Michael Chertoff Quotes

The thing that keeps me awake at night is a nexus between terrorism and massive destruction...the possibility that a terrorist organization could either acquire a ready-made weapon or fabricate something improvised that would have a catastrophic effect for us.

Although September 11 was horrible, it didn't threaten the survival of the human race, like nuclear weapons do.

Biological terrorism poses the ultimate asymmetric threat but it should be considered in the same class as the nuclear threat.

Terrorism is a persistent and evolving global menace. No country is immune.

I believe the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction presents the greatest threat that the world has ever known. We are finding more and more countries who are acquiring technology - not only missile technology - and are developing chemical weapons and biological weapons capabilities to be used in theater and also on a long range basis. So I think that is perhaps the greatest threat that any of us will face in the coming years.

There's no debate in the world as to whether people have weapons of mass destruction... We all know that. A trained ape knows that.

If you allow someone like Saddam Hussein to get nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, chemical weapons, biological weapons, how many people is he going to kill with such weapons? He's already demonstrated a willingness to use these weapons. He poison-gassed his own people. He used poison gas and other weapons of mass destruction against his neighbors. This man has no compunction about killing lots and lots of people. So this is a way to save lives and to save the stability and peace of a region of the world that is important to the peace and security of the entire world.

The Iranians have shared every weapon they've ever developed with terrorist organizations. I fear they would share nuclear technology with a terrorist organization that would one day come here.

The proliferation of weapons of mass destruction also represents a serious danger. If these weapons were to fall into the hands of terrorists, and they pursue this aim, the consequences would be simply disastrous.

The danger of terrorists and rogue states is compounded by the proliferation of chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear weapons.

The emergent terrorist threats and the spread of nuclear technology and materials have made it much more likely that terrorists will get their hands on a nuclear weapon and that just changes the whole calculus. I love the quote by Rev. Richard Cizik: "If you've never changed your mind about anything, then pinch yourself, you might be dead." The world has changed and we need to start talking about this.

You have to be careful about what you do, about what you say, and that is more dangerous than what was happening with [John] McCarthy, but the technology the government now possesses is so much more insidious.

The gravest threat faced by the world is of an extremist group getting hold of nuclear weapons or materials.

We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country.

Let's stick to the practical and the concrete: Would you like it if people lived in a virtual world? If machines were smarter than people? If, in the future, people, animals and plants were products of technology? If you don't like these ideas, then for you the computer and biological sciences clearly are dangerous.

That is the number-one threat we face in the world. And it becomes particularly threatening if terrorists ever get their hands on any nuclear material. So a man who can be provoked by a tweet should not have his fingers anywhere near the nuclear codes, as far as I think anyone with any sense about this should be concerned.

Technology transforms people's lives. From mitigating poverty to simplifying processes, ending corruption to providing better services, Technology is omnipresent. It has become the single-most important instrument of human progress.

Saddam Hussein's regime is despicable, he is developing weapons of mass destruction, and we cannot leave him doing so unchecked. He is a threat to his own people and to the region and, if allowed to develop these weapons, a threat to us also.

People divide into groups where they talk to each other, but don't talk across the divide. And yet most of the challenges we face in the world today are challenges that are to do with trade, with technology, with how you make sure that people are properly educated, reform your health care system.

The worst nightmare in the world is a radical Islamic regime with a weapon of mass destruction.

I think it's very easy for people who are not deep in the technology itself to make generalizations, which may be a little dangerous. And we've certainly seen that recently with Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Stephen Hawking, all saying AI is just taking off and it's going to take over the world very quickly. And the thing that they share is none of them work in this technological field.

When you look around now we have the war on terror. Yes, okay, the World Trade Center was sort of like a single act of war, but nothing else has been. We've turned it into war. We're talking about a bunch of semi-lunatic, fanatic criminals. That's the way they should be treated.

When nuclear weapons were an elite club of five relatively sane world powers, the Left was convinced the planet was about to go ka-boom any minute, and the handful of us who survived would be walking in a nuclear winter wonderland. Now anyone with a few thousand bucks and an unlisted number in Islamabad in his Rolodex can get a nuke, and the Left couldn't care less.

We not only need to train people, we also need to develop deflection technologies.