This Week They Said

This weeks quotes from around the world

This weeks quotes from around the world

Whoever decides to forsake his nation at the request of another is not true to his principles. We will die here. We will die in this country and we will maintain our honour, the honour that is required, in front of our people.

- President Saddam Hussein of Iraq.

This motion and the war rhetoric that surrounds it are a low point in politics. I sense a disconnection from the society we claim to represent.

READ MORE

- Alan Simpson, one of the British Labour MPs who rebelled against Tony Blair's pro-war stance this week.

The European Union is pacific but not pacifist.

- Pat Cox, President of the European Parliament.

These people suddenly see him as a champion of small nations against large nations. I regard that as grotesque.

- The Minister for Justice, Michael McDowell, accusing some anti-war campaigners of backing Saddam Hussein.

If you leave the whole thing to us, to fight again, it will be repeating the mistakes the US made during the Soviet occupation.

- The Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, pleading with the US not to abandon his country.

There is anxiety among Palestinians that a war on Iraq will provide Israeli president Ariel Sharon with the pretext he needs to complete the process of ethnically cleansing the occupied territories of their Arab population.

- Raymond Deane, founding member of the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

America is meant to be a humane country, but under no circumstances did they behave in a humane way.

- Derek Bond, wrongly accused by the FBI.

They make sport out of us, rating us up and down. I think that is what made him crack.

- French restaurateur Jacques Lameloise, accusing food critics of driving celebrity chef Bernard Loiseau to suicide.

We were surprised to get the paperwork because the Daimler has not moved under its own power for decades.

- Andrew King, curator of the Bristol Industrial Museum, whose 105-year-old Daimler received a penalty notice for evading Mayor Ken Livingstone's congestion charge in London. The car has not been on the road since 1947.

The patients without night-time dialysis have nowhere else to go. Without dialysis, they would die within seven to 10 days.

- Dr Peter Conlon, consultant at the dialysis unit in Beaumont Hospital, warning that lack of funds may cost lives.

Given the nature of the work undertaken by An Garda Síochána, occasions do arise, and will arise in the future, where it will be necessary for vehicles used by members of An Garda Síochána, in the course of their duties, to exceed the speed limits.

- Garda Commissioner Pat Byrne.

The objective of the party is to get Fianna Fáil out of government.

- Labour leader Pat Rabbitte.

I still can't fathom it. I just can't get into his brain . . . I feel maybe I would be better off not trying to.

- Christine O'Sullivan on Chris Crowley, who abducted and killed their daughter before turning the gun on himself.

Freedom of information is central to our modern concept of a functioning democracy . . . These changes are all about strengthening the veil of secrecy around ministers and civil servants.

- Labour TD Joan Burton on changes to the Freedom of Information Act.

Republicans have become accustomed and comfortable with being courted and having their hand held.

- Denis Bradley, vice-chairman of the Northern Ireland Policing Board.

Is there not an inherent contradiction in seeking to encourage young people to take an active part in sport while encouraging them to drink alcohol in the same breath?

- Archbishop Dermot Clifford, a patron of the GAA, criticising the association's sponsorship deal with Guinness.