Nobody's more mindful of the sacrifices of our troops than those of us that command them.

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

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.

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.

Oh, the transition concerns me because as we move towards an important political event, it's clear to me that the terrorists and insurgents will move as hard as they can to disrupt this process.

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.

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