Leon Panetta

“The United States, and the president's made this clear, does not want Iran to develop a nuclear weapon. That's a red line for us. And it's a red line obviously for the Israelis so we share a common goal here.”

“You know, one thing I've learned over 40 years is that when you have jobs in Washington, you do it day by day and that's what I'm doing as secretary of defense.”

“Rather than undermining the Palestinian Authority, it is in Israel's interests to strengthen it by... continuing to transfer Palestinian tax revenues and pursuing other avenues of cooperation.”

“Today, I think the attitude is that governing is not necessarily good politics, and the result is that it's much more partisan and much more divided.”

“The American Dream has been defended, in every generation, by the brave men and women willing to fight and die for America. They are our greatest national treasure. They deserve a serious Commander-in-Chief.”

“The Taliban is resilient.”

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

“I don't think I should penalize people who were doing their duty.”

“I don't usually comment on columnists' ideas of what I'm thinking. That's a dangerous game to get into.”

“In this century, the 21st century, the U.S. recognizes our prosperity and our security depends even more on the Asia-Pacific region.”

“Well, you know, any defense force worth its salt has to be able to deal with uncertainty, has to be able to deal with events that we may not have planned for.”

“The area of climate change has a dramatic impact on national security.”

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

“The United States is going to defend itself under any circumstances.”

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

“I mean, the Taliban, my view is that they have been weakened. We have not seen them able to conduct any kind of organized attack to regain any territory that they've lost. We've seen levels of violence going down.”

“When the president went around the table to the country's national security leadership, Hillary was clear: We have to go get bin Laden. And our Special Operations Forces did just that.”