Brent Scowcroft
Brent Scowcroft
Brent Scowcroftis a retired United States Air Force Lieutenant General. He was the United States National Security Advisor under U.S. Presidents Gerald Ford and George H. W. Bush. He also served as Military Assistant to President Richard Nixon and as Deputy Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs in the Nixon and Ford administrations. He served as Chairman of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board under President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2005 and assisted President Barack Obama...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPublic Servant
Date of Birth19 March 1925
CountryUnited States of America
Brent Scowcroft quotes about
The Iraqis need help establishing a government. We have to provide them with security.
Progress is only possible if the United States and its allies work together.
I'm afraid that the United States is more isolated today than at any other time in my memory.
Simply killing everyone who is already a terrorist today won't solve the problem.
Osama bin Laden is going after us to get us out of the region, so he can deal with the regimes that he sees in the region, or replace them with purists.
A colossal event is upon us, the birth of a New World Order.
We must find out where the roots of terrorism lie.
Europeans are familiar with terrorism and violence. We have not experienced a true conflict on our soil in a hundred years, and especially not one that involved 3,000 dead.
My point was that removing Saddam should not have been our highest priority. Fighting terrorism should have been our number one concern, followed by the Palestinian peace process.
But the central point is that any campaign against Iraq, whatever the strategy, cost and risks, is certain to divert us for some indefinite period from our war on terrorism.
The UN could help the Iraqi government get on its feet and help the United States withdraw a bit more.
To sum up, the position we took was that since we didn't know the internal situation in Iraq nor Saddam Hussein, that our best bet was to take counsel from the people who did know him and who did deal with him.
The Europeans must finally understand the incredible shock triggered by the attacks of September 11.
An idea can be as flawless as can be, but its execution will always be full of mistakes.