88 Quotes by Robert M. Gates

Health care costs are eating the Defense Department alive.

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

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.

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

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

I wish I could set deadlines for the Congress, but that's just not the way the Constitution is written.

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

There's a lot of books out there about how you lead change in business, but I've certainly not seen any... on how you do that in public institutions.

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.