Closing Guantanamo Bay is not a military solution. The closing of that prison, which I support, I supported it when I was in the Senate, requires more than just a military dimension.

No one individual vote, no one individual quote or no one individual statement defines me, my beliefs, or my record.

The United States can't impose democracies. We can't impose our will. The Russians found that out in Afghanistan.

We live in a world of absolute immediacy. It is an interconnected, combustible world, where technology and many other actions have given nonstate actors a reach, into countries and societies, for both good and evil, that we have never seen before. So it isn't a matter of just state versus state challenges or conflict. The bigger problem is nonstate actors.

I'm the first secretary of defense that's had to deal with sequestration. I've prepared two budgets that deal with sequestration. And you bring the chiefs together, the leadership of this enterprise together, to work through, how do we then take these cuts? Where do we apply those cuts? Readiness is the first thing that suffers.

Institutions are imperfect. Governments surely are. People are.

I took an oath of office to the Constitution, I didn't take an oath of office to my party or my president.