Gina Haspel Quotes

Looking back over my more than a half century in intelligence, I have not experienced a time when we've been beset by more crises and threats around the globe.

People ask me all the time, 'What keeps you up at night?' And I say, 'Spicy Mexican food, weapons of mass destruction, and cyber attacks.'

We believe, as the President has indicated, that this combination of a rogue state that possesses weapons of mass destruction and has known ties to terrorist organizations, is a grave threat to the people of the United States and to other countries around the world.

The standards of the international community manifest firmness. Iran has no need for long-range missiles or to collaborate with terrorist organizations all over the world.

The new century has brought on its own terrible dangers, which although not reaching the apocalyptic potential of the Cold War, still have the capacity to shake our world.

Our nation must manage significant national security challenges over the next several years. We are already facing a potential conflict with Iraq, new challenges on the Korean peninsula, and key decisions in the president's plans to transform the military.

If a country is suspected of going nuclear, you need to understand why. Why does it feel insecure?

Containment may have worked in the Cold War, but is not possible when dictators obtain weapons of mass destruction and are prepared to share them with terrorists who intend to inflict catastrophic casualties on the United States.

I am not sure whether I should be afraid of a national security threat from another country or another solar system.

Managing diplomacy today is far more difficult than during the Cold War. Technology, jet travel, and a globalized economy make it possible for terrorists in a remote corner of Pakistan or Syria to plan a terrorist attack on Times Square.

The United States in 2001 is faced with a growing, almost dizzying disparity between its diminished capabilities and the burgeoning requirements of national security.

Are there topics of sufficient import to the nation's well-being to replace the Soviets as the focus of U.S. intelligence?

Counterterrorism, counterproliferation, and counterintelligence are staples. The four countries of highest interest - Russia, China, Iran and North Korea - are constants.

Countries such as Iraq, Iran, Libya and Syria, which support terrorist organizations and use terror to achieve their objectives, are precisely the same countries working tirelessly to acquire weapons of mass destruction. This combination creates a new dimension to the threat on our way of life in the 21st century.

Note the three most important Cabinet positions. Rice said that it was better to find the weapons of mass destruction than to see a mushroom cloud.

When the President of Iran talks about removing Israel from the face of the Earth and is building nuclear bombs with a range of 3000km, you have to be worried.

China and Russia are regarded as the most formidable cyber threats.

We're fighting an enemy that is far different than any we have got before. It's a nontraditional kind of war, and I think we need to step back, recalibrate how we go about protecting our borders and protecting our people, and resetting our position in the world.

All around the world one heard or read that there was no connection between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda.

The crises in North Korea, Iran, the Middle East, show how quickly things can change and how they can go wrong. We must be prepared. And right now the Army is not.

Just as the Security Council was largely irrelevant to the great struggle of the last half of the twentieth century - freedom against Communism - so too it is largely on the sidelines in our contemporary struggles against international terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

Our modern states are preparing for war without even knowing the future enemy.

We have global interests, potential threats from elsewhere, North Korea, Iran, Taiwan Straits and the like. We must be prepared for any future threat. That is why it is important that this be a transition year, 2006.

Many defense experts have predicted that we face no greater threat from a single country than from Iran.

The rapid dissemination of technology and information offers entirely new ways of production, but it can also bring the spectre of more states developing weapons of mass destruction.