I have never seen a more hopeful, optimistic, and excited place on earth than Iraq in the spring of 2003. The oppressed people of a regime we toppled shared America's dream of freedom, and opportunity called them to a future brighter than they had ever known.

For me, there is nothing that encapsulates both our misguided response to the attacks of September 11th and the entire Iraq war itself more than a sense of lost opportunity.

When I left Iraq for the last time in 2008, it was the first time I left the country better off than when I arrived.

Seth Moulton Quotes