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

John Abizaid

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John Abizaid
Age: 73
Born: 1951
Born: April 1
Military Officer
Everybody
United
Language
Arabic
Understand
Spokes
Home
Spoke
States
Army
Needs
Second
Never
Learned

More quotes by John Abizaid

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But as we move from this period of what many Iraqis regard as perceived occupation, we need to move towards one of partnership.
John Abizaid
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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.
John Abizaid
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The power to prevent violence is a power that no police force seems to have anywhere in the United States.
John Abizaid
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I believe we've... we've worked very hard with the Iraqis to build a better place ever since the fall of Saddam's government.
John Abizaid
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But my Arabic is pretty good. It's good enough to have conversations with people, to understand what they say, to understand what they're feeling.
John Abizaid
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I think you also understand that one of the key things that's got to be done in Iraq is to build a mentality of understanding that the military needs to be subordinate to civilian control and respectful of its own people.
John Abizaid
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Nobody's more mindful of the sacrifices of our troops than those of us that command them.
John Abizaid
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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.
John Abizaid
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I don't believe Iran is a suicide state.
John Abizaid
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Capturing any member of any terrorist cell or any insurgent cell that we may happen to come across is always very, very valuable, and the thing that interests me is that in most instances after a time people talk and they tell us what they know.
John Abizaid
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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.
John Abizaid
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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.
John Abizaid
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As far as Zarqawi is concerned, there is a network of extremists it's not just Zarqawi.
John Abizaid
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And over time, I think, as Iraqi security capacity builds, you'll see American and coalition presence there decline.
John Abizaid
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It's clear to me now that we've got to reach out to the Arab Sunni community in particular in an effort to cause some moderate political activity to take place so they join the future of Iraq.
John Abizaid
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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.
John Abizaid
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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.
John Abizaid
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Well, the hardest thing to do, as we know from our own experience on 9/11 is protect everything all the time.
John Abizaid
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So, these political activities will create friction in and of themselves, and in this environment of friction there'll be additional violence.
John Abizaid