But my Arabic is pretty good. It's good enough to have conversations with people, to understand what they say, to understand what they're feeling.

I think you also understand that one of the key things that's got to be done in Iraq is to build a mentality of understanding that the military needs to be subordinate to civilian control and respectful of its own people.

Clearly the Secretary of Defense, my boss, would like nothing better than to get Osama bin Laden and to get... to ensure the complete defeat of al-Qaida, because we know that al-Qaida is planning operations against the United States even as we speak here.

I don't believe Iran is a suicide state.

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

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

We'll try to include Iraqi officers in our staffs. We will do everything we can to empower Iraqi security forces to stand up on their own and operate where they can alone.