Test ideas in the marketplace. You learn from hearing a range of perspectives. Consultation helps engender the support decisions need to be successfully implemented.

Listening to both sides does not necessarily bring about a correct judgment.

It is hard to put a price on some things. What is the value of having prevented nuclear weapons from getting into the hands of a dictator like Saddam Hussein - or of Gadhafi?

The worst thing you can do is allow a coalition to determine what your mission is.

Think ahead. Don't let day-to-day operations drive out planning.

I think it's very useful for you folks (reporters) to try your damndest to be precise. And don't repeat things that are inaccurate if you can possibly avoid it. And when you see things that are inaccurate, knock them down -- because there's a bucket of it floating around.

I think all of us have a sense if we imagine the kind of world we would face if the people who bombed the mess hall in Mosul, or the people who did the bombing in Spain, or the people who attacked the United States in New York, shot down the plane over Pennsylvania and attacked the Pentagon, the people who cut off peoples' heads on television to intimidate, to frighten indeed the word 'terrorized' is just that. Its purpose is to terrorize, to alter behavior, to make people be something other than that which they want to be.