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.

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.