Leon Panetta Quotes

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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 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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

The Taliban is resilient.

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

Al Qaeda still remains a threat.

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

My whole life has been dedicated to public service.

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

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.