajpayee, prime minister of India, WP, 11-9-01.
“Pakistan is fully alive to the responsibilities of its nuclear status. … Let me assure you all that our strategic assets are well-guarded and in very safe hands.”-Musharraf, address to UN General Assembly, 11-10-01.
“I don’t believe that [bin Laden’s] message really resonates strongly in the Muslim world. Public opinion in the Muslim world in general wants peace, security and stability, and the right to defend their religion and their freedom. … The horrific terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, in the United States were perpetrated by cult of fanatics who had self-mutilated their ears and tongues and could only communicate with perceived opponents through carnage and devastation.”-Iranian President Mohammed Khatami, as quoted in NYT, 11-10-01.
“We have no credible evidence that he [bin Laden] has [nuclear weapons] at this point in time, but we’re not going to take any chances. … Our entire strategy is to go after al Qaeda, to go after the Taliban, because these are very, very bad people and if they acquire anything, we have no doubt that they would try to use it.”-Rice, on CNN’s “Late Edition,” 11-11-01.
“We have a great deal of intelligence that says over a period of years the al Qaeda organization has been actively trying to acquire chemical, biological, and radiation and/or nuclear weapons. I think it’s unlikely he has a nuclear weapon. It is certainly reasonable to assume he might very well have chemical or biological and possibly even radiation weapons. The biological are probably the easiest because they can be developed in very small rooms, laboratories, mobile trailers, and the like. Second, the terrorist networks of the world have been working with terrorist states. And if you look at the terrorist states that are on the list, a great many of them have biological and chemical weapons and several of them have been actively seeking nuclear and/or radiation capabilities.”-Rumsfeld, CBS’s “Face the Nation,” 11-11-01.
“It doesn’t take a real wild guess to assume that they either have chemical or biological [weapons], or that they may have or will have at some point in the future. I think it’s unlikely that they have a nuclear weapon, but on the other hand, with the determination they have, they may very well.”-Rumsfeld, “Face the Nation,” 11-11-01.
“This [directing the war effort] is not clockwork. This is rough, dirty stuff.”-Rumsfeld, “Face the Nation,” 11-11-01.
“I would say that for myself, I think it is important that al Qaeda and Taliban be taken out of Kabul and every inch of that country.”-Rumsfeld, “Fox News Sunday,” 11-11-01.
“I am very safe. I think these are overblown impressions [on rumors of death threats by thousands of Islamic militants]. These are by a very small minority, but a fanatic, extremist minority. So what we are seeing is not really the magnitude of the number of people. The number of people doesn’t bother me at all. But it is an individual, even, who can undertake an act of extremism, and that is what one has to guard against. I’m not at all worried by the magnitude, and that’s why I’m here. And there’s no doubt in my mind that the army cannot be sabotaged at all, and the vast majority of Pakistanis are with me. I am very confident.”-Musharraf, NBC’s “Meet the Press,” 11-11-01.
“I don’t believe him [bin Laden, when he claims to have nuclear arms]. I can’t even imagine that he can have nuclear weapons. Chemical is a possibility, because it’s easy to fabricate and easy to possess, but I cannot even imagine that he could be possessing nuclear weapons.”-Musharraf, “Meet the Press,” 11-11-01.
“Mazar-e Sharif falling, it has certainly-it has very big military and political implications, so I would say now it [the war in Afghanistan] has turned the corner.”-Musharraf, “Meet the Press,” 11-11-01.
“We’ve been disappointed by General Pervez Musharraf. He says that the majority is with him. I say the majority is against him. … He will be punished by the Pakistani people and Allah.”-bin Laden in an interview with Dawn newspaper, as quoted on “Meet the Press,” 11-11-01.
“If the Taliban want to take their relatives, we do not object. … It is Islamic law to give the bodies to their relatives. They are free to come to collect the bodies.”-Abdurrashid Dostum, Afghan warlord, WP, 11-12-01.
“Pakistan is a moderate religious country … and the army is part of Pakistan. The army is religious, certainly. What I am against is religious extremism, fanaticism, or fundamentalism. The army does not have that kind of extremism because Pakistan is not a religious extremist society.”-Musharraf, WP, 11-12-01.
“To protect the United States and its citizens, and for the effective conduct of military operations and prevention of terrorist attacks, it is necessary for individuals subject to this order … to be detained and, when tried, to be tried for violations of the laws of war and other applicable laws by military tribunals. … Having fully considered the magnitude of the potential deaths, injuries, and property destruction that would result from potential acts of terrorism against the United States, and the probability that such acts will occur, I have determined that an extraordinary emergency exists for national defense purposes, that this emergency constitutes an urgent and compelling government interest, and that issuance of this order is necessary to meet the emergency.”-Bush, written order, 11-13-01.
“The Air Force is a sortie-producing machine to a much greater extent than the Navy. We’re the guys who set the international metric for how to do this sort of thing.”-Gen. Merrill McPeak, USAF (Ret.), former USAF Chief of Staff, WP, 11-13-01.
“There is a general deterioration of the Taliban military position. Once you start something like this, it tends to start rolling, and they can’t stop it.”-Powell, interview, NYT, 11-13-01.
“We’ve got a First World air force connected to a Fourth World army-B-1 bombers and guys on horses, and what we have done in the last five weeks is sort of connect those two.”-Powell, NYT, 11-13-01.
“The President will never, never step away from the goal of finding bin Laden and ripping up al Qaeda in Afghanistan and all the other places where it is located.”-Powell, NYT, 11-13-01.
“If avenging the killing of our people is terrorism, then history should be a witness that we are terrorists. Yes, we kill their innocents, and this is legal religiously and logically. … We will not stop killing them and whoever supports them.”-bin Laden, from a videotape, WP, 11-13-01.
“First priority is unquestionably tracking down the leadership in al Qaeda and Taliban. I would say the second priority is destroying the Taliban and al Qaeda’s military capability, which is what props up that leadership, and tracking it down, finding it, and destroying it. Third … to create a presence that is professional and will be stabilizing in those cities. And fourth … begin the kinds of humanitarian assistance that these people are clearly going to need.”-Rumsfeld, DOD briefing, 11-13-01.
“Any person [Taliban fighter] who goes hither and thither is like a slaughtered chicken that falls and dies. You should regroup yourselves, resist, and fight. … This fight is for Islam.”-Mullah Mohammad Omar, admonishing his troops, WP, 11-14-01.
“This [the Taliban retreat] was all planned. History shows that it is easy to capture Kabul but very difficult to rule it. Mark my words: The Taliban will be back.”-Munawaar Hasan, secretary general of the Jamaat-e-Islami, pro-Taliban religious party in Pakistan, USAT, 11-14-01.
“This is not a rout, it is a withdrawal in reasonably good order. They don’t want to hang on to any territory because if they do they will be destroyed from the air.”-Charles Heyman, editor of Jane’s World Armies, London’s Daily Telegraph, 11-14-01.
“With the Northern Alliance takeover of Kabul, our worst nightmare has come true. At least for the time being, the United States military power has handed Afghanistan to Pakistan’s worst enemies in that country.”-Unnamed senior Pakistan military official, WP, 11-14-01.
“This is not a war being won with American blood and guts. It is being won with the blood and guts of the Northern Alliance, helped by copious quantities of American ordnance and a handful of American advisors. After Sept. 11, President Bush promised that this would not be another bloodless, push-button war, but that is precisely what it has been.”-Max Boot, editorial features editor of the Wall Street Journal, WSJ, 11-14-01.
” I guess there are a couple of lessons in that for folks-the handwringers who, a week or two ago, were saying, ‘It is not going to work. You are not doing enough. You have been at it now for three or four weeks, and my gosh, the war’s not over yet.’ … If anybody has any questions about whether or not we’re determined to carry through on that threat, all they have to do is go visit Afghanistan today and interview members of the Taliban-if they can find any.”-Vice President Dick Cheney, remarks to the US Chamber of Commerce, 11-14-01.
“Foreign terrorists who commit war crimes against the United States, in my judgment, are not entitled to and do not deserve the protections of the American Constitution, particularly when there could be very serious and important reasons related to not bringing them back to the United States for justice. … I think it’s important to understand that we are at war now.”-Attorney General John Ashcroft at news conference, 11-14-01.
“You might catch some senior al Qaeda leaders. You might catch some senior Taliban leaders. If they are the kind you want to shoot, you shoot them.”-Rumsfeld, remarks during visit to the World Trade Center site, NYT, 11-15-01.
“I myself saw how one of them raised his hands to surrender. When one of my soldiers came up to him to take him prisoner, he set off a bomb and blew himself to pieces. My man was wounded. After that, we became reluctant to take prisoners.”-Gol Aidar, a Northern Alliance division commander, WSJ, 11-15-01.
“Bush and Blair … don’t understand any language but the language of force. Every time they kill us, we will kill them, so the balance of terror can be achieved.”-bin Laden, from Oct. 20 videotape, WP, 11-15-01.
“The battle has been moved inside America, and we shall continue until we win this battle or die in the cause and meet our maker.”-bin Laden, from Oct. 20 videotape, WP, 11-15-01.
“We have tried to bend over backwards to give bipartisan support, because most of us have been here for some period of time, and we know that kind of unity gives credibility to what we’re doing and also makes a very concerned American population less concerned. They’ve got to realize that simply going it alone like this isn’t making people feel more secure, it’s making them feel more concerned.”-Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) on President Bush’s order for military tribunals, NYT, 11-15-01.
“[Afghanistan is] a large country with a lot of borders, and one has to be realistic. I think we’ll find him either there or in some other country.”-Rumsfeld, DOD briefing, 11-15-01.
“It’s been said that we are tightening the noose and in fact that is the case. We are tightening the noose. It’s a matter of time.”-Franks, DOD briefing, 11-15-01.
“Osama has already decided that death will be preferable to being arrested by America.”-Taliban spokesman Mullah Abdullah, USAT, 11-16-01.
“The current situation in Afghanistan is related to a bigger cause. That is the destruction of America. … The plan is going ahead and, God willing, it is being implemented. But it is a huge task, which is beyond the will and comprehension of human beings. If God’s help is with us, this will happen within a short period of time. Keep in mind this prediction. … This is not a matter of weapons. We are hopeful for God’s help. The real matter is the extinction of America. And, God willing, it will fall to the ground. … I tell you, keep this in mind. This is my prediction. You believe it or not-it’s up to you. But we will have to wait and see.”-Taliban leader Omar, BBC World Service interview, WP, 11-16-01.
“Military tribunals, secret evidence, no numbers on how many people the government is detaining. We’re looking like a Third World country.”-Jim Zogby, president of the Arab-American Institute, WP, 11-16-01.
“One of the lessons of Afghanistan’s history, which we’ve tried to apply in this campaign, is if you’re a foreigner, try not to go in. If you go in, don’t stay too long, because they don’t tend to like any foreigners who stay too long.”-Paul Wolfowitz, deputy secretary of defense, on “Face the Nation,” 11-18-01.
“I think we have got to keep our focus right now on Afghanistan. There’s a great danger that we’re going to declare victory before we have achieved our objectives there.”-Wolfowitz, “Face the Nation,” 11-18-01.
“I want to be very clear that getting the al Qaeda network broken up is really what we’re after here. … It’s terrific that the Northern Alliance has had the successes that it’s had. It’s very important that the Taliban are fleeing and that we’re loosening their grip on the country. But this mission will not be complete until we have broken up this al Qaeda network and until it cannot do the kind of harm that it did on Sept. 11.”-Rice on CNN’s “Late Edition,” NYT, 11-19-01.
“We have the airport, we have Mazar, we have everything.”-Dostum, the warlord who commands the Northern Alliance’s forces in the northwest and who arrived on horseback, Newsweek, 11-19-01.
“They are like dogs. They never give up. They must be Arabs.”-Gen. Moammar Hassan, a Northern Alliance commander, Time, 11-19-01.
“I think we should have been more aware [of bin Laden’s activities after the Soviet-Afghan war]. When you look back on it, you say, ‘My God, they have been telling us they are going to do something like that.’ And we didn’t believe them. … He had to be stopped. The kingdom said, ‘You [bin Laden] have done your best to help the mujahideen in Afghanistan. Leave it at that.’ He was not pleased.”-Prince Turki al Faisal, former head of Saudi intelligence, Time, 11-19-01.
“We have clearly destabilized them. We are eliminating all the known figures. There are two ways to see this: There is the positive, optimist perspective. We are making progress. But now they could also be more invisible. It’s the classic dilemma of intelligence work vs. police work. It is always helpful to let the networks function, to see where they lead you. But this is a period where the police have no choice: We are obliged to act because there could be an attack.”-Unnamed European investigator, LAT, 11-19-01.
“As enemy leaders become fewer and fewer, it does not necessarily mean that the task will become easier. People can hide in caves for long periods, and this will take time.”-Rumsfeld, DOD briefing, 11-19-01.
“The idea of their getting out of the country and going off to make their mischief somewhere else is not a happy prospect. So my hope is that they will either be killed or taken prisoner.”-Rumsfeld, DOD briefing, 11-19-01.
“Our hope is that the dual incentive of helping to free that country from a very repressive regime and to get the foreigners in the al Qaeda out of there, coupled with substantial monetary rewards, will incentivize … a large number of people to begin crawling through those tunnels and caves, looking for the bad folks.”-Rumsfeld, DOD briefing, 11-19-01.
“I need to have that extraordinary option [military tribunals] at my fingertips. I ought to be able to have that option available should we ever bring one of these al Qaeda members in alive. It’s our national interests, it’s our national security interests [that] we have a military tribunal available. It is in the interests of the safety of potential jurors that we have a military tribunal.”-Bush, press remarks after a Cabinet meeting, 11-19-01.
“These are extraordinary times. I would remind those who don’t understand the decision I made that Franklin Roosevelt made the same decision in World War II. Those were extraordinary times, as well.”-Bush, remarks after Cabinet meeting, 11-19-01.
“Nobody wants him alive. The United States doesn’t want him captured alive, his own people don’t want him captured alive, and bin Laden himself decided long ago that he wouldn’t be captured alive. He’s a smart enough man to know that he has no options.”-An unnamed US official, NYT, 11-20-01.
“Iraq will be much, much easier [to defeat in battle] than a lot of people think.”-Perle, LAT, 11-20-01.
“If you’re looking for long-term, sustained ‘boots on the ground,’ that’s not in the cards.”-Unnamed Defense Department official, NYT, 11-21-01.
“Saddam’s possession of WMD justifies an attack [on Iraq].”-Perle, Aerospace Daily, 11-21-01.
“The air war enabled the ground war to succeed.”– Rumsfeld, address at Ft. Bragg, N.C., 11-21-01.
“The President’s policy [on capturing bin Laden] is, ‘Dead or alive.’ And … I have my preference.”-Rumsfeld, Ft. Bragg, 11-21-01.
“Afghanistan is just the beginning on the war against terror. There are other terrorists who threaten America and our friends, and there are other nations willing to sponsor them. We will not be secure as a nation until all of these threats are defeated. Across the world, and across the years, we will fight these evil ones, and we will win.”-Bush, remarks to 101st Airborne Division at Ft. Campbell, Ky., 11-21-01.
“The most difficult steps in this mission still lie ahead, where enemies hide in sophisticated cave complexes, located in some of the most mountainous and rugged territory. These hideouts are heavily fortified and defended by fanatics who will fight to the death.”-Bush, Ft. Campbell, 11-21-01.
“America has a message for the nations of the world. If you harbor terrorists, you are terrorists. If you train or arm a terrorist, you are a terrorist. If you feed a terrorist or fund a terrorist, you’re a terrorist, and you will be held accountable by the United States and our friends.”-Bush, Ft. Campbell, 11-21-01.
“Our specialized approach to caves and tunnels is to put 500-pound bombs in the entrance.”-Marine Corps Gen. Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, DOD briefing, 11-21-01.
“You target Saddam Hussein and no one will boo or hiss or object. But bombings like the ones we saw against Iraq in 1998, or like the ones we’ve seen now in Afghanistan, with so-called collateral bombings, when bombs hit innocent people, will have strong resonance and very bad implications for relations with the West.”-Prince Turki, NYT, 11-22-01.
“Remember, 10 years ago people in Saudi Arabia [were] naming their sons for [George H.W.] Bush, the President. And 90 percent of the people supported the American presence. What change happened from then to now? It is because of what they see daily on their screens about the attacks of the Israelis, and they associate this with the participation of the United States, and probably what they see as bias in favor of Israel, and this has caused the erosion of public opinion in Saudi Arabia toward the United States.”-Prince Saud al Faisal, Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister, NYT, 11-23-01.
“Iraq ended its biological program in 1991 in compliance with the convention that it joined in the same year. The United States has unleashed in the past few years a new program for secret researches for biological weapons and not Iraq.”-Iraqi Foreign Ministry spokesman, WT, 11-23-01.
“My view on the military tribunals will be formed by how they’re used. If they’re done carefully and with deliberation-and I really expect they will be-I don’t have a problem with it. As far as ethnic profiling, it’s very troubling. It pains me to say this, but some of it may have to be done. We just have to recognize that we cannot bend over backwards in our innate American fairness to overlook that there are some people trying to hurt us.”-Warren Rudman, chairman of the President’s foreign intelligence advisory board, NYT, 11-25-01.
“When we’re talking about largely setting aside our criminal justice system for something like this, we end up looking to the people we’ve asked to be our allies more and more like some of the things that we are fighting against. I don’t think we should be doing that. … I think the attorney general owes the country-certainly owes the Congress-an explanation.”-Leahy, “Meet the Press,” 11-25-01.
“Seventeen million [shipborne] containers come to this country every year. We’re inspecting somewhat less than two percent of those. That includes the container that shows up in the Port of Los Angeles-Long Beach and is trucked across the country to New Jersey, where for the first time the box is opened. So the potential for mischief along the way is enormous.”-Adm. James M. Loy, Coast Guard Commandant, WP, 11-26-01.
“We love death. The US loves life. That is the big difference between us.”-bin Laden, interview with Dawn newspaper, as quoted in Newsweek, 11-26-01.
“It is naively optimistic not to take him [bin Laden] at face value [when he threatens to use nuclear weapons]. I think he’s going out in a blaze of nuclear glory.”-Peter Bergen, author of Holy War, Inc., about bin Laden, Newsweek, 11-26-01.
“They [Bush Administration officials] are literally dismantling justice and the justice system as we know it.”-Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), USAT, 11-26-01.
“These procedures belong in a Soviet state or a dictatorship, not in a free society.”-Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), USAT, 11-26-01.
“Terrorism is a weapon of the weak but mostly used by the strong. … The crimes of Sept. 11 are [a] historic turning point, but not because of their scale, rather because of the choice of targets. … The number of victims of US savagery are huge right up to the present moment. For the first time, almost in two centuries, the guns have been pointed in the opposite direction. And it is a historic change. … The coalition forces are making plans to further destroy the hunger-stricken country [of Afghanistan]. The consequences of their crimes will never be known and they are quite confident about that. And that is the enormous outcome of the crime of the powerful.”-MIT Professor Noam Chomsky, address in Islamabad, Pakistan, Dawn, 11-26-01.
“From everything I’ve read about him [Taliban leader Omar], he’s a rather determined, dead-ender type. … He just doesn’t feel to me like the surrendering type.”-Rumsfeld, DOD briefing, 11-26-01.
“If you have people who are willing to have hand grenades wrapped around themselves and blow themselves up so they can kill a half-dozen other people in close proximity to them, the thought that they’ll surrender readily is not likely. … I’m hopeful that some will surrender. I suspect some won’t, and I suspect the result of that will be that the opposition forces will kill them.”-Rumsfeld, DOD briefing, 11-26-01.
“As for Mr. Saddam Hussein, he needs to let inspectors back in his country, to show us that he is not developing Weapons of Mass Destruction.”-Bush, remarks in the Rose Garden, 11-26-01.
“Unnamed American officials, … who express doubts about Pakistan’s ability to keep control of its nuclear assets, seem unaware of what we have accomplished. In the past two years, Pakistan has implemented strong command-and-control measures to guarantee foolproof nuclear security. Safe custody is ensured by dedicated formations of specially equipped forces, which have been set up for each of the three armed services. Stringent procedures are in place to minimize risks of accidental or unauthorized launch. The United States has expressed confidence in the steps we have taken; we have never had an incident of theft or of leakage of nuclear material, equipment, or technology from military or civilian research facilities.”-Abdul Sattar, foreign minister, Pakistan, letter to The New Yorker, 11-26-01.
“The success of the bombers is nevertheless a surprise, even if not a wholly unpredictable one. What had been unpredictable is the resurgence of the Northern Alliance. Their ability to achieve practical superiority, against an enemy superior in numbers who had held them at bay for five years, could not have been foreseen and defies explanation. It is not due to superior weapons-there must have been a collapse of Taliban morale.”-John Keegan, WSJ, 11-27-01.
“Most of the foreigners were killed [in prisoner uprising near Mazar-e Sharif]. Up to 300 foreign troops were killed. It was not a big deal.”-Abdullah Jan Tawhidi, a deputy in Northern Alliance Ministry of Security and Intelligence, WP, 11-27-01.
“The Marines have landed and we now own a piece of Afghanistan.”-Marine Brig. Gen. James Mattis, commander of the attack task force, WP, 11-27-01.
“Any threat against an Arab country is rejected, and a military attack against any Arab country will lead to endless problems. America knows that, and Europe knows that. I believe it will be a fatal mistake to harm any Arab country.”-Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk a-Sharaa, Associated Press, 11-27-01.
“This is going to be a very difficult period. Those cities are not safe. There are people in those cities who are hiding and who are perfectly willing to tie grenades around their bodies, blow up themselves and whoever else happens to be around. There are people who have defected who may re-defect. There are people who go across borders who may come back across borders.”-Rumsfeld, DOD briefing, 11-27-01.
“The United States covets no one else’s land, certainly not Afghanistan.”-Rumsfeld, DOD briefing, 11-27-01.
“There are a lot of networks, and there’s a pretty clear list of states that support terrorism that includes Iraq and quite a few others. I think what’s happening in Afghanistan is a message to every state that supports terrorists or harbors terrorists that, if you keep it up, you’re going to have the same fate as the Taliban. I think that is a useful principle.”-Wolfowitz, roundtable with European journalists, 11-27-01.
“Whoever was there is going to wish they weren’t. It was clearly a leadership area.”-Rumsfeld, after a bombing attack on a specific site, NYT, 11-28-01.
“Anyone who thinks Iraq can accept an arrogant and unilateral will of this party or that is mistaken.”-Statement of Iraqi government spokesman, WT, 11-28-1.
“I gauge our success by how happy Gen. [Tommy] Franks is, and I think he’s very happy with some of the stuff we’ve been able to produce for him.”-Air Force Chief of Staff John Jumper, WP, 11-28-01.
“They are armed, experienced, disciplined, and suicidal. They will fight to the last drop of blood. If they had wanted to leave or give up fighting, they would have been gone by now. But they have one slogan: to keep Tora Bora or be killed.”-Hazrat Ali, the new regional security chief in the area used by al Qaeda holdouts, WP, 11-28-01.
“It could well be that Marines could be positioned in any place inside the country, or Army forces could be positioned at another forward operating base at some point. We’re going to continue to apply pressure. We’re going to continue to refine our intelligence and what we know. As we do that, the noose tightens.”-Franks, NYT, 11-29-01.
“This is modern war. It’s not like Desert Storm. You go into it with your nose first, slowly. You get your grip. You get others to fight for you. And you use airpower as much as you can and stay as high as you can.”-Retired Gen. Wesley Clark, former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, USAT, 11-29-01.
“You must stand strong, my brothers. Don’t vacate any areas. Stick to your positions and fight to the death.”-Taliban leader Omar in radio message, USAT, 11-29-01.
“We are ready to face these Americans. We are happy that they have landed here, and we will teach them a lesson.”-Omar, as quoted by Taliban official Hafiz Majidullah, USAT, 11-29-01.
“There is no other nation [besides Afghanistan] whose leaders have been active accomplices of terrorist actions. So we do not believe that it is today necessary to take military action against other sites.”-Alain Richard, defense minister of France, IHT, 11-29-01.
“Mr. bin Laden has declared war on us. … Are we being aggressive and hard-nosed? You bet. But let me emphasize that every step that we have taken satisfies the Constitution and federal law as it existed both before and after September 11th.”-Assistant Attorney General Michael Chertoff, statement to Senate Judiciary Committee, WP, 11-29-01.
“We’re saying, ‘Welcome to America. You have come to our country; why don’t you help make us safe? Why don’t you share information with us? Why don’t you help us protect innocent people, women and children and men? Why don’t you help us value life? As you enjoy the freedoms of our country, help us protect those freedoms.'”-Bush, US attorneys conference, 11-29-01.
“We’re an open society. But we’re at war. … We must not let foreign enemies use the forums of liberty to destroy liberty itself. Foreign terrorists and agents must never again be allowed to use our freedoms against us.”-Bush, remarks to US attorneys conference, 11-29-01.
“Clearly, we [Navy aircraft carriers] have been America’s main battery in this war and because of our strength and guts we are winning.”-Vice Adm. John Nathman in internal message to commanders, WT, 11-30-01.
“We’re entering a very dangerous aspect of this conflict. … The noose is tightening. But the remaining task is a particularly dirty and unpleasant one.”-Rumsfeld, “Meet the Press,” 12-2-01.
“The way they finally got the dead-enders [in Mazar-e Sharif] to come out was by flooding the tunnel. … And finally, they came up and surrendered, the last hard-core al Qaeda elements. And I guess one will do whatever it is necessary to do. If people will not surrender, then they’ve made their own choice.”-Rumsfeld, “Meet the Press,” 12-2-01.
“The hope is that they will surrender and save the city and save some of their lives. … If they don’t surrender, they’re going to be killed.”-Rumsfeld, “Meet the Press,” referring to the Taliban and al Qaeda forces in Kandahar, 12-2-01.
“I think we are closer to Phase 2, in part because the end is in sight for Phase 1, unless there is a serious reversal. … It would have been better, I think, to look at this as a single campaign, which is what I think the President had in mind at the outset, when he declared a war against terrorism-not against al Qaeda simply, not against the Taliban simply.”-Perle, NYT, 12-2-01.
“The romanticization of jihad was the gift of small minds to Pakistan. Lacking any real understanding of the intricacies of a modern war, these parties presented to the raw minds of Pakistani boys a jihad that was fun. … Now, they are holed up in the barren vastness of Kandahar, waiting for death, while those who urged them to jihad and turned them into cannon fodder have confined their own part in jihad to issuing press statements and observing black days.”-Pakistani newspaper columnist Muhammad Ali Siddiqi, LAT, 12-3-01.
“We had an idea that some foreign troops, some American troops and British troops, were in Afghanistan. We wanted to capture some American troops-it would be a great honor for us to capture a US Army man. But when we entered the area, we never saw any foreigners. They were all Muslims. They were all Afghans. And nobody told us about the air strikes, this carpet bombing.”-Sardar Daud, a 20-year-old Pakistani who went to join the jihad in Afghanistan, LAT, 12-3-01.
“I don’t know what the [Iraq-al Qaeda] relationship is, whether it’s a 90-10 joint venture or a 10-90 joint venture, and it doesn’t matter. [Some al Qaeda attacks] look like a foreign intelligence service was involved, and we have a long history of contacts between Iraqi intelligence and al Qaeda. All of that, plus the (blocking) of the UN inspections, is enough.”-Former CIA director James Woolsey, USAT, 12-3-01.
“They can no longer conceive a new operation in Afghanistan. Their capacity to be in contact and run their networks abroad has been drastically reduced because they no longer have the safety of their sanctuary. The sanctuary is totally at risk. They are not able to communicate in a way they could before 9-11. That is over.”-Unnamed US defense official, WT, 12-3-01.
“We believe time is on our side. We want to maintain pressure and avoid any steps that would snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.”-Unnamed “senior military officer,” WP, 12-4-01.
“This is how they [Taliban and al Qaeda fighters] are thinking: They say, ‘If we surrender, they will kill us.’ Honestly speaking, after Kunduz and Mazar, we can understand them.”-Sardar Jelani Khan, a Pashtun negotiator, WP, 12-4-01.
“I want to say to the foreign [al Qaeda] guests-all of us gathered here want to say-that we have a saying: Fish and guests stink after three days.”-Haji Din Mohammed, leader of Afghan elders’ gathering, NYT, 12-4-01.