While it's very hard to know exactly how to measure public opinion there, because there's no really good polling, the fact of the matter is, in all of the polls I've seen, the vast majority of the Iraqis prefer to be free and are pleased that the coalition freed them.

Paul Bremer

Categorized in : Facts Matter Majority

Saddam spent 35 years stealing and wasting money, and all of these systems are very fragile and brittle, and you try to fix one thing and something else gets in trouble.

Paul Bremer

trouble trying years

We've thrown out Saddam and Saddam, dead or alive, is finished in Iraq.

Paul Bremer

thrown iraq alive

The loss of innocent life is a tragedy for anyone involved in it, but the numbers are really very low.

Paul Bremer

tragedy loss numbers

There are 40,000 Iraqi police on duty around the country. If they detect an attack about to happen, the police are the ones who are supposed to stop it.

Paul Bremer

police duty country

We try very quickly to show that we are not at war with the Iraqi people. We're trying to deal with the people who are indeed themselves at war with the Iraqi people.

Paul Bremer

trying war people

If you look back today over the last 25 years, it is a fact that we have had a progressive degeneration of our intelligence community in general; in particular in the field of human intelligence.

Paul Bremer

community today years

I think what we've learned is that the terrorist threat is serious, but it shifts. You cannot make a single person the sole focus of your counterterrorism.

Paul Bremer

focus serious thinking

When the new wave of terrorism came on the modern world, which is the late 1960s, early 1970s, I think we spent about a decade, the United States and our allies, trying to figure out how to deal with it.

Paul Bremer

united-states trying thinking

Iraq is a better place, absolutely worth it.

Paul Bremer

worth-it iraq better-place

I think we Americans, of all people, understand the importance of a good, legal, constitutional framework as the basis of political life.

Paul Bremer

political people thinking

I hope they're going to learn, and as a result of our response, that it isn't going to work. They're not going to change our life, they're not going to have us throw out our Constitution, and they're not going to chase us out of the Middle East.

Paul Bremer

constitution middle-east change

The new administration seems to be paying no attention to the problem of terrorism. What they will do is stagger along until there's a major incident and then suddenly say, `Oh, my God, shouldn't we be organized to deal with this?'

Paul Bremer

administration attention war

We're going to be on the ground in Iraq as soldiers and citizens for years. We're going to be running a colony almost.

Paul Bremer

iraq running years

As long as we're here, we are the occupying power. It's a very ugly word, but it's true.

Paul Bremer

ugly long

We dominate the scene and we will continue to impose our will on this country.

Paul Bremer

scene country

These people hate the United States, not for what we do, but for who we are and what we are.

Paul Bremer

united-states hate people

You know, the country is basically peaceful.

Paul Bremer

love peace country

I think the Iraqi people have shown extraordinary patience and courage in the last few months. They have really put a political system on the way to success, to a real democracy here.

Paul Bremer

real patience thinking

[Insurgents] pose no strategic threat to the United States or to the Coalition Forces.

Paul Bremer

united-states force politics

I think there really is no shortcut to sovereignty.

Paul Bremer

sovereignty shortcuts thinking