Whatever the dangers of the action we take, the dangers of inaction are far, far greater.

I see the Koran very much as an outsider. It stands in the great prophetic tradition of trying to return people to the basic principles of spirituality. Taken for its time, it was an extraordinarily progressive declaration of principle. It is also extraordinary for a Christian to read: for example, there are more references to Mary than in the Gospels. The tragedy is that it has been so warped and misapplied.

My office is on Twitter. I don't tweet myself - at least, not intentionally, but I probably should do.

Our determination to defend our values and way of life is greater than their (terrorists) determination to cause death and destruction to innocent people in a desire to impose extremism upon the world.

In 1997, we faced daunting challenges. Boom and bust economics..... Now, for all that remains to be done, dwell for a moment on what has been achieved.

There have been the most terrible, shocking events taking place in the United States of America within the last hour or so... I am afraid we can only imagine the terror and the carnage there and the many, many innocent people who will have lost their lives... It is perpetrated by fanatics who are utterly indifferent to the sanctity of human life and we, the democracies of this world, are going to have to come together to fight it together and eradicate this evil completely from our world.

What the commission that myself and Leon Panetta is trying to do is analyze this in two respects. First of all, what's the right military response and security response?