A Quote by John W. Vessey, Jr.
My job is to give the president and secretary of defense military advice before they know they need it.
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When the Defense Department was established after World War II, a law said that any defense secretary with military experience must have been out of the military at least seven years. General [James] Mattis doesn't meet that.
I believe myself that the secretary of state, secretary of defense and - you have to make your own decisions as to what the president knows - (know) this war is lost and the surge is not accomplishing anything as indicated by the extreme violence in Iraq yesterday.
What would you do differently as defense secretary to compensate for this record in which the greatest military in the world, as we are constantly told, doesn't get the job done?
My job now is to not give up, to continue advocating and fighting for the issues Secretary Clinton ran her campaign on. I have to do that to show young girls in this country that they truly can grow up to be whatever they want to be - they need to know that they can grow up to be president.
We've learned something about President-elect [Donald] Trump's choice for secretary of defense. Lawmakers in Congress intend to proper debate over whether retired General James Mattis meets a requirement for civilian control of the military.
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.
As a former secretary of defense, I think Donald Rumsfeld is the best secretary of defense the United States has ever had.
There are now reports that President Obama will name Massachusetts Senator John Kerry to be the next secretary of defense. Apparently this is part of America's new defense strategy to bore our enemies to death.
It is an honor of a lifetime to be appointed secretary of defense and to lead the greatest military in history.
The president does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation. As commander in chief, the president does have a duty to protect and defend the United States. In instances of self-defense, the president would be within his constitutional authority to act before advising Congress or seeking its consent.
TV's Tony Snow becomes the White House press secretary. How will he make the difficult transition from Fox News reporter to Republican apologist? ... Mr. President, it is time to hire the folks who've never let you down. Limbaugh at Health and Human Services. Hannity at State. Then give Rummy the Medal of Freedom and install Bill O'Reilly as secretary of defense. Only problem, you might find yourself invading Vermont. And I'll replace Chertoff at Homeland Security. The man's done nothing to control the bear population.
And we will win the war, and there will be costs. But the military folks understand that, and so do I, and so does the Secretary of Defense.
The secretary of defense makes recommendations, sometimes will make strong recommendations to the president of the United States. But the president, whoever it is at that time, decides, makes the call on whether or not to take that recommendation.
Jeff Sessions takes the job, gets into the job, recuses himself. Which frankly I think is very unfair to the president. How do you take a job and then recuse yourself? If he would have recused himself before the job, I would have said, thanks, Jeff, but you know, I`m not going to pick you. It`s extremely unfair, and that`s a mild word, to the president.
If you've got somebody in harm's way, you want the president being -- making advice, not -- be given advice by the military, and not making decisions based upon the latest Gallup poll or focus group.
I think that it's very important that whoever is in office can trust the U.S. military to provide him with advice in private so that advice is not then used by somebody to try to criticize the president or try to influence the outcome.
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