Counter-insurgency, as you know, is a roller-coaster affair.

The bottom line is, you really have to commit to something if you're going to be successful in it.

You have to keep on disrupting. If you let up the pressure, then al-Qaeda senior leadership will come back.

I really started to get a sense of how, if you will, special Zarqawi was, I guess, sort of midway through 2004.

At a certain point, you have to take the rearview mirrors off the bus and focus forward, and that's what we've sought to do.

I considered our British comrades to rank with the finest men and women of any armed service in the world. And I know that my fellow American soldiers - and those of the other coalition countries under my command - valued very highly the professional expertise, capability, courage, and determination of our British partners on the battlefield.