Robert Gates: “It seems to me that the United States is going to have to have some presence in Iraq for a long time.”

I think it would be a very heavy political lift for the president to say he's going to cut off military supplies to Israel unless they stop in Gaza.

it's a terrible way to budget. I mean, it is a gimmick.

I think the president is — based on what I read — is getting the sense that, as he put it, that Putin is 'tapping' him along.

the only way I could get significant new or additional equipment to commanders in the field in weeks or months--not years--was to take control of the problem myself through special task forces and ad hoc processes.