The bottom line is these techniques have hurt our image around the world, the damage they have done to our interests far outweighed whatever benefit they gave us and they are not essential to our national security. Dennis C. Blair Read Quote
The leaders who we admire who have been able to bring great change in the past – Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela – they’re all inspirational religious leaders and smart tacticians. It would be nice to find the Muslim Gandhi, wouldn’t it? Dennis C. Blair Read Quote
High value information came from interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a deeper understanding of the al Qa’ida organization that was attacking this country. Dennis C. Blair Read Quote
Nothing is more important to national security and the making and conduct of good policy than timely, accurate, and relevant intelligence. Nothing is more critical to accurate and relevant intelligence than independent analysis. Dennis C. Blair Read Quote
Before 9/11 there were weak procedures, willingness, and mechanisms for communicating among agencies for foreign intelligence and the FBI with its focus on law enforcement. The domestic-vs.-foreign barrier has been solved by the reforms after 9/11 that established the DNI. Dennis C. Blair Read Quote
There are many causes of violent deaths in America – murders and traffic accidents – that we do not approach with the same ‘no price too steep, no task too difficult’ approach that we take toward al Qaeda. Dennis C. Blair Read Quote
I think American interests are served when there are sections of the world that have representative governments, politically open economic systems, and are willing to take a stand against some of the more extreme ideologies that there are around the world. Dennis C. Blair Read Quote
The use of large-scale military force in volatile regions of underdeveloped countries is difficult to do right, has major unintended consequences and rarely turns out to be quick, effective, controlled and short lived. Dennis C. Blair Read Quote
In addition to anti-American terrorists with global reach, our adversaries include organizations – some nation states, some private and some criminal – that proliferate weapons of mass destruction and the means to deliver them. Dennis C. Blair Read Quote
I like to think I would not have approved those methods in the past, but I do not fault those who made the decisions at that time, and I will absolutely defend those who carried out the interrogations within the orders they were given. Dennis C. Blair Read Quote
