Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App

" There is not a military commander alive today who is genetically predisposed to say that he has enough ISR and assets, and particularly not in the Central Command theater. "

David Petraeus

Genetically

Today

Alive

Related Quotes:

" I really started to get a sense of how, if you will, special Zarqawi was, I guess, sort of midway through 2004. "

" Counter-insurgency, as you know, is a roller-coaster affair. "

" There were very few people who were both intercollegiate athletes and Star Men. "

" Needless to say, it was the greatest of privileges to serve with the selfless men and women - Iraqi and American and those of our coalition partners, civilian as well as military - who did the hard, dangerous work of the surge. There seldom was an easy period; each day was tough. "

" In many... cases, of course, the Arab Spring has brought about instability rather than greater stability. And rather than bringing about government that is more representative and more responsive to the people, you're seeing, frankly, the opposite, or you're seeing all-out war. "

" The Pakistani Army, the Frontier Corps, the Frontier Scouts and Police have carried out quite impressive counter-insurgency operations. "

" The tragedy is that political leaders failed so badly at delivering what Iraqis clearly wanted - and for that, a great deal of responsibility lies with Prime Minister Maliki. "

" The biggest of the big ideas that guided the strategy during the surge was explicit recognition that the most important terrain in the campaign in Iraq was the human terrain - the people - and our most important mission was to improve their security. "

" In the 101st Airborne Division headquarters in Mosul, we had a sign on the wall. It was a question that we would ask ourselves before every new operation or policy initiative. It asked: Will this policy or operation take more bad guys off the streets than it creates by its conduct? "

" To do de-Baathification without an agreed process of reconciliation threw tens of thousands of people out of their jobs, out of their homes, out of their future, and even robbed them of their position in society. "

" The idea is to go to bed every night with fewer enemies than you had in the morning. "

" If you look at casualties, you find countries that had much higher loss rates per capita than the US. Denmark comes to mind, the United Kingdom, they have suffered heavy losses at various points, the Germans as well. "

" The Germans have done wonderful work. Not long ago, a German battle group battalion conducted a very impressive counterinsurgency operation in a portion of Baghlan province. I think these are the first counterinsurgency operations conducted by any German element after World War II. And they did a very impressive job. "

" People often ask, why aren't you reading about what it is you're working on right now? And the truth is, you only get three pages a night before your eyelids close. "

" As we used to say when I was privileged to be the commander there, Nineveh province has the most diverse human terrain in all of Iraq - Sunni Arab majority to be sure, but also Shia Arabs, numerous Kurdish communities, and they are broken out into several different political parties. "

" Partners from the Islamic world are of particular importance. Indeed, they have huge incentives to be involved, as the ongoing struggles are generally not clashes between civilizations. Rather, what we are seeing is more accurately a clash within a civilization: that of the Islamic world. "

" President Obama has said that our aspirations should be realistic. We are not going to turn one of the poorest countries in the world, that was plunged into 30 years of war, into an advanced, industrialized, Western-style democracy. What we want to achieve is Afghanistan's capacity to secure and govern itself. "

" You cannot deal with an industrial-strength extremist problem just with force of arms. You have to have that political component as well. "

" Iran has had a very harmful effect in a variety of ways in the region... fomenting unrest to a degree in Saudi Arabia, undoubtedly in Bahrain, and definitely in Yemen with Hamas, with Lebanese Hezbollah among other activities in locations. "

" Committing to a particular goal publicly puts pressure on oneself. It becomes an enormous action-forcing mechanism and often helps you achieve more than you might have had you kept your goals to yourself. "

" I will not ever run for political office. I can assure you. "

" We will win again in Iraq; I do think that Iraq can definitely be handled. I think that it can be kept intact. "

" I'm heartened that, for the first time, we're seeing some of the Internet Service Providers and the social media sites taking action against the Islamic State. That's the kind of initiative that can very, very much augment on an industrial scale what the government is trying to do. "

" The more the Iranians are seen to be dominating the region, the more it is going to inflame Sunni radicalism and fuel the rise of groups like the Islamic State. "

David Petraeus

Rise

Seen

" Iraq's Sunnis need to be brought back into the fold. They need to feel as though they have a stake in the success of Iraq rather than a stake in its failure. "

" I am not going to second-guess my old battlefield comrades from Iraq and Afghanistan; each has his own reason for what he has done. "

" Over time, the desire of Iraqis to contribute to their own security has manifested itself in citizens volunteering for the police, the Army, and concerned local citizen programs. "

" The situation in Iraq was dire at the end of 2006, when President George W. Bush decided to implement the surge and selected me to command it. Indeed, when I returned to Baghdad in early February 2007, I found the conditions there to be even worse than I had expected. "

David Petraeus

Situation

President

" I've been in a position before where a president has turned to me in the Oval Office in a difficult moment, without any pleasantries, and said, 'I'm asking you as your president and Commander in Chief to take command of the international security force in Afghanistan.' The only response can be, 'Yes, Mr. President.' "

David Petraeus

You

Moment

" Mubarak would meet with me when I was at Central Command. He would lean and put his hand on my knee, as if a father figure, and say, 'General, don't ever forget the Arab Street. Listen to the Arab Street.' I'd like to go to him now and say, 'Mr. President, what about that Arab Street, what's that all about?' "

David Petraeus

Father

Street