The days of looking the other way while despotic regimes trample human rights, rob their nations' wealth, and then excuse their failings by feeding their people a steady diet of anti-Western hatred are over.

I think the key that happened on 9/11 is we went from considering terrorist attacks as a law enforcement problem to considering terrorist attacks, especially on the scale we have on 9/11, as being an act of war.

We have to deal with this new type of threat in a way we haven’t yet defined. . . . With a low-probability, high-impact event like this . . . If there’s a one percent chance that Pakistani scientists are helping al Qaeda build or develop a nuclear weapon, we have to treat it as a certainty in terms of our response.

I learned early on that if you don't want your memos to get you in trouble someday, just don't write any.

The Iraqi forces are conducting the Mother of all Retreats.

I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency.

I worry that we're seeing a situation- Obama's administration not only committing us the huge deficits for the future, but is also redefining the relationship between government, on the one hand, and the private sector on the other.