Leon panetta quotes

I mean, the Taliban, my view is that they have been weakened.

We have throughout our history been tested when it comes to the institutions of our democracy. And thank God our forefathers were smart enough to establish a government of checks and balances to make sure that power cannot be centralized in any one branch of government. And those institutions have proven themselves.

The political and substantive reality is that the agenda has to change. I don't think they have any choice.

We are a nation at war. This is also a time for hard choices. It's about ensuring that we are able to prevail in the conflicts in which we are now engaged. But it's also about being able to be strong and disciplined in applying our nation's limited resources to defending America.

I don't usually comment on columnists' ideas of what I'm thinking. That's a dangerous game to get into.

When you're smaller and leaner, you're not going to have that large a presence throughout the world.

My experience is that the director of the FBI is particularly important to just how aggressive an investigation will be into an issue. And once you remove James Comey, it creates a vacuum at the top. And the fundamental issue will be whether or not there is support at the highest levels within the FBI to continue to conduct that investigation. That's going to be the question mark.

Clearly, Russia has lied to the world about what's going on in Ukraine. They have clearly violated the cease-fire agreements.

I'm going to give people the benefit of the doubt.

Companies should be able to share specific threat information with the government without the prospect of lawsuits hanging over their head.

I want to reassert again the position of the United States that with regards to Iran, we will not allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon, period. We will not allow them to develop a nuclear weapon, and we will exert all options in the effort to ensure that that does not happen...The United States stands firmly with Israel, and we have a rock solid commitment to the security of Israel and to the security of its citizens.

Rather than undermining the Palestinian Authority, it is in Israel's interests to strengthen it by... continuing to transfer Palestinian tax revenues and pursuing other avenues of cooperation.

The United States has to have the capability to deal with more than one enemy at one time and be able to confront them and win.

People elected Donald Trump because he acts decisively. He fired James Comey. He didn't fire the entire FBI. If there's something there, the FBI is going to continue to investigate it.

You know, as director of the CIA, I got an awful lot of intelligence about all the horrible things that could go on across the world.

The area of climate change has a dramatic impact on national security.

I think a quality that a national security adviser must have is the ability to set up procedures.

The Taliban is resilient.

The one thing that I remember from all of my intelligence briefings and my dealings with the Russians is that when you deal with the Russians, you have to deal with them from strength, not from weakness.

Sexual assault has no place in the military. It is a violation of everything that the US military stands for.

The United States has to be a leader in the world, because the problem is: If we are not leading, nobody else will.

I know that young people sometimes, caught up in the moment, make some very foolish decisions.

It doesn't make a lot of sense for us to borrow money from the Chinese to go give to another country for humanitarian aid. We ought to get the Chinese to take care of the people.

Well look, CIA is an agency that has to collect intelligence, do operations. We have to take risks and it's important that we take risks and that we know that we have the support of the government and we have the support of the American people in what we're doing.

The potential for the next Pearl Harbor could very well be a cyber-attack.

Throughout the 40 years I've been in Washington, I've always worked hard, particularly with regards to the budget issues.

If you're a terrorist, you're a terrorist.

These days, it takes only seconds - seconds - for a picture, a photo, to suddenly become an international headline.

You don't deploy forces into harm's way without knowing what's going on.

I think my best advice would be to separate Donald Trump, the president of the United States from whatever investigation is being conducted by the FBI. I mean, there is something to be said, frankly, about the need for the appointment of an independent prosecutor because the American people are entitled to have a full review of what happened as a result of what the Russians did during our election.

I mean, the Taliban, my view is that they have been weakened. We have not seen them able to conduct any kind of organized attack to regain any territory that they've lost. We've seen levels of violence going down.

There's no question that the main location of al Qaeda is in tribal areas of Pakistan.

Frankly, my fundamental beliefs have not changed.

In the zero-sum budget game, every dollar spent on this problem [illegal immigration] must be taken from somewhere else....No, we should not tolerate people immigrating illegally. But we need to treat this issue honestly and fairly.

One of the principal qualities that you need as national security adviser is trust, the trust of the president. And that depends on truth and it depends on honesty.

Obama really does recognize the threats that are out there; I think he understands the world. He understands the role of America in that troubled world.

Today, I think the attitude is that governing is not necessarily good politics, and the result is that it's much more partisan and much more divided.

Well, the United States is a Pacific power. And we have always had a presence in the Pacific.

If we don't do something to simplify the tax system, we're going to end up with a national police force of internal revenue agents.

I don't think there's any question that America is safer as a result of the bin Laden operation.

I think what both Republicans and Democrats need to do and the leaders on both sides is to recognize that if sequester takes place, it would be disastrous for our national defense and very frankly for a lot of very important domestic programs. They have a responsibility to come together, find the money necessary to de-trigger sequester.

Iran's continued drive to develop nuclear capabilities, including troubling enrichment activities and past work on weaponization documented by the IAEA, and its continued support to groups like Hezbollah, Hamas and other terrorist organizations make clear that the regime in Tehran is a very grave threat to all of us.

The United States will do whatever we have to do to protect our forces.

The United States was attacked on 9/11/12, and we know who attacked us.

An aggressor nation or extremist group could gain control of critical switches and derail passenger trains, or trains loaded with lethal chemicals.

I suddenly realized at the CIA that I had to make life-and-death decisions about people.

We either believe in the dignity of the individual, the rule of law, and the prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment, or we don't. There is no middle ground.

My whole life has been dedicated to public service.

Iran is isolating itself from the rest of the world.

I'm not big on commissions.

One demonstration of extremists, any more than a Ku Klux Klan demonstration in the United States, is not necessarily reflective of what the rest of the country feels.

If the Iraqis fail to implement the reforms, if they fail to get a handle on the violence, there's nothing the United States can do, militarily or otherwise, that can solve those problems. They have to assume the primary responsibility to govern themselves.

The consequence could be that we would have an escalation that would take place that would not only involve many lives, but I think it could consume the Middle East in a confrontation and a conflict that we would regret.

The fundamental premise is that neither the United States or the international community is going to allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon.

When you cut a half-a-trillion dollars from the defense budget, it affects almost every area in the defense budget.

The most important thing we can do is prosecute the offenders, deal with those that have broken the law and committed this crime. And if we can do that then we can begin to deal with this issue and send a signal this is not a problem that we are going to ignore in the United States military.

My father said I was perfectly suited for Washington because I've always worked around nuts.

Winning in Afghanistan is having a country that is stable enough to ensure that there is no safe haven for Al Qaida or for a militant Taliban that welcomes Al Qaida. That's really the measure of success for the United States.

Al Qaeda still remains a threat.

The president is out there today trying to talk about health care, and the reality is nobody cares about what he's saying on health care because this news is consuming everything. No president could tolerate that or should tolerate it.

My impression is that Putin feels that he can basically manipulate the West to do what he ultimately wants to achieve, and that he feels he's gotten away with it so far, and that all he has to do is basically play the same game.

China is a major power in the Pacific and I think we are dealing with some common threats in that region: the whole issue of Korea and the stability of Korea, the whole issue of nuclear proliferation, the whole issue of providing free access to our ships that are operating in that area.

In this century, the 21st century, the U.S. recognizes our prosperity and our security depends even more on the Asia-Pacific region.

The reality is that the United States military alone cannot be all things to all nations. We will sharpen the application of our resources, better deploy our forces in the world and share our burdens more and more effectively with our partners. And frankly, all our allies need to do the same.

The last thing I want to do is to make the mistakes of the past.

I want you and the people of Israel to know a few things that have not and will not change. The United States stands firmly with Israel, and we have a rock solid commitment to the security of Israel and to the security of its citizens.

After every major conflict - World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the fall of the Soviet Union - what happened was that we ultimately hollowed out the force, largely by doing deep across-the-board cuts.

Go forward, knowing that you are greater than the challenges of your time.

I don't engage in hypotheticals.

Rising sea levels, severe draughts, the melting of the polar caps, the more frequent and devastating natural disasters all raise demand for humanitarian assistance and disaster relief.

The United States is going to defend itself under any circumstances.

The terrorism from 9/11 has metastasized. It's metastasized in Iraq and Syria, in Nigeria, in Somalia, in Yemen and in other places in North Africa. We need a very comprehensive strategy to deal with that threat.

Caution is an important quality in a leader, but it has to be caution followed by decision. Caution followed by ambivalence can be a weakness.

I think it's extremely important that the president Donald Trump himself indicate that he too wants to discover the full truth behind what the Russians did to elections 2016.

I don't think I should penalize people who were doing their duty.

Red lines are kind of political arguments that are used to try to put people in a corner.

The reason we've always had a civilian in that job [Secretary of Defence] is because we really believe that it is policymakers who ought to control the military and not have the military control the military.

I think the primary message to the world is that the United States is going to remain the strongest military power in the world.

I think soon after I became director of the CIA - President Obama pulled me into the Oval Office and said: 'Look, I just want you to know that your top priority is to go after Osama bin Laden.'

I have tremendous confidence in the ability of government institutions and the American people to do what is right to make sure that our democracy stays on the right track.

Russians understand strength, and if they feel that their opponents are weak, they will take advantage of it.

The White House was so eager to rid itself of Iraq that it was willing to withdraw rather than lock in arrangements that would preserve our influence and interests.