is to build an Iraqi security capacity, all the way from the police level up to the national army level, that is militarily effective and loyal to the established civil government.

So we’re bringing in as much as we can. I know that NATO forces will be coming and certainly we’re bringing more forces from the US, more helicopters.

Certainly our goal is to leave Iraq, but we can’t leave Iraq with our forces until we know that the Iraqi security forces are capable and efficient enough to defend the sovereignty of the nation.

We have a number of killed in the action in Nasiriya with the Marines — I believe that number will remain less than 10 — and a number of wounded,

Some of them did very well and some of them did not. And in the south, a number of units, both in the police force and also in the ICDC did not stand up to...

I think what actually works best is local-level individual targeting of key leadership nodes.

In terms of comparison from six months ago, in terms of foreign fighters, I believe there are more foreign fighters coming into Iraq than there were six months ago, … In terms of overall strength...

There are peaks and valleys that you go through, but overall the trend is good,

But I am satisfied that the information that we have that this is the work of Zarqawi, is accurate.

The NATO forces are coming,

Today we provided two more heavy-lift helicopters that can come over from Afghanistan,

In other words, for every 10 enemy you kill you bring on 20 new recruits to their anti-coalition cause then essentially you are working against yourself.

This is a doctrinal problem of understanding … what do the MPs do, what do the military intelligence guys do, how do they come together in the right way. And this doctrinal issue has got...

I do think there is a general lack of understanding in the United States as to how it’s going,

Well, the hardest thing to do, as we know from our own experience on 9/11 is protect everything all the time.

The way we need to deal with them is to be offensive — to find them and to attack them and also to ensure that we pay attention to what’s moving along the Syrian, Jordanian...

We certainly will take whatever military action we need to defend ourselves and to prevent the enemy from taking advantage there,

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.

It is a belief that they hold firmly, and we need to be just as firm that we can’t be driven out.

I know you have a lot of work ahead of you. I will continue to work with you all the way.

Morale is good; troops are confident; leaders are capable.

The enemy that brought us 9/11 continues to represent one of the greatest dangers to this nation,

I think we will need more troops then we currently have to secure the elections process in Iraq — that will probably take place in January — but it is our belief that those troops...

You don’t build a new power plant in the United States overnight. It takes years to build.

I would say that U.S. officials and Iraqi officials are looking for the right people in the Sunni community to talk to in order to ensure that the Sunni Arab community … becomes part of...

that this is not a rush to failure. It’s a rush to victory.

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.

And clearly we know that the vast majority of the insurgents are from the Sunni Arab community.

The scope of devastation is gigantic. The level of work which has to be done is very immense,

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.

We will defeat these terrorists who kill innocents, we will defeat these murderers who spare no faith,

a classical guerrilla-type campaign.

You know as well as I do that counterinsurgency is a very nuanced type of military operation.

Boots per square inch is not the issue. You have to have solid intelligence in a conflict such as this, so you can get to the terrorists,

There is always a possibility that things could deteriorate,

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...

We’ve spent too much time over the last couple of years talking about the Kurds and the Shia and the Sunnis. We’ve got to start talking about Iraqis,

It’s interesting. When I’m in Washington everyone seems to think there is a set schedule, an exact plan. It just doesn’t work that way. There is a theatre of war. The commanders in the field...

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

We must fight the terrorists together so that we can have a free and prosperous future for the Iraqi people,

The international community needs to continue to help and you can certainly count on the United States to continue to help as well,

Being on the run, having to change the way that you do business, being unable to plan in a safe and secure environment, always looking over your shoulder, knowing that some day somebody’s going to...

Tell them we are winning, … You don’t define success as the absence of hard losses. You define it – are you defeating the enemy?

necessarily an unusual or catastrophic event.

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.

The war has moved to the west, which is a good . . . indicator that Iraqi and U.S. forces are having an effect elsewhere, … The amount of infiltration across the Syrian border remains...

The sectarian tensions in the region are historic. They exist, they are a fact of life that have to be dealt with. The question for us is whether these endemic, sectarian problems come to the...

I don’t believe Iran is a suicide state.

When we continue to pick at the wound and show the pictures over and over again it just creates the image ? a false image ? like this is the sort of stuff that is...

We have decided to make sure that we’re cautious about how we’re operating, and I have nothing to say further than that,