Our Quote of the Day is actually a series of quotes of the day in a must read interview of the day: Real Clear Politics’ interview with Council on Foreign Relations president Richard N. Haass who has a new book “War of Necessity, War of Choice: A Memoir of Two Iraq Wars.”
Here are just a FEW of the quotes:
On NSA Condoleezza Rice: “Presidents need NSCs that make them uncomfortable…This NSC didn’t do it, and thus President Bush was not well served.”
On George W. Bush: “I told Colin Powell early on that every time we walked into the room it was already 2.5 against 1. The civilians at the Pentagon, the Vice President’s office and the National Security Council (NSC) under Condi Rice were all leaning towards war, and I felt that the State Department was behind from the get-go.”
On Iraq: “I was only 60/40 against the war. I believed Saddam Hussein had chemical and biological weapons. Never once, in all my years in government, did some analyst take me aside and say otherwise.”
On Obama striking an attractive deal with Iran: “I’d be prepared to allow the enrichment of some uranium, so long as it is limited and transparent. Can Obama negotiate that? I don’t know, but it’s worth trying.”
Go to the link and read the extensive interview in its entirety — and you’ll find a lot more Quotes of the Day.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.