The problem today is that Washington is more dysfunctional than ever, and there is a growing inability of the President and the leadership and the Congress to be able to work together to get things done, and that frustration may clearly be having an impact on the people who work in the legislative area.

Leon Panetta

Categorized in : Politics

When you're smaller and leaner, you're not going to have that large a presence throughout the world.

Leon Panetta

world

Go forward, knowing that you are greater than the challenges of your time.

Leon Panetta

greater knowing challenges

We are a nation at war. This is also a time for hard choices. It's about ensuring that we are able to prevail in the conflicts in which we are now engaged. But it's also about being able to be strong and disciplined in applying our nation's limited resources to defending America.

Leon Panetta

strong war america

The potential for the next Pearl Harbor could very well be a cyber-attack.

Leon Panetta

cyber-attacks next pearls

The United States has to be a leader in the world, because the problem is: If we are not leading, nobody else will.

Leon Panetta

united-states leader world

Winning in Afghanistan is having a country that is stable enough to ensure that there is no safe haven for Al Qaida or for a militant Taliban that welcomes Al Qaida. That's really the measure of success for the United States.

Leon Panetta

safe-haven winning country

The United States has to have the capability to deal with more than one enemy at one time and be able to confront them and win.

Leon Panetta

united-states winning enemy

I think the primary message to the world is that the United States is going to remain the strongest military power in the world.

Leon Panetta

united-states military thinking

The White House was so eager to rid itself of Iraq that it was willing to withdraw rather than lock in arrangements that would preserve our influence and interests.

Leon Panetta

iraq white house

The last thing I want to do is to make the mistakes of the past.

Leon Panetta

want mistake past

One of the principal qualities that you need as national security adviser is trust, the trust of the president. And that depends on truth and it depends on honesty.

Leon Panetta

quality honesty president

After every major conflict - World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the fall of the Soviet Union - what happened was that we ultimately hollowed out the force, largely by doing deep across-the-board cuts.

Leon Panetta

cutting war fall

The reason we've always had a civilian in that job [Secretary of Defence] is because we really believe that it is policymakers who ought to control the military and not have the military control the military.

Leon Panetta

military jobs believe

The United States was attacked on 9/11/12, and we know who attacked us.

Leon Panetta

united united-states states

I know that young people sometimes, caught up in the moment, make some very foolish decisions.

Leon Panetta

decision sometimes people

We either believe in the dignity of the individual, the rule of law, and the prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment, or we don't. There is no middle ground.

Leon Panetta

punishment law believe

The reality is that the United States military alone cannot be all things to all nations. We will sharpen the application of our resources, better deploy our forces in the world and share our burdens more and more effectively with our partners. And frankly, all our allies need to do the same.

Leon Panetta

allies military reality

Well, the United States is a Pacific power. And we have always had a presence in the Pacific.

Leon Panetta

pacific wells united-states

The Taliban is resilient.

Leon Panetta

taliban resilient

These days, it takes only seconds - seconds - for a picture, a photo, to suddenly become an international headline.

Leon Panetta

headlines international these-days