Lyman Kirkpatrick Quotes

To preserve our security in a dangerous century, vigilance is not enough. National Intelligence must do more.

The safety and security of the nation depends more so than ever before on intelligence.

Intelligence isn’t just something for the Cold War. When you think of Pearl Harbor, you can understand why. Unpleasant surprises are out there.

Are there topics of sufficient import to the nation's well-being to replace the Soviets as the focus of U.S. intelligence?

Improving our national intelligence capabilities should remain a top priority and a continual process.

The skills of the British intelligence community are a great national asset.

I was an intelligence officer, not a policy-maker.

Looking back over my more than a half century in intelligence, I have not experienced a time when we've been beset by more crises and threats around the globe.

Any foreign policy that is formulated in secret intelligence will always get the nation in trouble… secret intelligence always gets it wrong. It is a sample of a small part of the world---a picture of the world that is dramatically skewed.

Intelligence without counter-intelligence is useless.

Either Al Qaeda is a threat worth acting against or it is not. CIA leadership has to decide which it is and cease these bi-polar mood swings.

The security [of European national is dependent on the effective intelligence of their neighbors.

As a member of the House Select Committee on Intelligence, I know that the CIA, Treasury Department, National Security Agency, and others work closely to keep tabs on the IRGC's operations.

The 9/11 Commission strongly recommends that the National Intelligence Director be fully in control of the budget, from developing it to implementing it, to ensuring that the National Intelligence Director has the clout to make decisions.

Because of the terrorist threat, the FBI and CIA have become as important as the military in preserving our freedom. Yet while thanking our military is standard practice in American life, no one thinks of thanking the FBI, the CIA, or the rest of the intelligence community for keeping us safe since 9/11.

Most of the secrets the CIA has are about people, not machines and systems, so I didn't feel comfortable with disclosures that I thought could endanger anyone.

As a former career intelligence professional, I have a profound appreciation for the value of intelligence. Intelligence disrupts terrorist plots and thwarts attacks. Intelligence saves lives.

Among all the upheavals of war with al Qaeda, the surest indicator of the historic stakes is the ongoing rotation of top U.S. government managers - scores at a time - into a bunker deep underground and far from Washington.

Even when I was at CIA, I'd go to visit foreign leaders and I'd say, 'You know, I'm not a diplomat. I'm just an old CIA guy'... I said, 'If I wanted to be diplomatic, I'd have been a diplomat.'

You can't come forward against the world's most powerful intelligence agencies and be completely free from risk.

As a nation we have, over the past seven years, been rebuilding our intelligence with powerful capabilities that many thought we would no longer need after the Cold War. We have been rebuilding our clandestine service, our satellite and other technical collection, our analytical depth and expertise.

I have had national security background, 10 years on the Intelligence Committee, the last two years as chair.

The Intelligence Committee will also examine present counterintelligence programs for the Department of Energy, the National Laboratories, and the Department of Defense.

Although we must change the ways we protect our country, we must also guard against policies that appear attractive but offer little real protection and may even impede our ability to protect ourselves.

One of the great intellectual failures of the American intelligence community, and especially the counterterrorism community, is to assume if someone hasn't attacked us, it's because he can't or because we've defeated him.