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" I don't think any president that I worked with has ever said 'pretty please.' "

Robert M. Gates

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" The reality is, the United States has global interests. Our defense budget is about the same as the defense budgets or military budgets of every other country in the world put together. "

Robert M. Gates

" Things have gotten so nasty in Washington. "

Robert M. Gates

" Defense is not like other discretionary spending. "

Robert M. Gates

" If Iraq and Afghanistan have taught us anything in recent history, it is the unpredictability of war and that these things are easier to get into than to get out of, and, frankly, the facile way in which too many people talk about, 'Well, let's just go attack them.' "

Robert M. Gates

" Well, Israel, obviously, thinks of the Iranian nuclear program as an existential threat to Israel. "

Robert M. Gates

" Well, I've ruffled a few feathers at all the institutions I've led. But I think that's part of leadership. "

Robert M. Gates

" I have always that there ought to be some kind of mandatory national service, not necessarily in the military but to show everybody that freedom isn't free, that everybody has an obligation to the nation as a community. "

Robert M. Gates

" I've been very sensitive for a long time to the repeated pattern, during economic hard times or after a war, of the United States' essentially unilaterally disarming. "

Robert M. Gates

" A wild and crazy weekend involves sitting on the front porch, smoking a cigar, reading a book. "

Robert M. Gates

" Some people have said, in so many words, that I'm kind of wooly-headed in believing that the Iranians would see not having nuclear weapons as more in their security interest than not. "

Robert M. Gates

" I'm a big advocate of drones. "

Robert M. Gates

" I have always voted for who I believed was the best person. "

Robert M. Gates

" There is no international problem that can be addressed or solved without the engagement and leadership of the United States and everybody in the world knows that, its just fact of life. So sometimes I think we could conduct ourselves with a little more humility. "

Robert M. Gates

" I have tried to maintain civil relationships with everyone I meet - and, even if I violently disagree with them, try to be respectful. "

Robert M. Gates

" One of my favorite little sayings is, 'To avoid criticism, say nothing, do nothing, be nothing.' "

Robert M. Gates

" I had no difficulty as Secretary of Defense moving from the Bush administration to the Obama administration. "

Robert M. Gates

" I've seen, all too often in my career, people coming in to lead agencies and organizations and trying to impose change from the top down. Never works. You never have enough time. "

Robert M. Gates

" I consider myself a Republican. "

Robert M. Gates

" I think that Iran with a nuclear weapon is extremely destabilizing. I think it could precipitate a nuclear arms race in the region. "

Robert M. Gates

" I will always be an advocate in terms of wars of necessity. I am just much more cautious on wars of choice. "

Robert M. Gates

" I have instincts. "

Robert M. Gates

" No president is well-served by groupthink or by everybody singing from the same sheet of music they think he's on. "

Robert M. Gates

" You know, if I were an - if I were a Taliban, I'd say, 'What did al-Qaida ever do for me except get me kicked out of Afghanistan?' "

Robert M. Gates

" Most governments lie to each other. That's the way business gets done. "

Robert M. Gates

" The United States has been a global power since late in the 19th century. "

Robert M. Gates

" Well, what I've said is that the war in Iraq will always be clouded by how it began, which was a wrong premise, that there were in fact no weapons of nuclear - weapons of mass destruction. "

Robert M. Gates

" I've spent my entire adult life with the United States as a superpower and one that had no compunction about spending what it took to sustain that position. And it didn't have to look over its shoulder because our economy was so strong. "

Robert M. Gates

" When I was the director of Central Intelligence in the early '90s, I tried to get the Air Force to partner with us in building drones. And they didn't want to, because they had no pilots. "

Robert M. Gates

" I had no concerns - I had no reason to have concerns based on what was available to me about North's contacts with the private sector people, but I didn't think a CIA person should do it. "

Robert M. Gates

" I mean, when you get down to very low numbers of nuclear weapons, and you contemplate going to zero, how do you deal with the reality of that technology being available to almost any country that seeks to pursue it? And what conditions do you put in place? "

Robert M. Gates