Top 84 Quotes & Sayings by Jack Keane

The success of ISIS is largely tied to the safe haven it has in Syria.

The Pentagon is a series of wedges. So you have - the outer wedge has windows on the outside, and then inside of that, it has windows with an alleyway; then there's another wedge with windows outside, windows inside. And we call them the E Ring, the D Ring, the C Ring.

In Washington, D.C., in 2006, Democrats had long since given up on the war in Iraq in terms of any tangible political support for it. The new factor was the Republicans were beginning to give up as well, and they were truly challenging the strategy and the lack of success.

Most people who aspire to be president don't have a foreign policy and national security background. The exception was certainly Hillary Clinton.

I read people; that's one of my strengths. It's not that I can't be fooled, but I'm not fooled often.

In the early 2009, a campaign plan developed by Petraeus and General McChrystal to defeat the Taliban, they required a minimum force of 40,000. President Obama rejected that recommendation and provided 25 percent less. He also decided he would pull the force out in 12 to 15 months.

The fact that we walked away from the Middle East, as distasteful as it was for us to stay involved and prevent wars, based on our long involvement there, we have helped to create and provide a foundation. Obviously for ISIS and also for the absolute barbarianism and human catastrophe that Assad impacted on his people.

Afghanistan is where much of the al Qaeda journey began. It is the main site where Osama bin Laden, Mullah Omar and their cohort rose to prominence fighting the Soviets in the 1980s. Afghan territory holds special significance to the group, which is committed to retaking it and re-establishing it as the base of a global movement.

We should be robustly assisting the Free Syrian Army with equipment and also with training.

ISIS is on the offense, with the ability to attack at will, anyplace, anytime.

Senator Clinton is very knowledgeable about national security and is probably going to be strong on defense. I have no doubts whatsoever that if she were president in January '09, she would not act irresponsibly and issue orders to conduct an immediate withdrawal from Iraq, regardless of the consequences, and squander the gains that have been made.

Despite the obvious intelligence and security failures that contributed to the attack against the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, the reality is that in one night, an al Qaeda-affiliated group destroyed a diplomatic post, killed a U.S. ambassador and three other Americans, and forced an end to clandestine U.S. activity in the area.

In 2012, General Dempsey, General Petraeus directed the CIA, Secretary Panetta and Secretary Clinton recommended to the president to robustly arm and train the Syrian moderates. He says no. In 2013, conduct a military strike, same national security team, against the Assad regime because he violated the chemical red line. He says no.

The fact to the matter is, we never developed a comprehensive strategy to deal with radical Islam. And the 9/11 commission said one of the things we must do is develop a global alliance to combat it.

What did we want out of Iraq? We wanted a country that was stable and secure, that elected its own government, that was not going to be a threat to its neighbors and also was capable of protecting and defending itself. That was our objective in Iraq.

My involvement with Guantanamo began as vice chief of staff.

If you're going to maintain true authorities over a subordinate organization, you have to have some control over policy formulation of that organization and also the resources that are applied to it.

Economically, ISIS is making money every day on the black market with their oil fields. But they are also putting money in banks. We know where those banks are. We should go after the banks and the facilitators using them.

There are very few fighters in the ISIS organization in Iraq and Syria coming from the United States; most of them have either come from a region of the Middle East or from Europe.

In my own mind, it is profoundly disappointing to see what has occurred in Iraq given the sacrifice of our troops, given our commitment to removing Saddam Hussein and putting in place a fledgling government that would have a chance for a stable, secure Iraq.

Yes, we need a force to continue to train, assist, advise the Iraqi army.

Cyberespionage and cyberattack is exploding from our adversaries inside our country. We don't seem capable of stopping it.

Afghanistan remains an opportunity to deal al Qaeda a vital strategic blow, especially since we have abandoned all operations - including counterterrorism operations - in Iraq.

Radical Islamists spread from Western Africa through the Middle East, all the way to South Asia to sub-Indian continent.

Air power will not defeat ISIS. It has not been able to deny ISIS freedom of maneuver and the ability to attack at will.

Putin has put Russia on a path to be a world power with global influence.

I totally disagree with the premise that al Qaeda is on the path to defeat. Quite the contrary, al Qaeda has deliberately decentralized its operations - not because of the relentless attacks we have had on its national leadership in Pakistan, but because its strategic objective is to dominate and control Muslim countries in the region.

By the end of 2008, clearly the Al Qaeda and Sunni insurgency had been relatively stabilized. And in the Al Qaeda's mind, they were defeated.

I remember speaking to a sheik who came back into the political system in late 2008, laid down his arms. His troops became part of the Sons of Iraq, the so-called Sunni Awakening.

I'm a New York kid, so when I saw that plane that hit the first building, I suspected it was terrorism - blue sky day.

Very unusual in an insurgency to have absolutely no political agenda other than to return to power. Most insurgents have a political side to them.

I have decorated soldiers for heroism before, and it was always such an honor to do it.

Sometimes, our expectations of being all-knowing is somewhat unrealistic. At the end of the day, there are people out there who mean harm to us, are thinking about doing harm to us and motivated to do it, and we don't know what that is.

Only four secretaries of defense served longer than Robert M. Gates. Many others were as dedicated; many sacrificed a great deal. Alone among them all, however, Mr. Gates had the task of turning around two wars that the U.S. was losing.

Since 1989, we have been deploying on an average of every 18 months.

The homegrown terrorists are the most significant because any fighter returning from Syria to the United States would likely be identified and detected by our intelligence and law enforcement agencies.

ISIS is at war with America, but America is not at war with ISIS - not the president, nor the Congress, and certainly not the American people.

I'm not in a position to go back into public service.

Fighting forces, particularly ground forces, have to operate on the basis of unit cohesion.

We have a sufficient political class, and the military doesn't have to get involved in high national office. The days of doing that, post-Civil War and post-World War II, are gone.

President-elect Trump wants to win them if you're going to be involved in a war. I don't think he wants to be involved in war, but when we are, he wants to win.

The Arab Spring, nobody's in the streets demonstrating for radical Islam; they're in the streets with a window of democracy. They want our political reform, our social justice, and our economic opportunity.

We must take all that territory away from ISIS.

I have a close association with Gen. Petraeus... What you get in Dave Petraeus is a very unique officer, a combination of intelligence, extraordinary depth of knowledge and understanding.

I believe, for a long time, protracted wars test the will of any democracy, to be sure, and people will underwrite a protracted war if they see some progress. But if they don't see progress, and it appears to be futile and useless, then that political support begins to evaporate rather quickly.

The Taliban has not, in my judgment, in any significant way changed their fundamental goal and objective, which is to take over Afghanistan and return to running that country. It doesn't mean that we shouldn't have negotiation talks with them. I think we should. But we've got to be clear-eyed about it.

'Duty' is a refreshingly honest memoir and a moving one. Mr. Gates scrupulously identifies his flaws and mistakes: He waited too long, for example, for the military bureaucracy to fix critical supply issues like the drones needed in Iraq and took three years to replace a dysfunctional command structure in Afghanistan.

Qatar has funded and helped arm ISIS. They also, as we all know, fund Hamas. That's got to stop. And we've got to use our pressure against that country to knock that stuff off.

It's not that I can't be fooled, but I'm not fooled often.

In 2005 in Iraq, the constitution was written. A new government was elected. That government was trying to take office in 2006.

United States and our allied partners need to wake up. ISIS is at war with us and civilization.

In 2011, General Alston, four-star commander in Iraq, recommended to the President, a force level of over 20,000. The President rejected it and pulled out all the forces with what is now known as a disastrous consequence in Syria.

Russia, their number one client in the Middle East is Syria; that is their foothold in the Middle East. They want to have influence there.

If you took ISIS' oil, that would not stop them. It's not their only source of revenue. It would be a setback, but it would not stop them.

While conducting a conventional war in Iraq and Syria, ISIS has staged terrorist attacks on a global scale against the people from the countries who are fighting ISIS.

Frankly, our adversaries are emboldened by the lack of American leadership in the world, and our friends and our allies, they have lost trust in us.

Everybody wants to talk about sectarian conflicts of the war in Iraq, but the fact of the matter is, Sunnis have lived with Shias in harmony more in the confines of Iraq, in that land, than they have been in conflict. That's an historical fact.

This radical Islam is a religious-based ideology. And you actually have to, when you deal with the ideology, you have to attack it on that basis.

The Pentagon is actually a 10-story building, five up and five down.

The only people that have ever fought ISIS in Syria is not the regime; it is the Free Syrian Army.