I think no commander ever is going to come out and say, 'I'm confident that we can do this.

I just don't know whether it was all destroyed years ago - I mean, there's no question that there were chemical weapons years ago - whether they were destroyed right before the war, (or) whether they're still hidden.

Don't forget Yemen, where there are also extremist elements, as we saw recently.

I think Putin wants to recreate as much of the Soviet Union as he can through a variety of different means. He's invaded parts of Georgia, took Crimea, southeastern Ukraine, bases in other countries.

Political progress will only take place if sufficient security exists.

President Obama has said that our aspirations should be realistic. We are not going to turn one of the poorest countries in the world, that was plunged into 30 years of war, into an advanced, industrialized, Western-style democracy. What we want to achieve is Afghanistan's capacity to secure and govern itself.

Iraq has gone from being on the brink to being on the mend, and it clearly has some big advantages.