Quotes du Jour From All the Wars

Sgt. John Guerra and his platoon patrols a Baghdad neighborhood

In the weeks since [President] Bush announced the new plan for Iraq . . . senior officials have rebuffed questions about other options in the event of failure. Eager to appear resolute and reluctant to provide fodder for skeptics, they have responded with a mix of optimism and evasion. . . .

National security experts outside the government have stepped into the void, offering detailed options through public papers, speeches and policy proposals over the past several weeks.

Most options involve partial or complete U.S. redeployment from Baghdad and other violent urban centers, followed by containment of the civil war within Iraq's borders -- keeping out meddlesome neighbors such as Iran and preventing a wider, regional conflict.

-- THE WASHINGTON POST

There’s a lot of talk back at home that morale among American forces is low here [in Iraq]. . . . I watch morale very closely. More closely than all else. Low morale in a particular unit can be the result of poor leadership in that unit, or just not getting mail, for instance. But gauging morale is not a simple affair of asking a few soldiers. A person has to live with them across Iraq. Having done so, my opinion is that overall troop morale is good to high. (If their morale could be bottled, it would probably would sell like crack, then be outlawed.)

-- MICHAEL YON

I have written before about the Bush Administration's war on attorneys who defend individuals accused of terrorism. A new front has now been opened in that war, with the chief U.S. military prosecutor accusing Major Michael Mori, who is representing David Hicks -- the Australian scheduled to be the first Gitmo detainee tried by military commission -- of violating the Orwellian article 88 of the UCMJ, which prohibits the use of "contemptuous words against the President, the Vice President, Congress, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of a military department, the Secretary of Transportation, or the Governor or legislature of any State, Territory, Commonwealth, or possession."

The accusation is a transparent attempt to force Major Mori from the case. The Major has proven an able defense attorney — and a justifiably outspoken critic of the military commissions.

-- KEVIN JOHN HELLER

Photo by Maya Alleruzzo/The Associated Press