thumb|Bradley in 1950
"The wrong war, at the wrong place, at the wrong time, and with the wrong enemy" is General Omar Bradley's famous rebuke in his May 15, 1951 Congressional testimony as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the idea of extending the Korean War into China, as proposed by General Douglas MacArthur, the commander of the U.N. forces in Korea before being relieved of command by President Harry Truman on April 11, 1951.
Passages from testimony
Here is a more complete passage of Bradley's testimony:
Vietnam War usage
Presidential candidate John F. Kennedy echoed Bradley's sentiments in a speech given on October 12, 1960:
<blockquote>Should I become your President... I will not risk American lives and a nuclear war by permitting any other nation to drag us into the wrong war at the wrong place at the wrong time through an unwise commitment that is unwise militarily, unnecessary to our security and unsupported by our allies.</blockquote>
Iraq War usage
The quotation has since been used to criticize the planning and execution of the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq and the subsequent occupation. General Anthony Zinni, historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., have all used variations of the phrase in criticism of the Bush administration's handling of the Iraq war. Notably, Schlesinger also reported contemporaneously on Bradley's original statement back in 1951 in his book The General and the President, and the Future of American Foreign Policy.
Despite voting yes on the Authorization to Use Military Force on Iraq and not reversing his position at any time before the invasion, on September 6, 2004, at a Racine, West Virginia rally, Senator John Kerry said,
<blockquote>I would not have done just one thing differently than the president on Iraq, I would have done everything differently than the president on Iraq…. You've about 500 troops here, 500 troops there and it's American troops that are 90 percent of the combat casualties and it's American taxpayers that are paying 90 percent of the cost of the war. It's the wrong war, in the wrong place at the wrong time.</blockquote>
Speaking on 60 Minutes, May 23, 2004, Zinni said, "The plan was wrong, it was the wrong war, the wrong place and the wrong time— with little or no planning." He stated that serious "derelictions of duty," "criminal negligence," and poor planning put U.S. forces in harm's way and left Iraq in chaos after the invasion. He also said that Paul Bremer had made "mistake after mistake after mistake."</blockquote>
On December 15, 2003, at the Pacific Council on International Policy in Los Angeles, Howard Dean said Bush "launched the war in the wrong way, at the wrong time, with inadequate planning, insufficient help, and at unbelievable cost." In a May 3, 2003 primary debate in South Carolina, Dean said:
<blockquote>Let me be very clear about what I believe. I'm delighted to see Saddam Hussein gone. I appreciate the fact that we have a strong military in this country, and I'd keep a strong military in this country, but I think this was the wrong war at the wrong time because we have set a new policy of preventive war in this country, and I think that was the wrong thing to do because sooner or later we're going to see another country copy the United States, and sooner or later we're going to have to deal with the fact that there may well be a Shia fundamentalist regime set up in Iraq which will be a greater danger to the United States than Iraq is.</blockquote>
2004 Presidential debate
During the first Presidential debate of 2004, George W. Bush repeatedly rebuked John Kerry for using Bradley's saying, asking, "what kind of message does it say" to U.S. troops and allies. Speaking of other world leaders, Bush said "They're not going to follow somebody who says, 'This is the wrong war at the wrong place at the wrong time.'" Bush recited versions of the quotation seven times, three times in one response.
Other usage
In 2015, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni described the South Sudanese Civil War as "the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time." He also referred to Bradley's use of the phrase in his Independence Day speech in October 2023, underlining his criticism of imperialist actors.