Iraq War Usage
The quotation has since been used to criticize the planning and execution of the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the subsequent occupation. Senator John Kerry, General Anthony Zinni, historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., and Governor Howard Dean have all used variations of the phrase in criticism of the Bush administration's handling of the Iraq war. Notably, Schlesinger also reported contemporaneously on Bradley's original statement back in 1951, and JFK was a signature hero of John Kerry.
On September 6, 2004, at a Racine, West Virginia rally, Kerry said,
I would not have done just one thing differently than the president on Iraq, I would have done everything differently than the president on Iraq…. You've about 500 troops here, 500 troops there and it's American troops that are 90 percent of the combat casualties and it's American taxpayers that are paying 90 percent of the cost of the war. It's the wrong war, in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Speaking on 60 Minutes, May 23, 2004, Zinni said, "The plan was wrong, it was the wrong war, the wrong place and the wrong time— with little or no planning." He stated that serious "derelictions of duty," "criminal negligence," and poor planning put U.S. forces in harm's way and left Iraq in chaos after the invasion. He also said that Paul Bremer had made "mistake after mistake after mistake."
In The Independent, April 15, 2004, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. wrote:
The immediate reason that Mr Bush opened Pandora's box in the Middle East and invaded Iraq was his moral certitude that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and that he was working in close partnership with Osama bin Laden and al-Qa'ida. Those convictions turned out to be delusions. This denouement does great harm to Mr Bush's credibility and to that of the United States; it has got us into a ghastly mess in Iraq; and it has diverted attention, resources and military might from the war that should have commanded the Bush administration's highest priority - the Afghan war against al-Qa'ida and international terrorism. Meanwhile Afghanistan is a mess too. Mr Bush chose the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time.
On December 15, 2003 at the Pacific Council on International Policy in Los Angeles, Howard Dean said Bush "launched the wrong war, at the wrong time, with inadequate planning, insufficient help and at extraordinary cost." In a May 3, 2003 primary debate in South Carolina, Dean said:
Let me be very clear about what I believe. I'm delighted to see Saddam Hussein gone. I appreciate the fact that we have a strong military in this country, and I'd keep a strong military in this country, but I think this was the wrong war at the wrong time because we have set a new policy of preventive war in this country, and I think that was the wrong thing to do because sooner or later we're going to see another country copy the United States, and sooner or later we're going to have to deal with the fact that there may well be a Shia fundamentalist regime set up in Iraq which will be a greater danger to the United States than Iraq is.
Read more about this topic: The Wrong War, At The Wrong Place, At The Wrong Time, And With The Wrong Enemy
Famous quotes containing the words war and/or usage:
“From the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”
—Charles Darwin (1809–1882)
“Girls who put out are tramps. Girls who don’t are ladies. This is, however, a rather archaic usage of the word. Should one of you boys happen upon a girl who doesn’t put out, do not jump to the conclusion that you have found a lady. What you have probably found is a lesbian.”
—Fran Lebowitz (b. 1951)