The reality is, the United States has global interests. Our defense budget is about the same as the defense budgets or military budgets of every other country in the world put together. Robert M. Gates Read Quote
One of my favorite little sayings is, ‘To avoid criticism, say nothing, do nothing, be nothing.’ Robert M. Gates Read Quote
If Iraq and Afghanistan have taught us anything in recent history, it is the unpredictability of war and that these things are easier to get into than to get out of, and, frankly, the facile way in which too many people talk about, ‘Well, let’s just go attack them.’ Robert M. Gates Read Quote
One of the big changes in the Congress since I first came to Washington is that all of these folks go home every weekend. They used to play golf together; their families got to know each other, go to dinner at each other’s homes at weekends – and these would be people who were political adversaries. Robert M. Gates Read Quote
I’ve spent my entire adult life with the United States as a superpower and one that had no compunction about spending what it took to sustain that position. And it didn’t have to look over its shoulder because our economy was so strong. Robert M. Gates Read Quote
I had no concerns – I had no reason to have concerns based on what was available to me about North’s contacts with the private sector people, but I didn’t think a CIA person should do it. Robert M. Gates Read Quote
If Poindexter made a comment to me like that, it would have been in the context of once the authorized program is approved there would be no point in having any of these private benefactors any longer. Robert M. Gates Read Quote
Well, what I’ve said is that the war in Iraq will always be clouded by how it began, which was a wrong premise, that there were in fact no weapons of nuclear – weapons of mass destruction. Robert M. Gates Read Quote
