Quotes that say alot

(WaPo) "Virtually all of the U.S.-based Army combat brigades are rated as unready to deploy, Army officials say, and to meet the immediate needs in Iraq and Afghanistan they are finding it necessary to transfer personnel and gear to those units now first in line to deploy."

- Outgoing Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker

(McClatchy) "A general stopped me one day to say, `I read that our soldiers are doing nothing here but building schools and planting trees, so please explain, how do my boys keep dying?'"

- A Soviet Vet from their Afghanistan war. (good article.)

(AFP) "If the Iraqi parliament sees in me a prime minister, at the proper time, as an alternative, in a constitutional way, in a democratic way, I've served my country, I'll continue serving my country, that's all."

"I am one of the political players on the scene," he said, adding: "I am not a coup d'etat man."

- Iraqi vice-president Adil Abdul Mahdi, the man most rumored to take over for PM Maliki in an Iraqi coup.