History will look back, and I'm fully prepared to accept any mistakes that history judges to my administration, because the president makes the decisions, the president has to take the responsibility.

But the true threats to stability and peace are these nations that are not very transparent, that hide behind the-that don't let people in to take a look and see what they're up to. They're very kind of authoritarian regimes. The true threat is whether or not one of these people decide, peak of anger, try to hold us hostage, ourselves; the Israelis, for example, to whom we'll defend, offer our defenses; the South Koreans.

The question is who ought to make that decision, the Congress or the commanders? And as you know, my position is clear. I'm a commander guy.

Sometimes it can seem that history is turning in a wide arc, toward an unknown shore. Yet the destination of history is determined by human action, and every great movement of history comes to a point of choosing.

I believe the world would have been a lot worse off if Saddam [Hussein] were in power today.

I think that there are certain principles which should guide decision-making for a president. One such principle was that we're all God's children, and every life is precious. To me, that's a moral statement.

We need to have our medical records put on the IT.