# Ann Wright

Mary Ann Wright (born 1947) is a retired United States Army colonel and retired U.S. State Department official, known for her outspoken opposition to the Iraq War. She received the State Department Award for Heroism in 1997, after helping to evacuate several thousand people during the civil war in Sierra Leone. She is most noted for having been one of three State Department officials to publicly resign in direct protest of the 2003 Invasion of Iraq. Wright was also a passenger on the Challenger 1, which along with the Mavi Marmara, was part of the Gaza flotilla.

## Quotes

* Americans should challenge policies of our country that are wrong and harm others.
** 30 American Peace Delegates Traveling to Iran to Express Concern About Looming War (20 Feb 2019)
* I think it’s the military industrial complex that needs more weapons sales, and the Russians have always been the bogeyman for the United States from the Cold War period. And even though we had 20 years of peace and tranquility with the Russians, now they are being vilified again. Not to say that it’s–you know, there are some things they’ve done I don’t care for at all. But the fact that now they are the enemy, and the increase in the number of weapons all the countries are manufacturing and selling, is big business.
** What is NATO Good For?, The Real News Network, (8 April 2019)
* I resigned 16 years ago from the Bush W. administration in opposition to Bush’s war on Iraq. Tragically another administration led by the same swamp monsters are propelling the U.S. into an unnecessary and horrific military confrontation with Iran. Trump probably does not know that Iran is a country of 80 million people that has withstood 40 years of sanctions from the U.S. after the Iranian revolution in 1979 and it has a military that has as much battle experience in Syria as the U.S.. Iran is a country that battled a U.S. sponsored war from Iraq from 1980-1988 and Trump probably doesn’t remember that Donald Rumsfeld handed chemical weapons to Saddam to use on Iran. Iran suffered over 1 million deaths from that war. Trump probably does not know that Iran is a large country, definitely not on the small scale of countries that the U.S. normally attacks, invades and occupies....Trump probably does not realize that the country of Cuba that seems to be a massive threat to the U.S. (or to the wealthy, influential Cuban-American exiles in Miami and South Florida) ...has been under the most severe sanctions and blockade the U.S. has put on any country, for almost 60 years... Trump’s advisers, headed by John Bolton, are taking over and orchestrating his policies that have quickly destabilized the world and has jeopardized the security of the United States.
** Bolton Leading Trump on Reckless War Agenda, Consortium News (13 May 2019)

## Quotes about

* In her 29-year career in the Army and Army Reserves, Colonel Ann Wright served at the NATO subcommand Allied Forces Central Europe, and later as a diplomat in various posts around the world, but resigned from the U.S. government in protest of George W. Bush’s war on Iraq. She agrees...that NATO is an impediment to peace in Europe.
** RealNews Network What is NATO Good For?, The Real News Network, (8 April 2019)