25 mind-numbingly dumb official statements about Iraq

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1. "My answer is bring 'em on." - President George W. Bush, challenging militants attacking US forces in Iraq, July 2, 2003. 2. "I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency." - Vice President Dick Cheney, on the Iraq insurgency, June 20, 2005. 3. "As you know, you go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time." - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, responding to a U.S. soldier serving in Iraq who asked him why troops had to dig through scrap metal to armor vehicles, December 8, 2004. 4. "My belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators." - Vice President Dick Cheney, "Meet the Press", March 16, 2003. 5. "F--k Saddam, we're taking him out." - President George W. Bush to three U.S. Senators in March 2002, a full year before the Iraq invasion. 6. "Ladies and gentlemen, these are not assertions. These are facts, corroborated by many sources, some of them sources of the intelligence services of other countries." - Secretary of State Colin Powell, testifying about Iraq's chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons capabilities before the United Nations Security Council, February 5th, 2003. 7. "Freedom's untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things." - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on looting Iraq after the U.S. invasion, adding "stuff happens," April 11, 2003. 8. "Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed." - President Bush, standing under a "Mission Accomplished" banner on the USS Lincoln aircraft carrier, May 2, 2003. 9. "It's hard to concieve that it would take more forces to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq than it would take to conduct the war itself and secure the surrender of Saddam's security forces and his army. Hard to imagine." - Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, testifying before the House Budget Committee prior to the Iraq war, February 27, 2003. 10. "From a marketing point of view, you don't roll out new products in August." - White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card, on why the Bush administration waited until after Labor Day to try to sell the American people on the war against Iraq, "New York Times" interview, September 7, 2002. 11. "We found weapons of mass destruction." - President Bush, in an interview with Polish telivision, May 29, 2003. 12. "Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be somewhere!" - President Bush joking about his administrations failure to find WMD's in Iraq as he narrated a comic slideshow during the Radio & TV Correspondants' Assosiation dinner, March 25, 2004. 13. "We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south, and north somewhat." - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, when asked about weapons of mass destruction in an ABC News interview, March 30, 2003. 14. "British intelligence has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production." - President Bush, 2003 State of the Union Address. 15. "Already, the Kay Report identified dozens of weapons of mass destruction-related program activites and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq concealed from the United Nations." - President Bush, 2004 State of the Union Address. 16. "It's a slam-dunk case!" - CIA Director George Tenet, discussing WMD and the case for war during a meeting in the Oval Office, December 21, 2002. 17. "I think the burden is on those people who think he didn't have weapons of mass destruction to tell the world where they are." - White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, July 9, 2003. 18. "The truth is that for reasons that have a lot to do with the U.S. government bureaucracy, we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on, which was weapons of mass destruction, as the core reason." - Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, "Vanity Fair" interview, May 8, 2003. 19. "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud." - National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, on Iraq's nuclear capabilities and the Bush administration's case of war, September 8, 2002. 20. "Had we to do it over again, we would look at the consequences of catostropic success, being so successful so fast that an enemy should have surrendered or been done in escaped and lived to fight another day." - President Bush, telling Time magazine that he underestimated the Iraqi resistance, August 2004. 21. "We know he's been absolutely devoted to acquire nuclear weapons, and we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons." - Vice President Dick Cheney, "Meet the Press" March 16, 2003. 22. "I don't know anybody that I can think of who has contended that the Iraqis had nuclear weapons." - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, June 24, 2003. 23. "In Iraq, a ruthless dictator cultivated weapons of mass destruction and the means to deliver them. He gave support to terrorists, had an established relationship with Al Qaeda, and his regime is no more." - Vice President Dick Cheney, November 7, 2003. 24. "I am not going to give you a number for it because it's not my business to do intelligent work." - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, asked to estimate the number of Iraqi insurgents while testifying before Congress, February 16, 2005. 25. "Oh, no, we're not going to have any casualties." - President Bush, discussing the war in Iraq with Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson, after Robertson told him he should prepare the American people for casualties.