Porter Goss Quotes (48 Quotes)

Every day is a new day for the intelligence people. I would say that we are probably a couple of years away from getting through all the material and talking to all the people we need to talk to about exactly what was going on.

Singling out these individuals would send the wrong message to our junior officers about taking risks,

No agency has greater skill and experience in this difficult, complex, and utterly vital discipline of intelligence,

We know that Chinese officials chose to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in the 1996 re-election of the Clinton administration. What we don't know is what they expected to gain from that investment,

So in the summer of 1864, Ebenezer prepares to go to war and his wife happens to be confined to bed. She has just delivered a child and it was a very difficult delivery and she's not fit to run the plantation--and isn't going to be for quite a while. So the management of Somerset Plantation devolves on the oldest child, 16-year-old Anne Carter

The Iraq conflict, while not a cause of extremism, has become a cause for extremists.

asks for an investigation of those leaks, with particular concern that if there is any inappropriate leak coming from the United States Congress that we be so advised so we may take appropriate action.

You just don't end up with a satellite up there that suddenly, magically gives you the kind of information you want to hear or see because you want it today. If you haven't planned for it about seven years ago, it probably isn't going to happen,

CIA will have the authority to set standards for the entire intelligence community on things relating to (human espionage),

This conference report illustrates how working together can benefit all Americans, both taxpayers and those who depend on federal programs. This debate is not about winning or losing. It is about treating American taxpayers fairly.

At the Central Intelligence Agency, we are more than holding our own in the global war on terrorism, but we are at risk of losing a key battle the battle to protect our classified information.

Dysfunctional organizations do not perform the way the Directorate of Operations performed in Afghanistan and in support of the military in Iraq before and after the conflict,

The fact that he is now aboard and announcing and saying, 'Gee we have a problem with terrorism,' is a big step forward -- even though it comes about four or five years late,

We cannot afford to make changes blindly, or in unnecessary haste,

If you see an up-tic of electronic activity in a certain area, ... you might expect that something is happening. It might be a nuclear test, it might be conversations on cell phones, it might be people warming airplane engines, it might be people getting ready to test rockets.

This agency does not do torture. Torture does not work. We use lawful capabilities to collect vital information, and we do it in a variety of unique and innovative ways, all of which are legal and none of which are torture.

An enemy that's working in an amorphous network that doesn't have to worry about a bunch of regulations, chain of command, rule of law or anything else has got a huge advantage over a stultified, slow-moving, bureaucratic, by-the-book organization,

The hallmark of our country is decency, democracy, freedom and so forth. The other guys don't, ... But we have to maintain our standards.

One of the things frankly we have to do is demystify (the CIA) a little bit, ... You are not going to be James Bond if you sign up and five years later you're going to be driving an Aston Martin with a beautiful young lady at your side on the Riviera. You might be, but I'm not aware of that program yet.

What we can learn from him, I hope -- because this is a process which he may not participate too willingly in -- is basically what operations are out there that we can defend against and forestall,

The turmoil has left some employees shaken and has prompted former colleagues in Congress to question how Goss intends to improve the agency's capabilities and restore morale. The White House is aware of the problems, administration officials said, and believes they are being handled by the director of national intelligence, who now oversees the agency.

may be only a matter of time.

foreign policy team was all on the same page.

The need is obvious, ... As we start out today to do our job, we start out a little behind the curve because not enough people speak the languages we need. So we're looking for ways to fix that.

Dysfunctional organizations do not take down or eliminate the most dangerous proliferators in the world ... nor do they aid in the disarmament of a country like Libya.

Things are going a lot better than the press has been reporting on virtually all fronts. We're going to be there for a while. It is dangerous, it is dirty, it is hot, it is not pleasant, but it is moving forward and the strategic doubt does not exist.

How did it come about that highly sensitive technical information was given to the Chinese Why did the president ignore the national security experts who counseled against this deal What damage has been done to our national security

We've got to have some patience ... It's a tough job,

The bottom line is, I want you to continue to do what you do best - provide our country with close-in access to the plans and intentions of its enemies and provide decision makers with the information they need to make the tough decisions.

There is ... a very strong inclination by the current conservative leadership of Iran to make sure they can live up to the same levels as some of their neighboring countries, and some of those neighboring countries, indeed Pakistan comes to mind, have the bomb.

In the intelligence community, everyone does his job and you don't share the information unless there is a need to know. This could be a case where the right compartments didn't talk to each other.

The nominations of Ambassador Negroponte and Gen. Hayden are welcome news and a critical step in continuing to strengthen our intelligence community and to create even better coordinated working relationships and communications between the agencies,

Having watched the pride of some countries in acquiring the world-stage status of having nuclear weapons -- and what that has meant for nationalism and leadership ... it becomes almost a piece of the holy grail for a small country that otherwise might be victimized living in a dangerous neighborhood,

They very definitely would like to find out all our secrets so they could copy them and take advantage of them, either in terms of their national security, the modernization of the army -- the PLA -- or in terms of competition in the marketplace,

We are developing new and creative ways to get more and more of our officers out of Washington. We do not serve our policy-makers if we are not in the places that they need us to be today and are not reporting from places they don't expect us to be -- but where they may need us to be tomorrow.

no reason now, nor do we foresee any in the normal course of events in the future, why Newt Gingrich would be ineligible to serve as Speaker.

would send the wrong message to our junior officers about taking risks, whether it be an operation in the field or being assigned to a hot topic at headquarters.

After great consideration of this report and its conclusions, I will not convene an accountability board to judge the performances of any individual CIA officers,

there are some very hard aspects of this that take longer. We are an overseas organization. We are an organization that requires what I would call sacrifice of quality of life. ... We are looking for specific people that we think will fit our needs. And that means an aggressive recruiting effort.

As a member right now on the Hill, I know the value of that and the importance of that,

represents a grant of trust and an expression of confidence in the CIA.

We need to have this surveillance, and if there's a way we can do it differently in ways that are less offensive to some people, that might be a matter worth discussing.

China has secrets they're trying to keep from the eyes of the world,

if the president determines that such operations are vital to the protection of the United States or its citizens from terrorist attack.

I don't have a problem with the resolution's language because I think that we are the last nation, whether we like it or not, that has the capability to deal with some of these problems that are regional as well as global. I think we have to be engaged in it.

We are going to be in places people can't even imagine,

There is a leadership problem at the highest levels of the Clinton-Gore administration about focusing on the need for intelligence, making the commitment and the hard choices to put the dollars there.

The only thing that this uproar does is give aid and comfort to the enemy and I don't think there's anybody who wants to give aid and comfort to the terrorists,