Three big assumptions proved wrong: one, that the Iraqi people would welcome us as liberators; two, that oil would soon pay for Iraqi's rebuilding; and, three, that we have plenty of troops, weapons, and equipment for the postwar situation.

As costs mount, in lives and dollars, it is natural to second guess, but one lesson I hope we have learned is that the U.S. cannot go it alone in a policy that leaves American troops taking all the risk and American taxpayers paying all of the costs.

Three big assumptions proved wrong: one, that the Iraqi people would welcome us as liberators; two, that oil would soon pay for Iraqi's rebuilding; and, three, that we have plenty of troops, weapons, and equipment for the postwar situation.

Just a few short years ago in the year 2000, the last full fiscal year of the Clinton administration, this country was running a surplus of $236 billion.

Our country, the United States of America, may be the world's largest economy and the world's only superpower, but we stretch ourselves dangerously thin by taking on commitments like Iraq with only a motley band of allies to share the burden.

I am not disputing the need for this money. What I am disputing and calling attention to is the fact that we are taking the tab for defense in our time against terrorists in the Middle East and elsewhere and shoving this tab off onto our children.

Democrats and Republicans alike support our military personnel.

What we are effectively doing, I say this to the young people of America whom my colleagues represent, is leaving our children and grandchildren the tab for fighting a war, letting them pay for the lion's share of it by simply adding it to the national debt.

Domestic discretionary spending on education and health care and the environment has been growing at 2 to 3 percent a year. He says we have to rein it in, but he ignores the spending category that is the big spike in the budget.

Without the Guard and Reserve, our active duty troops could hardly deploy.

We have got thousands of nuclear weapons in order to achieve deterrence.

We would take a little bit of money out of a huge increase in ballistic missile defense and put it in a place where it will do a lot of good, namely, in targeted pay increases to our enlisted personnel, particularly our NCOs and our junior warrant officers.

This war so far has cost us $125 billion and counting, because largely we decided to do it on our own, with only the United Kingdom as a paying, fully participating partner.

We can have tax cuts, but when we have tax cuts and do not have a surplus, the amount of the tax cut goes straight to the bottom line, adds to the deficit, and the deficit adds to the national debt, and sooner or later, the debt has to be paid.

And it raises a fundamental question: How long can we move the world in one direction while we move in another direction, and do we want to backslide into an era that we finally emerged from where we had a nuclear weapon for every tactical mission?

Since the Pentagon underestimated the number of troops required after the end of hostilities, we were not prepared to prevent looting or to guard hundreds of weapons dumps spread throughout the country.

We developed during the 1990s a series of budget process rules that helped us bring to heel these deficits, diminishing every year and moving the budget so into surplus.

The young in this country, and you fellows are young by my reckoning, have a right to be concerned about the course that our government, the Federal Government, is taking under President Bush.

With no other security forces on hand, U.S. military was left to confront, almost alone, an Iraqi insurgency and a crime rate that grew worse throughout the year, waged in part by soldiers of the disbanded army and in part by criminals who were released from prison.

The oil companies regard nuclear power as their rival, who will reduce their profits, so they put out a lot of disinformation about nuclear power.

My formula for success is rise early, work late, and strike oil.

In addition, each barrel of oil we save through conservation further decreases our dangerous reliance on unstable Middle East oil.

The Arab-Israeli conflict is also in many ways a conflict about status: it's a war between two peoples who feel deeply humiliated by the other, who want the other to respect them. Battles over status can be even more intractable than those over land or water or oil.

If a war started, the oil price probably would go up, as you said, maybe $5, $6 a barrel until you saw other oil from the extra supplies that are available elsewhere coming into the world, into the market.

In 1979 I teamed up with my friend and business partner, Bill DeWitt, and together we formed an oil and gas company that invested through limited partnerships in oil and gas exploration.

What is the first thing we did when we took control of Iraq? Protect the oil fields. Remember the administration quote about how the oil would pay for the war.

The President's announcement sounded less like a national energy plan than like a page from an election-year play book. This Administration's plan to reduce obscene oil company profits is to regulate them less.

I'm fighting for small businesses. I'm not fighting for big oil. Don't be confused. And there are thousands of businesses in this state that are at great risk. Meanwhile, the country keeps guzzling the oil, but we're out of work down here. We need to get back to work to build this region, and we intend to do so.

The confusing thing, I thought, was that most of America already knew that we were overly reliant on oil, especially on foreign oil. But it was news that this administration had begun to at least acknowledge that problem.

If you don't have a refinery operating, it's hard to use oil that's available.

If the United States is to protect itself from the economic and the political threats created by this excessive dependence, we must reduce our reliance on foreign energy sources and on foreign oil as quickly and as efficiently as possible.

No one really wants to send their kids off to die for oil.

The star of oil and vinegar and the oil and vinegar of the stars.

Democrats have laid out a program that, if adopted, would make us independent of Middle Eastern oil in ten years, and create a new economy especially for those in rural America. Our program invests in clean energy alternatives and provides energy assistance for those in need.

So we are now still dependent on foreign oil, have a problem with global warming, and are losing jobs rapidly to the Japanese in fuel-efficient vehicles as a result of that very shortsighted progress.

We must have a relentless commitment to producing a meaningful, comprehensive energy package aimed at conservation, alleviating the burden of energy prices on consumers, decreasing our country's dependency on foreign oil, and increasing electricity grid reliability.

I've never had a penny through oil deals and no one has produced a shred of evidence that I have.

One pound of uranium is worth about 3 million pounds worth of coal or oil.

Oil-painting is a developed technique. Why go backwards?

As the cost of gasoline rises and our dependence on foreign oil continues to increase, the effect of sending over $100 billion each year to OPEC nations hurts every American.

I became a real Shell Motor Oil expert, and I did this 25-minute film. It turned out really well and, as a result, they offered me more work and lots of commercials to direct.

A premium in the oil price of somewhere between 10 to 15 dollars a barrel reflects this heightened anxiety.

It is important that the United States move with all deliberate speed to develop and get into usage alternative fuels that will allow us to end our dependence on foreign oil.

Three big assumptions proved wrong: one, that the Iraqi people would welcome us as liberators; two, that oil would soon pay for Iraqi's rebuilding; and, three, that we have plenty of troops, weapons, and equipment for the postwar situation.

I have never solicited nor received money from Iraq for our campaign against war and sanctions. I have never seen a barrel of oil, never owned one, never bought one, never sold one.

Financial service providers act as the lubricating oil in the economy. They link consumers who want to invest their savings for a good return with companies who want to borrow on best terms for expansion.

As the temperature drops, the need for heating oil goes up.

An inexhaustible good nature is one of the most precious gifts of heaven, spreading itself like oil over the troubled sea of thought, and keeping the mind smooth and equable in the roughest weather.

John D. Rockefeller wanted to dominate oil, but Microsoft wants it all, you name it: cable, media, banking, car dealerships.