Leon Panetta Quotes

You know, one thing I’ve learned over 40 years is that when you have jobs in Washington, you do it day by day and that’s what I’m doing as secretary of defense.

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.

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.

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

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

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

Well, you know, any defense force worth its salt has to be able to deal with uncertainty, has to be able to deal with events that we may not have planned for.

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

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.

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.

Unfortunately these days, there is a hell of a lot that keeps me awake.

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.

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

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

There’s no question that the main location of Al Qaida is in tribal areas of Pakistan.

The United States, and the president’s made this clear, does not want Iran to develop a nuclear weapon. That’s a red line for us. And it’s a red line obviously for the Israelis so we share a common goal here.

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.

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

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.