Undoubtedly, there are members of the former regime that are cooperating in some fashion and then there are extremists that are within Iraq that are cooperating with them.

You know as well as I do that counterinsurgency is a very nuanced type of military operation.

But the key shift in focus will be from counter-insurgency operations to more and more cooperation with Iraqi security forces and to building Iraqi security capacity.

We'll try to include Iraqi officers in our staffs. We will do everything we can to empower Iraqi security forces to stand up on their own and operate where they can alone.

So, these political activities will create friction in and of themselves, and in this environment of friction there'll be additional violence.

But clearly the fact that we've gone from zero Iraqi security forces on duty in May to up to 200,000 today is an enormous accomplishment, but it's not enough.

Morale is good; troops are confident; leaders are capable.

And so I think that if the person has the funds, the network, and the equipment to do this, and also the experience, which is the key factor, then they can be quite deadly.

You don't build a new power plant in the United States overnight. It takes years to build.

Everybody needs to understand that I learned Arabic from the United States Army as a second language. I never spoke it at home.

The United States is the most powerful nation on Earth and it just can't walk away from the Middle East and central Asia and the Horn of Africa.

Mother, who has an absolute belief that it is not the cards that one is dealt in life, it is how one plays them, is, by far, the highest card I was dealt.

She wasn't entirely sure if she was being rescued or kidnapped.

It must be awful to feel you're not needed.

If you gave a bag of potato chips to the guy who invented Pringles, he'd look at you like you were trying to hand him an abortion.

The world, which the Greeks called Beauty, has been made such by being gradually divested of every ornament which was not fitted to endure.

A leader or a man of action in a crisis almost always acts subconsciously and then thinks of the reasons for his action.

Never take advice from someone wearing a tie.

Biotech crops are not a solution to solve hunger in Africa or elsewhere.

[Hollywood] always sounds glamorous when you're young.

I will not allow anyone to take anything off my palette but if I do then within that, I can be creative.