America has shown we are serious about removing the threat of weapons of mass destruction... We now know that Saddam Hussein had the capacity to produce weapons of mass destruction.... We know he had the necessary infrastructure because we found the labs and the dual-use facilities that could be used for these chemical and biological agents. We know that he was developing the delivery systems - ballistic missiles - that had been prohibited by the United Nations.
It's very important to go back and keep in mind the distinction between handling these events as criminal acts, which was the way we did before 9/11, and then looking at 9/11 and saying, 'This is not a criminal act,' not when you destroy 16 acres of Manhattan, kill 3,000 Americans, blow a big hole in the Pentagon. That's an act of war.
From our perspective, trying to deal with this continuing campaign of terror, if you will, the war on terror that we're engaged in, this is a continuing enterprise. The people that were involved in some of those activities before 9/11 are still out there.
[In response to the question "Do you think that you underestimated the insurgency's strength?"] I think so. I guess if I look back on it now, I don't think anybody anticipated the level of violence that we've encountered.
I did my 40 years in Washington, 40-plus, and it's time to pause and reflect and think about what I've seen and done.
We live in a free society, and freedom means freedom for everybody. We shouldn't be able to choose and say, 'You get to live free and you don't.' That means people should be free to enter into any kind of relationship they want to enter into. Like Joe (Lieberman), I'm also wrestling with the extent to which there ought to be legal sanction of those relationships. I think we ought to do everything we can to tolerate and accommodate whatever kind of relationships people want to enter into.
I support the President's plan to amend the Constitution, banning same-sex marriage.
I think there's - the assumption seems to predominate on the other side that the reason there's been problems in the world is because of U.S. activity, U.S. conduct. We're the bad guys.We're the ones that lead people to become terrorists. We're the ones that generate the kind of criticism that has given al Qaeda an excuse to come attack the United States.
The threat is there. It's very real and it's continuing. And what the Obama people are doing, in effect, is saying, well, we don't need those tough policies that we had. That says either they didn't work, which we know is not the case - they did work, they kept us safe for seven years - or that now somehow the threat's gone away. There's no longer a threat out there, we don't have to be as tough and aggressive as the Bush administration was.
Once we got hit by - on 9/11 and lost 3,000 people that day, we recognized, and it was one of the key decisions President Bush made, that this is not a law enforcement problem, it is a strategic threat to the United States. It's a war. And based on that, we then adopted a whole set of policies that flowed out of that proposition.
I worry that we're seeing a situation- Obama's administration not only committing us the huge deficits for the future, but is also redefining the relationship between government, on the one hand, and the private sector on the other.
In terms of asking questions, I plead guilty. I ask a hell of a lot of questions. That's my job.
I worry very much that we're in a situation now where there doesn't appear to be any limitation whatsoever in terms of the spending commitments that Obama's administration wants to make. Vast expansion in terms of the deficit, but it also says a lot about what they intend for the role of government in the society.
I've been criticized because I've had the temerity to speak out and done a couple of interviews since I left office. I don't find anything surprising about that. I don't say - I've been careful not to get personal in terms of my criticisms for my comment, but I think the issues are simply too important for the future of the nation for us to operate as though those of us who disagree somehow shouldn't speak out and be heard. I think we need to be heard.
I'm up in the Senate most Tuesdays when they're in session.
I think Barack Obama is a one-term President.
I think President Obama is going to be a one-term president.
It's not just Bin Laden or just those that are involved in the counterterrorism effort. We've gotta cast the net broader than that. But I think it's a - very special tribute that we all owe to the bravery and courage of the men and women in the intelligence and military business who performed so well to finally get it done.
The days of looking the other way while despotic regimes trample human rights, rob their nations' wealth, and then excuse their failings by feeding their people a steady diet of anti-Western hatred are over.
How could any responsible leader have ignored the Iraqi threat? If we had not acted, Saddam Hussein and his sons would still be in power.
Europeans know that their great experiment in building peace, unity and prosperity cannot survive as a privileged enclave, surrounded on its outskirts by breeding grounds of hatred and fanaticism.
As a former secretary of defense, I think Donald Rumsfeld is the best secretary of defense the United States has ever had.
I can think of a lot of words to describe Senator Kerry's position on Iraq; "consistent" is not one of them.
One of the worst things we could do is start to act now as though the attack of 9/11 is a thing of the past and will never be repeated. That's just not true.
I don’t think that [the war in Iraq] damaged our reputation around the world.
