I regret the fact that Saddam [Hussein] didn't have weapons of mass destruction that we thought. I don't regret removing him from power.
You have to have a military and intelligence approach to removing leadership that results in rapid frequent removals from the battlefield. It's got to be one, two a week, not just one or two every three or four months.
I don't approve of the notion that we should be announcing who should step down from the position of a head of a state unless we are seriously prepared to remove that person. But if we are not, if we are being prudent and careful, then let's also be careful with how we talk.
The thing we've learned from the last 20 years of counterterrorism is the significant value you get from removing leadership from the battlefield in degrading the organization.
Only God who appointed me will remove me.
Any time you can degrade or take away the top leadership of an organization, it's a positive step forward.
I would also do everything possible to take out their leadership.
I think it was right to remove Saddam Hussein. I think it was the right decision then and I still think it was right now.
As brutal as Saddam Hussein was, it was a mistake to just eliminate him. The same is true for Moammar Gadhafi and for Libya, which is now a failed state.
If we are going to remove someone, which I have no problem with doing, then let's do the 20, not the 10, the very first secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton.
After they killed Uday and Qusay, the focus centered on Saddam: Find him, kill him, capture him, whatever it takes. To me, it was a false sense of security: If we get Saddam, we're going to win this war.
