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I am not a politician, and I will never be, and I say that with absolute conviction.

David Petraeus

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David Petraeus
Age: 72
Born: 1952
Born: November 7
Former Director Of The Central Intelligence Agency
Military Officer
Politician
New York City
New York
David Howell Petraeus
Never
Absolutes
Absolute
Conviction
Politician

More quotes by David Petraeus

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The first official statements of President Asif Ali Zardari's new government have been firm and robust. Pakistan is obviously a renewed democracy.
David Petraeus
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I'm living the dream.
David Petraeus
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Al-Qaida in particular remains dangerous, and there [in Iraq] is some residual militia and special group presence. There are still between 20 and 30 attacks per day, still periodic car bombs and still loss of innocent civilians.
David Petraeus
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The art of coalition command - whether it is here in Afghanistan, whether it was in Iraq or in Bosnia or in Haiti - is to take the resources you are provided with, understand what the strengths and weaknesses are and to employ them to the best overall effect.
David Petraeus
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I think no commander ever is going to come out and say, 'I'm confident that we can do this.
David Petraeus
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The fact is that Iran doesn't want to see the Taliban come back any more than do most Afghan citizens.
David Petraeus
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I did a week-long assessment in 2005 at (then Defense Secretary Donald) Rumsfeld's request. Following our return, I told him that Afghanistan was going to be the longest campaign of what we then termed the long war.
David Petraeus
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Political progress will only take place if sufficient security exists.
David Petraeus
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Afghanistan has other enormous challenges as well, including a political system that is still very much developing, although there has been some progress in the past several years.
David Petraeus
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Progress in Iraq has always been about teams of people and teams of teams - and ultimately about young men and women, Iraqi as well as people from the coalition.
David Petraeus
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We cleared many of their towns and cities and rural areas of al-Qaida Iraq and other insurgents.
David Petraeus
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Every civilian's death diminishes us, collectively.
David Petraeus
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The question is always how you get the number of troops needed. They do not have to be coalition forces. We also have to expand the training program for the Afghan National Army and the national police, in particular. and Defense Secretary Robert Gates has already announced support for a significant increase in the Afghan army.
David Petraeus
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Let's remember that the reason we are there is that we have vital interests in Afghanistan, hugely important national interests, as do the other countries involved.
David Petraeus
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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.
David Petraeus
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Reconciliation is what takes place, of course, at higher levels. President Karzai has been very clear about the red lines for reconciliation, accept the constitution, lay down their weapons, cut their ties with al Qaeda and essentially become productive or at least participating members of society in that regard.
David Petraeus
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Pakistan are very keen to carry out the operations themselves. And there's significant effort on the part of the US and other countries to provide assistance that can enable Pakistan to do just that.
David Petraeus
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Don't forget Yemen, where there are also extremist elements, as we saw recently.
David Petraeus
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Syria has allowed its soil to be transited by foreign fighters who have come from a variety of source countries in the Gulf area and in the - in North African countries.There are some signs that that may have been reduced somewhat in the last couple of months. We need to watch that a bit and see if that is the case.
David Petraeus
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There [in Afghanistan] is also a growing insurgency threat from al-Qaida, the Taliban and other extremist elements, some of which comes from the tribal areas of Pakistan, as well as from the Northwest Frontier province and Baluchistan.
David Petraeus