Morale is good; troops are confident; leaders are capable.

You know as well as I do that counterinsurgency is a very nuanced type of military operation.

But the key shift in focus will be from counter-insurgency operations to more and more cooperation with Iraqi security forces and to building Iraqi security capacity.

We'll try to include Iraqi officers in our staffs. We will do everything we can to empower Iraqi security forces to stand up on their own and operate where they can alone.

So, these political activities will create friction in and of themselves, and in this environment of friction there'll be additional violence.

But clearly the fact that we've gone from zero Iraqi security forces on duty in May to up to 200,000 today is an enormous accomplishment, but it's not enough.

And so I think that if the person has the funds, the network, and the equipment to do this, and also the experience, which is the key factor, then they can be quite deadly.

You don't build a new power plant in the United States overnight. It takes years to build.

Everybody needs to understand that I learned Arabic from the United States Army as a second language. I never spoke it at home.

Undoubtedly, there are members of the former regime that are cooperating in some fashion and then there are extremists that are within Iraq that are cooperating with them.

The United States is the most powerful nation on Earth and it just can't walk away from the Middle East and central Asia and the Horn of Africa.

When does he ever think?" Richard straddled a chair and accepted a wind cup from Raoul. "If he were to sell his brain, he could claim it had never been used.", Chapter 7

When something has been perfect there is a tendency to try hard to repeat it.

It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees!

Envy is a surefire party killer.

He that is drunken * * * Is outlawed by himself; all kind of ill Did with his liquor slide into his veins.

Beauty in mathematics is seeing the truth without effort.

From an early age I was told that I was expected to do more than continue to run a small business. Education was important and seen as a way of moving forward.

I find medicine is the best of all trades because whether you do any good or not you still. Get your money.

By one delay after another they spin out their whole lives, till there's no more future left for them.

Death is a convention, a certification to the end of pain, something for the vital statistics book, not binding upon anyone but the keepers of graveyard records.