John Kerry Quotes

I'm John Kerry and I'm reporting for duty.

America must always be the world's paramount military power, but we can magnify our power through alliances.

I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it. ... Joe [Biden] and I brought an amendment to the $87 billion, and we said, `This should be paid for now, not adding to the deficit'.... The president said no; the Republicans voted no.

We're going to keep pounding. These guys [Bush Administration] are the most crooked, you know, lying group I've ever seen. It's scary.

I voted to hold Saddam Hussein accountable. I knew we had to hold him accountable. There's never been a doubt about that. But I also know that if we had done this with a sufficient number of troops, if we had done this in a globalized way, if we had brought more people to the table, we might have caught Saddam Hussein sooner. We might have had less loss of life. We would be in a stronger position today with respect to what we're doing.

I said at the time I would have preferred if we had given diplomacy a greater opportunity, but I think it was the right decision to disarm Saddam Hussein, and when the president made the decision, I supported him, and I support the fact that we did disarm him.

If you don't believe...Saddam Hussein is a threat with nuclear weapons, then you shouldn't vote for me.

We need a new approach to national security - a bold, progressive internationalism that stands in stark contrast to the too often belligerent and myopic unilateralism of the Bush Administration.

If Saddam Hussein is unwilling to bend to the international community's already existing order, then he will have invited enforcement, even if that enforcement is mostly at the hands of the United States, a right we retain even if the Security Council fails to act.

We must recognize that there is no indication that Saddam Hussein has any intention of relenting. So we have an obligation of enormous consequence, an obligation to guarantee that Saddam Hussein cannot ignore the United Nations. He cannot be permitted to go unobserved and unimpeded toward his horrific objective of amassing a stockpile of weapons of mass destruction.

There are all kinds of atrocities, and I would have to say that, yes, yes, I committed the same kind of atrocities as thousands of other soldiers have committed in that I took part in shootings in free fire zones. I conducted harassment and interdiction fire. I used 50-caliber machine guns, which we were granted and ordered to use, which were our only weapon against people. I took part in search and destroy missions, in the burning of villages. All of this is contrary to the laws of warfare, all of this is contrary to the Geneva Conventions and all of this is ordered as a matter of written established policy by the government of the United States from the top down. And I believe that the men who designed these, the men who designed the free fire zone, the men who ordered us, the men who signed off the air raid strike areas, I think these men, by the letter of the law, the same letter of the law that tried Lieutenant [William] Calley, are war criminals.

We feel we have been used in the worst fashion by the administration of this country. ... And we cannot consider ourselves America's best men when we are ashamed of and hated what we were called on to do in Southeast Asia.

How do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam? How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?