43 Quotes by Anthony Cordesman

We don't know how many leaders there are, how many experienced cadres there are, how many replacements there are.

We did not plan three years ago to create more than token Iraqi forces. Now we're at 230,000 roughly and counting. Our whole strategy is dependent on the success of the Iraqi army and the Iraqi police.

This was a largely punitive operation. It did not cripple any of Saddam's capabilities.

Everything I know about counterterrorism is, you deal with specific cells.

Even if the constitution clearly wins acceptance by most Shiites and Kurds and some Sunnis, this is only the start of a process, not the end. Even the best outcome of the vote is the prelude to months and years of additional effort.

And to be perfectly blunt, I think only fools would bet the lives of other men's sons and daughters on their own arrogance and call this force a cakewalk or a speed bump or something that you can dismiss.

There's so much spin in these numbers. A lot of facts get disguised. . . . Total manpower is meaningless. The army is the key force in direct combat.

These are scarcely people you want to integrate into a national force. This would simply create sectarian or ethnic forces or divisions within the forces that already exist.

You're watching the insurgents develop more sophisticated methods of attack, and more sophisticated IEDs. They're using shaped charges and anti-tank mines stacked together. They're using 500-pound bombs that can destroy any armored vehicle. They're using these so-called swarming attacks, firing several RPG rounds at one lightly armored vehicle.